Today our plans had us heading out to DisneySea, which would require a subway ride to Tokyo Station and then a train from there to near Tokyo Disney Resort. The subway was packed with commuters, as was the train at the start, making it hard to find a seat.

The first difference between the American parks and the Tokyo Resort is that the monorail is privately operated and is not free (and the cost was more than any of our subway rides in Tokyo). The second is the theming as the windows have Mickey Mouse shapes and there are hand straps in the shape of mouse ears. Even though we arrived nearly 45 minutes early, the crowds outside the resort were already huge and, unlike at Walt Disney World, they didn't start letting people through security until park opening. As a result, it was 30 minutes after opening before we entered the park. J. R. wanted to buy their version of Lightning Lane passes, but there was no in-park WiFi and cellular service was overwhelmed. Then his credit card company wanted him to verify his identity over SMS, which he could not do. Eventually he was able to get it to work, but not until we had spent 10 minutes trying. There were no printed park maps and the map in the app was confusing and glitchy with the poor Wi-Fi.

We walked past Tower of Terror, a ride J. R. does not ride in Disney World in the American Waterfront section and also skipped Turtle Talk and Toy Story Mania! since we have similar rides at home at Disney World. We went looking for some souvenirs but all we found were shops filled with "Duffy the Disney Bear", a character Disney tried to make happen in the States but did not really catch on, but is huge in Japan.

Our counter-clockwise loop brought us to Port Discovery where we rode Aquatopia, a fun spinning track ride on a small lake and Nemo & Friends SeaRider, which is basically an upgraded version of the Star Tours vehicle set in the land of Finding Nemo. The ride was in Japanese but if you know the story and characters, it is still enjoyable.

We walked back towards Mediterranean Harbor as it was getting close to our call back time for Soaring: Fantastic Flight. We bought a soda from a vending machine, something Disney World needs more of. J. R. went to a small stationery shop but they still did not have any unique Mickey ears or really any DisneySea/Tokyo Disneyland specific merchandise.

The Soaring queue is more interesting than the ones in California or Florida. The main entry hall felt like an aviation museum with murals depicting flying machines. In the preshow, we were greeted by the spirit of a fictional aviator, Camellia Falco. As it was all in Japanese, we didn't understand what she was saying but the projection mapping of her bird coming off its statue was really cool. The ride itself is identical to the one at Epcot save for two scenes, the last one obviously being a flyover of Tokyo ending at DisneySea.

There was a short wait for the transit steamer, so we hopped on board for a ride on the "sea" of DisneySea, which took us one way to Lost River Delta. We had to get off there, but could have got back on through the short line, but decided to check out this part of the park. One major bummer of our trip was that both Indiana Jones Adventure and Journey to the Center of the Earth were closed. They were not advertised as such when we bought our tickets 60 days prior but we had already decided to go a long time ago, so it would not have changed our plans. The Raging Spirits roller coaster was also closed this morning and by the time it opened, the lines were ridiculous so we didn't get to ride that either.

We walked through Mermaid Lagoon, the kiddie area of DisneySea. Flounder's Flying Fish Coaster looked cool, kind of like Barnstormer at Disney World, but we decided to skip the kiddie rides.

We took a shortcut through Mysterious Island and this was an area where we could really see why people rave over the theming of DisneySea. We had not really been impressed with the theming of other area, maybe because the entrance reminded us of Islands of Adventure, and we had seen the real American waterfront in New England. Mysterious Island was really cool with a steampunk vibe. We looked longingly at the closed Journey to the Center of the Earth, which was the one attraction we had been most interested in when we booked this trip a year and a half earlier. Janie never liked 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea at Disney World or Disneyland so we decided against waiting for it before our planned lunch but thought we might come back for it later.

Lunch was reserved seating at Magellans. The interior of the restaurant was very impressive with the huge globe in the center of the room. We were seated in the secret room off the main lobby, entered by touching a specific decoration next to the bookshelf. It was an interesting concept, except with the waiters coming in and out all of the time, the door was open more than it was closed. They should have built them their own entrance. The room was decorated as if it was a wine cellar. The food was good, with a perfectly cooked filet mignon and great dessert, but overpriced as usual for Disney.

After lunch, it was time to taunt our daughter back home with a trip to the newest area of the park, Fantasy Springs. We walked past the Arabian Coast with Jasmine's Flying Carpets and Sindbad's Storybook Voyage and arrived at the entrance to this new area. We were greeted by carvings of Disney characters at the entrance and Janie was greeted by a shoulder Maleficient she just had to have. After looking into the Snuggly Duckling tavern, it was time to ride Rapunzel's Lantern Festival. This was a cute boat ride through the world of Rapunzel and we made sure to film it for Rebecca. Then we headed to Peter Pan's Never Land Adventure, an interesting 3D retelling of the Peter Pan story with large flying boats taking you through rooms of screens.

We decided we were done after Fantasy Springs so we made our way back towards the exit, stopping in a few gift shops filled with Duffy merchandise, and again, no real specific Tokyo Disneyland or DisneySea merchandise except for a couple of spirit jerseys, which was disappointing.

J. R. said 'hang the expense' and we decided to get an Uber back to the hotel. The Go App failed us again as we headed to the taxi area only to find out we had to walk back to one of the hotels to get a pickup. But our car finally arrived and made its way through Tokyo traffic to the hotel, where we went to the Executive Lounge where we had a nice view of Mt. Fuji as we had drinks and snacks.

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