Claudette & Nev Go East! - Japan Nov 24 - LIVE!

[Claudette]

I went with this title following my 2022 Claudette & Nev Go West! report. That time we were off to the west coast of the US and this time we are heading to Japan. With just under a month to go, we are at the point where we can get on with booking tickets, activities and one or two restaurants and so I thought I would do the pre-trip report too.

Travelling with me is husband aka Nev in my trip reports. So far I have done most of the bookings including the flights, most of our hotels, Disney and Universal, but now Nev is taking over and is looking into trains, eSims, payment cards and working on our daily activities for all the non-Disney and Universal days.

It will be our second trip to Japan, but our first visit was back in 2008 so I am sure a lot will have changed. I usually do dining reports rather than trip reports but this time I will write up both trip and dining, some of which I am sure will be weird and wonderful.

We will be flying from Heathrow to Haneda in BA club world and we start the trip with six nights at the Hilton Tokyo in the Shinjuku area. During this part of the trip, I am looking forward to visiting the Imperial Palace and in complete contrast, Sanrio Puroland otherwise known as the Hello Kitty park. Nev is looking forward to Akihabara, TeamLab, various towers and a night in a capsule hotel. We are also both hoping that our favourite gyoza cafe will still be there.

After exploring Tokyo proper, we will head to Tokyo Disneyland which did not make the cut on or 2008 trip. After watching a lot of Tokyo Disney vlogs we were concerned about crowds and queues so decided to treat ourselves to a Vacation Package which took me over five hours to complete the booking for and was mentally exhausting. But I got there and we ended up with two nights at the Miracosta Hotel, three days of park tickets, two days of breakfasts, a passport to Fantasy Springs and eight premier passes.

We then decided to book a Disney hotel for before and after the Vacation Package so that we can make the most of our time there and ended up with Disneyland Hotel before and the Ambassador Hotel after. It would have been nice to get the same hotel and connect up all three bookings into one stay, but the availability was not there. So a bit more packing and unpacking than I would like over four nights but we get to try out three Disney hotels and will make the most of packing cubes to keep it easy.

After Disney we will take the train to Yokohama, which is not far out of Tokyo but it looks like an interesting spot. It could be good for Mount Fuji viewing and there is a Cup Noodle museum we plan to see. We have picked the Westin for this stay, there are some nice hotels for very reasonable prices in Yokohama, we felt spoilt for choice.

Onto Osaka and we have one day for Universal Studios Japan with the seven attraction express pass and on the other days we will visit places nearby like Kobe. Nev picked the hotel for this part and we are in the Moxy Osaka. After Osaka we head back to Haneda and will spend our final night in the Hotel Villa Fontaine by the airport.

I will keep the report more or less live and I will add each day to this thread rather than starting a new thread for each day. I have included an index below and will turn each day into a link so that in the future people (including me!) can quickly jump to something specifically without having to page through the whole thread.

Index

Sun, 10 Nov – Pre-travel day
Mon, 11 Nov – Travel day
Tue, 12 Nov - Arrival in Tokyo, Shibuya & Shinjuku
Wed, 13 Nov – Sanrio Puroland
Thu, 14 Nov – TeamLab, Tokyo Tower
Fri, 15 Nov – Akihabara, Asakusa
Sat, 16 Nov – Tokyo Station, Ginza, Lost Bar
Sun, 17 Nov – Odaiba
Mon, 18 Nov - Disneyland Hotel and Disneyland
Tue, 19 Nov – Disneyland VP, Miracosta Hotel
Wed, 20 Nov – Fantasy Springs
Thu, 21 Nov – DisneySea, Ambassador Hotel
Fri, 22 Nov – Yokohama, Westin Hotel
Sat, 23 Nov – Yokohama, Cup Noodle Museum
Sun, 24 Nov – Yokohama, Kamakura
Mon, 25 Nov – Bullet train, Osaka
Tue, 26 Nov – Osaka
Wed, 27 Nov – Universal Studios Japan
Thu, 28 Nov – Transfer to Haneda
Fri, 29 Nov – Travel home
 

[Goldia]

Ooh Claudette I'm really looking forward to following your trip. We've never headed east, but I hope to, one day. Anyway, I'm expecting to get lots of good tips and advice from reading about your adventure. I hope you and Nev have a wonderful time.

