Shanghai Disneyland Grand Opening Trip Planning Thread

[wtdanceisthrough]

Hello all!! My name is Adam and I was invited to join this discussion by an anonymous poster over at themeparx. I regularly post on there with Shanghai Disney Resort news. However it has become clear that there may be some discussions which are outside the scope of themeparx, and I would really like to discuss things with you lovely people over here at disboards! I have been a member of disboards for some time but I haven't been on it for a long time now and certainly wasn't aware of this thread until today.

I have spent the last hour or so going through the entire thread so far and reading all your posts. I'd like to introduce myself and also give an update on where I'm up to, and what I'm waiting for. After reading through all 7 pages of the thread I only really found posts I needed to reply to on the first and last pages, as the middle posts were mostly people speculating about the ticket sales and then going through the horror of ticket sales. Don't worry - we were all in the same boat - you can see myself and others posted on themeparx during our saga, and had much the same experiences as you guys!

I don't know if double posting is discouraged/disallowed over here on disboards - perhaps someone can let me know? Anyway to be on the safe side I will assume that double posting is not allowed and so this post will probably be quite long!!

Questions from original post

To start with, I will respond to the initial questions which Wuzefelix posted on the OP:

Have you decided to go yet?

Yes! I decided a very long time ago that I would be going. I don't even remember when, but perhaps around 2012 or 2013 I made the decision to go.

Have you ever attended a Disney theme park official opening before?

No, so this will be very exciting for me! This is a kind of "once in a lifetime" goal to attend a Disney theme park opening.

Where are you going to stay?

Shanghai Disneyland Hotel, Toy Story Hotel and a third-party hotel (more on that later). To be honest, I know I'm probably in a very small minority but I actually don't like the Toy Story films! I have seen Toy Story 1 and 3 completely and about half of Toy Story 2. Nevertheless I see TSH as a part of the SDR experience and so I wanted to stay there for at least one night. SDH has been compared to Disneyland Hotel at Paris, which is one of my favourite hotel locations ever, so I'm particularly psyched about SDH.

What's your strategy to get park tickets?

I'm going to say "was"....I just sat trying to get them from the moment the sales opened. I think I was lucky in that I booked park tickets before the hotels but this was not intentional - just happened to be the system that got fixed first during the nightmare that was 27/28 March! I say "lucky" because two other people on themeparx have reported that they have struggled to buy park tickets after making hotel reservations, and when they asked about it on live chat, they were told that you can't make park ticket bookings once you have already made hotel reservations; you have to get the tickets when you get there. But I don't really trust that....

How long are you going for?

I will be in Shanghai for 7 days in total, and will be at the park for 4 days.

What other sights / attractions are you going to visit during your trip?

Actually pretty much none! The last time I went to Shanghai I stayed for 3 weeks and got to do a LOT of sightseeing. This time is really just about Disney and nothing else. I will be arriving in Shanghai a few days before the opening day, but that is just to give me time to get over my jet lag. This might seem like a colossal waste of time/money but for me it's a really big thing - I don't want to be falling asleep during the opening day celebrations! My plan is, on those days I will stay in my (third-party) hotel room and watch Disney movies related to SDR attractions. I'm currently in the process of making a list of all the Disney movies which are linked to SDR attractions and how many attractions they are linked to. I can post it on here when I'm finished if y'all are interested!

What else would you like to share?

Lots and lots of things! Well, first, I'll just give a run-down of my plan. I'll arrive in Shanghai 13th June. My hotel bookings are: SDH 16-19 June, TSH 19-20 June, and I will leave Shanghai on 20 June. I have park tickets for 16-19. Now, as others have speculated, I am really not sure I can rely on the Disney hotels being available on 16th June before the time I would want to go to the park opening. So I have planned to have a third-party hotel booking from 13-17 June. Yes, this does mean I have booked two hotels for the night of 16th June! Seems a waste of money, but right now I don't know if I can risk taking all my stuff to SDR on 16 June and having nowhere to put it, leaving me to enter the park a lot later than expected and possibly miss some of the "once in a lifetime" festivities.

