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Tokyo Disney Resort

Image: Disney

Comprised of two theme parks (Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea), the Tokyo Disney Resort is located on the edge of Tokyo Bay in the heart of Tokyo. 

Flight

Let's face it: a flight to Tokyo from anywhere in the United States is definitely going to cost more than a trip to Orlando. That said, flights between Pittsburgh and Tokyo are surprisingly plentiful for our apples-to-apples week at the end of May. Air Canada and United both offer round trips for less than $1,000. Both have a single stop, but just as importantly, both have total travel times under 17 hours, which is pretty amazing. (Trust us – the flight is long, but doable especially if you're able to sleep on planes!) 

Compared to the $330 per-person, 3-hour flight to Orlando, the trip to Tokyo's airport is obviously going to cost more. But no less than 3 Air Canada routes with travel time under 20 hours cost only $800 per person round trip – a total two-person travel cost of $1,600.

Transportation

Image: Japan Rail

It's understandable that transportation would be one aspect of a Tokyo Disney trip that would leave you nervous. However, Japan's transportation infrastructure is ridiculously accessible across the entire country, with signage and announcements in both Japanese and English throughout.

Many of the country's crisscrossing railways (including the Shinkasen bullet trains) are part of the Japan Rail (JR) network (above). Almost unbelievably, foreign travelers visiting for sightseeing purposes can purchase a 7-day unlimited JR Pass for ¥33,610 – about $293. That means that less than $300 grants you access to many high speed rails throughout the country, making even far-flung destinations totally accessible. You could even take the 310-mile, 3-hour bullet train ride to Osaka to visit Universal Studios! 

Can you find the Disney Resort Line monorail? Image: Tokyo Metro

While JR lines do lead into and through parts of Tokyo (including the Keiyo Line that connects to the Disney Resort Line monorail at the Maihama Station), the intra-city Tokyo Metro System is a separate transit network. The good news is, a 72-hour unlimited Tokyo Metro Pass costs just ¥1,500 – only about $13. (You'd need to activate three to cover cross-city transportation for the entire trip – $40 per person.) Though it may look intimidating, if you can navigate any American city's subway system, you can tackle the Tokyo Metro system, where all signage and announcements are in both Japanese and English. The Tokyo Metro and JR together can get you to just about any landmark of the city. 

With just the JR Pass and Tokyo Metro Pass, you've got most of Japan covered. There are only a few small incidental costs otherwise. JR and Metro lines connect both Haneda and Narita Airport with the Tokyo Disney Resort, but many arriving foreigners would rather pay $20 for the direct shuttle. Once you're on Disney property, you'll need a ticket to the Disney Resort Line monorail (since Japanese regulation requires any multi-stop transit system to be ticketed and post a timetable). A four-day monorail pass is the equivalent of $15 per person ($30 total). That means that pretty much any transportation need you'd have in, around, and out of the Tokyo Disney Resort area, Tokyo itself, and to the rest of the country will come in at around $736 for two  less than the cost of a weeklong Orlando car rental!

Park Tickets

Image: Disney

Given that Tokyo Disney Resort's two theme parks – Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea – are both celebrated by U.S. fans for their no-holds-barred, no-budgets-cut rides, you might expect these parks to be among the most expensive theme parks on Earth. If so, surprise! A 4-Day Passport to Tokyo Disney (while temporarily suspended due to COVID) carries a cost of ¥24,800 – just $216 per person, with a grand total of $432 for two people to explore Disneyland and DisneySea for four days!

Accommodations

Image: Disney

Tokyo Disney Resort has more in common with Disneyland than Disney World, including its two parks, its compact layout, and the availability of many hotel rooms just off property. There are four "Disney" hotels for guests who want to be in the "bubble" of familiarity (and relative assurance of English signage and services): the Tokyo Disneyland Hotel and the Hotel MiraCosta (famously inside Tokyo DisneySea) would be equivalent of Disney World's "Deluxe" hotels, with nightly rates starting between $400 and $500. The Ambassador Hotel and the off-site Celebration Hotel (with a 15-minute shuttle ride to the resort) are more "Moderate" – $200 to $300 nightly.

But Tokyo Disney Resort also offers a hotel district populated by "Official" hotels set on the perimeter of the resort's peninsula and served by the Tokyo Disney Resort Monorail's Bayside Station. (You can see them in the upper right on the map above, labeled green.) 

Image: Hilton

A frequently-cited favorite of the "Official" set is the Hilton Tokyo Bay, which offers "Celebrio Rooms" with mod furniture, bay or park views, and mini-fridges restocked each day with Japanese sodas. For our May trip, the Hilton Tokyo Bay's upgraded Celebrio Rooms would cost (ready for this?) $130 a night for a total weeklong, all-in price around $1146. Once travel returns to its pre-pandemic levels, that price could be closer to $180 (still less than Disney's Pop Century in Florida, mind you) but the Hilton Tokyo Bay is nothing if not a steal.

Food

Feel free to drop your own number in here, but for the sake of coming up with a reasonably realistic price, we'll stick to our Orlando estimate of setting aside $100 per person per day for a two-person, week-long food budget of $1400

Other attractions

Image: Savvy Tokyo

If we stay with our Orlando rule of thumb, we'd be setting aside $100 per person per free day (that is, a day not set in the parks). This would be the place to object to visiting Tokyo for such a short amount of time, and – worse – for spending more time at Disneyland than in one of the world's most exciting cities and countries. You definitely shouldn't go to Japan without at least using your JR Pass to venture to Shibuya and the Meiji Shrine, Mount Fuji, or even far-flung destinations like Osaka (hi, Universal Studios!) and Kyoto... But for the sake of keeping our trips "apples to apples" and proving that you can get to Japan, let's say you only have three non-park days. That would be $300 per person set aside for "other attractions," or $600.

Incidentals & souvenirs

We set aside $50 per person per day in Orlando, creating a slush fund to purchase big or small souvenirs. Realistically, Tokyo isn't that kind of place. Even at Disneyland, resort-specific gifts are few and far between, and given that urban living in Japan often means very little storage space, "gifts" or "souvenirs" are often candy, chocolates, or other snacks. You probably won't have a Lightsaber or Droid equivalent to bring home with you. But in the spirit of giving ourselves breathing room financially, let's still allot $50 per person per day for incidentals, reaching that same two-person budget of $700.

TOTAL

Image: Japan Guide

$6,614. That's how much our (roughly assembled!) weeklong trip to Tokyo and the Tokyo Disney Resort would cost. If you're counting (which we are), that's just about $100 less than an equivalent trip for two to Orlando. While the variables are always in flux, here's the takeaway: a trip to Tokyo and a trip to Orlando are roughly comparable in price.

The numbers we've used here might not match your personal finances or priorities, and that's okay! You can say you can't stomach paying the price of an international flight; you can say you'd allot your money differently; you can even say you just prefer the familiarity, comfort, and offerings of Walt Disney World, and that's absolutely fine! But if you take a once-every-couple-years trip to Walt Disney World, then what you can't say is that a trip to Tokyo Disney Resort is impossible. Whether you start saving now or not, that's something you should be excited about!

 
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