Our Asia vacation started off a bit rough. We drove to Orlando on Sunday, with the plan to stay the night at the airport and then board an early flight to Toronto in the morning. As we were arriving at the airport, we got a message that our flight to Toronto was canceled due to mechanical problems with the plane and there was no plan yet. We changed course, dropped everyone off at the Air Canada ticketing desk, and returned the rental car. For the next couple of hours, we worked with the agents to find an alternative for us and in the middle of it, the Air Canada system booked us on a new itinerary that wouldn’t get us to Japan until nearly two days late. We managed to book a flight that would leave immediately on Sunday night instead, but it was risky since it would take us through Quebec and Montreal before getting us to Toronto on time for our originally booked flight to Tokyo. We opened up our carry-on bags, threw a few things in them that we would need, and hurried through security to our first flight.
It was a long journey from that point. Instead of a restful night at a hotel, we spent the early hours of Monday morning rushing through airports, transferring our luggage through customs, and napping on benches. The good news is that we made it to our flight from Toronto to Tokyo. The bad news is that our bags did not. As we were preparing to board our flight to Tokyo, we got a notification that our bags were on one of the carousels for pickup. We found some Air Canada customer service people to help us and were able to work with them to locate the bags for us. It looked hopeful that the bags would join us for the scheduled flight, but unfortunately they did not.
We landed in Tokyo on Tuesday evening Japan time, and ordered room service in our hotel for dinner. It felt great to finally shower after our journey to Asia, and we were thrilled that we actually made it on schedule.
Wednesday morning we walked around the hotel where we were staying, the Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay Hotel. We did a little shopping to get some essentials that were missing due to our delayed luggage, and then walked along the Bay on the way to an area with some shops. We had breakfast and then did more shopping. Connor found a lot of things that he liked and ended up buying quite a few pairs of pants and shirts. Paige got a sweater, and Shawn got a couple of shirts.
After relaxing for a few hours, we went out in the evening for our first brief experience with the Disney Seas resort. We bought evening passes that allowed us in after 5pm and it was exciting to be in an entirely new and unique Disney park. The crowds were intense and a little overwhelming especially in the dark. We ate some “long pizzas” in one of the restaurants and then wandered the park and did a little more shopping for some essentials. I wanted to ride something while we were there, but all the lines were 100+ minutes and nobody else was interested. We had fast passes for our full day at the park on Friday so decided to spend the rest of our time exploring.
When we got back to the hotel, we were thrilled to get a call that our luggage had arrived. The good news is that we got three bags, the bad news is that Paige’s bag was still in Canada for some reason. It was a relief to finally get some of our things.
Thursday was our full day at the Tokyo Disney Land park. We rode the monorail to the entrance and started the process of queuing to get in. The Japanese sure do love their lines and our first couple of hours at the park consisted of waiting in security, waiting to scan our tickets, waiting in line for a bakery, and waiting in line for “Alien” mochi.
After satiating our hunger, we finally got to the rides. The rides and lines are worth a mention. The lines for every ride were absurdly long. Pretty much every ride had an hour wait at a minimum and the popular rides would be multi-hour waits. Lines would stretch down the sides of paths, and the start of the line would be hundreds of yards away from where the line was originally designed to begin. Often both sides of the street would be lined with people queuing for various rides, events, or character greetings. Thank goodness for Andrea getting us priority access passes. We presented our magical little pieces of paper and then zipped to the front of the line and wouldn’t usually have to wait more than 10 minutes before getting on a ride. Part of me felt guilty for our special access, but I cannot imagine how terrible the experience would have been if we just waited in the regular lines. We likely only would have ridden a couple of rides before we were out of time for the day.
Our first ride was Monsters Inc, Ride and Go Seek. We paired up on little vehicles and zoomed around looking for monsters that were hiding. We used special flashlights and if we illuminated their helmets they’d react. We enjoyed it so much that we went right back in line when we finished and rode it again.
Next was a Big Hero Six ride that looked like it was just going to spin you in circles and make you sick, but actually had a complex mechanism that would change you between tracks and whip you in all different directions. The best part of that ride were the workers that were dancing energetically to the music, they were getting quite a workout.