Regarding flights - I live in London UK, and I'm flying Lufthansa both ways - changing at Frankfurt (1h change) on both the outward and return. The only other viable option was China Eastern which was cheaper but I have heard a lot of bad things about them and decided to avoid them!

Points from earlier posts

Now I want to reply to a few things other have said on the earlier posts...

What time to arrive

Honestly, we are a little worried about actually getting into the park. Back in the day when Hong Kong Disneyland opened, they sent a lot of people with valid tickets home because the park reached its capacity limit (30.000). Does anyone know what the total capacity of Shanghai Disneyland will be? Since the park area will be larger than the one in Hong Kong, my guess is around 50.000 maybe? Anyway, Shanghai and the surrounded region are extremely densely populated and my guess is a ton of people are as excited as us to visit the park right when it opens.

If the tickets won't be dated, then would it be a good plan to arrive super early to make sure you get in line for rope drop before the park reaches its capacity limit? But how early are we talking? 2 hours before rope drop, 3? 4? 5? It's really hard to tell what it's going to be like.

I also plan to get there really early on the 16th, like 4-5 hours before opening.

My plan is to head straight to the gates after I check in and hopefully be one of the first in line. Then hopefully be able to hold off on having to find a bathroom until after the park opens lol!

Even though the tickets are dated, I am still uncertain about what time to arrive at the park. I too want to try to make sure I'm one of the first in line. I suppose my biggest fear is that there will be so many people to process through the turnstiles on opening day that either (a) it will take so long to process them all that I will miss some of the festivities, or (b) I will be so far towards the back of the crowd that I won't be able to see anything! I was also thinking something like 4-5 hours before opening. But I also just don't know whether it's a case of (similar to NYE celebrations - I have done Edinburgh and New York among others) you have to just stand in one place for hours and not use the bathroom for basically the entire day. I don't think I could cope with that, especially as it will be hot and I'll need to be drinking water! Has anyone got any experience from previous park openings and knows whether, once the gates are open, it's still necessary to stand in one spot for hours on end to get a good view of what's going on?

Additionally, the staff on live chat strongly advised me to get there early on the opening day.

Mutli-day opening celebration

So I see it as if there will be a multi day opening celebration before the 16th of June. However, we are thinking this is probably just going to be a multi day press event with celebrities and high ranking officials, so what are the odds to get invites for that, right? That is why we are planning for the 16th which in theory should be the first day the park will officially open to the public.

I haven't seen much response on this so I'll just give my perspective from my time over at themeparx. My main source is this article: http://www.shendi.com.cn/news/366.html Unfortunately it's all in Chinese. Anyone speak good Chinese?

The important part is this:

1月13日，华特迪士尼公司和上海申迪集团宣布，上海迪士尼度假区将于6月16日正式开园迎客，并将举办为期数日的开幕庆典。

Which means (roughly translated *cough*GoogleTranslate*cough*):

January 13, The Walt Disney Company and the Shanghai Shen Di Group announced that Shanghai Disney Resort will be June 16 officially opened its doors, and will hold the opening ceremony of several days.

My interpretation (albeit based on a less-than-accurate translation!) was that the opening ceremony will last over several days *starting* from June 16 - in other words, there will be some opening festivities on the other days as well. How long? Well I had taken the fact that the ticket price was fixed for 2 weeks after the opening date as some indication that something will be happening each day within those two weeks (between June 16-30). This is just wild speculation though!

However, I would expect that this would be the case to some extent. I very much doubt that Disney will just say on Day 2, "okay, we're open now, it's just business as usual". The opening of this resort is a BIG thing, and Disney will want to celebrate it for longer than just one day. We all know that Disney like to make a BIG deal of BIG things (think how long the 60th anniversary DLR celebrations went on for!)

It's also worth noting that the same article contains this quote (again from Google Translate):

According to Fan Xiping disclosed yesterday that Disney will be a trial run before the park opened about a month and there will be for different objects, different content organization.

