One of the highlights of the Japan trip was our two days at Disneyland. Our family are huge Disney fans and one of my travel goals is to visit all of the parks. I have so far been to Paris, Florida and Hong Kong, so this was something that I was really looking forward to.

We went to the main Disney park on Ellen’s birthday. This was the trip that was planned for her 29th but finally happened on her 32nd so you can imagine how excited she was.

Even though it is very much the same as the other parks in terms of the layout and the rides we still love it. The attention to detail is amazing throughout the park and there were some slightly different things.

One of the immediate differences is that the Main Street area is covered as Tokyo has a lot of rain. There is also a beautiful New Orleans area with some stunning iron work balconies.

The iconic castle, and the Fantasyland area behind it are just beautiful, and so pristine given that the park is celebrating its 40th anniversary.

Jake and Ellen love rollercoasters but I don’t so I spent some time on some of the gentler rides such as the steamboat while they did the thrill rides. I just love all the scenery that they have created and never get tired of looking at details such as the geysers.

We did also do old family favourites, such as Star Tours, and I went on Small World, which I love and the children hate. The little dolls are so cute and the costumes all stunning.

A few days later we returned to the Disney Sea park, which I was really looking forward to as it is unique to Disneyland Tokyo. It has its own Mickey themed monorail to get to the park from the main railway station which was cute.

The park did not disappoint and we loved the creation of all the new areas. This beautiful globe is at the main entrance. I love globes and this one was just wonderful.

Our first exploration was the Mediterranean seafront with its beautiful recreation of Venetian architecture around the gondola ride.

The American Waterfront is also very impressive, including a full size ocean liner and lots of cute shops and food areas.

From there we caught one of the trains round to Part Discovery, which is one of the more futuristic areas. Here we went on several rides, including the amazing Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

This is based on the Jules Verne novel and I really wanted to go on it, despite the fact that it is a roller coaster inside a volcano. I was very brave and survived it, despite it being scary at points.

One of my favourite areas was the Arabian waterfront, first seen from one of the many boats rides available, and that was stunning.

Although there are only a few of the smaller rides here the architecture is just so gorgeous, and again the attention to detail is superb.

The final area was a visit to one of Ellen’s childhood favourites, the Little Mermaid area. Above ground is beautiful, with sea inspired architecture with beautiful ceramics and mosaics.

When you enter you find a whole under the sea area which is just magical.

Of course we had to have a go on the Jumping Jellyfish ride!

A wonderful couple of days, we were also so lucky with the weather as we had to book tickets for specific days. It was very reasonably priced as well, at £54 per day for the adult ticket, which when you consider the cost of theme parks generally is very good value. Thanks to my lovely Mum for treating us all to this bit of the holiday, we had such a brilliant time.

I have a couple more things to show you from the Japan trip and then I will tell you all about my Mum’s birthday trip this year. One of my goals for retirement was to be able to spend much more time travelling with Mum, and we made it outside Spain this time.

We are now planning further adventures for later in the year together as she has some hospital treatment coming up so we won’t be going away until that is finished.

It is another lovely day here, despite a damp start. I have had a busy weekend going out with Mum and friends, so am planning to spend the afternoon working on my Liberty quilt, and then maybe have a quick bike ride. Hope that you are all enjoying life whatever you are doing. Have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.