Just back from an affordable trip to Tokyo Disney!

Hey everybody,

We just got back from a 3 week trip to Japan. We stayed at a Disney Good Neighbor hotel in Tokyo (Hotel Metropolitan Edmont) for a week and a hotel near Disney (APA Hotel Tokyo Shiomi Ekimae) for the last 3 days of our trip, which we spent at the Disney Parks. It was a GREAT trip!

We had trouble finding a lot of information specifically related to traveling to Tokyo Disney that DIDN'T include things like a stay at Hotel Mira Costa and fancy meals so just thought we'd offer to answer any questions people might have about a relatively affordable trip to Tokyo Disney.

Besides going to Disney, we also went to Hello Kitty Land (Sanrio Puroland), Osaka, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Himeji, Nara, and lots of places in Tokyo.

We have a Facebook page where we have many of our Japan photos and things posted - and we're working on getting the rest (including the bulk of the Disney stuff) posted. https://www.facebook.com/bc7ate9

This link should take you to all our albums - they're mostly separated by day right now which isn't especially useful, but we're happy to try to answer any questions! - https://www.facebook.com/bc7ate9/photos_stream?tab=photos_albums


- Amy & John

I am just starting to research a trip to Tokyo Disney for April 2016. Thanks for sharing your FB page. Any money saving tips would be greatly appreciated!

Hi
I am going to TDR and Tokyo in September any tips for saving money while there would be appreciated
And love all the pictures looked like u had a fab time .

The hotel we chose to stay at while visiting Tokyo Disney was our greatest money saver. It was the APA Hotel Tokyo Shiomi Ekimae. It's nothing special (it's not the Mira Costa!) but only 360 feet from the train station and 3 stops from Disney (10 minute ride, ¥170 yen if you don't have a JR Rail pass). We have photos of the room in our Day 17 album on Facebook. Our room was $60-$70 US a night. It's important to keep in mind that Japanese rooms are very compact and this room was no exception - but that's just how it is in Japan. Another bonus at this hotel was the traditional Japanese onsen. We haven't had that at any other tourist level hotel room in Japan!

Anyway, Japan can be intimidating, but this hotel was super simple to access. It's in a quiet area too, so not the neon jungle of Tokyo. Again, it's nothing special - and there are tons of hotels in the same price range and vicinity to Disney. Our main tip is just to look beyond the Disney hotels - you'll save a ton.

Another way we saved money - and also time in the morning - was on food. The Japanese love tea so every hotel room has some sort of device to make hot water. We brought instant oatmeal and made that for breakfast, along with the tea and coffee packets that are provided in all hotel rooms. You could also make Easy Mac or ramen or anything else that just requires hot water easily. Doesn't save a ton of money, but it makes a difference!

The other huge way to save money on food in Japan is to visit the konbinis (convenient stores - 7-11, Family Mart, Lawson, etc.) They are everywhere and have high quality, fresh food! Nothing like what you expect from gas station food in the U.S.! We have an album on our FB page just dedicated to those.

We chose ideal dates to visit which definitely helped us maximize our days at the park. Nearly everything was walk-on and we were able to do everything we wanted multiple times, plus meet characters and attend shows. We referred to this site - http://tdrnavi.jp/forecast/disneyland?lang=en

We also spent 1 day prior to our Disney park days exploring the Ikspiari area (kinda the Downtown Disney area) and the Disneyland Hotel. We checked out the gift shops, took lots of photos, and enjoyed being near Disney. It was nice having time to just enjoy the Disney atmosphere and get an idea of merchandise so we didn't feel like we had to hurry and grab souvenirs at the last minute. This led us to end up only spending money on souvenirs that we really wanted.

The Japan parks are really incredible - but Japan itself is an awesome place to visit. We highly recommend the Japan Rail Pass if you're going to do any touring outside of Tokyo (and you should! You're in Japan, after all!) - it pays for itself in one trip to Kyoto. It also gives you the opportunity to ride the Shinkansen (bullet train) which may just be the BEST ride in Japan.