Ignoring the last few words which make absolutely no sense, this sentence is basically describing the month before opening as a "trial run". And this doesn't sound to me like much of an "opening ceremony"!

Priority access

I interpret this the kind of "guaranteed access" to the park for on-site hotel guests, similarly to what other Disney Resorts around the world offer. So we consider staying at least one night at the Shanghai Disneyland Hotel. Would you agree that staying one night should theoretically mean priority access to the park for two days? The arrival day and the next day? Then we would probably try to get there around 6-7am, check in (the rooms most likely wouldn't be ready yet), store our luggage and try to get into the breakfast restaurant in the hotel before park opening.

There have been a number of posts on themeparx trying to work out exactly what "priority access" means. One poster found information from the live chat saying that we were guaranteed park entry 2 hours before other guests, but I found the following day that this was denied by the live chat agent I spoke to. I think that the "priority access" literally just means you are guaranteed to get park tickets for that day, and nothing else. If anyone else knows anything else on this, please let me know!

I also don't know whether any benefits we do get apply to both the day before and the day after a hotel night stay. Does anyone else know what the policy is at other Disney hotels around the world in this regard? As I imagine almost all on-site Disney hotels give some sort of park-related benefits?

Metro station

Does anyone know if the extension to Shanghai Metro Line 11 will be open in time for the Grand Opening of the park?

The opening schedule for SITRZ (the zone surrounding SDR) has also been discussed at length at themeparx. I think the most important article here is this one: http://www.shanghaidaily.com/metro/society/Volunteers-wanted-for-tourism-zone/shdaily.shtml

It is saying that "the zone" (SITRZ) opens to the public at the end of April. And it also states that volunteers from that date will be assisting people with a number of locations, including the metro station. My take from this is that the metro station opens at the end of April. And that seems obvious too - that station is the primary way for people to actually get to SITRZ, not only SDR.

It's also worth noting that "Shanghai Village", an outdoor shopping mall which forms another part of SITRZ, is opening on May 19th. And that location will also be primarily serviced by the Disney metro station. So I think it's very likely that the metro station will open very soon. Not to mention that, having seen some recent photos of it (see themeparx for details), it looks basically complete!

Third-party hotel

So right now we are considering the "Maixinge Boutique Hotel Chuansha Branch" which is about 8km from the park by taxi. It is cheap and looks reasonably clean and comfortable for just spending the night. Any other recommendations?

Another question for fellow Opening Day planners... where are you planning to stay the night of the 15th?

For me, I'm much more interested in getting a hotel close to a Line 11 station, rather than the actual distance from the resort. My previous experience of Shanghai taxi drivers is that none of them speak English and they are very difficult to communicate with. For me, as I described above, I will mainly be watching Disney movies during the days leading up to the opening day. However I also want to do some blogging, so I wanted to find a hotel which was fairly basic/cheap, but had Wi-Fi in the rooms.

My primary option was/is the "Shanghai Dikang Boutique Hotel". This hotel is about 5-10 minutes walk from Kangxin Highway Station, which is just one stop from SDR. While I was still considering booking it, another poster on themeparx reported that he had booked the hotel through Agoda. This was back in the first week of February. It was a coincidence - we hadn't previously discussed that hotel. Anyway, I just thought I'll wait until the hotel reservations opened because I still held out some hope that there would be a possibility to check-in to the Disney hotels earlier than the opening day, although it was a long shot.

So, this week I got to booking Dikang. And I went to TripAdvisor, which took me to Ctrip, not Agoda. I didn't really think much of it at the time, because TripAdvisor does try to get you the best deal.

Anyway, later that night, about 3am, I got a phone call from Ctrip (obviously it was daytime in China) from someone saying that the room I had selected at Dikang was not available, and what did I want to do? I said I wasn't fussy about that room type, just any room type would do. The agent said she would call the hotel to check. Anyway, she called me back again about 4.30am UK time to tell me that actually this hotel does not accept reservations more than 2 weeks in advance! This was incredible to me, as the other poster on themeparx had booked his room successfully about 2 months before I did. Also, this will surely be a busy time for the hotel with it being close to SDR. Anyway she was just the messenger, and couldn't tell me anything more. She just said that the hotel had advised to try again 2 weeks before the arrival date.

