I felt bad leaving Mom at the hotel while we went off for our last day at the parks, but it was ok because we found out that check out wasn't until noon, so she got to stay in the room the whole time and didn't have to sit in the lobby waiting for us.
We had park hoppers today, which meant we could go to both parks, to hop back and forth. While it's not as easy here as in Anaheim, it's not as difficult or time-consuming as in Florida. The other park in a monorail ride away. We started in DisneySea since it's the park our hotel is attached to and is very quick to get into. We showed our Hotel Guest passes and were inside after a short wait.
As we did the first day, we went to Tower of Terror first. We rode the Electric Railway to the other stop and wandered around a bit. Leo took off and Kenji and I had some time to walk and reminisce about our first time here and how we enjoyed that for what it was and how we're enjoying seeing Leo's face light up here. I won't be surprised if he ends up working here as an Imagineer one day.
We met up with him and rode Sinbad again and went and had another farewell gyzoa roll. I took half of mine back to Mom. We said goodbye to Leo and went back to the room, got our luggage and Mom and moved hotels for 1 night at the Hilton. This way we can stay in the parks late and not have to take a long train ride back into Tokyo afterwards. We took the monorail around to the Bayside Station, which is the station for the non-Disney-owned hotels, the Sheraton, the Grand Nippon and the Hilton, where we'll be staying for one night. We checked in and let them know that mom would be staying in the lobby til our rooms were ready at 3 pm. The very nice lady, who spoke almost flawless English, asked if we'd like to request the room for she & I to be ready at 1:30, which was only and hour away. Yes, please! That was super nice that she mentioned that as a possibility. She then asked if it'd be ok for the guys' room to be ready after 5 pm and Kenji said yes. She gave us a slip of paper which we gave to Mom, that at 1:30 she could take to the check in desk and they would give her a key to our room, we stowed luggage with Bell Services and we were off to hit the monorail and go to Disneyland.
We had been watching the app for Monsters, Inc., Ride and Go Seek to show a wait time. The attraction has been in refurb and today is the first day it's back open, so we were eager to ride it, but it hadn't shown up as having opened before we left DisneySea to transfer hotels. On the way to Disneyland Kenji texted Leo and said it's up! He met us there and we got in line when it said a 30 minute wait. We got inside and about 5 mins later extra lights came on in and Kenji said "Uh-oh". The attraction had gone down again and we were asked to leave the building. Drat! Kenji and I went to go get in line for Pooh and Leo said he'd wander around a bit waiting for it come back up. We walked through the gift shop at the end of Pooh and I relented to Kenji's persistent asking if I wanted a new Tokyo Disneyland Resort umbrella. We got one last time we were here and I still use it. 21 years later. Ask me in person sometime about the back story about it.
Leo finally gave up and went back to DisneySea. Kenji and I went to do some last shopping in World Bazaar and were going to head out when he checked the app one last time and lo and behold, the Monsters, Inc. attraction had come back up! We hurried over there and got in line. Kenji texted Leo to let him know and Leo's response was "are you kidding me???" He did not get to us before we got to the front of the line and got in our ride vehicle.
It's a cute ride. It's similar-ish to Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters in Anaheim, but you don't actually score points. You use a flashlight and aim it at the Monsters, Inc. hard hats which have light sensor targets on them. When a flashlight hits it something happens nearby, a monster pops out of hiding, a door opens or perhaps Boo herself pops out of hiding! It's fun, but one and done. The ride vehicle is very narrow for larger American bodies, plus Kenji had his camera bag, I had a purse and we had our shopping bag and the umbrella. We felt rushed to get into the vehicle and sit down before the CM was pushing the safety bar down. It kind of put a damper on the start of the attraction as we were still trying to get situated.
After that we went back to the Hilton and I got to see the room that Mom had been in since 2:30. You know how Disney hotels have areas for little kids to sit and watch Disney movies while Mom & Dad check into the hotel? Well, so did the Hilton and Mom got engrossed in watching Sleeping Beauty and didn't go to the room til an hour after she could've. LOL. Meanwhile Leo got over to Disneyland and got in line for Monsters, Inc., but it went down again and he gave up. Poor kid didn't get to ride it at all. He went back to DisneySea.
Kenji left the hotel and went back to close out the night with Leo at DisneySea. After watching sumo (turns out there was a 15 day tournament so it was on TV everyday from the 13th to the 27th), Mom and I went down to the Hilton's lobby and looked at all of our dining options. Hotel buffet, nah. Expensive. Lawson's (remember, kind of like 7/11 and Family Mart), in a pinch, maybe. But then we found a bakery/panini place. Yes, please! Something different! I had a mozzarella/tomato/basil panini and some lightly pickled cucumbers from Lawson's. Mom and I shared a bowl of onion soup and she had an order gyoza. We brought it all back to the room and ate at the table by the large picture window. We turned off the lights when we saw fireworks start. I could tell from the timing that they were from the projection show on the castle at Disneyland. It was magical and we ooo'd and ahh'd a lot!
Tomorrow we move hotels again, into Tokyo proper. Off to bed!
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