Two full-size parks at Maihama, east of Tokyo. The coach from Haneda runs into the resort. Understand which kind of hotel you are booking, and give it more days than you think.
Tokyo has two airports, and for this one place the difference is large. Either way you can be at the gates the same day.
Three kinds of hotel. The kind decides whether you get in early.
Run by the resort itself.
Separate companies, close to the resort, on the monorail line.
Ordinary city hotels at Shin-Urayasu, Kasai or Nishi-Funabashi.
Give the park a whole day of its own. The resort is at Maihama, east of the city.
Day 1 arrive, hotel, an evening by the river · Day 2 the park, opening to closing · Day 3 Tokyo, with a slow morning.
Day 1 arrive · Day 2 Asakusa, the river, the tower · Day 3 one park · Day 4 the other park · Day 5 Tokyo or leave. Keep the two park days together and stay at the resort for both.
Give the resort the whole day. Arrive for opening, leave when it closes, and keep central Tokyo for another day. The trains out of Maihama are heaviest in the twenty or thirty minutes after the evening show — sit down somewhere for half an hour and let it clear.
Both parks in one day is not possible — they are separate parks with separate tickets, and each takes a full day. Anyone who tells you otherwise has not done it.
The park is never emptier than in the first forty minutes after it opens, and it never gets that empty again until the last half hour of the night.
Go to the far end of the park first, not the first thing you see. The crowd fills the park from the entrance outwards, so the attractions nearest the gate build queues immediately and the ones at the back stay quiet for half an hour longer.
This costs nothing, needs no app and no paid queue pass — only being at the gate before it opens rather than an hour after.
Rain empties this place. Queues fall, the paths reflect the lights, and the photographs are better than on a blue afternoon. Bring a poncho rather than an umbrella — umbrellas are awkward in queues and some rides will not take them.
Outdoor shows can be cancelled in bad weather, so do not go on a wet day for a particular show. Go on a wet day for the rides and the streets.
A place can be better known than the prefecture it sits in. Use the prefecture pages below to work out where to eat, where to stay, how to get around and who to call.