Anyway, since my Ctrip experience had been quite confusing, I asked my fiancee (who speaks fluent Chinese, although ironically won't be accompanying me to the SDR opening) to call the Dikang hotel and ask them directly if a booking could be made this long in advance. They said that of course, it's no problem! Now I was really confused, so I tried again, but this time through Agoda. My booking was confirmed and so far I haven't got any information to the contrary or any late-night phone calls from China!

If this means it really was booked successfully, all I can think is maybe it's because the prices at Ctrip are much less. Maybe the hotel wouldn't accept bookings at those rates until closer to the time when they had rooms to fill up quickly. The price at Agoda was about £10 per night more expensive than Ctrip.

However, I do want to have some backups just in case this still doesn't work out. My second option is the Home Inn Sanlin Subway Station, which (guess what?) is just a stone's throw from Sanlin station on Line 11. But I haven't been able to find out yet whether they have Wi-Fi in the rooms there.

Meet up

Would also be interested in organising a meet up/s with anyone who is interested. I'll be a bit out of my comfort zone!

Count me in for a meet up . How about a meet up in Disneytown after park closing on the 16th? Would be fun to explore Disneytown and grab a bite to eat or something to drink with some fellow Disney fans while discussing opinions about the brand new park.

Not much has been said about this recently but if this is still planned and there is a bit of a group of us, I'll try to join in!

Dining reservations

With the trip only 10 weeks away..... By now I'm usually calling Walt Disney World to get dinig reservations... (Crazy in itself)

But as yet no sign dining reservations or menus available for Shanghai . Doesn't stop me for dreaming and planning tho....

Want to try to get dinner at the Royal Banquet Hall and Aurora, high tea at Bacchus lounge, and lunch at Tangled Tree Tavern.

Anyone else thinking about food yet??? Or is it just me

I'm thinking about dining but only in the sense of character dining. I really hope to get a character dining reservation and want to book this before booking TLK (hope I'm not too late for that!) so they aren't on clashing nights.

I spoke to the live chat people yesterday and they confirmed that dining reservations can only be booked on the phone, not online or through live chat, and that they can be booked through the reservations phone line. The same is true if you want to have a hotel breakfast, which isn't included in the room rate. I haven't got around to calling them yet though (mainly due to the annoying timezone difference).

Outfits

I am already planning my outfits. I plan to do a different Disneybound each day. I thought for Opening Day I'd go with something classic like Minnie Mouse, and the other days maybe something fun like Pooh Bear, and just for an excuse to wear my tiara, maybe Cinderella. Still very much in the early planning stages though.

It sounds like something fun to do - I've never actually done cosplay at Disney parks before. Has anyone else? But don't you think it's likely that Disney will set some rules around it, so that guests don't get mixed up between you and genuine cast members?

For example, the park rules at DLR state:

Proper attire, including shoes and shirts, must be worn at all times. Costumes may not be worn by Guests ages 14 or older. ... We reserve the right to deny admission to or remove any person wearing attire that we consider inappropriate or attire that could detract from the experience of other Guests.

This seems so unfair to me....ages 14 or older what ever happened to "the boy who never grew up"? However, I wouldn't want to risk getting "denied admission" just for the sake of an outfit......

Hotel opening times

I don't know when the hotels or Disney Town will open yet but I think they will both open in the morning, way before the park opens. My assumption is based upon two things:

...

Maybe Disney will release the official opening times of Disney Town and the hotels later but this is my guess.

I asked the live chat agents about the hotel opening times (especially on opening day for left luggage purposes etc) yesterday and I got the answer: "We will release related operation arrangement later ... for the hotel opening hours we still not get informed". I take it that there will be some information released in the future about the actual opening hours.

