If you missed parts 1, 2 or 3 of our Japan Trip Report, click on the corresponding number to catch up. We covered Hiroshima, Miyajima Island, Kyoto and Mt. Fuji!

Having a sense of adventure adds plenty of value to my life. Excitement surfs in on giants every time I reach a new city, try a new dish or start planning another trip. There’s never a lack of things to look forward to in the future because the adventure seeking part of my brain won’t allow it. It’s an expensive endeavor but a fulfilling one. Anticipation is part of the journey and then adrenaline (and caffeine) gets me through some wild itineraries before crashing once the trip is over. But that quality, excuse the self-compliment, doesn’t always lead to a sense of calm on trips. In fact, there are very few places where the dichotomy of excitement and peace feel perfectly balanced. Tokyo Disney Resort is one of those places.

To be fair, much of the trip prior to our 3 and a half days at the resort were on the verge of this feeling. Touching the historic torii gate on Miyajima Island, drinking a bottle of wine in an Italian restaurant in Hiroshima with friends, hiking up Mt. Inari, and seeing Fuji with the sun setting behind it were just a few of the perfect moments. Hopping on that monorail with the Mickey shaped windows before arriving at Hotel MiraCosta, where we’d be staying for the next few nights, felt like reaching the peak of the trip. Or maybe it was just basecamp for some more mountain chasing.

Whatever metaphor you prefer, Hotel MiraCosta is exquisite. In case you missed the full review, the rooms are lavish with high ceilings, the lobby is not overdone but delicately detailed and the pool feels like someone plucked it straight out of Rome and placed it just shy of the Pacific, sitting at the bottom of this hotel. That’s all without mentioning that MiraCosta resides in the best theme park in the world, Tokyo DisneySea.

After having seen photos of the pool for a long time, I couldn’t pass up a chance of spending an hour here even if the fee is a little excessive. Terme Venezia (the facility name) has a 3,000 yen (about $20 USD as of February 2024) entry fee. This can get you access for the whole day which would be the way to go if you had a rest day at the hotel. We knew the next few days would be pretty full while going to the parks so we spent that first hour after checking in there and the experience was worth the cost. We had the pool to ourselves and I felt like the king of… Italy? I’ve overthrown the democracy, apparently. The temperature was warm and toasty so we would switch back and forth between the pool and hot tub. It’s the prettiest pool I’ve ever been in.

Once we’d felt as if we punched above our economic weight class and our time sadly ran out at the pool, we changed and made our way to Ikspiari, Tokyo Disney Resort’s version of Downtown Disney. I’m not sure how much interest there is in this area, if you’d like to find out more then drop me a comment and I’ll write a more thorough guide. Ikspiari is a step above Disneyland’s Downtown Disney but not up to the level of Disney Springs at WDW. There were a variety of restaurants and shops, many of them chains.

We ended up eating at a Mexican Restaurant called Guzman Y Gomez for dinner for 4 reasons:

1. We thought it was a little bit funny to eat Mexican food in Japan, seeing how we have roughly 10 taquerias in a mile radius around our home in Anaheim.
2. They had margaritas.
3. Burritos are, at worst, pretty good no matter where you are.
4. A cheap option was good considering we just spent a collective $60 (sorry to Ben, who didn’t join us) in going to swim at a hotel that was already stretching our budget while sharing a room. Balance.

Anyway, the food was decent and I’ll probably review it on a slow day sometime. There are certain things on this site that get some views and interest. I’m not sure that a quick-service Mexican location in Ikspiari fits the bill. Again, if you’re actually interested in a review please let me know.

We walked back to Hotel MiraCosta after getting some dessert. The walk was pretty simple and took about 15 minutes from Ikspiari. We could have rode the monorail but the walk sounded nice after a long travel day and the monorail is more enjoyable during the day when you can see things. It costs around $2 every time you ride it, so we were picky when we used the service, he writes after devoting several paragraphs to the 3,000 yen pool they visited. After stopping at this fountain outside of the hotel because who can resist a cool fountain, we returned to our hotel room to get some sleep before a busy day in the parks.

