A Disney Parks Around the World Journey: Day 17 – Ikspiari

“Second star to the right and straight on ’til morning.” – Peter Pan

Today I woke up at 7:45AM and feel pretty good. Ironically my body is completely on Asia time just in time for us to leave Asia. This is where those days we lost due to the Air France debacle would have been nice to have back so we could have had more time in Asia without being jet lagged for the majority of our time.

Eventually we all wake up and shower. We take it pretty easy as our checkout time isn’t till noon so we aren’t in a rush for a change.

We still have one last breakfast at Oceano as part of our Vacation Package so we head down at 9AM.

I have some Cocoa Krispies again. Interestingly enough, they have these placemats for the kids that you can pop the characters up.

The characters then stare at you while you eat. I find it kinda cute, but also kinda odd.

I really wanted the beef but every time I went up it was out. It seemed to be a very popular item among the Japanese crowd. Also of note, every time we ate at a restaurant in Tokyo Disney Resort they placed this card on your table. I guess it’s to remind the European crowd that you need to be 20 years old and not 18 years old to have alcohol. They also seem to have a zero tolerance for drinking ANY alcohol and driving and not a blood alcohol level.

Once we finish eating we head back to the room and debate on what to do today. Originally our plan was to do Disneyland for half the day until we left for the airport, but after three straight full park days we decided we needed something a little less hectic. We look into going to the Sky Tower but it’s sold out for the day. One thing that was limiting us at this point was that we will have our luggage wherever we go so we need a place that has luggage storage. We look into some other options like some museums and other things but everything that had luggage storage was sold out, and everything that wasn’t sold out didn’t have luggage storage.

In the end we decide to head to Ikspiari and watch Mufasa. Thankfully, some of the movies playing are in English with Japanese subtitles and this was one of those. This allows us to just leave our luggage at the hotel and we can take the monorail to Ikspiari. We finish packing up and head out of our room. We sadly leave behind all our Vacation Package freebies aside from the blanket as we just don’t have enough room to take it with us.

As we walk to monorail station we get a good view of the hotel during the day. It’s gorgeous and I can’t even imagine the maintenance required for something this intricate.

We arrive at the monorail station and Lucy buys our monorail tickets.

Thankfully, the monorail is just a loop, so it’s even hard for us to get lost.

Ikspiari is the Downtown Disney area of the Tokyo Disney Resort. It’s a large indoor and outdoor complex with stores, restaurants, entertainment, and a movie theater. We get there and use the restroom. I haven’t spoken much about the restrooms in Japan, and I probably should. I guess it’s because growing up we had a bidet in our home and also had the same Japanese electronic bidet system on our toilets both growing up and currently in our home so it’s not really novel to me. The toilets in Japan all come with retractable bidet’s and dryers.

Another fun feature is that it also has a white noise machine for enhanced privacy.

Ikspiari was our easiest option logistically and at this point something easy was very welcome. We wander around and eventually find the movie theater. It’s located in an area themed to a theater district.

The movie isn’t till 2:30PM but we go ahead and buy the tickets for Mufasa. Figure it’s only more than fitting to see a Disney movie on our marathon Disney trip.

It’s about 2 hours till the movie so we decide to go shopping, or really what minimal shopping we can do given we only have carryons. We’ve left A LOT freebies behind this vacation just due to lack of available luggage space.

The Disney store is pretty close to the cinema so we decided to hop in and take a look.

It is just overloaded with cuteness.

Hands down one of my favorite parts of Japan is the kawaii culture.

It’s past lunchtime and we’re getting hungry and decide to eat before the movie. We were gonna hit up McDonald’s but it’s at the opposite end of the complex so we went to Chubby Airlines which was close by and seemed like a fast food kinda place.

The menu consisted mainly of chicken. We ended up ordering some chicken nuggets, fries and churros.

Much like every restaurant we have encountered in Japan, there is no ketchup available. They did have Mayonaise, spicy mayonaise, cheese and hot mustard as condiments for the fries and chicken. The fries were very long and quite possibly some of the longest fries I’ve ever eaten. The fries weren’t the best, so I guess there is no correlation between fry length and taste. The chicken was just ok as well.

It was time to see the movie and we head to the theater.

Believe it or not but they had NORMAL popcorn! This was the first time since we were in Japan that we had seen NORMAL popcorn. Kendall and Lucy were absolutely elated and this could be the most exciting thing to happen since we landed in Tokyo.

I’m gonna have a hard time reviewing the movie to be honest as I fell asleep for part of it. I thought I was totally over the jet lag, but I guess not. Either that or the warmth of the theater just knocked me out. Kendall and Lucy really liked it though. My favorite part was the bits and pieces with the original Hans Zimmer soundtrack as I am a huge Hans Zimmer fan.

An interesting observation, but the Japanese watch ALL the credits. Not just a little, not just till they start scrolling, but until the credits are TOTALLY done. The theater was totally full and only one guy got up and I thought he left. NOPE, he likely just went to bathroom as he came back shortly after leaving to finish the credits. We felt super awkward leaving when no one else was so we watched the credits to the bitter end.

There is a small store that is selling snacks across from the theater so we stock up on some snacks for the airport and our flight.