Other topics

There are a few other things I'm still hopeful to get answers on:

1. I still haven't got a clear answer one way or the other about whether there will be any opportunity to check into the hotel earlier than 16th or whether any hotel facilities (such as left luggage) will be available earlier than 16th. Since there is this "trial run" for a month before opening, presumably the hotel will be fully staffed, and since I have a confirmed booking, I don't know whether this would give me any special privilege. Every time I ask the live chat agents about this, I get the answer "We will release related operation arrangement later".
2. This thing about you have to present the ticket barcode at the turnstiles from your phone....I want to know whether they will have Wi-Fi at the turnstiles as we will need to connect to the Internet! I really don't want to have to turn on my mobile data connection from inside China - this will cost a ridiculous amount of money! Again, when I asked this I was told "We will release related operation arrangement later".
3. I don't know how two-day tickets work. The step-by-step guide says: "You will be granted admission to the park after your valid ticket has been scanned and voided, and you will be provided with a paper ticket for same-day re-admission (for the length of your ticket)." I want to know, if the original ticket was voided, and we were provided with a paper ticket for only same-day re-admission, how will we get in on the second day?! But again, the online chat agent said "we will release all the related policy you need later". So I am still in the dark about this.

I will keep checking back with the live chat agents about these and other topics. If I find anything I'll post it here!

 

[zanzibar138]

Hello all!! My name is Adam and I was invited to join this discussion by an anonymous poster over at themeparx. I regularly post on there with Shanghai Disney Resort news. However it has become clear that there may be some discussions which are outside the scope of themeparx, and I would really like to discuss things with you lovely people over here at disboards! I have been a member of disboards for some time but I haven't been on it for a long time now and certainly wasn't aware of this thread until today.

I have spent the last hour or so going through the entire thread so far and reading all your posts. I'd like to introduce myself and also give an update on where I'm up to, and what I'm waiting for. After reading through all 7 pages of the thread I only really found posts I needed to reply to on the first and last pages, as the middle posts were mostly people speculating about the ticket sales and then going through the horror of ticket sales. Don't worry - we were all in the same boat - you can see myself and others posted on themeparx during our saga, and had much the same experiences as you guys!

I don't know if double posting is discouraged/disallowed over here on disboards - perhaps someone can let me know? Anyway to be on the safe side I will assume that double posting is not allowed and so this post will probably be quite long!!

Welcome aboard

If by double posting you mean posting 2 or more replies in quick succession, it is allowed in moderation and where appropriate. However, you have to wait 30 seconds or something between posts. Obviously spamming is not ok, but in my opinion that is completely different!

Regarding flights - I live in London UK, and I'm flying Lufthansa both ways - changing at Frankfurt (1h change) on both the outward and return. The only other viable option was China Eastern which was cheaper but I have heard a lot of bad things about them and decided to avoid them!

Oh dear. I've booked through Qantas, but have found out that my flight will be operated by China Eastern. I hope they're not too terrible!

Even though the tickets are dated, I am still uncertain about what time to arrive at the park. I too want to try to make sure I'm one of the first in line. I suppose my biggest fear is that there will be so many people to process through the turnstiles on opening day that either (a) it will take so long to process them all that I will miss some of the festivities, or (b) I will be so far towards the back of the crowd that I won't be able to see anything! I was also thinking something like 4-5 hours before opening. But I also just don't know whether it's a case of (similar to NYE celebrations - I have done Edinburgh and New York among others) you have to just stand in one place for hours and not use the bathroom for basically the entire day. I don't think I could cope with that, especially as it will be hot and I'll need to be drinking water! Has anyone got any experience from previous park openings and knows whether, once the gates are open, it's still necessary to stand in one spot for hours on end to get a good view of what's going on?

My main priority is to be as close to the front as possible so that I can see what's going on. I hadn't even thought of the possibility of missing out altogether due to slow processing of crowds through the turnstiles!

As solo travellers, the dilemmas of bathroom logistics are very real. I definitely don't want to go all that way and miss out on everything just because I couldn't hold it for another half an hour!

