Tokyo-Izu Day 7-8: Tokyo DisneySea & Goodbye

DAY 7

It was a cold and gloomy morning when we awoke for breakfast. I was hoping that the wind will blow away the dark clouds and the sun will show itself but it never did 😣

The view from our room window

As mentioned yesterday, there are 5 restaurants that we can choose to have breakfast at. We decided to go with Ocean Blue restaurant as it was the least crowded.

Ocean Blue

Selection of food was not as varied as other restaurants

Got us a table next to the window with an awesome view of the ocean!

My breakfast spread! Yum! 😋

After breakfast, it started to rain ☔! We clothed ourselves with our raincoats that we got from Daiso Izukogen 3 days ago and headed to Tokyo DisneySea.

This was our second time to Tokyo DisneySea. My first ever Disneyland experience was in Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea in 2015! Since then we've been to a Disneyland every year but as Tokyo Disneyland/DisneySea was my first, it will always hold a special place in my heart ♥

As we only had one day, we chose Tokyo DisneySea over Tokyo Disneyland as there is only one DisneySea in the world!

Pixar Playtime at Tokyo DisneySea

Wet, gloomy and dreary in Tokyo DisneySea

It definitely pays to be prepared for wet weather because we only paid ¥100 each for our raincoats while everyone else had to buy the exact same thing at ¥500 from the Disney Stores. The kids version that they stocked weren't even half as nice as the Daiso ones yet they were 4 times more expensive!

What we were not prepared for, however, was the freezing cold weather!

Back again because #disneylandeveryyear! 😄😄 We are well-prepared for rain🌧️ and wind🌬️ but 3 degrees in March?!?! Brrrr ❄️ my fingers are frozen!!!! #letitgo #tokyodisneysea #disneyfan #madpsychmum #madpsychmumtravels #boyjlee #disneyResortmonorail #japan #madpsychmumlovesdisney

A post shared by Madeline Heng (@madpsychmum) on Mar 7, 2018 at 6:47pm PST

The first thing we did when we arrived was to get the FASTPASS for Toy Story Mania. As we arrived late, we were thankful that they still had FASTPASS, albeit for the last slot of the day! Better than nothing!

Toyville Trolley Park

FASTPASS only available for the final session of the day before the park closes!

After getting our FASTPASS, we stumbled upon the Lightning McQueen Parade! The boy's eyes widened with excitement! He loves Lightning McQueen!

Here comes Lightning McQueen!

The boy was so thrilled to see his favourite Cars character!

After the very short parade, we decided to go for a boat ride since it was still raining.

Boat ride to explore DisneySea

The view of Tokyo DisneySea Hotel Miracosta from our boat

After the boat ride, we queued at the Marine Life Institute, to ride the Nemo & Friends SeaRider which has incorporated Disney's Nemo and Dory!

Marine Life Institute

Left: The queue was 90 minutes long in the rain! Super cold!;
Right: I covered my poor boy from head to toe in raincoat and warm winter wear and he managed to get some sleep despite being drenched from the rain! On hindsight, I should have bought waterproof gloves because his fingers were frozen by the time we reached the front of the queue!

The hubby and I had experienced this ride before, only it was called StormRider in the past. I think the new changes to incorporate beloved characters from Finding Nemo and Finding Dory was an awesome move! We loved the new ride even more!

Clockwise from top left: Waiting in the holding area for the show to begin;
A short introduction before the ride;
A selfie of us before the start of the ride;
The big screen.

The best photo I took of the 4D show!

My boy loved the ride! He had so much fun that we almost wanted to ride it again but didn't because we weren't going to queue for another 90 minutes! On hindsight, I should have taken the FASTPASS to ride it again later in the day.

In any case, we rode the Horizon Bay ride next as it was located beside the Marine Life Institute. There was no queue for this ride as you need to have a raincoat in order to ride it!

Horizon Bay ride

That was all the rides we experienced at DisneySea, at least in the day.

The top two things I had wanted to do was:

Watch King Triton's Concert at the Mermaid Lagoon Theatre (as I had missed it the last time) and
Ride the Indianam Jones Adventure again because I really loved it the last time!

Sadly, BOTH attractions were down for maintenance!!!! I was so, so upset!!!! 😣😭

So anyway, we explored the rest of DisneySea trying our best to get over our disappointment at the rides and the constant rain (yes again! I don't know why it likes to rain on our parade on the days that we need it NOT to! *grrr* 😠).