[ClaireNJ]

Originally Posted by Claudette

I went with this title following my 2022 Claudette & Nev Go West! report. That time we were off to the west coast of the US and this time we are heading to Japan. With just under a month to go, we are at the point where we can get on with booking tickets, activities and one or two restaurants and so I thought I would do the pre-trip report too.

Travelling with me is husband aka Nev in my trip reports. So far I have done most of the bookings including the flights, most of our hotels, Disney and Universal, but now Nev is taking over and is looking into trains, eSims, payment cards and working on our daily activities for all the non-Disney and Universal days.

It will be our second trip to Japan, but our first visit was back in 2008 so I am sure a lot will have changed. I usually do dining reports rather than trip reports but this time I will write up both trip and dining, some of which I am sure will be weird and wonderful.

We will be flying from Heathrow to Haneda in BA club world and we start the trip with six nights at the Hilton Tokyo in the Shinjuku area. During this part of the trip, I am looking forward to visiting the Imperial Palace and in complete contrast, Sanrio Puroland otherwise known as the Hello Kitty park. Nev is looking forward to Akihabara, TeamLab, various towers and a night in a capsule hotel. We are also both hoping that our favourite gyoza cafe will still be there.

After exploring Tokyo proper, we will head to Tokyo Disneyland which did not make the cut on or 2008 trip. After watching a lot of Tokyo Disney vlogs we were concerned about crowds and queues so decided to treat ourselves to a Vacation Package which took me over five hours to complete the booking for and was mentally exhausting. But I got there and we ended up with two nights at the Miracosta Hotel, three days of park tickets, two days of breakfasts, a passport to Fantasy Springs and eight premier passes.

We then decided to book a Disney hotel for before and after the Vacation Package so that we can make the most of our time there and ended up with Disneyland Hotel before and the Ambassador Hotel after. It would have been nice to get the same hotel and connect up all three bookings into one stay, but the availability was not there. So a bit more packing and unpacking than I would like over four nights but we get to try out three Disney hotels and will make the most of packing cubes to keep it easy.

After Disney we will take the train to Yokohama, which is not far out of Tokyo but it looks like an interesting spot. It could be good for Mount Fuji viewing and there is a Cup Noodle museum we plan to see. We have picked the Westin for this stay, there are some nice hotels for very reasonable prices in Yokohama, we felt spoilt for choice.

Onto Osaka and we have one day for Universal Studios Japan with the seven attraction express pass and on the other days we will visit places nearby like Kobe. Nev picked the hotel for this part and we are in the Moxy Osaka. After Osaka we head back to Haneda and will spend our final night in the Hotel Villa Fontaine by the airport.

I will keep the report more or less live and I will add each day to this thread rather than starting a new thread for each day. I have included an index below and will turn each day into a link so that in the future people (including me!) can quickly jump to something specifically without having to page through the whole thread.

Index

Sun, 10 Nov – Pre-travel day
Mon, 11 Nov – Travel day
Tue, 12 Nov – Arrival in Tokyo, Shinjuku
Wed, 13 Nov – Sanrio Puroland
Thu, 14 Nov – Imperial Palace, TeamLab, Capsule hotel (Nev)
Fri, 15 Nov – Shibuya Sky
Sat, 16 Nov – Odaiba
Sun, 17 Nov – Tokyo TBC
Mon, 18 Nov – Transfer to Disneyland Hotel
Tue, 19 Nov – Disney Vacation Package
Wed, 20 Nov – Disney Vacation Package
Thu, 21 Nov – Disney Vacation Package
Fri, 22 Nov – Yokohama TBC
Sat, 23 Nov – Yokohama TBC
Sun, 24 Nov – Yokohama TBC
Mon, 25 Nov – Osaka
Tue, 26 Nov – Kobe
Wed, 27 Nov – Universal Studios Japan
Thu, 28 Nov – Transfer to Haneda
Fri, 29 Nov – Travel home
 

See more...