I also don't know whether any benefits we do get apply to both the day before and the day after a hotel night stay. Does anyone else know what the policy is at other Disney hotels around the world in this regard? As I imagine almost all on-site Disney hotels give some sort of park-related benefits?

The only thing I can contribute to this was that on live chat, I had someone confirm that the ticket guarantee applies to the day of check in (ie Opening Day).

Not much has been said about this recently but if this is still planned and there is a bit of a group of us, I'll try to join in!

I'm definitely still keen on a meet up. Perhaps some of solos with similar plans may even want to 'team up' to combat issues like bathroom logistics lol!

It sounds like something fun to do - I've never actually done cosplay at Disney parks before. Has anyone else? But don't you think it's likely that Disney will set some rules around it, so that guests don't get mixed up between you and genuine cast members?

Yes, there are rules that prevent adults from cosplaying in the parks. Disneybounding is much different though. It's just wearing normal clothes inspired by Disney characters. It's very popular in the US and I've successfully done it over there.

Here's a Boo (Monsters Inc) Disneybound I put together for our last trip.



I Disneybounded as Minnie for Dapper Day on another trip.



I've also done Marie, Russell (Up), and a couple of variations of Mulan.

2. This thing about you have to present the ticket barcode at the turnstiles from your phone....I want to know whether they will have Wi-Fi at the turnstiles as we will need to connect to the Internet! I really don't want to have to turn on my mobile data connection from inside China - this will cost a ridiculous amount of money! Again, when I asked this I was told "We will release related operation arrangement later".

I don't have a smartphone so I just plan to print my tickets out at home and take them to the turnstiles. I'm hoping I will be able to buy my Opening Day ticket over the phone before I go.

 

[zanzibar138]

As for my hotel for the 15th, I went ahead and booked a room on Air BNB. The house is in the high end residential area at the southern end of the Disneyland block, and the host has offered to give me a lift to Disneyland on her way to work in the morning! I will have to get a taxi there from the airport, but the host will send me all the directions in Mandarin so that I can just give it to the taxi driver.

I'm a little nervous, I've never used Air BNB before, and not sure that a trip to China is the best place to start! It did seem to be the most logical option though, and the host gets great reviews and seems like she will be very helpful. Plus, only $70 for a private room, which is great news for my completely busted budget.

 

[steamboat will]

Me! I want to go to the Royal Banquet Hall too. The website says nothing about ressies. Do you know if they'll have them?

Seems Disney resort hotel can enjoy "priority seating" at the Enchanting storybook castle.... So take from that what you like

Back in the day "priority seating" was what I'd now ADR's at disney, So that may mean only Disney Hotel guests are the only ones who can make advance reservations, or maybe they hold a certain amount of tables for them, or they get an advanced booking window....

Will certainly be interesting to see how the Chinese take to table service dining in a theme park. Disney got it wrong in Paris building too many table service restaurants when the park first opened there some sat largely empty while others were converted into counter service. With only the castle restaurant offering table service in SDL I wonder how popular it will be. However of course with Disneytown right outside the gates guests will have the option to go there for meals without going too far.

SW

 

[steamboat will]

Hi Adam

Glad to welcome you. I'm also traveling from the UK, flying direct, but won't be arriving in the park till Saturday 18th. I'm a little surprised there aren't more Disney fans planning to head out to SDL,or maybe there are but they're not posting here LOL

I'm sure they'll be lots of crazy speculation, random musing and exciting rumouring over the next 11 weeks to keep us all entertained.

SW

 

[steamboat will]

Just managed to get a room for Toy Story Hotel 17-18th June. This was previously sold out but appeared again today. So if anyone is still hoping to find a night or two that was previously sold out it might be worth checking again over the coming days as you might just lucky

SW

 

[WAMUMOF4]

I am struggling with where to stay offsite I really want to use the subway to the park within 10 mins, you would think that would be an easy task!

Also noticed the 18th is sold out for park tickets as well.