The Beauty and the Beast ride was another new one for us. We were in a big vehicle that wasn’t bound to a track and we zipped around between different rooms while we listened to the familiar tunes being sung in Japanese. The animatronics were well done and the vehicles were impressive, but it wasn’t one that we were blown away with and wanted to experience again.
We checked out a few shops and realized fairly quickly that while the stores were decorated differently, the merchandise was identical everywhere we went. The Japanese love to dress up and we were surprised that the prices were not outrageous. I remember at the US Disney Parks, being dumbfounded by the Mickey and Minnie ear prices. At Tokyo Disney they were roughly $13, which seemed completely reasonable. Connor tried on one of the stuffed animal hats in a store, kind of as a joke, but he ended up really liking it and after thinking about it he said that he actually wanted it. Connor went with a 101 Dalmatians dog head and Paige picked out Lady from "Lady and the Tramp". They both were super cute in their hats and they fit right in because you saw a lot of Japanese wearing similar things.
We watched a parade go by, and then rode Thunder Mountain. It was similar to the US ride, but maybe a little different. After we all rode it once, Paige really wanted to go again and I went with her while Connor and Andrea did some shopping. We expected it would be a quick ride since we jumped right back in line, but it ended up taking longer than expected because just as we got to the top of Thunder Mountain, our train stopped. We ended up stuck at the summit for about five minutes or so, which actually wasn’t that bad at all since it gave us a panoramic view of the park and we took the opportunity to snap a few selfies.
When we all got back together we rode the last ride of the day at the Haunted Mansion. I expected it would be the same as the ride in the US, but they had made quite a few changes. The mechanics of the ride seemed identical, and it took a similar winding course through a mansion, however it was all characters from The Nightmare Before Christmas movie.
We got a family pic in front of the Castle on the way out, and then we stopped by the Fantasy Springs Hotel to pick up our special vacation package that Andrea got for us. The package included a one-night stay at the hotel along with special access to the Disney Seas Park. We checked out room, which was very cute, but we decided it was more trouble than it was worth to transfer a bunch of our junk across the street from our current hotel just for one night. We went back to our regular hotel and went to bed super early.
In the middle of the night we got a call that Paige’s bag had finally arrived, so Friday started off well. After getting ready, we crossed the street to the Fantasy Springs Hotel for our breakfast buffet. It was weird. We were expecting a bit of a cultural difference with the selection, but it was a bit odd and underwhelming. Many of the typical things we expected from a Disney breakfast were missing, for instance no Mickey Waffles or pancakes. There were quite a few things in the buffet that we would have expected to see in a dinner buffet. For instance, tater tots, German potatoes, fishy rice, salad, soup, etc. We all did our best to find some things we’d like, but we didn’t get our money’s worth.
We left the hotel and went through the special Disney Seas entrance that connected to the hotel. The special entrance put us right in to the Fantasy area of the park, which is the newest and has the most popular attractions in the park. It’s also the part of the park that’s farthest from the regular entrance, so it was a great opportunity to get to everything first. We rode the Tinkerbell ride, the Peter Pan ride, and the Tangled ride before most of the crowds arrived.
Our special park package gave us reserved times for the most popular rides, but we didn’t even have to use our special access to get on those rides the first time around. We did use our special passes to ride the Peter Pan and the Tangled ride for the second time. Our special pass also got us on the Frozen ride without having to wait in the regular line. Only a certain amount of special passes were available for the Frozen ride, and the standby line was 240 minutes when we arrived for our reserved time. The Frozen ride was a fairly chronological retelling of the Frozen movie, and the animatronics were impressive. We liked it, and it was certainly interesting hearing it all in Japanese.
Two unique rides were the “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and “10,000 Leagues Under the Sea”. We all went to the Center of the Earth together, and Andrea was quite apprehensive about the ride as none of us knew a thing about it. We loaded on to a little vehicle, which took us exploring in some underground caverns. When a huge monster jumped out to eat us, we accelerated through the dark tunnels and then briefly emerged on top of a volcano before plummeting back underground. Andrea hated it, but Paige loved it so much that she wanted to ride again immediately. I rode again with her, and then we all met back up to go deep underwater for the “10,000 Leagues Under the Sea” ride. It was the perfect ride to relax on.