We spent 3 days at the parks – 2 in DisneySea and 1 in Tokyo Disneyland. If it’s your first time and you’re a big theme park person, I’d probably recommend 2 at each. Either way you slice it, the situation is robbing Peter to pay Paul. You’re either getting less time in Tokyo (or somewhere else in Japan) or getting less time at TDR. The obvious answer is endless vacation time and we all get very rich. Let me know if you have any leads in that area. We are planning to have a more concentrated Tokyo Disney Resort stay in June for the Fantasy Springs opening.

Along with staying at the best Disney hotel I’ve ever been to, we were able to get in the park 15 minutes early as a perk for staying at one of the TDR hotels. This doesn’t seem like a huge deal but it really does help you get ahead of the crowds. We were there as they opened the gates and went straight to Soaring: Fantastic Flight. Instead of waiting for the hour plus it would have been without the extra 15 minutes, we waited for about 20 minutes.

This attraction has been open for nearly five years now so a review doesn’t seem necessary, I’ll just add a paragraph here. The ride itself is just like Soarin’ Around the World that we have in the stateside parks. The ending scene is in Tokyo and looks great but otherwise, there isn’t a difference in the film. Soaring: Fantastic Fight excels in the queue though. It’s framed as a flight museum, blending some real world facts with fantastical images and creatures. From the outside gardens to the inside portraits, this is a breathtaking area. There are plenty of nods to SEA (which I’m not going to dive into here) and other portions of the park. The pre-show has a really cool trick. It’s a masterclass in queue storytelling, and that’s the dorkiest phrase I’ve ever written. Simply because I don’t love the actual ride, I don’t have it ranking quite in the park’s top five but it’s not for a lack of trying.

We were gathering standby passes as the day went, which are offered for free at Tokyo Disney Resort on select attractions for now. While doing that, we walked over to Sinbad’s Storybook Voyage and enjoyed our first ride through back. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the attraction made me fairly emotional. It’s a perfect dark ride that everyone should get the chance to experience. From the song, to the hundreds of animatronics, to the plot, I couldn’t be a bigger Sinbad fan. Getting to go back and finally see it again was a highlight of the trip.

Indiana Jones Adventure was our first standby pass used. Did I write FastPass twice in that sentence before deleting it? Maybe. The DisneySea version of Indy is similar to Disneyland’s but with a Crystal Skull theme to it as well as better lighting and a lack of glitches. In other words, it’s a slight improvement even though it’s based on an inferior movie.

We continued our circle tour of the park that morning by going to Aquatopia in Port Discovery. This is a trackless ride on the water, which is very clever and a surprising amount of fun for not having any real plot or storytelling device. Throughout the trip, I was really taken by how Mount Prometheus looked from different lands.

From Port Discovery, the mountain is greener than anywhere else and looks far less menacing. The flowing water and ridges make Prometheus look more approachable than the iconic front-of-park view. We took the Electric Railway, that you see above, from Port Discovery to the American Waterfront. There’s this cool mural in the Port Discovery station!

It was a whirlwind morning, but a successful one as we got our friends a lay of the land while hitting a few of the parks most popular ride. During that trip, Journey to the Center of the Earth was sadly down. That along with not feeling like Toy Story Mania was a necessity since we’ve ridden it in the states plenty made DisneySea’s attraction roster feel a little less impressive than it actually is.

Even so, the vibes were immaculate as we left the train station and walked around the American Waterfront. The port is sprawling compared to most theme park lands, with new details and backstories revealed at every turn. While not my favorite place in the park, I do think it was the hardest port-of-call to pull off among Tokyo DisneySea’s 6. Making an American land while not in America probably works in the park’s favor as there is a sense of wonder and bustle that early 1900’s New York would feature but also an undertone of greed in certain spots. It’s meticulously and, dare I say, perfectly designed.