Keep checking the cost of plane tickets - ours were about $1000 each from Minneapolis. We felt that was a great deal.

Do lots of research and be prepared to feel like you've landed on another planet anyway...but a planet where everything is sparkly clean and everything is safe and the people are beyond polite and will do their best to be kind.

FYI - we are going to post photos of the area around our hotel and the train station on our Facebook page in a few days - still working on getting all our Disneyland photos posted!!! (https://www.facebook.com/bc7ate9) Please feel free to ask questions in the comments of any of the photos - we get notified and tend to respond quickly.

Thank you for the suggestions!

Thank you for this! We have a month now until we go to Japan for 3 weeks and we too are doing it on a budget, staying mostly in cheap hotels and hostels.
Can you recommend low cost things to do in the evenings (when not at Disney)? We tend to start early and not do a lot at night but 21 evenings with only books and Japanese tv is a lot!

I don't have a fb account but still got to see all of your photos - the small child dressed as Donald got a big Awwww!!!

@ westgrove

We typically just continue sightseeing well into the evening. There are a number of areas/suburbs in Tokyo which are full of life at night including Akihabara, Shinjuku, Roppongi Hills, etc. The shops are all open and there are plenty of people on the streets. The trains/subway also seems to run all night (or at least until around 1am which is probably the latest we've ever headed back to the hotel).

We also like to do some of the towers/viewing platforms at night, like Tokyo (Eiffel) Tower.

You can also take your time when dining out. Wander around the area, inspect various restaurants. Maybe do a little bar-hopping before dinner.

From memory, most of the department and chain stores are open late. So, if you want to do any shopping, do it in the evening. Even if you don't want to buy anything, it can be fun to explore the stores and see all the different products that they sell, especially the 100 yen stores which are a great place to pick up some cheap souvenirs/presents.

You could also explore Ikispari at night.

We also enjoy going to the movies in foreign countries just for the experience, although from memory, the cinema was pretty expensive. It was easy enough to find a movie being screened in English (with Japanese subtitles). And it was fun to see what they do differently, from the seating (which has wonderful hooks on the back of the chairs for your bags) to the food (which you take into the cinema on a little tray).

westgrove said:

Thank you for this! We have a month now until we go to Japan for 3 weeks and we too are doing it on a budget, staying mostly in cheap hotels and hostels.
Can you recommend low cost things to do in the evenings (when not at Disney)? We tend to start early and not do a lot at night but 21 evenings with only books and Japanese tv is a lot!

I don't have a fb account but still got to see all of your photos - the small child dressed as Donald got a big Awwww!!!

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Those Donald outfits are pretty common and always adorable!! That little one was running all over - her parents tried to get her to stop and wave at me when they realized I was dying of cuteness, but she just kept going. Very kawaii!!

Japanese TV is kind of hypnotic...we'd often get some drinks at the konbini and let ourselves get very hooked onto the strangest TV programs...

In addition to what the previous poster suggested, I recommend spending evenings just wandering around a large train station (large stations, like Shinjuku or Tokyo, are practically self contained cities!) Department stores are equally entertaining - I look for the floors with "character goods" and stationery and they never disappoint. The basement levels of the department stores are generally delis and supermarkets which are also super fun to wander in. Large train stations often have at least one large department store attached. Yodobashi and Bic Camera are 2 huge electronic chains that are pretty common and always interesting!

Other stores that you can find most everywhere in Japan that always make for interesting browsing are Daiso (awesome 100 yen store with a bit of everything) and Tokyu Hands (clever and creative stuff for daily life.) We use Google Maps as we plan and find stores like that around our hotels and places we plan to be so just in case we have extra time, we are not left with no clue of what to do.

You can get a free view of the Tokyo skyline from the Tokyo Metripolitan Government Building in Shinjuku (versus $10-$20/person at the Sky Tree and other places).

Japan is extremely safe so even wandering the "red light" district of Shinjuku has never made me feel incomfortable - it's easy to bypass on the main streets, though. We find that people selling things or whatever just ignore the obvious foreigners. Lots of good people watching!