Tower of Terror was next on the schedule, and Connor and Andrea weren’t interested. Paige and I screamed our heads off on the ride and we liked the picture Disney took, so we bought it.
After meeting back up with Connor and Andrea, we got a family photo in front of the Christmas 2025 tree, and then ate the “Long Pizza” for dinner.
After dinner, we rode the Toy Story ride where you shoot balls in 3d at interactive screens, which was just like the one at Hollywood Studios in Florida. I fully expected to dominate the family and I got working so hard I had to take off my coat. At one point, I was well ahead of Paige, but somehow she managed to pass me up right at the end and beat me by 0.6%. Final scores: Andrea at 93,900. Connor at 128,900. Shawn at 143,000. Paige at 144,100. Congrats to Paige with the high score and Connor with the best accuracy at 41%, amazing shooting.
On our way out of the park, we made a special effort to find Paige the Creme Brûlée churros that she’d been craving, and we finally found Andrea’s special souvenir popcorn container. Our special package entitled us to unlimited popcorn, and we probably didn’t take advantage of it as much as we should have.
Disney Seas was a whole new Disney experience for us, and we are so thankful that Andrea did all the work ahead of time to make sure our time was well spent, and we could enjoy the Disney days during our brief time in Japan.
Saturday, December 20th, we slept in and took our time packing up so we could check out of the Sheraton hotel. Our next stop was downtown Tokyo at the Hotel Groove Shinjuku. The drive over took an hour and when we arrived we were happy to hear that our room was already ready for us. We got our room keys and on the way up the elevator, Andrea started getting anxiety when she realized the rooms were on the 37th floor. The kids and I went in to the room and were dazzled by the view over the city from the floor to ceiling windows. Andrea didn’t even want to look, she asked if there were any rooms on a lower floor and they said that we could have a couple on the 24th floor, but they wouldn’t be ready until after 3pm. We checked our bags in and then left the hotel to do some exploring.
We ate some acai bowls at a nearby restaurant and then navigated the subway system. Google Maps told us to enter the subway at entrance A10 and board a green YF labeled train. We wandered around for a while before figuring out the A10 entrance was under construction and we found another entrance. The signage was not clear and there was a green labeled YR train, but we couldn’t see any YF signage. A friendly worker pointed us in the right direction and assured us that the YR train was what we were looking for. We initially got on the platform headed in the wrong direction, but figured it out and got to the right place and boarded the correct train. It was stressful, but we worked together and figured it out.
Paige was super excited to check out some Jelly Cat stuffed animal shops, Brandy Melville, and any other fun stores that we could find. We stopped off at a few clothing stores on the way for Connor, and he liked the style of a lot of the clothes, but didn’t find anything that he wanted. The Jelly Cat store we found was actually a store selling all kinds of brands and did not have a very good selection so that was a bust.
The Brandy Melville was packed, so only Paige and I went inside. There were three levels in the store and it was packed shoulder to shoulder down every aisle. Paige found a grey sweatshirt with TOKYO lettering that she liked and as we got in line to pay we found a blue one that she liked even better.
The stop at the Louis Vuitton store was next, and we checked out all the fancy things on the multiple levels. There were a lot of people working and a lot of customers, but thankfully it wasn’t too crowded. Andrea had been looking for a bag that would be good for travel, but the one she initially wanted was too small to fit her phone, sunglasses, and other typical things she’d carry. We were about to give up when the man helping us showed her a black bag that was similar to Paige’s. With the tax-free system, and with the exchange rate, it turned out to be a great price. We really liked the packaging and the beautiful blue paper bag it came in.
Paige tried on a bracelet, and would have loved to have it, but unfortunately she hadn’t saved up enough so we had to leave it behind.
After returning to the hotel, we checked in to our rooms and started some laundry. Shawn was determined to finally try some authentic local Ramen, but everyone else wanted to stay in for the evening. There weren’t great choices on the room service menu, but the Starbucks in the building had food on their menu and a different variety of options from back home. We also sampled some 7-11 Japanese snacks.