We hit up a small store that sells random stuff to buy some pillows as the airline we fly today, Zipair does not provide any amenities and if we hope to sleep a pillow will definitely help that cause. That being said Lucy is quite adept at sleeping in any position, pillow or not. As everything in Japan has become given the strength of the USD the pillows were dirt cheap. It was only $5 for three pillows. If these were bought in an airport they’d be minimum $10-20 USD.

On the way out we pass a store named mum.

Apparently this store is literally a store devoted to taking selfie’s and for taking pics in photo booths.

Lucy of course takes a pic in the fake phone booth.

It’s starting to get late so we start heading out.

We then get back to the monorail station.

While waiting I notice two things. One, the monorail station is absolutely immaculate with no trash or rubbish anywhere. Two, there are no trashcans anywhere.

The fact there is no trash and concurrently no trash cans is just absolutely mind boggling. You could nearly eat off these floors they look so clean. In the US unless there is a trash can every 10 feet there will be trash everywhere. The Japanese discipline for putting things in trash cans despite the inconvenience of finding one is just incredible. I just cannot believe there is not one trashcan available in this area.

Upon arrival at the Hotel Miracosta we ask bell services to bring out our bags and call us a taxi. The ride to the airport is just 45 minutes and pretty uneventful.

I was a little concerned as to how check in would go given today we are flying ZipAir, a low cost carrier that is a subsidiary of Japan Airlines. We found it very efficient if you didn’t need to check a bag. We just used the check in kiosk and were done in less than 5 minutes. Given the length of the bag check line we were super grateful as the line was forever long.

Security and immigration were super efficient and we went from curbside to the lounge in 30 minutes and we even stopped to buy a Tokyo magnet. Today we went to the I.A.S.S. Superior Lounge -NOA-. We have access to this lounge via our Priority Pass membership via either our AMEX Business Platinum Card or our Capital One Venture X card.

The lounge isn’t bad for a Priority Pass lounge. They had several food and beverage stations, including some cocktails on tap.

They had ample seating, and it was definitely more than ample.

You never know what you’re going to get in regards to the lounges that Priority Pass gives you access to but this one is well above average. The main thing we care about is whether it has edible free food and thankfully we all find the food quite enjoyable. We all ate some noodles. In fact, Lucy liked them so much she ate not 1, not 2, but 3 plates of noodles. Kendall and I also got a beef bowl along with some noodles.

At about 45 minutes till our expected departure time we head to the gate. Boarding is just 30 minutes prior to departure which is kinda short for a 787. I was kinda curious how they came up with that time frame as it’s often even longer for a considerably smaller plane like the 737.

On arrival at the gate I notice everyone has a green zipair tag on their carry on and personal item, likely meaning it’s an approved size and weight to carry on the plane. There was absolutely nothing in any email about needing to have your carry on weighed at the check in counter to be approved for it to be onboard. I go to the gate agent to ask if they can look at our carry on to get a green tag. They say it’s too late. I ask if I can gate check it and they state I cannot. I ask if there is anything I can do at this time, and they say no. They do not have any scales back here. I about die again, as I don’t know what we’re gonna do if our luggage isn’t approved to fly. I guess we could just leave it all behind, as the luggage is just clothes and a couple magnets as that’s all we bought. There is not enough time for me to find a way to ship it as we only have 5 minutes. I’m honestly not sure what we’re gonna do with the luggage.

I then ask “What can we do with the luggage then? Is there anyway we can bring it on board?” She says we can bring it onboard. It’s fine. I almost can’t believe my ears. I feel like we’ve never had anything go our way and for once someone is bending the rules a little. It was a huge win in my mind given our last denial. I’ve been traumatized by airline check in counters too many times and every time I approach one at this point I am flat out paranoid.

We board on time. Zipair being a low cost carrier includes absolutely nothing when you buy your seat. This includes even if you buy a business class seat. There is no priority boarding, no food, no drinks, no amenity kit, or pillow or blanket. Just imagine it as though you are flying Allegiant or Spirit except with a nicer seat that you can lay flat in. That’s pretty much it. While all those extra amenities are nice, the priority is the ability to sleep and get some rest. This is flight number 8 and long haul number 3 in 17 days combined with doing 10 Disney parks so rest and sleep are worth more than gold at this point.

Once we board I now realize why they have slotted only 30 minutes to board. It’s because they use only two doors to board the plane which cuts down on time. The experience is exactly what I would expect from a no frills carrier. They go for speed and efficiency and boarding is impressively completed in 30 minutes and we push off from the gate on time.

Today we are flying a Boening 787-800 Dreamliner, which is the backbone of the Zipair fleet, and from my understanding, I believe the only plane they actually fly. The seat is very similar to the seat we’ve had on KLM recently minus the small door that KLM has now added.

They are made by the same manufacturer and airlines can customize them to their own needs. It’s more than ample and most importantly, it lies flat.

This being “budget” business means they even stripped out the screen presumably due to the added weight and maintenance so all we have in its place is a safety card in a net.

The seat was comfy and spacious enough though. I must say it was kinda odd just staring at a safety card in place of a TV screen. I kinda wish they had at least some basic amenities but given this is more than half the price of a standard business class seat, I am more than happy with the product.

Once we take off we all get some sleep as it’s been a long last couple of days.

Day 17, January 4th, 2025 Step Count – 9,023 Steps

Total Step Count – 281,983

Read about the next day here.

Read about the previous day here.