It’s a long story but a family member of ours passed away last year and left us a little gift to be put towards something fun and not the littlest bit practical. We have been meaning to stay at one of the Disney hotels for the longest time but just couldn’t quite justify a stay (it’s only a bit over 30 minutes from home!) so this helped up justify and gave us a nice buffer to begin with.
We didn’t tell the kids so I was almost bursting with excitement as we got closer and closer.
We looked at the crowd prediction calendar (all the details on my blog post here) and let that decide for us that we should do the Disneyland on the first day and DisneySea on the second.
We wanted to go with a character room over anything else so we stayed at the Tokyo Disneyland Hotel (other hotels have rooms with Mickey pillows etc but for a fully themed room this was our only option.)
Unfortunately this hotel didn’t offer a character breakfast – which I also wanted to do – but it worked out better as we take our Disney days pretty seriously and a breakfast would have slowed us down a lot!
There was an Alice/ Queen of Hearts room, Tinkerbell room and a Beauty & the Beast room.
I chose the Beauty & the Beast room as the kids have recently seen the movies recently and I felt like it wasn’t too girlie for my little guy to also enjoy.
*For those asking, I booked directly on the website. It was a bit of an annoying process as it required signing up and logging in but it all worked out in the end.
Extra tip: If you stay in one of the Tokyo Disney Resort official hotels, you can (on almost all plans) enter the park 15 mins earlier than other guests. Ask your hotel staff for a pass.
*Please note that Tokyo Disney Official Hotels can only be booked up to 2 months in advance*
1. We used the hotel for a break – just at the right time for us
This was in January (which was VEEEEERRRY chilly) but is also an excellent time to go as there weren’t half as many people as normal – especially on a weekday. It was also so incredibly rainy. I’m so glad that of all our disney trips we had a hotel to run into and hide from the weather for a few hours.
We left Disneyland at 3pm, got a pass-out to return later and checked into the hotel.
Even if it hadn’t been raining this chill out time would have been amazing.
My kids are still little (3 and 4) so a big day at Disney makes everyone pretty ratty around this time. It was so good to just go, get warm, recoup, run around and stretch.
It also meant that we all lasted later and longer than we ever had before too (we’d never lasted until the end of a disney day with the kids up until this point – especially as we were always there for the very, very start of the day.)
It was such a hit! The attention to detail in the hotel was adorable.
And then the room….
2. We took all of the costumes and let the kids have a proper play and enjoy the room (ie. bask in the novelty)
I think it just gave us more time to soak it all in.
A big weekend at Disney doesn’t always leave time to reflect on everything that is “Wow” so I loved that the kids could jump on the bed, role play etc.
It was so cute to watch.
3. We gave the kids more of a (make-shift) ‘real’ meal
Don’t get me wrong, the food is fun and I think it’s way less expensive to eat inside the Disney Resort Parks than I ever imagined. But still… two days straight of Disney food can be a bit much for anyone.
I’m going to be REALLY honest here.
The in-room dining menu prices were out of control.
BUT there was a convenience store near the lobby and with a combination of food I had brought from home and a spaghetti bolognese (that the staff at the convenience store heated for me on the spot) , salad and some other treats – we made our own little picnic – before heading out again.
I was terrified that we would trash the beautifully themed room with spaghetti spills so I actually used the picnic sheet that we use for watching parades.
It worked so well that I’m thinking about actually packing one of these every time we stay in a hotel ! So easy to wipe down at the end!
And then the next day….
4. We took full advantage of the extra 15 minutes early entry for hotel guests
Although, even with the extra 15 minutes we still had to make a wild dash for our busy ride of choice.
Our choice was the Toy Story ride at DisneySea as it has wait times over 2 hours.
Even then, I picked up a fast pass as the stand-by queue was already 60 minutes long (crazy, right?)
Still …the fast passes options were all out by 11am so I’m so glad we got that 15 minute heads up.
My advice for the extra 15 minutes is to arrive quite a bit before that time to make sure you’re at the front of the other hotel guests. Then you’ll have even more of an advantage.
I wish that I’d done this.
We were at the back to begin with.
If you only have time to do one of the Disney Parks ? I wrote a post here that will easily help you decide.
I haven’t yet stayed at the Toy Story Hotel (yet!) but I’ve heard it is much more affordable than the other Disneyland hotel options.
