Disney Resort

Where to Stay

Absolutely you stay somewhere in the Resort area. That doesn't mean it has to be a Disney hotel, but you want to be either walking or jumping straight on the monorail. We are not adding additional trains into our days here! Let's start with the official hotels, and then onto the others.

Disneyland Hotel

This is a really nice hotel, no doubt about it! You also get the benefit of a 15 minute happy entry, so in before all the plebs! That means you can get in and be booking any DPA or Entry Requests etc before everyone is. You can obviously look up what the rooms look like etc, but I just really enjoy it here. Also of note is that if you happen to be there on your birthday, you can get a phone call from Mickey Mouse to wish you a happy birthday.

It is expensive. Absolutely. So, it's really a case of is the theming etc worth it to you?

Tokyo DisneySea Hotel Miracosta

As with the Disneyland hotel, this gives you the same perks and is also very nice Disney themed stuff. I actually preferred the Disneyland Hotel, except for the fact this is attached to DisneySea and gives you a private entrace there. So, if that is something that you want, you have your plan. If not, I personally would go the other way (or try Fantasy Springs).

I 100% would stay here if I knew the water parade would be on and I could get a room with a Harbour view. Also very expensive, perhaps more so that the Disneyland Hotel, so again, is it worth it to you?

Disney Ambassador Hotel

I haven't been to this one yet, but I am trying to get a booking for later this year. It is one of the cheapest of the official hotels, but still looks to be nice. The selling point of this one, for me, is that it is at Ikspiari. That is the shopping and dining area that is right near the monorail and JR train station. That means you can get food and supplies etc that as you like, got a whole shopping mall right there, but also can jump on the monorail to go between the parks. But it's also only like a 7-10 minute walk to each park. This seems really attractive to me as an option!

Hilton Tokyo Bay

I used to say that all in all, this is really comparable to the Sheraton. However, after our last trip, this becomes the clear winner! This is where we are staying later this year. Compared to the Sheraton, we had much more consistency here in what we got, and the breakfast is far far better. So if you are including the breakfast buffet into your stay, do it here. The highs of the Sheraton are still better than here, but that seems to be a lottery.

Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay Hotel

After our last visit in January 2026 this has dropped right off the list for me. We booked the exact same room type as we had last time, yet it was completely different! It was tiny, had 4 single beds of different heights jammed together, and was very dated. The space and beds made in unsuitable, so we paid (double our original price) to upgrade to a larger room with double beds. While that made the space and sleeping a lot nicer, and even got us a balcony, it was still very dated, but not for any particular issue. The other thing was the breakfast was a nightmare! There were 2-3 restaurants that could be used, depending on the day, and the quality and range of food greatly varies between them. And none of it is really that good. But, even relatively early you can expect a long wait in line before you get a table. That will include being there over an hour before they stop service, waiting 90 minutes becaues they "generously" keep it open, but then that means it's kept open for whatever is left, no more food being made, and you are still rushed out. We are heading back to the Hilton on the next trip.

Previous review based on experience in September 2023

This is actually my number one hotel for going to Disney in Tokyo. It is on the monorail stops, is a really reasonable rate, and is really nice! When we stayed here we found the room to be larger than we expected, I think it had been recently refurbished as well, and the beds were some of the most comfortable ones we had on our trip! The buffet breakfast is good, and much cheaper than at the Disney hotels, so all in all, you really can't go wrong here.

What to do

Disneyland

Obviously just do the things you want to do. I'm going to call out some of my favourites though, because there are some unexpected ones in there!

• Jungle Cruise - yes, it is in Japanese, BUT if you get a good boat captain like we did it is still really fun and a good laugh.
• Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the Beast - this is just amazing. There is one bit of magic, where even when you have looked up how they do it, you still can't see it happen!
• Pooh's Hunny Hunt - An absolute favourite, but I am a Pooh fiend
• Mickey's PhilharMagic - we didn't do this until the last evening we were there for about the 10th day in total. Can't believe we never did it before, we all loved it! The kids still talk about it
• Monsters, Inc. Ride & Go Seek! - this has been a favourite of ours for a while

So, those are my do not miss! Aside from that, do all you can, get a popcorn bucket, get some ears, and have the best time ever!