Sunday, December 21st, we met up with our local Japanese guide Kenji for a tour of Tokyo. Kenji was enthusiastic and eager to take us wherever we wanted. We rode the subway to the Meiji Jingu Shinto shrine where we learned some of the history, said some prayers, and watched a wedding party parade through.
We went to Takeshita Street to see some unique shops and the animal cafes. We would have liked to do all of them but picked the Otter cafe. The initial plan was for all of us to go through, but Andrea decided she wasn’t interested after getting a whiff of the animals at the stairs up to the building. Connor got a little uncomfortable when we were going through all the steps for the outfits, rules, and also from the smell, so he left as well. Paige and I crowded in to the tiny changing room to put on the weird blue skirt, purple shirt, and special sandals. We tucked our things in to a locker and then eventually we were ushered in to a room with benches along the wall.
After we sat, a Japanese worker picked up a few otters from nearby patrons that were out of time and plopped them in our laps. I was worried they’d scurry away, but they rolled up contentedly and Paige and I fell in love with them. They were so soft, cute, and cuddly. Some of the otters left from the other people nearby and crawled to our laps to snuggle up with the guys we had, making big otter piles with four or five at a time. They loved us very much, probably because they could tell we were such animal lovers, and the lady working kept having to snatch them out of our laps to redistribute them to other people in the room.
Paige and I were eventually called on to leave, and we thought our time was up, but they actually took us in to room number two. I guess the tired or lazy otters hang out in room one. Room two was the play room and there were a bunch of rambunctious ones rolling around on the floor with toys and crawling all over the place.
The worker put a little cube with plastic shapes in my lap, and dropped some treats inside. The otters squeezed all around it and reached in with their funny little hands. Paige was popular as the water girl and made sure all the thirsty otters got hydrated.
When our time was up, we met everyone outside. While they were waiting, Connor bumped in to a high school classmate that also goes to college with him. It was random running in to a local friend all the way on the other side of the world and also an interesting coincidence since the same friend was in Egypt last year when we were.
For lunch, we stopped at a ramen shop that Kenji recommended and while Connor bravely battled his noodles with the chopsticks, the rest of us used forks.
When we finished lunch, Kenji showed us around some other areas and pointed out some shops where we could find some luggage and other things that we had been looking for. We bid him farewell and then Connor went with Andrea to do some clothes shopping while Paige and Shawn went back to the hotel. Paige had been feeling a little unwell and needed some rest, especially after all our walking around.
In the evening, Paige and I went back out to look for some food and bought some strawberry crepes. It was a pretty night to wander around in the city, and we popped in to a few stores and also a little shop that was full of claw machine games, which was very popular.
Monday, December 22nd, we were determined to start our day with the huge fluffy pancakes that we’ve seen on Tik Tok and Instagram. The pancakes were beautifully prepared, and we liked them, but they were not quite as tasty as we hoped.
The afternoon was all about family pictures. Andrea searched for a photographer that took cool photos at picturesque locations and found one named Ayako. We met up with her outside the Senso-ji temple in Asukusa for our photoshoot and instantly liked her. She spoke very fluent English and was charming and enjoyable to work with. She found all kinds of interesting spots and talked us through different poses and had lots of ideas. It’s always stressful finding outfits for everyone, a good photographer, an interesting location, and getting it all to come together. Even more so, when you’re in another country. We really appreciate Andrea doing this for us, because the photos are unique and interesting, and they capture both the trip and our family in this moment of our lives.
Once we finished with photos, we changed in to comfy clothes, ate some big juicy burgers at Shogun Burger, and then Andrea and I ventured out on a mission to find another suitcase. After Disney and a few days shopping in Tokyo, we already had way too many souvenirs, and we were never light packers to begin with. We bought a new large bag and a carry-on size one too, then wheeled them through the streets back to our hotel.
December 23 was our last full day in Japan. We confidently rode the subway back to the same spot where we had our family photos taken, and did some shopping before our Sumo show and lunch was scheduled to start.