I wandered around for a few moments while the rest of the group shopped. Eventually, I happened upon Donald, Daisy and, speaking of greed, Scrooge! We had a nice moment as he posed for photos in front of me and I asked a few questions while he animatedly flailed his arms and head to react. He went his separate way before long but not before he gave me a pat on the butt on his way off. It took me by surprise at first, largely because it would never happen in the American parks and, to be fair, I don’t 100% know that it was done on purpose. Then, after the split second of confusion, I couldn’t stop laughing about the moment. Leave it to Scrooge McDuck to make a mid 30’s man giggle uncontrollably by himself in Japan for a few moments.

Just in case the previous paragraph left you confused, here’s a photo of this beautiful place to get us back on track. We worked up an appetite that morning, running around so it was time for lunch!

Lunch was at Vulcania, a counter-service restaurant inside of Mount Prometheus. I need to update our review as this was our second time there. The menu had changed a little bit but the atmosphere remains unbeaten as far as counter-service restaurants go. I like Vulcania a lot as the Chinese centric menu is really good and the details are fantastic. Being inside of a volcano always makes for a good lunch, right?

Back outside, the sun was making its presence known. It was a cool December day but absolutely beautiful outside. Mysterious Island is marvelous no matter the weather but a blue sky does help. Here’s my take on a few artsy (some might say bad!) shots and a few less ambitious (but prettier?) ones as we made our way to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

20,000 Leagues is a really cool dark ride and similar to the former Disneyland and Magic Kingdom attractions of the same name. The main difference here is that guests aren’t in a submarine but rather a smaller vessel that is “going under water” to explore. Despite being Japanese, the story is clear and well told and the visuals are cool. It’s not an E-ticket ride but important to the park and executed really well.

This day was filled with attractions, as we were trying to get as much done as possible. Next on the list was Raging Spirits, a coaster in the Lost River Delta with a loose Indiana Jones theme. I’ve only raved so far in this trip report but I try to be as honest as possible in blog posts. Here’s an example: Raging Spirits is bad. It looks great! But the coaster is all bark and no bite, with a beautiful facade and then a surprisingly slow ride. More like Mellowly Annoyed Spirits, amirite?? Sorry. The only reason this attraction is on our DisneySea itinerary is because it’s original to the park and guests get drawn in by the outside of it.

Moving along, it’s wild to me that the above view is one of the most unremarkable in all of DisneySea! It’s a beautiful view and easily forgotten because there’s so much else to see.

I guess this day was about doing loops around DisneySea as we continued on from The Lost River Delta to Port Discovery. It was time for our Standby Pass to Nemo & Friends SeaRider. This is better than Raging Spirits and is a simulator through the ocean, meeting some familiar characters along the way. Think Star Tours but with Finding Nemo. It’s largely unremarkable but is a decent attraction.

This is another cool view of Mount Prometheus, this time from the Cape Cod section of the park. Cape Cod is an extension of the American Waterfront and has very little outside of Duffy themed stores, a restaurant and a dinner show. That said, it has a few of the prettiest views in DisneySea.

Behind those rocks on the left of the above photo is the Pacific. Really there’s some space in between but the park has it framed to make it seem as if the ocean is right there, adding to DisneySea’s expanse.

From vastness of the ocean to the incredibly niche, we went to Teddy Roosevelt Lounge for a drink in the mid-afternoon. The lounge is masculine, with wood tones, carved bears and portraits of the titular president himself. Picking our guy Teddy as the centerpiece to this bar in Tokyo is a fascinating choice, some might say even confounding. Seeing how I’m approaching 3,000 words with still a few hours of our day to write about it, I’m not going to get into why I think it was Teddy too much. Naturally, I’ll throw one stray thought out there that doesn’t have much to do with my actual belief in why he’s represented here – Roosevelt was a champion of national parks and maybe the Imagineers wanted to pay tribute to the original parks? Once I’m done with this whole blogging thing maybe I’ll follow in Columbo’s footsteps.

Oh, by the way, Teddy Roosevelt Lounge is fantastic and sits inside of a giant steam ship that’s built into the theme park.

