How did YOU buy your Tokyo Disney tickets?

[AntonyJ]

It feels strange to ask this with all that is going on at the moment, but perhaps stupidly I have a small bit of hope that our trip in May will go ahead.

Hope springs eternal and all that...

Now turning my mind on getting park tickets, and I know things could change SEVERAL times before May, but it is the way my mind is at the moment.

The easy way to buy park tickets appears to be closed to me at the moment, and if I was to try and get park tickets while still outside Japan it is very difficult.

What brought this to the fore was I contacted the hotel we are in for Disney (Hilton Tokyo Bay, they are great in replying to emails by the way) and asked a question about park tickets as things "are today".
They told me that ticket sales within the hotel (at that nice booth they have) are still suspended and the only way to get tickets via the hotel, is to book a package that includes park that they sell. OK, I asked about prices but they could not quote for my visit in May as they are not out yet, but come back to them in a few weeks and they should be out then. That lead me to research the prices for the packages and they can work out really really expensive!

In my ignorance I thought the package would be room and park tickets.
Nope.
They often include things like parking, food etc - and in a worse case would triple the cost of our stay at the Hilton! I need to see what our dates will cost, once they become available.

I want to go, but am not paying that!

So I want to talk through the options that are available TODAY, pro and cons, and see if I have missed anything - perhaps you bought them another way?

I also hope that since Tokyo Disney aid (yesterday) that they were increasing park capacity unto 50%, things might change for the positive.

We are due to arrive in Japan 06:45 and will be at Hilton for 9’ish and plan to dump bags and head to the parks. Then do another park the next day.

Buy at Hilton upon arrival
Ticket sales closed at the moment.

Buy Hilton Package
Have to see when my dates come out, but possibly too expensive.

Buy a package at one of the cheaper Disney hotels
Could work out cheaper, need to investigate.

Buy at Disney Ticket Centre at Ikspiari / Shibuya Disney Store etc.
Can only be done once there, if park capacity still reduced then dates my be sold out by time I arrive.

Buy at ticket machines inside Japanese convince stores.
Videos online show it is a 95% Japanese process, and again, could only buy once arrived in country.

Buy at “cheap” ticket resellers stores
Can only be done once arrive, against the ticket T&C’s so there is a risk there, will my dates be available, difficult to do with our dates.

Buy online via the TDR web site when my dates become available.
Probably the best option, but bookings via the site when you have a non-Japanese credit card, are notorious for failing at checkout for reasons unknown.
Have you booked (Disney hotel rooms and / or tickets) OK from outside Japan, mind me asking what credit card you used?

Buy online via Klook
Not currently available.

Think that is all, have I missed anything?

[sky13]

I'm in favour of staying at one of the TDR hotels! Especially since I've been randomly browsing the TDR website/hotels including tokyodisneyresort.jp/en/.../purchase.html and tokyodisneyresort.jp/en/...reopen.html#03 which say that "Guests staying at a Disney Hotel can purchase a Fixed-Date Ticket from the hotel they are staying at. Please note that even if dates are shown as unavailable on the Tokyo Disney Resort Online Reservations & Tickets website, tickets may still be purchased by Guests staying at a Disney Hotel."

Regarding the ticket machine option/etc and worry about it being a 95% Japanese process... May I suggest Google translate? I recently re-discovered it as the app on my phone and it is honestly amazing at translating, all I have to do is open the app, select camera mode and languages, and point it at something in that language... it automatically translates whatever it sees and superimposes the translation in the picture. It works so well that I could even read a magazine in Japanese sent to my email by a Japanese company I recently bought stuff from, just by pointing my phone at my computer screen and getting it to translate it to English! So on the basis of this I'd actually be happy trying to buy tickets from a machine that was all in Japanese, provided that I could have my phone and internet and a working Google translate app...

I've not used a credit card to book Tokyo Disney hotel rooms or tickets from outside Japan but know some people in real life who have stayed at Tokyo Disney hotels so presumably used their non-Japanese credit cards successfully to book them... but I'm also not in the UK and our local banks/credit cards seem to lean towards the side of allowing random overseas transactions (with the trade off of being less secure). I have recently used my (Visa) credit card to buy things on several (non-Disney) Japanese websites without any issues...

[AntonyJ]

Thank you so much for this nice and detailed reply!

As things stand, I think staying on Disney prem would be the best idea, there is only then the credit card issue that I mentioned with tickets, but I could check out travel agents who may be able to book...

Like you I have had no issues buying things with card either while in Japan or via mail order from home, it is the hotel / ticket Disney site that appears to be ... twitchy with non-Japanese cards. I see as many stories from people outside Japan who had no issues with it, as folks who fail to get things booked.

Good shout on the ticket machine in combini and Google Translate! Will have to get it going on my phone and see how it does on some test screens

Originally Posted by sky13

I'm in favour of staying at one of the TDR hotels! Especially since I've been randomly browsing the TDR website/hotels including tokyodisneyresort.jp/en/.../purchase.html and tokyodisneyresort.jp/en/...reopen.html#03 which say that "Guests staying at a Disney Hotel can purchase a Fixed-Date Ticket from the hotel they are staying at. Please note that even if dates are shown as unavailable on the Tokyo Disney Resort Online Reservations & Tickets website, tickets may still be purchased by Guests staying at a Disney Hotel."

