Today was a late-ish start. Kaoru and I had breakfast in our room and then went up to the lounge for a bit. Around 11.30 we met Brett and Naomi, Julia, Andrew, Ella and Simon in the lobby to go out for sushi. Simon was yet to experience real Japanese sushi, and as this was his last time, I had planned it for his lunch today. All of us except Kaoru and Naomi went to the same place Michael, Leila, Kaoru and I had gone to on our first night in Shinjuku and had a feast.
Just after 12, we had to leave and get back to the lobby of the hotel, where we caught the 12.30 bus to Disneyland! We were all excited about having a fun-filled day with some rides and shows. I had previously booked us all on the bus, due to leave the park at 10.50 to come home. So we were set for a long day.
It took about an hour to get there, and we got our passes out and in we went. With a group of 9, there was no way we were going to all do what we wanted, so we split up in to two groups, and set a meeting point for 7.30, with the intention of watching the parade and fireworks together, and then going home. So Brett, Naomi, Kaoru, Simon and I headed off together. We didn’t have much of a plan, but wanted to start by orientating ourselves. But we were in for a disapointment right from the first *real* line we saw – 230 minutes waiting time! It took a while for that to process in our minds – nearly 4 hours! It would pretty much be the only ride we would do for the day.
We skipped that and joined a 40-odd minute line to do the tea cup ride. Simon came in with Kaoru and I and we (foolishly) let him steer. So by the time we came off that, we were feeling pretty ill from all the spinning. We went for something a little more sedate – “It’s a Small World”. This also had a short line (~25 minutes). As we walked around the park more, we were seeing these crazy long lines (210 minutes, 250 minutes, etc), and could not believe that people would join them. Naomi made the call that it was definately NOT the happiest place on earth!
We had some food, and managed to pick up a ride or two, before watching the light parade. A rope barrier went through the park making it impossible to get from one side to the other, while a convoy of lit up vehicles went through. So we watched that, before going across and trying a few of the rides one more time to see if the lines were shorter. We were able to do a couple, and Kaoru, Naomi and I got on the last run of the Merry-Go-Round before the park closed. So we slowly made our way to the gate, knowing the bus wasn’t coming for a while.
At the start of the day it was very warm, and I was holding the park map up to keep the sun off my head. By the end it was freezing cold, and luckily I had my Uniglo top that I had bought the night of the cruise to put on.
We caught our shuttle bus back to the hotel, and Julia and the gang went back to their place. Brett, Naomi, Simon and I found a bar to have some farewell drinks at, while Kaoru had a bath and went to bed. A lot of the bars were closed or closing, and those that were open were full of smokers. But eventually we found a cocktail bar which was a bit more expensive, but quite nice, and we knocked back a few drinks there. We walked back to the hotel, said goodbye to Simon (as he was off to Singapore tomorrow early morning) and went to bed.