Day one- Transit, Unaccustomed luxury

t planning on blogging about the actual plane trip but I feel I have to.

We bought our tickets to Tokyo at the New Year’s Sale Air NZ held. The sale was so good for travel dates this far out that we only had to spend a couple hundred more to upgrade from economy to premium economy.

We’d been looking forward to extra space on the seats and some extra leg room. We were not prepared for how fancy the service actually was. We were given hot towels, decent sized pillows, little amenity packs with socks and a dental kit, slippers to wear on the plane, a drink once we were in the air (sparkling wine, and when the hostess found out we were on honeymoon she brought us more in fancier glasses). The food was next level. It tasted freshly made, and gourmet. And there was an entree, fresh baked bread selection and dessert for each meal.

Halfway through the usual five-ish hour gap between meals we were served afternoon tea of club sandwiches and our choice of dessert (Anna and I both went for the chocolate profiteroles, which were a massive cream puff with solid chocolate on top). Plus, if we got peckish, we could order snacks and drinks off the menu for free from our screens.

I find it hard to sleep on planes, but with my extra room and a little footrest you could raise, I managed an hour or so of broken sleep. Not quite as good a nap as I’d get at home, but still something.

On the plane Anna and I watched Ready Player One together, which was amusing but also quite, quite stupid. Then I watched Incredibles 2 and the first two episodes of Sharp Objects (brilliant, watching the rest of that one on the plane back.)

Once we’d landed, we were among the first off the plane, after the business class people, and our bags which had been tagged ‘priority’ were waiting for us on the carousel after we’d cleared immigration.

We exited the bag claim and right away found the bus tickets counter and purchased tickets direct to our hotel at Tokyo Disney Resort. Unfortunately the next bus to the resort was in an hour, so it was like our quick exit from the plane wasn’t as useful as we’d hoped. I was glad not to have missed it though, as it was the last bus of the day.

While we waited for the bus we had our first Welch’s grape juice of the trip, which is a delicious purple grape drink. While we sat and drank just inside the terminal from the bus stop we were unexpectedly interviewed for Japanese TV.

A team of three, a camera person, a front man and a translator making notes asked us where we were from, what we were looking forward to doing in Japan and what our anime t shirts were about. Totally random, I wonder if they’ll use any of that footage? I guess I’ll never know either way.

The bus took about an hour to get to Tokyo Disney Resort, after arriving exactly on time at ten past six. I got very excited as we approached the Resort. I just love how magical everything is, and this year is the 35th anniversary of it being opened, so there’s extra decorations and things happening.

The Tokyo Disneyland Hotel is expensive, but since it’s our honeymoon we wanted to splash out. I knew it would be fancy, but I didn’t anticipate this level of fancy.

The lobby is a gigantic Disney themed atrium with massive chandeliers and Disney mosiacs, sculptures and fountains. As we checked in we were given an anniversary/wedding card signed by Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Then a bellhop escorted us to our room. It was just a standard park view room but it was so incredibly plush.

Every aspect of the hotel is either subtly or not so subtly Disney themed. It’s delightful. We were pretty exhausted from the flight but we managed to have a little wander, explored the stores attached to the hotel (a convenience store or Konbini, and a Disney merchandise shop. As we were outside we were lucky enough to catch some of the fireworks over the beautifully lit up train station which is between the hotel and the gates to the park.

The hotel room had a bath so I washed Japanese style on a stool under a shower and then we each had a soak in the bath. I put on the hotel provided pajamas, which were super comfortable. As we were getting ready for bed, I heard a boom and we realised from our room we could see the night show, which is a combination of fireworks and animated projections onto the Cinderella castle. We couldn’t see a lot of details from the hotel room but it was still super cool.

Finally we crashed out, and I had a very good sleep, ready for a big day ahead…