We had another standby pass, I believe the last we used that day, for Tower of Terror. This is the same ride system as the old California Adventure attraction but with a completely different story. As I mentioned earlier, the American Waterfront has some themes of greed baked in and that’s what’s happening here as Harrison Hightower, who appropriately runs the tower, has a large art collection. That collection includes something he shouldn’t have taken. You’ve been warned! Now here’s a look through some of the (mostly) outdoor and curious queue.

It’s a beautifully mysterious attraction and building.

We exited and headed back towards the park entrance. As I mentioned, the word count is getting up there and I might be losing some of you so I’ll just say that the sunset was beautiful and here are some photos of it!

We were getting hungry at that point and started off towards dinner. The plan was to go to Casbah Food Court unless I could get into Magellan’s, which on our previous trip was one of the best meals we had. Luckily (at least at the time), the restaurant had some availability so I rushed to get the rest of the group and we were seated in the beautiful restaurant. Then, we opened the menu and realized they were only serving one set meal that would have been over $100/person. Having not budgeted for that, we spent all of our money on the pool 😉 we quickly left and went for our original plan! Casbah Food Court was really good, as I wrote earlier this week, but I do think that Magellan’s would have been better. Again, let me know about the getting rich plan.

Following another ride on Sinbad, because once per day just isn’t enough, and a ride on the Caravan Carousel, Melissa and I hustled back to the Mediterranean Harbor to watch DisneySea’s new nighttime spectacular, Believe! Sea of Dreams. Before I say anything else about the show, I’ll mention that we saw this from the back of the harbor and not in a prime location. I want to get that out of the way because I had a lukewarm reception to the show.

Like most shows at DisneySea, Believe! is big, loud and extravagant. It’s also weird. I’m good with all of those things! There’s a giant mechanism in the middle of the water that rises and falls, with projections, characters and pyro. Along with that, there’s projections shown on the background of wherever you’re watching the show from. Then there’s boats and jet skis and probably some submarines (because why not) thrown in. It’s chaos! Again, chaos is kind of fun if there’s a through line for the plot. I found this one to be pretty muddled.

Of course, that could have been lost in translation. The show does seem fairly popular but it’s hard to know if that’s because locals like it or because it’s in the center of a theme park and is larger than life. There were some sets that I really enjoyed, including the two above – Moana and Coco. Overall, I wouldn’t call Believe! Sea of Dreams a must do at DisneySea like Fantasmic was but there are parts that will surely impress.

Following the show, the four of us met up at Mermaid Lagoon and blitzed through all of the kiddie rides that the section has to offer. I believe we did 5 rides in about 45 minutes. Now, none of those rides are particularly good but it was fun! The highlight was riding the outdoor coaster (Flounder’s Flying Fish Coaster, naturally) while the fireworks went off between DisneySea and Tokyo Disneyland. This section is really well done and a clever way to hide the kid rides from a sophisticated park.

After that, we split up. The others tried to get on one last ride for the night but that didn’t work out because TDR caps their rides before the closing time. That’s unfortunate and it wasn’t the case pre-pandemic. I hope they do away with that rule once Fantasy Springs opens. I went to take some nighttime photos in the American Waterfront. Here’s a few from the evening as the crowd thinned out.

Security does empty out Tokyo Disney Resort much faster than they do at Disneyland and Walt Disney World. The park was clear not even 45 minutes after closing. That makes photos a bit of a rushed affair but still peaceful and it’s not like security was rude or anything.

Our day included 15 rides, 2 meals and a lounge, a nighttime spectacular, several snacks that I forgot to mention and, of course, Scrooge McDuck. By the end, we were all pretty tired. The rest of the group wandered into Hotel MiraCosta a little bit before I did. As I made my way toward the exit of the park to take photos, I remembered that I was supposed to use the hotel exit. Security kindly let me cut back into that section and use the proper exit. It was just a few seconds but enough to take in the park, completely void of any people. It was beautiful, I was excited for more but completely content.

Have you been to DisneySea? Let us know, along with any questions you might have, in the comments below! If you’re planning a trip there then check out our guide! If you enjoy what you’re reading please subscribe to the blog and like our social media pages which you can find on the right side of this page. Thank you for reading, we really appreciate it!