Help me plan my trip to...
 

Japan!!!

You may or may not know that I've been planning a trip to WDW this coming February. Well...my mother in law that was going to be joining us had to cancel. We decided it would be better to wait until October anyways, but then we got to thinking where else we could go for that amount of money. It turns out that, unless I'm wrong, you can plan a budget trip to Japan for just a little more than you would spend to do WDW at AKL for a week. We were planning on waiting four or five years, but who knows what will happen in that time. Besides, it's not like we can't go back.

I know that this board is chock full of people that have been to Japan, so help me plan! This is what I'm wondering at this early stage of planning.

Guidebooks- any favorites? I have a 2002 Fodor's, but I'm sure that's out of date.

A few weeks ago I looked up airfare to Tokyo and found round trip tickets for $600. I looked tickets up yesterday and they were $1200. My search options were probably different and I don't know what I put in the first time. Which sounds right? Has anyone used ticket consolidators?

I would like to find a hotel for around $100/night. BUT it needs to have a king sized bed, or at the very least a queen to fit Me, Michael, Indi (who will be three) and Jade (who will be one). Two large doubles would probably work, but I haven't come across any. I'm not that interested in staying in a traditional Ryokan, just a big hotel that preferrably is very tall. Those of you who have been, any luck finding good rates?

We'll mainly eat in small places on the street, not expensive restaurants. What's the approx. cost of a meal at such places (we aren't big drinkers, but the people we are traveling with are)?

We will definitely do a few days of Disney, the Ghibli museum, perhaps the Imperial palace, but we don't know what else. We're trying to find rhings that Indi will enjoy as well. Any ideas? We'll have nine days including travel days, so approx. seven days to do stuff.

I know that by planning this far in advance I'm going to burn out, but I can't help it!

Take into account that we travel without kids, but........

My favorite guide books are Lonely Planet Tokyo, Rough Guide Tokyo, and Time Out Tokyo.

Our hotel was about $200 a night, but there is a wide variety of hotels to choose from. Just don't choose a capsule hotel. :shiver: We were close to a MAJOR train station (Shinjuku) which proved to be WONDERFUL for getting around. Plus, it was quite a hopping place itself and close to other cool places, gardens, shrines, temples, parks, restaurants etc.

Eating on the cheap is easy if you eat Japanese food and eat mostly local fare. We did not eat a lot of beef in Tokyo, but did consume quite a bit of pork and seafood. The Lonely Planet World Food guide is great for learning about different types of food and the pictures and plastic food will prove invaluable.

Ghibli......ahhhhhhh. How I wish I could go back tomorrow.

I'll have more later as I'm sure my fellow traveling companions will as well.

Time Out and Lonely Planet guides came highly recommended to us, and I gound them to be good

We ate cheap - you can eat at noodle places easily for well under $10

Air fares are fickle - keep an eye on them so you know when it's right to buy

Tokyo Disney Seas will make everything worthwhile

You really should take along a hairdresser (cough cough), just in case. Just let me check my calender and.....quelle surprise! I'm open that week! :D

Lol, yes, absolutely come along! You'll have to pay your own way of course, and give me hairstyle tips ;), but it should be a grand time. We'll have a LoT disneyseas meet!

I offer this with no responsability. Use it at your own risk.

Nara

Also if you are into the theme park thing.... CLICK HERE.

For Tokyo Disney planning, nothing beats JoeInJapan's site. It is simply the best Tokyo site on the planet.

I also have a ton of links for you to research as you get closer. MousePod and H were (and are) masters of internet research.

I just don't think I can go to creepy alternate DL. I might not ever recover. Thanks for the other link.

Thanks, NA and Euro for the info. I will definitely take whatever links you have NA! :snap:

I've been crazy busy with work etc this week, but I'll be happy to pitch in with any or all info as well.

Tokyo is finally starting to make some sense now that I've researched it a bit. It's definitely a very different kind of city. My main dilemma right now is where to stay. We'll probably stay a total of nine or ten nights. Hopefully, two or three of those will be at a Disney hotel.

I'm undecided as to what district to stay in. I've realized that my hotel budget is unrealistic for what we want, and I've had to double it. Asiarooms.com has lots of four star hotels for under $200, though. Careful research is needed, however, because it seems as though rooms vary widely within one price range. It would be nice if I could find a room at the Park Hyatt for under $250, because then I could fulfill my dream of reenacting Lost In Translation, but that probably won't happen. I haven't seen rooms for under $400.

My main fear is of the oh so complex subway and train stations. I can just see myself getting lost over and over. The airfare situation is looking up. I've found pretty good prices for random dates on Hotwire. Another bright spot is that you don't pay for very much for kids under 4 in Japan. And the baby will fly free. Which is a good thing because my hotel costs are going to be so stinking high.

Anyways, just a random update. All opinions still appreciated. :)