Hi. I'm not really into Japan and I shy away from urban, crowded, touristic areas, but my son likes disney, pokemon, Mario, and we love sushi and we haven't vacationed in a while. Also curious to see DisneyLand + he's never been on a rollercoaster. Here is my plan with some comments at the end. The plan is purely made for his maximum enjoyment so only kid friendly activities.
Day 1: Arrival, get PASMO passports (credit card-apple pay didn't work) and practice using it.
Day 2: DisneyLand.
Day 3: DisneySea.
Day 4: DisneyLand.
Day 5: train to Osaka, see the aquarium there, ferris wheel.
Day 6: Universal Studios inc. Nintendo World (only reason we're going to Osaka).
Day 7: Osaka Castle Park. Take train back to Tokyo.
Day 8: Ueno park, museums, zoo (see panda). Akihabara and some shops (Super Potato, yodobashi akiba)
Day 9: teamLab borderless, some toy stores (kobayashi, hakuhinkan toy park, …)
Day 10: REEAST room, Nintendo Tokyo, Pokemon Center, Kiddy Land, Meiji Shrine
Day 11: Ninja Trick House, Samurai Museum, Godzilla Head (we pass it on the way), Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, Don Quijote (two near locations)
Day 12: Full day Fuji Tour, should relax on the bus. Took the english guide version.
Day 13: Sumo practice, Senso ji, souvenir shopping, chilling
Day 14: Odaiba -> unko museum, small worlds, gundam statue+base, whatever else we like there (tussads, sega arcade stuff, joyopolis,….
Day 15: Departure
I prebooked some tickets, the rest can only be booked 1 month or 1 week prior.
Can't use credit card for disney resort. Bought day tickets via klook. Guess no premium pass for us.
Will pack hats and sun screen.
Some things in the schedule can be cancelled if we feel tired. Some can be done on different days if we have free time.
We wanted to go to some fine dining but every michelin star restaurant I looked at doesn't accept kids. He is 8 years old. I will ask the concierge for best restaurants that would accept kids. We only like sushi pretty much. No tempora, no weird sea animals, no spice or soy.
Laundry and dry cleaning will be handled by the hotels we're staying at. Same for luggage storage (e.g. tokyo hotel will store luggage while we're in Osaka).
I'm tall, brown, big beard, mohawk, from the middle east. Experienced racism in some east and southeast asian countries, and cars would stop sometimes to take pictures of me like i'm a circus freak. Will Japan be the same? I already spent 3 weeks going through a gruelling visa process.
Some activities involve using the metro early. When is the time where everyone is completely stuck together on the train? So I use a taxi instead.
I took some Japanese classes over 10 years ago. Do I need anything more than hello, thanks, excuse me, how much, what time?
Anything to do in Ginza? Are the clothes there unique from any ultra luxury stores I can already buy elsewhere?
Thanks for any help
EDIT:
Flight leaves/arrives @ Narita airport. Will take skyliner to tokyo station then taxi. On the return will take taxi direct (I assume we'll have full luggage from souvenirs).
Hotels:
first 4 nights -> Grand Nikko Tokyo Bay Maihama [right next to Disney resorts]
Osaka 2 nights -> THE SINGULARI HOTEL & SKYSPA at UNIVERSAL STUDIOS JAPAN [right next to the studios]
Last 8 nights -> Accor Pullman Tokyo @ Tamachi [next to train station, central from everything]
by forgotPSS