kzap

Thank you, did not know this, will look into getting them in advance.

Should I buy them from JTB or a Lawson store in Japan when I get there? http://www.lawson.co.jp/ghibli/museu...l/english.html

Looks like I can buy them online by June 10, June tickets are already all sold out: https://l-tike.com/st1/ghibli-en/sitetop

If all are soldout on the online site, does that mean they are soldout via other purchase methods?

kzap

Tokyo subway, taxi, and other non JR trains could take Suica from what I've been reading.

kzap

2 stroller bags, ~15kg each
+1-2 backpacks with valuables

So alternatively to shipping the bags, i can stash them in luggage lockers for 1-2 days at a station or is there a limit to the # of days?

abmj-jr

This is not good advice. Most of Tokyo is sparsely served by JR but well served by subway and local lines. The Suica or Pasmo cards are the best choice for Tokyo transit. The JR Pass comes into its own when traveling beyond Tokyo.

LizGross144

I don't remember the signage from my recent visit, so maybe a local can chime in. But according to Japan Guide, you can leave luggage in a locker for up to 3 days.

kzap

Thanks that sounds like a good option

abmj-jr

Make sure you understand the rules for the station you are using. Many have a 24 hour limit.

kzap

Ok noted. I think I'll probably discuss with my hotel conceirge to see my options, as we're not staying in the same place in Kyoto, i probably dont want to be worrying about lugging my luggage from train to hotel to hotel to train

kzap

Ok got my Ghibli Museum tickets, those things sell out super fast, luckily was able to get some via the concierge though not the preferred time.

Adding in a day for DisneySea

I'm thinking of making it real early to Kyoto so I can be there at 9am or even earlier.
Is there a rush hour time from Tokyo to Kyoto on the Hikari? 7-9pm and 4-6pm I've read
So if I take the 6:30am train to Kyoto is that not so bad compared to the 7am?
I would probably make seat reservations the night before as the trains leave only every 30 mins.

Also on the way back from Kyoto to Haneda, both Hyperdia and Google Maps is telling me to either get off at Shin-Yokohama and take the limousine bus to Haneda Intl

or get off at Shinagawa and take the Keikyu line to Haneda Intl

Which is a better choice of the two?
I assume if I have luggage the Limo Bus would be a better choice.

jphripjah

You could ship your large bags from Tokyo to the Hyatt Kyoto and carry day bags on the train and to the Kyoto ryokan, it's only one night.

kzap

yup, considering not bringing them at all to Kyoto since its only 2 nights

kzap

Just got back, still decompressing. It was a fantastic 6 nights. I just want to say thank you for everyone's posts here in this thread and in the forum, they all helped greatly in planning our vacation.

A quick summary of what I experienced.

- July is humid, not just hot but sweaty. I come from Manila and its hot here, real hot but we don't sweat by just going outside. Kyoto was like a hot air blower everywhere. I was literally the white guy in a sweat drenched tshirt fanning himself to no effect. I have to say I was warned. Would like to experience Japan in better weather next time

- No cars, pollution. I saw less cars in my 7 days in Japan than I saw after arriving back home in MNL. Everybody walks, throws trash in the correct trash bin or else they hold it until they find the right one. The most trash I saw was in Kyoto and it was due to the tourists! How to make an entire country like this?

- One store specializing in one item. Hard to find two stores selling the same thing side by side. Everyone is selling something different and there are lines for everything. There was always a long line outside Daimaru in Tokyo Station for those cookies, whether it was the morning, lunch or nighttime.

- Combini's are a god send late at night. Everything closes at 9pm or like 5pm in Kyoto. Th e stuff you can get at Lawson, 7-11, Family Mart or Bell Mart is fantastic. Plus you can use your IC card for everything. I actually missed the IC vending machines in Kyoto, turns out they are mostly in Tokyo.

