DisneySea & MiraCosta Hotel

From Tokyo Station to DisneySea

We left Tokyo Station at around 11 a.m. and arrived at Maihama Station around noon. From there, we walked to the Welcome Center to buy our park tickets and leave our bags to be sent to the hotel we had booked. That meant we could head into the park without our luggage. The children were having fun from the moment we boarded the Monorail. All trip times here are local Japan time.

Once we had our paper tickets, I scanned all three into the Disney Resort app on my phone. That let me book passes for everyone at once. This worked well for us: I handled the bookings while Mum looked after the children.

The two main types of passes we used on this trip were: - Disney Premier Access (DPA), which cost extra. - 40th Anniversary Priority Pass, which was free.

By the time we entered DisneySea, though, it was around 2 p.m. and the free passes had all gone. I had already planned to take the children on rides they could manage, most of which did not have very long queues.

Lunch, then off to Mermaid Lagoon with the children

We started with lunch at Restaurant Sakura, which we had booked in advance. Having a restaurant booked made things much easier with the children. It also gave us somewhere to sit down and get out of the cold. At the time, if we missed our slot, the restaurant would simply move on to the next guests without charging us—though of course we tried to arrive on time.

After lunch, we headed to Mermaid Lagoon. Our youngest, still under two, could go on almost everything in this area. These were the rides we tried: 1. Jumpin’ Jellyfish 2. The Whirlpool 3. Blowfish Balloon Race

We could check the estimated wait for each attraction in the app, or walk over and look at the queue itself. On our visit, each of these three rides had a wait of about 20–30 minutes.

Back to MiraCosta Hotel

After a little over two hours, we went back to check in at MiraCosta Hotel. The hotel is right inside DisneySea, with its own park entrance for guests. Being able to go straight back to the hotel made such a difference.

The Harbor View Room we had hoped for

We planned to watch the show from the Harbor View Room I'd tried so hard to book. Our room was on the fifth floor in the right wing, which looked like a very good spot for watching the show shortly after 7 p.m.

The view from our Harbor View Room

H2 Journey

But then... we heard an announcement that the show had been canceled for safety because a storm was coming in and the wind was very strong. My heart sank. We had really been looking forward to this, and I had tried so hard to book a harbor-facing room for the show. These rooms were extremely difficult to book; in my experience, they were usually gone in less than a minute.

Watch the video of our room and its view on this trip ↗

Dinner and a stroll after dark

In the end, we went downstairs for dinner at a restaurant near the hotel. I think it was called Cafe Portofino. It worked a little like a food court: pick up a tray and choose your food. It was handy when we didn’t want to go far from the hotel. There wasn’t much food to choose from in MiraCosta Hotel’s convenience shop at the time.

After dinner, we took the children for a short walk around the park. With the sun down and the wind still strong, it was very cold, and they were starting to struggle. Time to head back and call it a day—our first ever day at Disney together.

There was still a little fun to be had back in the room. As the park was closing and people started heading out, we shone a light from our window to say hello and goodbye to the guests below. The children loved joining in.

A morning planned around Happy Entry

We planned to get up early to use Happy Entry, which let us enter 15 minutes before the park opened on this trip. We gave the children some bread from the hotel convenience shop to keep them going.

Even so... it was probably about 8:55 a.m. by the time we reached the DisneySea entrance. We joined the end of the Happy Entry queue just as almost everyone ahead of us had made their way in.

Once through the gate, we hurried straight to Toy Story Mania, only to find it closed for refurbishment. That one was my mistake: I had forgotten to check the app first.

By then it was 9 a.m. and guests without Happy Entry were starting to come in. Most headed for Tower of Terror and Journey to the Center of the Earth, neither of which our children could ride anyway.

We carried on farther into the park to Port Discovery. That turned out to be a good move that day, as both Aquatopia and Nemo & Friends had almost no queue.

It seemed like a good chance to try Nemo, so we asked the children if they wanted to go on. Maybe it was still too early, or all the rushing around had tired them out. Either way, they weren't keen.

Saying hello to Genie at Arabian Coast

We walked on to Arabian Coast for Jasmine’s Flying Carpets. We were a little too early again: it did not open until 10 a.m. So we wandered around instead and happened to meet some characters just as they came out. Genie was easily the liveliest of the bunch, and our children really liked him.

Flying carpets and a carousel worth another turn

Jasmine’s Flying Carpets was another big hit with the children. They wanted a second and even a third turn, but we tried to persuade them to try something else first so we could make the most of our time.

And of course, the children wanted a go on the carousel. Caravan Carousel is quite big, with two levels. They asked for two rides, and we got lucky with where the staff split the queue: one turn downstairs and one upstairs.

Next, we looped back to Mermaid Lagoon for Scuttle’s Scooters, one of the outdoor rides. It was fun for the grown-ups as well as the children.

Something unexpected on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

The children were in better spirits by then, so we suggested going back to try 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The queue was quite long when we arrived, but we stuck with it. I think it took about 40 minutes before we got on.

You sit in a little round vessel, with room for six people in three pairs. About five minutes into our ride, it broke down.

Luckily, it wasn't a thrill ride, and the children stayed calm. We chatted about this and that while we waited. After we had been stuck for about 20 minutes, the staff came and helped us out.

Before we left, another staff member was waiting with a ticket scanner and gave us a blue paper card listing DisneySea attractions. From what I understood when I asked, we could show it at an attraction we wanted to ride and receive something like DPA or 40th Anniversary Priority Pass access.

We tried showing it at Mermaid Lagoon because the children wanted another ride on Blowfish Balloon Race. The staff member managing the queue did not seem familiar with the card. A supervisor happened to arrive and explained that it worked like a Priority Pass, but suggested saving it for an attraction with a longer queue to get more out of it.

Checking out and moving on to Disneyland Hotel

But our children couldn’t go on those rides yet, so I wasn’t too worried about getting the most out of the pass. It was nearly noon anyway, and we needed to hurry back to our room, check out and have our luggage sent to Disneyland Hotel.

The children had already enjoyed far more rides over these two days than I'd expected. Little did I know how useful that pass would be—or that it would become the star of our evening... 🌟