Day 10: Flying Back

Our room was just about diagonally opposite of the lift!

And just for the record, 5th floor is the highest floor at Palm & Fountain Hotel.

What I loved about the hotel ...

For a sea view that we could not touch that barely justified the long distance we had to cover (from the lift to the room) at the end of the day, I think next time, I would settle for a no-view.

There is a Lawson, the equivalent of our 7-Eleven store, at the reception level. 

I got our breakfast from there!

For some reason, the Japanese have the softest white bread which makes eating sandwiches lovely. They cut away the crusty sides too! The little things they do that others don't even bother are probably what makes the difference.

The Disney store which I never got to patronise. 

We always went out before it opened and returned after it was closed!

Directly opposite the reception counter is the Guest Services counter where they deal with your luggage and airport bus matters.

The spacious lounge between the two counters

A few school girls saw Baby in her Anna outfit and gushed,"Kawaii, kawaii!" 

In between the hotel guests waiting in line for the Disney Shuttle Bus and the airport bus is the nice hotel concierge guy who guided us to the bus and helped to inform the bus driver that we were the ones going to Narita Airport.

The Japanese provide the top-notch service!

Did I mention that we flew Scoot again?

I explained to Baby what the word on the can meant and she was exhilarated, insisting that it was meant for her!

Hey, the air-stewardess gave it to me!

Day 9: More of DisneySea and a little of DisneyLand

 It was Day 3 at Disney.

We had fallen in love with DisneySea so we decided to return to it for the earlier part of the day and visit Disneyland if we had the time.

 I did a rough plan the night before and looked through the places that we had not visited. Those would be the places we go for first.

Toy Story Mania was the first thing on our mind.

Day 3, a Tuesday, opened at 9am. So we were at the gate before nine.

This time round, no mistake about it. I went for the Fastpass queue while my mother and Baby made a beeline for the 'standby' line. We did this so that after I got the Fastpasses, I could make a big round and come back to Toy Story Mania to join them for the ride.

As I had joined the Fastpass queue right after I entered DisneySea at 9am, the line moved very fast and I soon got my Fastpasses.

I had to endure a few 'Are you trying to jump queue?' stares to get to them though.

We love the mini green dumplings so much we bought 6 of them!

But they proved to be too much for us.

Our seasoned tastebuds now preferred only the vanilla dumplings.

We grabbed our Fastpasses at Mermaid's Theatre and popped over to Lost River Delta.

This is another popular ride but as the crew told me that it was very 'speedy',

Ariel's photo-taking closed at 5pm so Baby was disappointed on Day 1, but we made it a point to go to Ariel's Grotto before 5pm on Day 3!

Tokyo Disneyland and Sea are really particular when it comes to photo-taking by the official photographer.

When I said I wanted a picture of Baby and a picture of three of us together, the crew turned me down, saying that they could not have a repetition of a person in the pictures!

I was quite shocked at this stupid idea. I am going to pay for them, right? Why can't I pay for any configuration of the pictures?

In the end, Baby had her picture on her own and my mother and I took the picture together.

Using my camera, I opted for three of us taking the picture together as at any one time, they would only help you take 1 pathetic picture using your camera.

Baby wanted very much to take this 'little' roller coaster at Flounder's Flying Fish Coaster.

I obliged after about 10 minutes of deliberation.

Thankfully, it didn't slant as badly as I had imagined and ended sooner than I had expected.

Then we proceeded to The Magic Lamp Theater at the Arabian Coast to watch a 3D magic show with the genie as the host on the screen.

Baby enjoyed it very much. She felt that the things on the screen were coming towards her.

It amused her and made her laughed quite a bit.

The Japanese girls seemed to love donning similar costumes or dresses.

Baby was soon hungry for a sausage bun which I hesitated to buy for obvious reasons!

If there was something about the Lost River Delta for the kids ...

it had to be the Character Greeting Trails!

For once, the characters were housed in a fixed place from 9.15am to 9.15pm and if you queue up for them, and just under 30 minutes too, you will surely get a shot by the official photographer!

Except that Mickey, Minnie and Goofy are in jungle outfits!

But no matter. We still love them!

This is the Tower of Terror just beside Toy Story Mania.

While queuing for Toy Story Fastpasses or ride, you can hear the terrifying screams of the visitors at regular intervals.