Sounds like a fantastic trip as usual Claudette for you & Nev
Why did the Disney booking take so long
I must admit I’m watching Lfc Sarah a Dibber on here on Instagram they are in Disneyland Tokyo at the moment it looks amazing, so many different things & rides to Orlando

[Claudette]

Originally Posted by Goldia

Ooh Claudette I'm really looking forward to following your trip. We've never headed east, but I hope to, one day. Anyway, I'm expecting to get lots of good tips and advice from reading about your adventure. I hope you and Nev have a wonderful time.

See more...

Thank you, we are really looking forward to it, it feels like we have been waiting for it to come round forever.

[Claudette]

Originally Posted by ClaireNJ

Sounds like a fantastic trip as usual Claudette for you & Nev
Why did the Disney booking take so long
I must admit I’m watching Lfc Sarah a Dibber on here on Instagram they are in Disneyland Tokyo at the moment it looks amazing, so many different things & rides to Orlando

See more...

So booking Disney Vacation package, they release all the dates for a particular month all at once. When they released for my dates it was just after Fantasy Springs opened and I was worried about availability so I went to book on that day and there was a huge queue for the site, not Oasis ticket level, but more than an hour.

Then if you don’t see the hotel or room you want and page back or refresh (because the availability changes all the time as people don’t complete a booking) you can be thrown back into the queue. I was simultaneously in the queue on three devices as I was being chucked out, so then started again on the next device to get through.

At the three hour point I was finally about to make my payment, but my bank security was playing up and by the time I managed to get that sorted, I had lost the booking. Had to start again, which this time was about 2.5 hours.

Booking the single night hotels is done on a rolling basis, so the queue to get on the site is not that bad, although you need to be ready at 3am. However there is very little availability and it is a case of taking whatever is there, I had no choice whatsoever.

[SuziQz]

Sounds like an amazing trip, will definitely be following along. Well done for persevering with the Disney booking, sounds like it would try the patience of a saint 😇😂

[Claudette]

Originally Posted by SuziQz

Sounds like an amazing trip, will definitely be following along. Well done for persevering with the Disney booking, sounds like it would try the patience of a saint 😇😂

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It was really hard work, but I think it will be worth it.

We need to start trying to get the Pokémon Cafe in a couple of days, but I think I will leave this one to Nev.

[ClaireNJ]

Originally Posted by Claudette

So booking Disney Vacation package, they release all the dates for a particular month all at once. When they released for my dates it was just after Fantasy Springs opened and I was worried about availability so I went to book on that day and there was a huge queue for the site, not Oasis ticket level, but more than an hour.

Then if you don’t see the hotel or room you want and page back or refresh (because the availability changes all the time as people don’t complete a booking) you can be thrown back into the queue. I was simultaneously in the queue on three devices as I was being chucked out, so then started again on the next device to get through.

At the three hour point I was finally about to make my payment, but my bank security was playing up and by the time I managed to get that sorted, I had lost the booking. Had to start again, which this time was about 2.5 hours.

Booking the single night hotels is done on a rolling basis, so the queue to get on the site is not that bad, although you need to be ready at 3am. However there is very little availability and it is a case of taking whatever is there, I had no choice whatsoever.

See more...

Why do they make it so hard 🤷the Pokémon cafe looks very cool 👌

[Claudette]

Originally Posted by ClaireNJ

Why do they make it so hard 🤷the Pokémon cafe looks very cool 👌

See more...

Yes Pokemon Cafe looks great but it is even harder to get than Disney!

We both tried this morning, atomic clock at the ready, didn't help. Maybe tomorrow.

[DisneyDaffodil]

Looking forward to following your trip, it looks so much fun. Our sons have both visited Japan a few times with their partners and loved it there. They’ve been to several places on your list including Disney, the cup noodle museum 😂 and the Pokemon cafe.