With a mural of the movie Coco

We finally had enough of the rain and decided to take shelter and have lunch at the Horizon Bay Restaurant. We realised that it was actually very affordable to dine with Disney characters here but as we didn't book in advance, we had to queue with everyone else. I made a mental note to book a character dining the next time we visited!

Horizon Bay Restaurant menu

An example of a 'Select Five' Set that you could get for ¥2,040

Our choice of main course that was part of the Select Five Set

Left: Boy digging into our choice of dessert;
Right: the boy's kids meal.

After lunch, we continued walking around and stumbled upon the queue to meet Minnie Mouse! Although we had to queue in the pouring rain, the bright side is that we only had to queue for 20 minutes precisely because it was raining.

Beautiful photo with Minnie Mouse
(As usual my photos with characters are almost always ruined by my kids. My girl also didn't want to take a decent photo with Woody at Paris Disneyland 😠)

After the photo with Minnie, the hubby decided that he has had enough and we needed to return to our hotel for a short time out. We stopped by Ikspiari to buy some food for our dinner at our hotel room.

We took a warm bath and had dinner in our hotel room before heading back to DisneySea in the evening (one of the many benefits of staying at Tokyo Bay).

DisneySea at night!

We headed straight to get Garlic-Shrimp Popcorn that came in a really cool Buzz Light Year rocket! Super cute!

My special Buzz bucket of Garlic-Shrimp popcorn 🍿

The flavour was not bad though you can tell that I only bought it for the container! *laughs*

We headed to the beautifully lit Triton's Kingdom for more rides.

Enjoyed the Jellyfish ride!

After shopping for souvenirs, we rode the Sinbad boat ride.

Super slow ride but a great way to get out of the cold and rain

Then it was time to watch the parade and the fireworks! Unfortunately, it was still raining so we had to watch both of them while drenched in the rain! The parade was great but we could hardly see the fireworks because of the huge black clouds in the sky 😓

After the show, we had time to kill so we had a little snack at the Deli.

New York Deli

It was finally 9.35pm and we could go for our Toy Story Mania ride!

Toyville Trolley Park at night

At the entrance of the ride

We were given 3D glasses to wear. The boy was so amused with his glasses!

Our ride with laser guns

The boy loved this ride even though he didn't get a single point! He just had fun watching daddy shoot! It was definitely worth staying back for this attraction just to see the look of joy on the faces of the father and son.

The boy playing Blazing Buckaroo outside Toy Story Mania. Had a blast stomping his feet to get points!

Spin the wheel to see what the characters do

The best consolation for the worst Disney experience we ever had so far was my boy's continual and fervent enthusiasm the whole day despite the rain. He had an awesome time and was smiling the whole time! His infectious smile and laughter was what pushed the hubby and I to make the most of the situation. If he's not going to let some rain stop him from having a great day at DisneySea with his family, neither are we!

He volunteered for this final photo with the globe at DisneySea just before we left

I would like to also say that my boy had actually worn the same outfit he wore to DisneySea the first time in 2015 but no one could see it because of the raincoat! I had to get him to pose with it at the hotel lift lobby just to prove that he did! *laughs*

My boy in the only 'costume' he owns, which he is soon going to outgrow!

It never stopped raining but it was still a good day because as long as my boy is happy, we are happy! 😊

DAY 8

The next morning, we decided to have breakfast at Galleria Cafe, the largest of the 5 restaurants in Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay Hotel.

Galleria Cafe

Greater selection of food as compared to Ocean Blue

They have a kids section that served chocolate versions of their mascot!

They also had a super awesome ice-cream section!
I made this cone myself! 😋

After breakfast, we got ready to check out.

Final photos before we said goodbye

We had time after checking out while waiting to board our bus to the airport so we left our luggage at the concierge and explored the hotel.

Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay Hotel is very kid-friendly, with lots of activities for kids. They have got an indoor pool, spa, miniature golf, arcade, photo shoot studio and even an indoor playground!

Clockwise from top left: Miniature golf;
Arcade with kiddy rides;
Kids indoor playground;
Registration counter.

It's too bad that we didn't have enough time for the boy to play at the indoor playground. He could only look on with longing and settle with pretend riding the motorised cars because we were too cheapo to actually put in coins! *laughs*

It soon came time to board the bus to Narita Airport. I felt super sad that we're leaving Disneyland because that meant that our holiday was coming to an end! 😭

Boarding our bus

After crossing customs on arrival at the airport, I remembered to pick up my duty free items that I had bought from Ginza.

Duty Free Pick Up Counter

There are a lot of playgrounds located around the airport to entertain kids but beware of letting your kids play if there isn't enough time. I had to drag a crying boy out of a playground because we had to catch our plane!