Hello lovely TDRExplorer readers! My name is Umbrielle and I’m a new contributor to this amazing site.

I’m really happy to be here and hope you all enjoy what I write. I’m going to be attempting to help with translating various aspects of the Japanese Tokyo Disney Resort Official site to hopefully provide some useful information for foreign visitors to the Resort. I hope you find what I write useful!

Important Note Before We Begin

I really recommend you read through this guide first before going ahead with a booking. I can only take you so far with the guide as it requires credit card details in order to get past a certain point.

So basically this guide will get you as far as entering your credit card details. I will be on hand to help with anything after that point so please leave a comment or tweet me (@winghearted) should you get stuck.

Important

Some people have said that you cannot receive a refund if you decide you don’t want to attend. As I have never personally visited, I cannot confirm this but please keep this in mind!

Now that’s out of the way, let’s begin!

Be Tokyo Disney Resort’s Guest!

As I’m sure many of you are aware, Tokyo Disney Resort offers some truly excellent dining options — my personal favourite being their buffet restaurants. But if you’re looking for more than a meal, the show restaurants might be just the ticket. In fact, there’s nothing quite like enjoying excellent cuisine and an amazing show with your favourite Disney characters to top off your trip to a Disney Resort and Tokyo has some amazing options.

The lunch and dinner show restaurants require advance reservations which can only be acquired one month in advance and up until the day before. It pays to plan ahead, as without an advance reservations you are unable to dine.

Reservations are made via the Show restaurants’ dedicated on-line reservations section. Unfortunately for many foreign visitors, this section of the site is entirely in Japanese.

We thought a guide on how to make that all important booking would be helpful. For all of you wanting to dine at one of the two show restaurants at the resort, help is here!

Two Restaurants, Four Shows

Both of the Show Restaurants are located within Tokyo Disneyland and each offer two different shows – one at lunch and one at dinner. The Diamond Horseshoe is located in Westernland and the Polynesian Terrace Restaurant is located in Adventureland.

It’s Reservation Time!

Important Notes Before Reserving Your Table:

1. You will need your credit card to reserve a table so please have this in hand.
2. You can make up to 3 separate reservations for restaurants per day (this includes other non-show restaurants).
3. There may be a wait to enter the park on the day of your reservations, to prevent any delay please prepare your park tickets in advance.
4. You can reserve a table for up to 8 people per booking only.
5. You can reserve a table for your chosen show restaurant from 09:00 one month in advance and up until 20:59 the day before.
6. During the reservation period there is a chance that restaurants will become fully booked or there may be other conditions resulting in Guests being unable to book. Please keep this in mind.

Additional Notes:

• Between 03:00 – 05:00 (Japan time) an automatic system maintenance takes place on the on-line reservations site. Please be aware that if you are in the process of making a reservation when maintenance begins your reservation will be stopped and won’t be processed.

• Seating arrangements: If there are more than 5 people in your party, you might be placed on separate tables.

Selecting your Show Restaurant

Firstly, open up the show restaurants online reservations section on the Tokyo Disney Resort website. You will be given a list of the two restaurants and the two shows available at each (see below).

Polynesian Terrace Restaurant at Tokyo Disneyland. Lunch show features Lilo’s Luau and Dinner is Mickey and Minnie’s Polynesian Paradise

Diamond Horseshoe at Tokyo Disneyland. Lunch is the Horseshoe Round-up and dinner The Diamond Horseshoe Presents “Mickey & Company”

Once you have selected your desired restaurant (keeping in mind that they are either lunch or dinner shows). On the section of your chosen restaurant, click on the box at the bottom middle (circled below).

Once you choose a show, click the circled button.

You will then enter the screen as shown in the picture below. Use the image to help you enter your own information for your desired date and party members. Click on the image to see clearer.

Select your desired date and number of people in your party.

Different Seating and Prices

The restaurant has a difference in pricing depending on where you chose to sit in the restaurant. Obviously the closer to the action, the more yen you’ll need to part with so make sure you decide if it’s worth the extra to see Mickey that little bit closer!

The seating is separated into S, A and B categories. S being the most expensive (and closest to the action) and B being the least expensive (and further away from the action). These maps are shown later on in the process but will help you decide where you want to sit:

Map of seating categories for The Diamond Horseshoe

Map of seating categories for The Polynesian Terrace

Once you’ve decided on which category seems best for you, you’ll see that the dates/times are separated into seating categories. Scroll down to see all three seating categories and their corresponding time/date slots. I’ve translated the pricing format here for quick reference using the S category of seating:

Pricing for Dinner Shows at Tokyo Disneyland

Children are separated into three categories — Over 9’s are treated as “Adult”, ages 4~8 are lower in price and under 3’s can get in free (but please keep in mind that this doesn’t include a baby meal for them — this can be added on later on in the booking process for an additional fee).

Underneath each table category is a chart for the date selected and the three days after and the time slots for each sitting (In case there are any fellow UK readers, the month is first and date second). If the time slot has a blue icon, it means you can book a table for that particular date/time. If it has two red characters then it is fully booked and unfortunately you are unable to reserve that slot.

Note: Japanese people often make the effort to cancel their bookings if they cannot attend so if you have your heart set on a particular day, keep checking back as often as possible because chances are they might have a cancellation and you can take it up. This is something you should definitely do in the last day or so before. I’d recommend having a back-up reservation though, just in case you can’t get the ideal date/time.

Here’s what the chart looks like for the S seating category:

Seating Chart for the S Category

It will likely be a case of going back and forth and changing dates until you get one that has a free slot. Just keep trying out all the different options (different dates, times and seating categories) until you find a fit.

Once you have selected your date/time, click the blue icon to continue with the booking.