- I could literally spend a whole day just in Tokyo Station, we discovered the B1F on the last day and could do all our last minute shopping there. Tokyo Banana anyone? We went to a lot of places in Tokyo but there's so much more to do or see or experience, definitely could have put more days into Tokyo. Also same with Kyoto, that place is huge and stuff opens so late (10-11am), definitely need to put more days to Kyoto next time though I prefer Tokyo.

- Do not underestimate the time. I really wanted to go to point A and B and do everything but theres so much to do and so many ways to get lost. I feel now more confident about how long things take now that I've experienced it myself. Running for that Shinkansen was fun but its better to be well planned.

- The food, so much. Next time I will schedule lunch every day in a nice place, much more affordable and a nice experience. We did Sushi Iwa Ginza on the 2nd day and that in itself was fantastic. Hotel food was nice but meh, I'd much rather spend my $ on those small places that have honed their craft for years.

- Staying at the Hotel MiraCosta in DisneySea is a must if you want to do the Toy Story ride, we ran/fast walked towards Tower of Terror and found a long line which was actually for the Toy Story fast pass. They closed the fast pass at like 9am. Getting into the park 15 mins early would mean all the difference between a 3 hour queue and getting a fast pass. Despite that, skipping that and the Nemo ride, we were able to do everything else in Tokyo DisneySea with no problem at all. The shows were top quality like Big Band Beat and Shadowlando Looking forward to bringing the kids back next time. I will say though the rides are a let down in the thrill department, I wonder if that's on purpose.

Will probably post a TR eventually but for now it was a fantastic vacation and hope to do it again next year, better season and more planning, less running.

abmj-jr

Glad to hear you had a good time. Now you know why so many of us return many times.

For your next visit, may I suggest late March/early April or late October/early November.

evergrn

Thanks for the report.

Summer in Jpn is the worst in terms of mugginess. I've been to HKG in summer, been to SIN, Jpn is the worst. I don't know why. That's why I started heading to Hokkaido during the summer.

You are right about that. Tokyo Sta is amazing. There're so many other station complexes where I could spend a whole day. Osaka Sta, Ikebukuro Sta, Kawasaki, Futako Tamagawa...

This is not specifically a request to you, but I'm interested in reading fine details on all the logistics and timeframe involved in a visit to Disney Sea. Mira Costa is a very expensive hotel that I have no status with, so staying there primarily to get in 15min early requires a lot of convincing for me. It's also hard for me to imagine the value of getting to stay inside the park. Considering that Hilton is so much cheaper and I'm Hhonors Diamond, it's hard to turn them down.
-- Is Toy Story the main reason why getting in 15min early is important? If I'm not interested in Toy Story, then staying at Mira Costa is less critical?
-- We mostly go to HK Disney where fastpass is really a non-factor, so I don't have a feel for what the fastpass strategy is. At DisneySea, are you supposed to run in first-thing and then go around grabbing as many fastpasses as possible?
-- To get on a fastpass ride, do you only need to show the fast pass? If that's the case, then I could hold onto my family's admission tix and then spend the day being the fast-pass person, while my family does the rides (i'm not interested in Disney anyways... would only go for the kids). We meet up occasionally so i can hand them the fastpasses I grabbed for them. Is that possible?
-- Are there good attractions/shows where you don't have to wait much for?
-- Would help if someone posted sort of an hour-by-hour rundown of what they did when in order to get the most of their day.

Sorry I'm getting carried away with DisneySea questions, and maybe this should be for a Disney thread. I have planned and cancelled trip to DisneySea numerous times (including booking and cancelling Mira Costa at least 3x in the last couple years). I hate waiting, hate spending too much $, and I keep getting cold feet with the idea of investing in a visit to DisneySea.

kzap

Happy to answer the DisneySea questions to my best ability

From what I've read and when I was there (a Thursday in late July). Toy Story Mania is the most popular ride and its fast passes are gone very quickly. Some people say its similar to Toy Story rides in other DisneyLand's but I have only been to HKDL so I would not be able to compare. The lines are huge and the standby time (lining up without a fastpass) is 3 hours. I dont know about you but I would not want to wait in line for 3 hours especially with my children, its just not what I was raised to do. So if you really want to take this ride as of August 2017, you really have to try to beat everyone else to it. There are several options to that though.