Regarding the ticket machine option/etc and worry about it being a 95% Japanese process... May I suggest Google translate? I recently re-discovered it as the app on my phone and it is honestly amazing at translating, all I have to do is open the app, select camera mode and languages, and point it at something in that language... it automatically translates whatever it sees and superimposes the translation in the picture. It works so well that I could even read a magazine in Japanese sent to my email by a Japanese company I recently bought stuff from, just by pointing my phone at my computer screen and getting it to translate it to English! So on the basis of this I'd actually be happy trying to buy tickets from a machine that was all in Japanese, provided that I could have my phone and internet and a working Google translate app...

I've not used a credit card to book Tokyo Disney hotel rooms or tickets from outside Japan but know some people in real life who have stayed at Tokyo Disney hotels so presumably used their non-Japanese credit cards successfully to book them... but I'm also not in the UK and our local banks/credit cards seem to lean towards the side of allowing random overseas transactions (with the trade off of being less secure). I have recently used my (Visa) credit card to buy things on several (non-Disney) Japanese websites without any issues...

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[sky13]

No problem! I've been seriously considering a trip to Japan so have been exploring options on and off. (In the meantime I've just been ordering quite a bit of stuff from Japan...)

I guess one question would be if you were to stay on site at TDR - could you then buy tickets there with cash? It would be less convenient certainly as you would have to bring more cash with you, but at least it would eliminate the worry about using credit cards there. Of course this assumes that you manage to book the on site stay (which needs the credit card to work) in the first place...

I seriously love Google Translate at the moment, the Japanese store I bought stuff from keeps sending me emails all in Japanese including links to their site and it's so nice being able to just point my phone at my screen to translate it! I'm really looking forward to shopping the next time I go to Japan, as this time I might actually have an idea of what I'm buying... especially the food in convenience stores or street markets or department stores! The last time it was really a bit of a hit and miss with trying to guess from pictures and the bits of kanji/hiragana/katakana I recognise.

[AntonyJ]

Can I be cheeky and ask what sort of thing you have been buying?
I have been getting things Disney / Universal park items from 3rd party re-sellers in Japan and a few orders from Mandrake.

The use of foreign credit cards in the TDR parks and hotels is not really an issue - it is the web page to book hotels or buy tickets that appears to be the issue. Darn thing!

Google Translate - will try and have a play with it this weekend.

found this screen shot on web of what the screens look like in Combini

[TeFiti]

Hi Antony,

I think we 'spoke' a couple of years ago as we both had best laid plans for May 2020 (as did lots of others on here!). We had booked Miracosta for that stay, I had successfully managed to book online using my BA American Express on the TDR webpage, no issues! This was even whilst doing it on my phone as we just so happened to be in DLP at the time, so I was surprised how easy it went through as I too had read up about all the issues. They even processed the refund back on to my card without needing to contact them (the 30,000Y deposit). So hopefully if you have a BA Amex this might work too for the tickets?

[sky13]

Originally Posted by AntonyJ

Can I be cheeky and ask what sort of thing you have been buying?
I have been getting things Disney / Universal park items from 3rd party re-sellers in Japan and a few orders from Mandrake.

The use of foreign credit cards in the TDR parks and hotels is not really an issue - it is the web page to book hotels or buy tickets that appears to be the issue. Darn thing!

Google Translate - will try and have a play with it this weekend.

found this screen shot on web of what the screens look like in Combini

See more...

I've been buying a lot of Japanese snacks, tea, and some random items that are either much cheaper in Japan (even including shipping to me!) or just not available where I am.

One of the companies I was buying stuff from is Lupicia, which does really good tea, but their website is all in Japanese and they don't ship out of Japan (so I had to use Tenso to get it to me). I'm actually still a bit amazed I managed to successfully order stuff from Lupicia given how difficult registering for an account was (they wanted my name in katakana which stumped me for a while) and the fact that their website didn't seem to like my credit card address as it was a non-Japanese address! This is the company that keeps sending me emails in Japanese...

I also vaguely explored Rakuten but haven't bought anything from there yet. Also had a quick look at the Disney JP and Pokemon Centre websites but not bought anything from them yet! Though certain things on the Disney JP website are very tempting...

Also got some stuff from Amazon JP, which is easy enough using the English option and a bit of Chrome Google translate and has very reasonable shipping costs to where I am if it is an item they will ship here (Singapore). And sends me emails in English!

Anyway, put that screen shot through my phone's Google translate app and I get this which looks like it should be a decent translation? (I'm guessing the weird words of "Sun Moon" and the words that aren't translated are where the Japanese is a bit too blurry, hopefully it should work OK if the Japanese words are clear!)

[sky13]

So I actually just made another order from Lupicia Japan and I realise that they never actually asked for my credit card billing address! And the payment seems to have gone through successfully, as my credit card bank has sent me a text telling me that the transaction has been made...

[kk20]

no ideanow but when we went in 2019 our clarity card was accepted on websites before we went, ATMs while we were there and every restaurant or shop that accepted cards. We booked disney tickets direct on the website before we went. The clarity card wasnt rejected at any time but we needed to pay it off daily as the interest is worked out differently to our other cards. This was easy in the app.

I should point out that our deposits for hotels were fine beforehand and those were japanese hotels too not major internationals such as hilton. Airbnbs went through ok but that would be expected.

[AntonyJ]

Well the first day of our trip , those park tickets are now on sale via the Tokyo Disney web site so it should be time to try and buy and see how I get on.

But.

They are not able to be changed or refunded!

So am holding off buying for now, taking the risk - to see if things become clearer on Japan reopening ….