You will be presented with this mass of information, which I have added notes to. As I realized when I lived there, Japanese people sure love filling out forms! Please check out the image below to help decipher what is going on here.

Review your details and add additional details if needed

Note: If you would like any information on the under 3’s menu, I can take a look.

Also, make sure you check this box shown below. It’s basically confirming that you understand the difference in the seating categories and you cannot proceed without checking it first.

Confirm you understand the difference in the seating categories. You must check the box.

Inputting Your Name (Hard Mode)

If you continue down the page, you’ll arrive at this next section. This is where things get quite tricky. Why? Because you have to input your own name in Hiragana (Japanese writing system using phonetics). I’ve tried to write my name in regular English and Katakana (their other writing system which is used for loan words, i.e.. western names!) but it would only accept my name written in it’s Hiragana equivalent. You can easily use an on-line “Write your name in Japanese!” generator type thing but it usually produces your name in Katakana so if you comment on this post with your first and last names I will write them in Hiragana for you to copy and paste. Don’t worry, you can trust me to write your name as accurately as possible!

We recommend using the online Japanese Name Converter if you need them translated quickly.

I would also recommend inputting your number (if using your regular non-Japanese cellphone) with it’s international dialling code included.

Enter your phone number (including international code), your name, and if you have any allergies.

Terms and Conditions to Keep in Mind

Seating

• You are unable to choose your seats
• Please be aware that different seating will provide different views of the stage
• Your party might be separated depending on seating arrangements

Changes and Cancellations

You can change/cancel your reservation up until 20:59 the day before your reservation date.

• If you cancel all or part of your reservation you might be charged
• If you fail to cancel your reservation before 20:59 on the day before the reservation the cancellation fee will be 100%
• If there is a surplus of seats, changes to allow more than a party of 8 will be allowed. However, this is not always guaranteed.
• Please note that when you alter a booking your credit card will be charged to reflect the new reservation

Important Notes About Your Reservation

• Please come to the restaurant at least an hour before the dinner show or half an hour before the first lunch show of the day to confirm your booking.
• When you come to the restaurant we will confirm your details (reservation name and number required) and give you a reservation ticket. If you do not come to the booth beforehand this will be considered a cancellation.

Note: If you have any allergies and need help with that, please leave a comment and we will try to assist.

In order to continue with your reservation you will be required to register an account with Disney. If you already have an account, log in on the left. If not, click the circled box below to register:

You must login with your Disney account. If you do not have one, it is free to register. This account is used specifically for Japan.

You’ll come to a page like below for New Members. All you need to do here is enter your birthday. Once you’ve done that, hit the circled button.

Simply input your birthdate.

Enter your email address twice and your password.

The next part is pretty tricky. First fill in the simple parts — You’ll need to enter your name in hiragana again (which you should have by now from the previous part) and then male/female. Add your phone number (again with dialling code perhaps!) and then we come to another tricky part!

Fill out the long form with all your basic information.

Entering Your Address (Hard Mode)

So this registration assumes you have an address IN Japan. OK so not many of you will have this. I found a way to get around it — I’m not 100% sure if it’s cool with Disney but needs must! My solution is to enter the address of the hotel/inn you’ll be staying at during your time in Japan. I used the hotel I was temporarily staying at when I first made my Annual Pass and the CM that helped process it all never had any problems but obviously this is just my experience.

So if you enter the address of your hotel in Japanese all should be well. If you need help finding out the address of where you’re staying in Japanese, hit me up in a comment with the name/location and I’ll take a look for you.

You’ll then need to check all the boxes at the bottom to continue and then hit the circled box to proceed.

Below will be a confirmation of all the information entered. Check it all out and then hit the circled box.

Confirm your details.

It’ll then ask you if you want to sign up for any newsletters via email. I just quickly hit Google translate as this isn’t all that important in the scheme of things. However the newsletters are pretty cute, so take a look. Check any that you want to sign up for and hit the circled box.

Select any newsletters you want to subscribe to.

You’ll then be shown a confirmation with a list of all the chosen newsletters. Check these are all OK before hitting the circled button.

Confirm newsletters you wish to subscribe to.

You’ll then be taken back to your reservation slot. The red text at the top is just telling you that you haven’t yet finished your reservation. Here you just need to enter the names of any Adults in your reservation in hiragana (again if you need more names translating, let me know) and then it’s all about the payment!

After all that you are taken here to input the names of the adults.

And here is as far as I can take you, brave Tokyo Disney fans! You must go on without me! (No seriously, I can’t put my own CC details in here because I live in the UK currently, d’oh!) but if you enter your own CC details and continue on, I can help with what comes next if you post a screen shot or ask for my e-mail if you want it private. If not, just try good ol’ Google translate. If you get stuck at all, please just leave a comment and I’ll help!

Bonus Japanese Phrases

Have your name (in Hiragana) and the names of any other adults underneath and reservation number printed on a piece of paper for ease of checking in.

You can always first try the good ol’ “Do you speak English?” but if you want to try your hand at some Japanese, try these sentences when you arrive at your selected restaurant:

I made a reservation online:

• Intanetto de yoyaku shimashita
• in-ta-net-to deh yo-ya-ku shee-mah-shee-tah
• インタネットで予約しました。

This is my name and reservation number:

• kore wa watashi no namae to yoyaku bangou desu
• core-rey wa wa-ta-shee no nah-my-eh tow yo-ya-ku ban-go de-sue
• これは私の名前と予約番号です

For more Japanese phrases, read our basic and food related Japanese language articles.

I hope this helped you all get a grasp of what the show restaurants are and how to go about making a reservation. If you need any help at all, just hit me up with a comment or I’m on Twitter @winghearted.

I’d love to hear about successful reservations and how it all went once at the park so let me know about that, too!

All the best and happy show restaurant-ing!