Scaredy Cat Travels

(Originally written May 10, 2023) 

Just two weeks to go and no matter how much I prepared (and I have greatly overprepared), invariably in the final days before a trip I find myself in panic mode – ordering clothes that I planned to buy weeks ago with the added joy of rushed shipping; finally booking events I planned to book weeks ago or better yet, going to book events I planned to book weeks ago and finding out they are no longer available. 

Tonight has been an exercise in frustration, testing the very limits of my nonexistent patience. A better title for this would have been Oh the Cursing!  

In my defense, life has conspired against me recently. My mother and my dog have both had health issues which have led to a trip to Memphis; multiple appointments and the occasional lack of mental acuity to process anything. Unfortunately, none of these are resolved and neither of them is a great situation so that still hangs over all aspects of the trip. In addition to these giant wrenches, the combo of Jackson moving out of their apartment this month and back home; Jackson’s roommate also moving in here for the summer; and the usual end of school flurry of concerts and ceremonies have made me even less productive than usual. 

With that in mind, I am glad I spent all that time researching earlier in the year just so I could realize I have forgotten everything by now. 

If you’re looking for more specific examples of frustration (if not, disengage now), here are some highlights from this evening… 

First, I should frame this with how the late afternoon went. Because it really teed things up for later. In March, Rowan and I applied for passport renewals. Mine had expired in 2022. Rowan’s wouldn’t expire until September but he no longer looked like the little boy in the picture, and some countries want a six-month cushion on passport expirations, so I did his at the same time. I paid for rush service which meant we should get our passports back by May 19. Cutting it close I know.  

My passport arrived over a month ago. But as of today, no passport for Rowan. The passport website has at least changed his status from Pending to Approved but the paragraph ended with an ominous “based on this your passport should arrive on or before”. The lack of a date was unsettling. If you are within two weeks of travel, you can call a special line for “assistance”. (I added the “..” but they should consider making the change official.) When I called at lunchtime, the message said (I may paraphrase a little) “we are too busy to talk to you right now, please call back later when we aren’t busy but we don’t know if or when that will actually happen” and then hung up. I tried calling back at 4 pm. While on hold, I talked to Rowan about his school day; washed dishes; did laundry; made dinner and listened to Rowan tell me not to say “this phone call is not important to them, if it were important to them, they would actually hire people to handle the volume and actually answer the phone. They need to change their message to ‘your call is at best semi-acknowledged by us’” every time the “your call is important to us” message played. In the end, I was on hold for three hours to have someone tell me “it should be fine” (no paraphrasing) and to call back in two days if a tracking number didn’t show up on his account. Because I have nothing else to do. 

Riding high from my passport success, I decided I really needed to get myself sorted for the days in Tokyo since they require the most reservations and are, did I mention, just two weeks away. I knew that a few activities are best at specific times of day and those slots are likely to book up or the attraction could sell out completely. I meant to reserve these events when booking became available a couple of weeks ago. See paragraph above for excuses as to why this didn’t happen. I can add that I also have commitment issues with both time and money for these kinds of things even though I know based on years of regret that it is counterproductive. Apparently, you cannot teach this old dog new tricks. 

First disappointment, I have told most people I know that we are going to Shibuya Sky which is the rooftop of a skyscraper in Tokyo’s Shibuya district with stunning views of Tokyo’s skyline and sometimes even Mount Fuji. There are snacks, drinks, giant hammocks to lie in and Intsta-worthy photo ops – because I am all about social media. Based on soooo many YouTube videos, the best time to go is in the late afternoon and stay through sunset. I also told most people I know that these times book up quickly, so I needed to reserve asap. But I didn’t. As expected, all sunset times are booked. I didn’t cuss much about this because I already knew. An important travel tip though – even though you know, try anyway. Every once in a while, it works out. This isn’t one of those times. 

I ended up making a 7:20 pm reservation. According to the infallible internet, actual hard dark is around 8:15 so there should still be some pretty light. I am happy to answer any questions about what “hard dark” is to those people who did not play “guess when hard dark will happen” on vacations with their father. We also plan to get to Shibuya Sky a little early and hope to be let in even though Japanese culture is not built around bending rules. I think they will be disappointed if we don’t act American and ask for exceptions. We’ll do this right after we talk loudly on the train and wear outside shoes inside. 