When we were at Disney, our hotel had an onsen which my husband really enjoyed! No tattoos allowed so I generally had a drink or 2 and chatted with people at home since they were just waking up when we were going to sleep. You kind of miss talking to people when you don't speak Japanese so I was happy to talk to my mom every few days.

Hope this helps - and hope you have an awesome trip!

We posted photos of the area around the hotel we stayed at for Disney tonight on our FB page. Maybe it'll be interesting or useful - it's the kind of stuff we looked for when choosing hotels. It's a public album so enjoy, whether or not you use Facebook! https://m.facebook.com/bc7ate9/albums/651428161658220/?ref=bookmark

Thank you for sharing. I don't know if I'll ever get to Tokyo but I loved looking through your photos.

love looking at all your photos!
Thanks for sharing

we can't wait to make it to Tokyo Disney

Thank you for some good ideas!
I'll definitely have a look at google maps before we go too.

When ordering things from say McDonalds, did you order entirely in English? I assume that you can speak some Japanese as you can read hiragana/katakana. I can also read these and speak a very basic level of Japanese. My husband doesn't know any and I'm very anxious/shy about it!!!

Also, I'm not sure about using my data abroad as I don't know what the charges are - though I'll research in advance, did you use wifi a lot or data allowance from your provider?

Thanks again for all the pictures and helpful notes on them all too!

@ westgrove

Ordering food in Japan is easy! At McDonalds (and other fast food places), they will generally have an A3 sized laminated menu with photos and everything in Japanese and English. You just point to what you want. If they don't have the separate laminated menu, just point to the menu display behind the counter and between the staff member's attempt to understand or speak English and some generous hand waving and finger pointing, you'll get your point across. If you had specific dietry requirements, then it might be handy to learn the relevant Japanese phrases beforehand. Or have a printed copy to show people.

As for all other restaurants, etc. In my experience they pretty much ALL had menus with photos. If they didn't, then they would have the plastic replica meals in the windows. Sure, there can be some mistakes. I remember ordering something which I thought looked like spaghetti, but the pasta ended up being some kind of vegetable. It was still delicious. If you've been to local Japanese restaurants, you should be able to easily recognise meals that you like from the photos or plastic replicas.

There is really nothing to worry about in Japan. Even if you end up stuck or lost, I've found that Japanese people will go out of their way to assist you even if they don't understand a word you're saying. As long as you have some way of communicating what you're looking for, whether through hand gestures, pointing to something on a map or to something in a guide book, you will be fine.

Very true about the menus, especially at fast food chains.

We noticed at coffee shop type places (specifically Mister Donut) that they'd speak to us entirely in Japanese and then just repeat themselves, again in Japanese, when we gave them blank looks. It was initially weird and intimidating, but we got over it and just assumed it was "welcome to Mister Donut, what would you like?" and just pointed from there.

One restaurant chain we highly recommend for tourists is Saizeriya - it's a super affordable sit down Italian place (like ¥399 yen for a bowl of spaghetti affordable!) The menu has everything in English and they are everywhere.

You'll probably have experiences like the previous poster mentioned. One of our best ones is when my husband assumed he was ordering a 3 ingredient ramen at a make-your-own ramen place...and instead ended up with 3 bowls of ramen. We have also gotten some interesting and unexpected things from konbinis, but we try to just enjoy the experience (and carry granola bars and fruit snacks with us just in case!)

We can both read Japanese - we learned via memorization. It helps because we can pronounce things phonetically and also recognize some key kanjis (exit, enter, station, etc). My husband is a little braver about speaking - he knows some very basic phrases. I am too shy and anxious to really use the little I know so I've gotten quite good at acting things out and being mindful about sticking to key words. People working in hotels often speak very good English. People in train stations have phrase books they'll ask you to use if they can't understand you. We've run into people just walking around or on trains and things like that who want to practice their English with us and are very willing to help us.

