This year we have been lucky enough to have the opportunity to travel to four of five of the Disney Resorts across the world. Normally we try to visit at least two, or three, but this year is an exception.

This summer have we been very fortunate to visit Tokyo Disney Resort for the first time, and combine it with a two part trip to Disneyland in California. How it came about is that we actually have a good friend who normally works on Florida, and for eight months this year he has had a temporary contract with Tokyo.

He invited us over to stay, and we of course could not turn down the chance.

With Tokyo being mega expensive and all our other trips planned, some compromises had to be made. We could no longer afford a trip to Florida in the summer, but are going at Christmas instead, and we had to make some minor cuts to our normally somewhat generous trips to Paris. Those trips to Paris are now a bit shorter, and not at onsite hotels, but we are still going nonetheless.

So, to planning Tokyo. Being able to afford this kind of trip in the normal course of things would be pushing it. Eight days in a Tokyo hotel would cost what some countries entire yearly economy is worth, but staying with our cast member pal eased that. We decided that we should spend most of our time in Disney while there, and visit Tokyo for a day.

Tokyo Disney's ticketing is the first obstacle you have to endure when planning a trip. If you decide to go for a day, there is no hopper option, unlike Paris. One day, one park - or buy two tickets. If you decide to go for two days, you have to do one park on each day, and there is no hopping option. For three or four days, the first two days are the same as the two day tickets, one park on one day. The third and/or fourth days can be hopper days. To add to this confusion, you have to decide when you book what days you would like in each park. They do not sell more than four day tickets and for trips longer than that you need to buy more multiday tickets. All tickets bought must be used on pre-selected dates - you have to effectively book your days in the parks in advance, unlike the US or Paris where you can buy a ticket anytime for any day and just turn up.

So, with two lots of four day tickets purchased, and all our days pre-selected, we were nearly all set to go.

Flying to Japan worked out quite expensive when weighing up the options. It was cheaper to actually fly domestic across the US to LAX and then book the international part separately, than it was to fly direct from the east coast, or via Europe. So realising that we would have to fly cross country to California from Washington, DC, we made a very cool decision - to extend the stop over in California to include a few days in Disneyland!

We decided that on the 7th August we would fly to LA and stay over at a local hotel in Anaheim.

We purchased six day tickets so that we could also make the stop over on the return to the US too.

This was certainly shaping up to be quite the grand adventure!

While in Tokyo we figured we would want to book one of the character dining experiences, but once again things to do with Tokyo Disney were complicated! We could not book the Stitch dinner show because the reservations website was in Japanese only. Fortunately our cast member friend has a Japanese friend who was able to book it for us.

For California, we decided to do the dining package for World of Color, and the character breakfast at the PCH Grill. Articles for these can be found here (PCH) and here (WoC). The WoC article also includes other nighttime reviews from California, and my construction updates article can be found here.

I am still working on my overall California and Tokyo trip reports, but be rest assured they are coming soon!

Ok, I think that's all for now. Be sure to check the blog regularly for updates and of course my trip reports I mentioned.

Dan.