DisneySea

Here are my must do rides:

• Toy Story Mania - I (and the kids) absolutely love this one! It's really fun
• Aquatopia - only warning is if you are in summer, and they turn on soak mode, they really do mean soak. Also this is closing imminently 😭
• Anna and Elsa's Frozen Journey - you have to get into Fantasy Springs, and having done that you have to do the rides!
• Peter Pan's Never Land Adventure - this was probably my favourite ride from our last trip
• Jasmine's Flying Carpets - do it at night
• Ariel's Grotto - just the area in general, and the inside rides (Jellyfish and Blowfish)
• Journey to the Centre of the Earth

How to do it

Rides

You do need to have a plan of attack so you don't get stuck with nothing but long lines. First thing to do is work out which days you are going on. You want to be weekdays, for sure, but also even within that it generally is best Tuesday to Thursday. Look up a calendar for how busy the park is expected to be to help guide you choice.

Once you know when you're going, you then need to work out which are the most important rides to you, so you can focus on ensuring you get on those. This is also why if you are a Disney person, rather than just a "I guess I will check it out" person, I suggest two days per park, it makes your time there much more relaxed!

Make sure you download the Tokyo Disney Resort app and have it setup with an account signed in. You are going to want to ensure you have your tickets scanned into the app (or bought directly through) so you can use them to make bookings within the park. That is for free or paid express passes, restaurants, shows, etc.

In the week leading up to your visit, it is good to check the app a few times during the day to see what sort of wait times are happening on which rides. That will give you an idea of what you might expect and know accordingly what you need to prioritise or what to head to when the wait time is lower than you would expect etc.

Express Passes

There are two kinds of passes you can get. You must already be in the park when you try to get them! They are 40th Anniversary Priority Passes and Disney Premier Access (DPA). The 40th anniversary are free and the DPA paid, usually 1500 to 2000 yen depending what it is for. For both, you can only have one (of each) at a time. You can't book a second one until either the first has ended or it has been more than 2 hours. So you want to try to get one for as early as you can, so you might have a chance at another. On quieter days we've managed to get multiple 40th Anniversay passes, on busy we have missed them entirely, so just do your best to get into the park as early as you can, and once through the gate take care of this before you walk off anywhere.

Once you have reserved anything you can in the app, then you are beelining it to the ride you most want, with an acceptable wait time. I will generally try to go to an area with a few things I can tolerate the wait for. You don't want to be walking back and forth across the park all day.

Food

This is going to be fairly personal. You can try to make restaurant reservations if you want to, but if you aren't then make sure you are at least ordering through the app as much as you can! Most of the food options allow you to pick a 10 minute window to go collect your food. You can book these well ahead of time, so if you have an idea of which area of the park you will be when, get on it. It's easy to just order what you want, go up to your counter the app tells you to, show the code, all done.

Different restaurants also have different novelty things you can buy. Like different jelly bean dispensers with a bag of beans, or a cup or plate or something you get to keep as a souvenir. These are pretty cute and I do recommend!

Shows

You can make entry requests to shows through the app. These are excellent and well worth going to.

The other 'shows' are of course the parades. All the parades are good, but especially the nighttime parade in Disneyland is great. I really recommend getting yourself a good viewing spot for that! Some people will be sitting and have mats and stuff out from very early in the day. You don't need to do that, but do give youself 15 or 20 minutes to find a spot and wait for it. Check the route in the app, and see if you can get towards the start of it somewhere, else you are waiting about 20 minutes longer for it to come through if you are at the end. The other play is to try to position yourself near to a ride you want, as the wait times tend to drop a lot during the parade, so you can then scurry to the ride straight after it for hopefully a short wait.