Fun Fact – Did you know, that according to the infallible internet, that sunrise in Tokyo this time of year is at 4:30 am? Can that be true? I don’t know. What I do know is I won’t be getting up to check. 

The Shibuya Sky kerfuffle leads to a bigger, cursing-worthy disappointment. Most travel bloggers recommend booking events through Klook, a travel website that offers tour packages and allows you to book multiple attractions in a destination, usually at a discount. I usually do not use services like this. I prefer to deal directly with an entity and have found, for our travel habits, a site like this does not often offer additional value. Again, I don’t like to commit to too much so booking multiple activities even just two weeks in advance makes me nervous. But in Tokyo, where websites are not always in English and attractions sometimes won’t process US based credit cards (foreshadowing), Klook made sense. 

I chose three attractions I was confident we would visit in Tokyo – Shibuya Sky, The Art Aquarium and TeamLabs Planet. The Art Aquarium is a small art museum comprised of installations incorporating goldfish; TeamLabs Planet is another Insta-focused attraction with infinity rooms and interactive art – all arranged for the perfect photo. Let’s just say it now. My family is all about touristy, cheesy stuff. We like it. I am not ashamed. We’re going to the Trick Art Musuem, the 2D Café, a cat café, all the Disneys, an art museum based on fish and yes, TeamLabs Planet. We might even eat at McDonald’s in Tokyo. Mock us if you must. 

TeamLabs is very popular and is scheduled to close at the end of 2023, so I knew that this was also a priority booking. The divide between knowing and acting on it is wide. To make sure times were available, I went to the TeamLabs Planet website to check availability. Much to my surprise, many times were open. Which set up the much to my surprise at Klook when, after I had paid the non-refundable fee for the three attractions, there were no times available through their website. This created a dilemma. Should I attempt to contact Klook’s non-existent help and ask about potential availability later? Even though I am relatively confident I would get an answer even less helpful than the US Passport office? Or should I suck it up and purchase the tickets through TeamLabs directly to avoid them selling out while I ponder my options? Doing this would mean I would have an extra attraction visit on Klook to use. Unfortunately, there aren’t any additional attractions they offer that I’m interested in so that money will potentially go to waste. 

Spoiler alert: I booked a reservation through TeamLabs. Here’s hoping we have the sudden urge to visit the Madame Tussauds Wax Museum and can use that last pass on Klook. 

I wish I could say that was the end of the frustration. But at midnight-ish, I decided to go ahead and book our Disney park tickets. US Disney has conditioned me over the past ten years to feel compelled to plan out and make reservations for all aspects of our trips three-six months in advance including fastpass reservations (remember those?), dining reservations and even which park we planned to visit. The Tokyo Disney “you can buy your tickets the day of” mentality troubles me despite all the contradictory things I said above.  

Again, buoyed by my previous successes, I was falsely confident that I would be able to overcome literally everyone else’s inability to book tickets through the Disney app or website. If only because I did not want to book anything else through Klook (the bloggers suggestion again). For some reason, Tokyo Disney often rejects international credit cards. In preparation, I pulled out my full and impressive arsenal of plastic.  

Spoiler alert: I purchased our Disney tickets through Klook.  

In the end, I bought one day at DisneySea and one day at Disneyland. We may purchase an additional after 5 pm entry to DisneySea but Klook doesn’t offer that option. We’ll have to wait until we get to our Disney-area hotel to do that. 

At 2 am, I called it a night. Not a successful one, but a night nevertheless.  

To recap – we have the following – one missing passport; reservations on Friday the 26^th for the TeamLabs Planet exhibit in Odaiba booked through TeamLabs; reservations on Saturday the 27^th for the Kusama Museum in Shinjuku booked previously through the museum; reservations on Saturday the 27^th for Shibuya Sky in Shibuya booked through Klook; reservations on Sunday the 28^th for the Art Aquarium in Ginza booked through Klook; a ticket to DisneySea on Tuesday the 30^th (Klook again); a ticket to Disneyland on Wednesday the 31^st (Klook) and reservations to nowhere also courtesy of Klook. 

There’s only one item left on my Tokyo wish list that requires a reservation and that’s Tokyo Tower. Tokyo Tower is available through our Klook pass but the specific package I want is not. I know you are shocked. I will be pondering this over the next few days and probably watching some YouTube videos about it that won’t help. 

UPDATE – We have a date! The passport website now has an actual expected date of delivery for Rowan’s passport. No tracking number yet but at least we have progress.