 

[zanzibar138]

Just managed to get a room for Toy Story Hotel 17-18th June. This was previously sold out but appeared again today. So if anyone is still hoping to find a night or two that was previously sold out it might be worth checking again over the coming days as you might just lucky

SW

Wow great score!

I think there's probably a few more of us going to Shanghai who aren't posting here. It's pretty hard to find this thread if you don't know what you're looking for. Having said that, I know a lot of American Disney fans are pretty upset about SDL possibly contributing to the higher prices and reduced services in the US parks, and say they won't ever go there out of principle. I've seen a lot more discussion about it on FB than here (every time a SDL update appears on my newsfeed really), but there's definitely discussion.

I don't want to get into that debate here and possibly cause this thread to head to the gutter. Just wanted to point it out as a possible reason why more people from the DisBoards may not be going (as this forum is largely US based). If anyone wants to read more, I think there are some threads in the US parks sections where you can probably join in the discussion.

 

[zanzibar138]

I am struggling with where to stay offsite I really want to use the subway to the park within 10 mins, you would think that would be an easy task!

Also noticed the 18th is sold out for park tickets as well.

That was what I was aiming for too. There just don't seem to be a lot of options in that area yet. Plus it's kind of hard to tell what's going to be close to the train stations when they aren't visible on google maps yet! I didn't see much at all once you get out of the city on that side. I'm sure a few more options will start popping up though to cater for Disneyland guests, or possibly what's there already will become a bit more mainstream and easier to find info on.

 

[steamboat will]

I don't want to get into that debate here and possibly cause this thread to head to the gutter.

That's really thoughtful of you. Think this should be the place for those looking forward and getting excited too.

Folks should remember that what happens in one park can also have a very positive influence on the others too.

New film on soarin in the US is a direct response to the attraction being built in SDL, who knows one day we could see the technology from TRON lightcyles making it to the other parks or updated pirate animatronics that have been developed for SDL arriving in WDW. Disney love to recycle projects to other parks.

SW

 

[steamboat will]

That was what I was aiming for too. There just don't seem to be a lot of options in that area yet. Plus it's kind of hard to tell what's going to be close to the train stations when they aren't visible on google maps yet! I didn't see much at all once you get out of the city on that side. I'm sure a few more options will start popping up though to cater for Disneyland guests, or possibly what's there already will become a bit more mainstream and easier to find info on.

I just searched Shanghai hotels on TripAdvisor and pulled up a map and the metro lines are clearly marked it should be possible to figure out hotels with close proximity.

Disney will be on line 11... Which is brown... According to wiki although it looks more deep red on my screen, though that could just be my eyes. Happy searching

SW

EDIT realised you might be referring to where the line travels after it's extension... Now that does seem like a tougher question

 

[Dentam]

So... here's a question that I hadn't even thought of until it was brought up on a blog post I read recently. What do you think the safety standards are for construction at SDL in comparison to the U.S. parks? People have mentioned that the park has a delayed opening by months due to some areas needing to be redone due to poor construction initially. It was also brought up that China's construction safety standards are not on par with those in the U.S. I would think that with Disney having their name on this, they will ensure it meets the strictest standards. Thoughts? I've never been to a Disney park outside the U.S. so am curious about this.

 

[zanzibar138]

EDIT realised you might be referring to where the line travels after it's extension... Now that does seem like a tougher question

Yes, that's what I meant

So... here's a question that I hadn't even thought of until it was brought up on a blog post I read recently. What do you think the safety standards are for construction at SDL in comparison to the U.S. parks? People have mentioned that the park has a delayed opening by months due to some areas needing to be redone due to poor construction initially. It was also brought up that China's construction safety standards are not on par with those in the U.S. I would think that with Disney having their name on this, they will ensure it meets the strictest standards. Thoughts? I've never been to a Disney park outside the U.S. so am curious about this.

Personally I'm not concerned. If areas have been redone due to original poor construction, Disney is obviously keeping a close eye on the project and are willing to shell out the extra time and money required to fix anything that's not up to par. If they were found to be cutting corners with safety, it would be disastrous for the company worldwide, and I'm sure they are well aware of that.

