Mira Costa booking experience

1) Yep, totally normal. Payment takes a couple of days to come out.
2) I didn't, it blocked my Mastercard and sent an authorisation text the first time but allowed my Visa then the second time my Mastercard went straight through. It'll vary from bank to bank.
3) The cheapest are the partial view rooms but I have never seen one free. We booked a Venice one and had no hassle with it booking out. Our Alice room was much tougher.
Thanks for the speedy reply.
I think the card being blocked is my biggest concern at the moment. Is it easy enough to try again, or try a different card, or do you lose the room hold in the process?
 
Just been starting to have a little play with the booking system, even though I'm still a way off being able to make my final booking yet, and it's raised a few questions I'm hoping you guys can help me with...

  1. I notice it just wants to charge me the deposit now, and the rest on check out - is that normal?
  2. Do I need to do anything regarding setting up authentication (3D secure) for my credit card in advance?
  3. I'm just looking for the cheapest room for 5 nights, in this case a Venice Superior, which seems to be available without issue for the furthest out date that's on sale right now. I was anticipating everything being fully booked based on what I've been reading - is availability on these room types not too bad and therefore there should be less panic when it comes to booking, as opposed to other room types that are harder to grab?

Just wanted to add that we stayed five nights and split it 3 at Mira Costa and 2 at the Disneyland Hotel. I'm so glad we did it that way. We spent our Mira Costa nights exploring Disney Sea and our Disneyland Nights exploring Disneyland and being able to quickly walk back to our hotel from each park was sooo nice. Both hotels are beautiful and in my opinion worth visiting both since you have the time. They transferred our bags for us between hotels.
 
Just wanted to add that we stayed five nights and split it 3 at Mira Costa and 2 at the Disneyland Hotel. I'm so glad we did it that way. We spent our Mira Costa nights exploring Disney Sea and our Disneyland Nights exploring Disneyland and being able to quickly walk back to our hotel from each park was sooo nice. Both hotels are beautiful and in my opinion worth visiting both since you have the time. They transferred our bags for us between hotels.
Thanks for the suggestion!
We're hotel hopping quite a bit during the rest of our stay in Japan, which is why I'd just immediately thought of only one hotel at Disney.
It also means I don't have to get up at silly o'clock twice to make bookings, haha!
When did you do your check out of one hotel and into the other? Were you able yo do it so it didn't interfere with the rest of your plans for the day?
 
Just wanted to add that we stayed five nights and split it 3 at Mira Costa and 2 at the Disneyland Hotel. I'm so glad we did it that way. We spent our Mira Costa nights exploring Disney Sea and our Disneyland Nights exploring Disneyland and being able to quickly walk back to our hotel from each park was sooo nice. Both hotels are beautiful and in my opinion worth visiting both since you have the time. They transferred our bags for us between hotels.

This is so good to hear as we're doing the same (3 nights Disney, 2 Miracosta). Would love to know more about bag transfer too!
 


Thanks for the speedy reply.
I think the card being blocked is my biggest concern at the moment. Is it easy enough to try again, or try a different card, or do you lose the room hold in the process?

It goes to a failed screen and you have to start again so maybe have a second tab open ready to book with a second card?
 
When did you do your check out of one hotel and into the other? Were you able yo do it so it didn't interfere with the rest of your plans for the day?

On the day we transferred we went to Disney Sea in the morning. We joined the line for the park about 60 minutes prior to opening, and before we joined the park line we stopped by the front desk to check out, and then stopped by bell services to have our bags transferred to the Disneyland hotel. Maybe took five minutes max.

We made our way over to our new hotel a few minutes prior to check in time (around 3pm I think) and got our room right away. It was really easy to move and didn't take away from any park time.
 


On the day we transferred we went to Disney Sea in the morning. We joined the line for the park about 60 minutes prior to opening, and before we joined the park line we stopped by the front desk to check out, and then stopped by bell services to have our bags transferred to the Disneyland hotel. Maybe took five minutes max.

We made our way over to our new hotel a few minutes prior to check in time (around 3pm I think) and got our room right away. It was really easy to move and didn't take away from any park time.

Do you leave your bags in the room? Or do you bring them out and give them to the bell services?
 
Getting a bit closer to my booking window, so I just have a quick question...

I see myself earlier in this thread talking about getting up at 3am to book, but now I recheck this - if 9am is when the window opens each day in Japan, I think it's actually midnight the night before I need to book here in the UK. Can someone check this for me to see I'm not confusing myself?!
 
FYI - Managed to confirm the window opens at 11am Tokyo time (2am in the UK).
 
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Just thought I'd report back on a successful booking experience (laced with some mild peril due to a hyphenated surname and a declined payment as the transaction was picked up as suspicious activity - but we got there!) - thanks all for the useful walkthroughs and information!
 
Just did my booking for the Tokyo Disneyland Hotel. I was soo worried about making the reservations. After my Visa was declined, I used American Espress which worked. Can't wait to go
 
I'm glad you got it sorted! Considering they're the most expensive hotels I have ever booked in my life, I can't believe how terrrible the booking system is.
We visited TokyoDisneySea this summer and I'm honestly not surprised. They seem to want to make it difficult for anyone not Japanese (or Japanese-speaking) to visit. IDK why, you'd think they'd welcome money from anyone.
 
