Need help with Tokyo.

Bethany Brown

Wishes 91
Joined
May 1, 2016
I’m planning a trip for Disneyland Tokyo and I’m overwhelmed. It will be on a budget and I don’t know how to go about searching for cheaper flights, hotels, how much to budget for food and merchandise. If anyone can give me some insight on this I would greatly appreciate it. I know we want to to sightsee as well and go for maybe two weeks. Do we stay at a Disney hotel the entire time? Or change hotels?
 
If you're on a budget avoid the Disney hotels entirely. You'll want to stay in actual Tokyo for the sightseeing leg as they're some way apart. I got an Airbnb in Okubu and it was criminally cheap and very well located.

For cheaper flights book as soon as they're released. I also saved £400 by flying indirect but I probably wouldn't do it again
 
It's super overwhelming. I plan trips for a living (travel agent) and plan my family trips all over the world, but planning our upcoming Japan and Hong Kong trip has been a challenge. A fun challenge, but a challenge!

The best way that I have found to get the cheapest airfare and hotel is twofold: One, search a package on Expedia to include round-trip flights and your Tokyo hotel only (you can pick to just have your hotel for part of your stay). Second, search the largest cities within driving distance as your airport. Also, you can use Kayak to search a range of dates to see which days will be the cheapest to fly on and use those for your Expedia search. I was able to get my family a very good deal for this summer using this method. We are then staying in Hilton Tokyo Bay for our TDR portion of our trip.

Another way to save money is to look into AirBnbs or VRBO rentals. These are not only cheaper than hotels, but you can cook, which saves a ton of money. You can also open up a hotel reward card that is having a big sign-up bonus. We prefer IHG, so I am also getting free rooms in Hong Kong and Hiroshima and Narita. In Hong Kong it's the Intercontinental Hong Kong!

The only way my family is able to travel as much as we do is because I am a budget traveler!

Lastly, reading these boards has helped me a ton to create an itinerary for the parks. The Facebook page is also a good place to ask questions.
 


TDR Explorer has lists of food and merchandise for current and past events with their prices.

If you're considering the Disney hotels, I'm not sure what your budget actually is. AirBnBs could be an option or cheaper business hotels found through sites like hotels.com could work if you aren't a large group. I like staying near Tokyo station because it's easy enough to get to the resort as well as other important locations in the city. It's usually cheaper one station away from Tokyo. But if you're looking into more full service hotel options, opening a travel credit card could get you the points needed for a trip.

I usually begin a flight search using google flights. Assuming you're flying from the US, you could look into flights with a layover in Hong Kong, Seoul or Taipei which can often be cheaper (all great layover airports where you can take a shower even without lounge access). On the American site, you could try pricing flights from San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles or New York along with a positioning flight from your home airport. Flights from those cities can get as low as 500 to 700 USD round trip in the off season.

Then there's some extreme options. One of my friends often books turnaround flights to Manila because for some reason it's sometimes cheaper to fly to the Philippines with a stop in the city of interest rather than fly directly to the city. Capsule hotels are also very cheap.
 
We stayed in a disney hotel for the entire trip- the train to Tokyo station from Maihama (Disney station) was only 15 minutes- so i guess it's easy to commute either way!
 
I would recommend splitting your stay between Disney and Tokyo. While the train is very easy to use, Disney is far removed from the main area of Tokyo. While the trains are very convenient, the train trip would still be around 1 hour just to get into Tokyo. By staying down at Disney the whole time, you won't get the full Tokyo experience, especially the nightlife and local atmosphere.
 



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