Japan Trip Day 3: Disneysea

This is my third time visiting Tokyo Disney Resort (TDR) in less than a year but the excitement never wanes. Everything was great today except for the weather. To be honest, I was a bit self-conscious at the hotel lobby: a single guy in the 30s going ga ga over Disneyland but once I got on to the bus, all the inhibitions disappeared. Lol.

It already started drizzling by the time I reached. I am staying at Hilton Tokyo Bay. Although it is a partner TDR hotel, there are still differences in service compared to the official TDR hotels. For example, the service counter at the Welcome Center opens half an hour later than the service counter for the official TDR hotels. I did not want to waste time waiting so I decided to get a 3 day Disney Rail Pass and then go to the hotel directly to drop my luggage since Disneysea is 1 stop after the hotel after all. I am very thankful again for my luck. I did not check the positions of the hotel and I bought whichever was the cheapest. Hilton Tokyo Bay turns out to be the closest to Bayside station. It is just opposite the station but it still takes about 10 minutes to walk. It is good enough as I do not need to wait for the hotel shuttle bus. Hotel Okura Tokyo Bay and Sheraton are also about the same walking distance but the other 3 partner hotels are bit too far to walk.

Disneysea opened at 800 today and I entered at about 815am. Halloween decoration is already up although officially the Halloween season begins tomorrow. I thought people were crazy to already start reserving seats for the show although the Halloween performance is scheduled to begin tomorrow. Waiting for 5 hours until the Happiest Celebration on the Sea under the heat is really crazy.

My main aim for today is to find out what time characters started to come out as I want to find Aladdin and Jasmine. I immediately went to Arabian Coast and simply waited there. It is amazing to reach early as there is nobody else and I could have taken photos without photobombers. Too bad I am alone.

Literally empty

There was no queue for the Abu Bazaar so I went to play once for each game and failed. I think the Cobra game is easier so I will only try for this subsequently. So it seems that characters start to come out at 9am for about 15-20 minutes and then they change every half an hour. Abu came out at 9am and bleah I really dislike fur characters. It is so difficult to get their attention and they are more interested in kids. Nevermind..Abu is quite ugly anyway.

Because of the summer heat, the photo timing with Stitch is 9am-12pm (previously in June it was 12-3pm). There is 35th Anniversary statue at the spot where I took photos with Stitch and Angel previously for today Stitch was at a door. Since I still had to wait until the next characters and there was an official photographer, I queued to take photo with Stitch.

Daisy appeared at 930am and I decided to cool down at Sultan's Oasis with the vanilla smoothie and coffee jelly. I started to get bored walking around in hope of getting finding characters so at 10am when Casbah Food Court opened, I decided to eat first. I have never tried eating here before but since I am not feeling well and they have rice menu, I am cool to try.

There is a huge Jafar statue at the middle of the seating area and I took picture of it. This was when I got lucky. 2 cast members saw I was so poor thing alone and they came to me to give a free game at Abu's Bazaar and a 35th Anniversary landyard. I was clueless and not sure what it was all about. I felt awkward when the staff asked me to wear the landyard and take a photo with it. They were nice enough to ask if I wanted to take photo with the Jafar statue since earlier they saw me taking photo of only the statue. Of course I agreed. Only now I knew that to celebrate the 35th Anniversary, cast members will randomly give surprises to lucky guests. I suppose I am really lucky ^o^ and no wonder random cast members on the street were hi-ing and congratulating me with the landyard. Lol.

I had carbo overload with rice and naan bread with curry. I did not really enjoy it as partly I was not feeling well so any food was difficult to go down. I tried to rush my lunch since I was expecting another character to be out between 1000-1020 and I did not want to miss. I was lucky that I saw Aladdin!!! He happened to be at the square outside the food court and he was running around. Although too bad there was no Jasmine, at least I got a photo with him. Hehe.. I think I was quite lucky that other than me, the people chasing him was a big group so after he was done with that group, there was not many people. He saw my Aladdin t-shirt and summoned me. Though I am happy, I was not too happy with the photos. We took photo in front of the carousel and when we took photo, the carousel rider photobombed sia (damn you!). The Aladdin also looks a bit old sia -_-" Not as good looking as the Aladdin who high-5-ed me in June.

With 1 mission accomplished, I decided to leave Arabian Coast to get fast pass for Toy Story which already ran out although it was only 11am. I went to queue to take photo with Shellie May since I never took photo with her before.  With the crazy heat, the prospect of queueing while sitting down under shades was just too good to miss.