As for using your data abroad, I'd look into renting a mobile hotspot. We have Sprint in the U.S. for my iPhone and the husband's Samsung Galaxy and so doing that was really our only option. We noticed there was a lot more wifi on this trip compared to when we were there in 2013 (which was none!), but it still seemed spotty (like, only in your hotel room or at a specific restaurant) and not good enough for how much we knew we'd be relying on the Internet!

We rented from Global Advanced Telecom on this past trip. We picked it up from the post office in the airport when we arrived and did not have any issues. It was about ¥15,000, or $140 U.S. for unlimited data for 3 weeks (there were cheaper options, but we figured we'd save money in the long run by being able to navigate and know where we were!) In 2013, we rented from Telecom Square - prices were about the same and it worked equally well. We'd advise reserving in advance - some companies we checked didn't have any available for the timeframe we needed. The Narita airport website lists the many companies you can rent from that have space in the airport (Global Advanced doesn't have a physical presence which is why it was mailed to the post office for pick up - and why it was a little cheaper.)

You can also rent SIM cards if you expect to need to use your phone as a phone. We don't really have a need to make calls on vacation so we didn't research that much. We used Google Hangouts to video chat with my mom a few times which worked great for us. Skype and Facebook Messenger and tons of other services work just as well, I'm sure.

Hope this helps and you have an awesome time in Japan!

Thank you Agent 86 / bc7ate9 !!!
That makes me feel a little easier about it all.

I just looked at Global Advanced Telecom mobile hotspot, that seems like a very good idea and I think we'd be ok with the cheaper option so thank you for the advice!

In Tokyo Disneyland itself, how much was in Japanese and how much was in English? Did you have any trouble following along with anything due to language?

elaine amj said:

In Tokyo Disneyland itself, how much was in Japanese and how much was in English? Did you have any trouble following along with anything due to language?

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There's a fair bit of English in the parks, but very few (maybe through out the park 5-10, on a good day maybe 20) CM's can speak English and to find a English map go to guest relations. But there is a show in DisneySea called big-band-beat which is in English and all the food areas have English on menus and in the displays of plastic food. So you'll be fine, if you've got that English map, and it is a good idea to also get a Japanese one too, as they come with pictures (and in Japanese, information) of seasonal things such as food, parades, ect.

In addition to what CharmedCake noted, I will add that you do have to ASK for an English map - they're not just available like foreign language maps are in the U.S. At DisneySea, we were able to get English maps from 2 different cast members by just approaching them politely and saying "English map?" Both went out of their way to get them for us and make sure we knew where we were going. This involved a very interesting pantomime of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (it was especially amusing since getting to the entrance involves a spiral walkway.) At Disneyland, we just asked for maps at the ticket counter while waiting to get in.

The Magic Lamp Theater show at DisneySea has English translation devices available - just make sure you request one from any cast member (we just said "English translation?" and they knew exactly what we were talking about.)

Most of the rides are in Japanese, but the important safety information is provided and repeated in English (as long as you know the seatbelt routine, you'll be fine.) It's really weird to hear Disney characters start speaking Japanese, by the way!!! Parts of classic rides like Pirates of the Caribbean are in English. I think if you hadn't been to a Disney park before, some of the stories would be hard to follow (my husband actually rode Splash Mountain for the very first time at Tokyo Disneyland on our first trip in 2013 and he was thoroughly confused!), but at Disneyland especially, the rides are essentially the same as in the US. At DisneySea, the rides are mostly unique, but still follow the typical Disney story lines (you're on a routine mission when something goes terribly wrong, but manages to be resolved in a few minutes.) Some attractions like Tower of Terror (totally different story than the US versions) and StormRider include English subtitles to help you follow what's going on. We had fun making up our own story lines when we weren't fully following.

So, overall, no - we didn't have any issues with the language. I wouldn't worry about that being a barrier at all.

I'm not sure if you're interested in meeting characters, but all of the face characters we saw didn't seem to speak any Japanese. Character meets are pretty different than what we've experienced in the US - no lines, no photopass photographers, hardly any autographs - but it's easy to figure out if that's something you're interested in. We got to meet lots of what we considered to be very rare characters!