We visited TokyoDisneySea this summer and I'm honestly not surprised. They seem to want to make it difficult for anyone not Japanese (or Japanese-speaking) to visit. IDK why, you'd think they'd welcome money from anyone.

I like how all the other Disney parks share the similar website design platform (WDW, DL, DLP, HKDL, SDL) but Tokyo DL is the odd duck.

I hope they update it someday.
 
Can anybody tell me the difference between

"Porto Paradiso Side Superior Room Harbor View"

and

"Speciale Rooms & Suites Porto Paradiso Side Superior Room Harbor View"

By description and by pictures they look the same to me?

Thank you very much in advance!
 
It seems like I found the answer to my own question.

"Enjoy spacious rooms with elegant furnishings and, most of all, breathtaking views of Tokyo DisneySea. Breakfast is served at BellaVista Lounge. Guests staying in a Suite, a Harbor Room or a Terrace Room can choose room service instead and enjoy breakfast in their room." - that is what it says about "Speciale" rooms - even rooms without a balcony but with Harbor View.

I don't really care about the breakfast part. But the rooms with a balcony are just impossible to get. I did the bookmark trick described above (it is VERY HELPFUL). I swear I was quick :)) But I guess not quick enough. There seem to be a room for 4 people with a balcony available once the rooms popped up but when I clicked on it the site gave me an error. I figured that meant somebody clicked on it before me, as it became unavailable right away :)))

This is totally crazy. I don't know how people do it :))) I moved very quickly, didn't have any delay - but all the "Speciale" type rooms (except for the really crazy expensive suites) were already unavailable. The same happened yesterday.

I don't get it :) Unless there are only couple rooms, or there is another way to book them I don't know about? :)
 
I booked this morning for our Mira Costa stay June 6-8 (today is first day I could book). There were NO two double/queen bed rooms available (I needed three rooms) so I had to book three rooms with three beds. Price increase not horrible. I was really nervous about credit card acceptance but it went off without a hitch. I used my Costco Citi Visa card. Hint: make sure YOUR cc company knows you'll be purchasing hotel in Japan ahead of time.

The site was a little slow but booking was much easier than I anticipated.
 
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I wanted to say thank you to those who contributed your helpful advice and experiences on booking. I tried for a 4 night stay starting Friday June 1st and checking out Monday June 5th. I was able to get the Porto Paradiso Side Superior Room Harbor View for the Friday, Sunday and Monday nights but not the Saturday night. I figured if we were going to wind up doing any sort of split stay we might as well check out the TDL hotel too and save a little money. I am thrilled we were able to get two nights at MiraCosta with a Harbor View and I would not have been able to do that without the advice shared here. So thank you!
 
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As a self proclaimed semi-professional MiraCosta booker (I made several "practice" bookings, tried getting through almost nightly for about 2 months, and finally booked Harbor View Alcove rooms for three consecutive nights in late May) I feel obligated to chime in. BTW if you think doing all this is nuts you should see the embarrassingly elaborate spreadsheet I've created for this trip.

MiraCosta Rooms become available at 11am Japan time for rooms 5 months out. Japan does not have daylight savings so right now they are 13 hours ahead of east coast time so you need to be ready at 10pm on the east coast and 7 pm on the west coast. You can only book one night at a time for harbor view rooms and above; other rooms you can get I think up to 5 consecutive nights. If you book one night at a time you need to make sure you book the exact same room type each night or you'll have to change rooms. You will be charged 30k yen each night. This is refundable - I made and cancelled reservations a couple times and it worked fine. The deposit was charged and refunded in the same day. I used a Citi MasterCard and it worked every time and I didn't tell Citi in advance. I highly recommend making a trial reservation. I learned a lot. For example your card will go through a weird approval screen I've never seen on another site before and if you're not expecting it you might screw something up.

Things I learned through practice: refreshing your browser when the clock turns 10 will not work fast enough every time. A practically fool proof way of getting through in the first few seconds while every room type is available is to bookmark the URL for the night you need. I went to a day that was available, chose my room type and whatnot, then in the URL box I changed the date to the date I needed and hit enter. Then I bookmarked that URL. At 10pm 5 months ahead of my dates I clicked on that bookmark and boom, all room types available, including concierge level. I did this three nights in a row and it worked out great.

Another thing - every night about 30-35 minutes after rooms became available another set of rooms would be freed up. Every single night. I could have booked harbor view rooms at 9:30 (this was before DST kicked in) virtually every night I tried. Not sure if this is from people's cards rejecting or what but it happens every night.

So that's my 2 cents. Any questions I'd be happy to answer!

Curious if you still have the URL construct for specific room types? I am trying to book a room for July of this year but they have changed their English booking site and I can't get the proper URL constructed to bring me to the exact room type we are looking for during the booking window release. Any assistance would be appreciated.
 

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