Of course we didn't try that.

The Venetian Gondolas that we didn't get to ride on as the queue was ridiculous.

The Storm Rider model shown before the actual ride

We watched the much anticipated Mermaid Show at the Mermaid Lagoon Theater.

It was well worth the Fastpasses and the wait.

Despite not understanding the language, we enjoyed the show, out of all the shows, the most.

Little Mermaid was hanging in the mid air above the audience, singing, dancing and doing somersaults away!

If there is any show I would recommend, it is this!

At 7.30pm, we rushed over to Disneyland to do a last-minute visit to Toon Town - the land where you can only find in Tokyo Disneyland.

We took the Roger Rabbit's Car ride.

The crew cautioned my mother against taking it as it would rotate constantly, so my mother opted out of the ride.

We would give it a miss if we ever return to Tokyo Disneyland. It was kind of boring, the illustrations were awful and the laughter was sinister. The ride lasted much longer than we had hoped.

We did another round of shopping at The Grand Emporium, the largest shopping centre in Disneyland, before we made our exit and kissed the Disneyland goodbye.

The Disney Resort Line

 The Fast Passes that we collected over the 3 days of fun!

Day 8: Tokyo Disneyland!

How can I ever forget this hotel? 

We had to walk an ultra-long L shape before we could reach our room, exhausted as we were!

The next morning at 8am, we boarded the Disney Resort Shuttle Bus to Disneyland!

The bus terminal

A board at the bus terminal showing the bus numbers that correspond to the hotel you stay.

I noticed that the bus stands for DisneySea and Disneyland had different numbers for the bus to our hotel, so the board was very useful to me.

The first thing we saw as we entered Disneyland was the Character Meet and Greet near the entrance.

The Disney characters were roaming around and whoever wanted to take pictures with them crowded around them and waited for them to pick the lucky souls for photography using their own camera.

While my mother queued up for the Mickey Meet and Greet which would last for at least an hour, I took Baby to take pictures with the characters above too.

A few younger kids got to jump queue because they went up and hugged the characters!

Above left: Our first shot with a Disney character, Mickey, at Disneyland (Day 2)

Below left: Picture with Minnie at

Right: Picture with Ariel at Ariel's Grotto

There was some miscommunication. The lady at the photography area failed to ask me if I wanted the official photographer to take the picture and I in my haste totally forgot about that.

We ended up with a photograph taken using my own camera.

I was quite sore about it actually. I mean, this is Disneyland - a place where dreams come true?? Hong Kong Disneyland would never let this happen!

Wow! When and where would you get an unobstructed view of the Cinderella/Sleeping Beauty Castle?

We zoomed straight to the Fairytale Land where the popular Pooh Bear Hunt ride was. 

After collecting the fastpasses for Pooh Bear Hunt, we went on a Pinnochio ride.

The verdict? 

We were frightened by the Pleasure Island baddies' wicked laughter and the dark alleys Pinnochio ran through and the whale's dark belly that Pinnochio stayed in.

We chanced upon the prettiest Aurora we have ever seen. Alas, the queue system in Tokyo Disneyland was non-existent. If you fancy a character, you need to crowd around her like a fan and wait, pray and hope that she chooses you to take a picture with you. She is free to pick who she likes and allows anyone she likes to jump queue.

Baby didn't get the chance to take a picture with Aurora. I didn't know she felt so bad about it until she said at dinner time,"I am not pretty. That's why Aurora didn't want to take picture with me."

Goodness! I told her,"Of course not! Disneyland has a lousy system of allowing people to jump queue. You were bypassed because you didn't go up to her and hug her to jump queue!"

We took a ride at Snowwhite's.

The verdict?

We were frightened again by the dark and scary forest Snow White ran through.

We aborted our plan to go for the Haunted House ride, another popular ride with fastpass.

The parade was on!

As usual, I was standing behind a sea of heads

In the queue for the Grand Circuit Raceway

This was similar to the one at Paris Disneyland.

Just step on a paddle and it moves automatically.

At the Star Tours where we were seated in a 3D cinema and shaken left-right-back-and-forth to simulate a flying and crashing experience of a space craft. Without the rain bits though.

Monsters, Inc., yet another coveted ride with a Fastpass.