To my surprise, they already had the Halloween Show at 1130am! What!!! The today's programme clearly did not mention that leh! Dang! I only managed to catch the back view and the tail end of the show from under the mountain. I don't find the songs and villains enjoyable but one special thing about the performance was flyboards. These people initially swam in the water and then rose with the flyboards as if Ursula was showing her power and tentacles.

I still have not taken photos with Disneysea's Minnie at front so I tried my luck again. I literally had palpitations hoping that during the character swap, I would somehow end up with Minnie. When I started queueing, it was Minnie and then it swapped to Mickey. I was praying so hard for another swap and literally had palpitations but it was Mickey again. What the mouse!!! It was drizzling so the photo spot was at the shelter outside the shop. I did not buy the photo print since I already had a photo with Mickey there previously.

After that I made the most stupid decision of the day: I waited for the next parade. I sat under the sun for 1 hour plus just for the 5 minutes show. Dang!! At the start of the day, I already told myself I was not going to watch the 5 minutes show that I had during the June trip and that is the same show that I stupidly waited for. Sigh.. the heat, the occasional drizzle, and missing Minnie again just messed up my mind.

I went to check-in to hotel and I could not stop laughing to myself: a king bed all to myself. I was surprised when the receptionist asked if I was a Hilton Honors member. I told her I am but I forgot my number because I did not use it for 2 years plus already. Nonetheless she still gave me the free wifi. Wow! Last time in Darwin, they did not even want to give free wifi because I booked from Expedia and not from Hilton directly. Whee.. I love Japan. Anyway the room is spacious and can easily fit in 3-4 people and the toilet has an option of green light as the room is sea-themed.

The huge grill-less window

2 sliding covers for the window: this one that still allows some light and the fully opaque one

Quite amazing but boring view from the window

I took a shower, visited the Disney Resort store downstairs, and bought food from konbini as dinner. No matter how nice a food is, it always sucks when you are sick. I was so excited with the 3-in-1 meal of okonomiyaki, takoyaki, and yakisoba but I had difficulty swallowing them.

The weather forecast was accurate: 60% chance of rain and it had been drizzling on and off throughout the day. It started to rain quite heavily in the evening. Haiz. I am prepared with umbrella and extra pair of shoes so I still went back to Disneysea in the evening. Sadly Fantasmic was cancelled. Haiz.. The rain was not as heavy as when I went in June and Fantasmic was still showing then. It is a mystery how they decide.

The rain did not deter people and they still did not want to go home. It was a mistake "keeping" the free Abu Bazaar game until late evening as the crowd was even more. I queued 25 minutes just to use that 500yen worth of free game. I lost but at least I got an improvement as my last ball managed to land on 1 plate short of the target. All the other balls simply went to the gutter.

The queues for the Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy at the Greeting Trails were also still crazy. I went for Minnie and I did not buy the photo. Instead of taking a normal one, I decided to wear my Mickey's ears cap and Minnie was so happy playing with Mickey's hands from the cap. Hehe... After that, the queues for Mickey and Goofy grew even longer. I decided to call it a day since my feet were already soaked. I could not enjoy anymore with the rain and I should just save my energy for tomorrow.

I never really enjoyed Halloween but I think the villain themed decoration is quite cool although the decoration is not really throughout the park. I think the Halloween decoration is only at the covered area at the main entrance and the waterfront park. The decoration at the waterfront is a photo location with official photographer. It is like a 4-sided thrones featuring Maleficent, Snow White's Evil Queen, Ursula (sadly I did not take any photo because there were too many other tourists and the hot weather when I was there).

Does not really look amazing in the picture but it gives a spooky entrance kind of feeling when I am there

Looks much more Halloween in the evening (please don't mind the angle as it was raining and I was also holding an umbrella while taking this)

There are 6 banners: Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy, and Clarice. From a different angle, each banner will turn into a villain e.g. Mickey turns to Captain Hook, Minnie turns to Evil Queen etc. I did not really manage to take all because it was quite difficult to position myself for the correct angle and lighting to have clear images.

To sum it up: the weather sucked, I wasted 1 hour plus waiting for the 5 minute show, the crowd was horrible, and I did not get Minnie with Disneysea blue dress. Yet at the end of the day, I still feel very happy and blessed with today: I got to take a photo with Aladdin (like finally!), Shellie May, and Stitch -all that I do not have yet- and I got the anniversary surprise thingy. I was grumbling about the rain that forced me to buy shoes and socks in June but in the end they are useful again for this trip. I am not so pissed about the rain just now because I have a back up shoes and socks for tomorrow. Haha.. I am hoping for a better time at Disneyland tomorrow. One thing for sure: who says you cannot enjoy going to Disney alone?