1.) Hotel MiraCosta gets you in 15 minutes early before 8am at their special entrance which you should be 30 minutes early to in the first place as probably everyone else staying here wants to be in first. Price is a big factor, availability seems scarce by my checking just now and the rates are like 60,000 JPY per night on average. This seems to be with taxes already so that puts its price on par with other 5 star hotels in Tokyo: SL, RC, Pen? So if money is no option and you like a nice view then this may be a good option, especially with kids (going from and to the hotel at the end of Disneyland with kids is exhausting).

2.) Stay at an official hotel and be there 1 hour before opening at 7am. If you stay at one of the onsite hotels nearby its just a monorail or bus ride away. More affordable most likely. Just have to wake up earlier and beat everyone else who's trying to lineup first. Once you get inside, fast walk or run if you're a foreigner to the left for the Toy Story fastpass. At this point the fastpass line may be long enough that by the time you get a fastpass, the regular standby line for Toy Story will be huge.

3.) Stay in a Tokyo Hotel and be there 1 hour before opening. Meaning most likely leaving Tokyo Station at 6am or earlier. Took me 30-45mins+ include walk/run time from the gates to get to DisneySea, everyone taking the Keiyo line to Maihama is doing what you are doing We were there at 7:30am and the line was long already.

4.) Skip Toy Story Mania and go for Tower of Terror or the Nemo ride (This one seemed very full when I was there probably because it was new).

Ignoring Toy Story Mania and the Nemo ride, everything else is doable on fastpass or single rider. The standby lines after 11am may build up to 1 hour+ but fast passes will always be available so you can just fast pass your way around all the rides. Yes you can be the fast pass runner once you are all inside the park.

The only rules to fast pass are:
- You can only get 1 fastpass at a time per entrance ticket
- You can get a 2nd fastpass after either:
--- 2 hours since you got the last fast pass
--- The entrance time for your last fast pass has started.
(eg: If you got a fast pass at 9am for 10:30am-11:30am, you can get your next fastpass at either 10:30am. If you got a fastpass at 9am for 3pm-4pm, you can get a new fast pass at 11am since 2 hours have passed)
- Once your fastpass time has passed they wont let you in even by a few minutes. So 10:30am to 11:30am means 11:31am and you cant get into the fastpass line for the ride anymore and have to grab a new fastpass.

What I did was before going to a ride I had a fastpass for, I passed by and grabbed another fastpass for my next ride, this way I could do a lot of rides one after another. The only long lines were Toy Story and Nemo. You do not need to fast pass for the other rides but when given the option of coming back in 1 hour for a 5-10min line or waiting for 45 mins in the normal line, I take the fastpass

The Indiana Jones ride and the rollercoaster next to it have single-rider slots, meaning you can go by yourself and skip most of the line and take the ride. No one seems to want to take the single rider so its really a fast option.

I looked up a couple of guides on the internet for doing a 1 day DisneySea route and they mostly all had the same advice

This one is a pretty good example of what to do and see all in one day: http://www.disneytouristblog.com/1-d...isneysea-plan/

The shows may be a bit different. Currently as of July 2017 they had the Get Wet Pirate show, Big Band Beat, and Shadowland. I recommend Big Band Beat, you can raffle for a fastpass to it or line up. Shadowland is also good, these things dont have much of a line during the day we went.

Last but not least, people reserve spots on the wharf for the 8pm light show, if you go early like 7:30am you could get a standing spot nearby, we were on the island close to the show but it a view from the side. The best view I would say is from the front where the Hotel Mira Costa is, so if you can go there early, laydown your map to reserve the floor space for 2 ppl, you can get a good view for the show.