At Disneyland or DisneySea, whichever ride requires a Fastpass means you need to queue for at least 1.5h for it without one. So try to get a Fastpass whenever you are going for the popular rides.

Pick up a torch and shine at the 'M'!

This is at the end of the ride where the camera would flash at you.

I was busy taking this picture and had forgotten about the camera. 

My picture showed me having a camera in my face! 

Fastpass machines

Buzz Lightyear's shooting game is in every single Disneyland!

Pooh's Honey Hunt - another ride with a Fastpass.

A really popular ride there. I am not sure why. The Pooh Bear ride would entail a ride in a honeypot, bringing you through Pooh's honey search journey. The ride is similar to other Disneylands' except that in other Disneylands, the figures are two-dimensional cut-outs while in Tokyo Disneyland, the figures are three-dimensional.

The winding queue passage of the Pooh's Honey Hunt

Vending machines at Alice's Wonderland

We moved on to Critter Country.

I didn't think they would really make us paddle a canoe.

*gasp* They really made the guests canoe!

Baby had a baby oar.

It was a long roundabout journey. Although there were at least ten of us on the canoe, we felt tired and quite damp after the canoeing. Never again.

The deadly Splash Mountain which I wouldn't be caught dead in.

We strolled over to the Westernland to take Mark Twain Riverboat, a huge steam cruise around the same river.

We saw the ride that we were to take after that.

The Red Indian figurines, the native inhabitants of America, were planted along the route for visitors to have a glimpse into their way of life.

We were there earlier on, paddling our lives out!

Mark Twain Riverboat

Upon alighting the Riverboat, we boarded Tom Sawyer Island's Raft immediately ...

to get to Tom Sawyer Island

Baby had a blast on the Island!

It was 6pm and Baby said she was 'very hungry' and couldn't wait to eat.

So off to Crystal Palace Restaurant we went.

The exterior is a pretty sight at night!

By the time we finished our dinner, it was 7.30pm. 

We lingered outside the restaurant to join the crowd in watching the night parade.

It was dark after the parade, but we were not done yet!

We boarded the Western River Railroad at Adventure Land.

Apparently, the scenic ride by the day turned out to be a ride in the dark at night. We couldn't see anything outside the train ride at all! And don't, for a moment, think that we were the only fools. The train was packed, right down to the last seat, and others were waiting for the next ride!

We took the ride at Pirates of the Carribean which entailed a not-too-steep-but-very-swift 4m drop.

Before the ride, I checked with the crew if the ride was 'scary'. They concurred that it was 'a little' scary. A nice lady crew assured me that it was 'okay', 'not very scary'. I positioned my folded Disneyland Map in a vertical manner and asked,"Like this?" meaning "Is it so steep?" before forming a gentle slope and asked,"Or like this?" meaning "Or is it so gentle?"

The nice lady crew took my map and positioned it in a manner that was in between my two previous formations and assured me it was fine.

So I took the plunge and tried it.

It was indeed 'a little' scary as the drop was very swift.

The tunnel itself was very dark though, not sure if it was due to the time of the day.

The pirates were quite intimidating too.

We passed by the lonely Mad Hatter's Tea Cups in our search for Monsters, Inc ride.

We wanted to catch our Fastpass ride at Monsters, Inc. but went to Pooh's Honey Hunt instead! I totally forgot which ride we had our Fastpasses for!

I mumbled sorta aloud,"Aiya, Baby! You should have told me that Monsters, Inc was not here. See? We made a big round for nothing."

Oh my! I got a 'tongue lashing' from the chilli padi instead!

"How would I know what was on your mind! How would I know that you were thinking of going to Monsters, Inc?!! I couldn't have guessed what you were thinking! I can't read your mind!"

The beautifully lit Cinderella Castle (I learnt that Disney has different names for the iconic castle at different Disneylands) at night.

Our second Monsters, Inc. ride for the day

Snacks we ate at Disneyland and DisneySea: 

Top: Gyoza Dog, Mickey waffles with maple syrup, Frozen Mango

Middle: Eukiwa Bun, Chandu Tail & Maple Cream Balls, Seafood Pizza & Cream Crepe

Bottom: Mickey Ice-cream, White Chocolate Popcorn, Meiji Ice-cream.

Again, we concluded our day with a shopping trip a Toy Station at 10pm and returned to our hotel exhausted.