 

[Dentam]

Personally I'm not concerned. If areas have been redone due to original poor construction, Disney is obviously keeping a close eye on the project and are willing to shell out the extra time and money required to fix anything that's not up to par. If they were found to be cutting corners with safety, it would be disastrous for the company worldwide, and I'm sure they are well aware of that.

This is my thinking on it as well. I hadn't even really considered the challenges they must face working in a different country that has completely different building codes, etc though.

 

[Wuzefelix]

A few hotel rooms have opened up again! I have just been able to book us two rooms in Toy Story Hotel for the grand opening night and two rooms in Shanghai Disneyland Hotel for the night after. Now we'll be staying onsite after all . There is still some availability right now, if anyone still needs a room, go ahead and book it while you can!

to wtdanceisthrough and all others who have joined us in our little trip planning thread! I am sorry I don't have time to welcome or reply to everyone individually but I am super excited that so many have joined us in the planning of our Shanghai Disneyland Grand Opening trip. I'm impressed with how many people add posts to this thread and thank everyone of you for your contributions!

xmansmon, the hotel that I mentioned only cost us 42 USD per night, that is why I said it was cheap. I booked it on the same day they annouced the opening date, I believe it was in January. You are right, this hotel is now much more expensive so I am not sure I would chose it anymore if I were you. I am really glad I did book it so super early. Now I was able to change our booking so we'll just be there the night of the 15th for and then the next nights we'll move to the onsite hotels. I do hope you'll be able to find some good hotel option, too!

 

[wtdanceisthrough]

Welcomes

Welcome aboard

Hi Adam

Glad to welcome you. I'm also traveling from the UK, flying direct, but won't be arriving in the park till Saturday 18th. I'm a little surprised there aren't more Disney fans planning to head out to SDL,or maybe there are but they're not posting here LOL

I'm sure they'll be lots of crazy speculation, random musing and exciting rumouring over the next 11 weeks to keep us all entertained.

SW

to wtdanceisthrough and all others who have joined us in our little trip planning thread! I am sorry I don't have time to welcome or reply to everyone individually but I am super excited that so many have joined us in the planning of our Shanghai Disneyland Grand Opening trip. I'm impressed with how many people add posts to this thread and thank everyone of you for your contributions!

Thank you to all for your warm welcome!!

Getting in

My main priority is to be as close to the front as possible so that I can see what's going on. I hadn't even thought of the possibility of missing out altogether due to slow processing of crowds through the turnstiles!

I live in London and go to the Wimbledon tennis tournament almost every year. (Tennis is another one of my obsessions apart from Disney.) The "Queue" (as it's called, a proper noun) is a big tradition at the tournament and so I know all about queueing and the time taken to process thousands of people through turnstiles! As I know, when visiting there, in order to see the first matches of the day you have to make sure you're not only in the queue before opening cut-off, but in the queue with a good position or else you won't get through in time. Luckily that is very very organised with position-labelled queue cards so you can leave the queue and re-enter at the same position. I doubt anything so organised will be present at Disney!

As solo travellers, the dilemmas of bathroom logistics are very real. I definitely don't want to go all that way and miss out on everything just because I couldn't hold it for another half an hour!

I'm definitely still keen on a meet up. Perhaps some of solos with similar plans may even want to 'team up' to combat issues like bathroom logistics lol!

I managed it at New York for New Year, standing in one place for about 8 hours from 4pm to midnight. The trick there was to basically drink nothing all day - but it was ridiculously cold and I didn't particularly feel the need to re-hydrate. Standing outside in China in June (not to mention the pollution which makes it hotter) is going to make that just impractical. I'm happy to meet up with others before opening but only if there's a group of us...

Third-party hotels

I am struggling with where to stay offsite I really want to use the subway to the park within 10 mins, you would think that would be an easy task!

That was what I was aiming for too. There just don't seem to be a lot of options in that area yet. Plus it's kind of hard to tell what's going to be close to the train stations when they aren't visible on google maps yet! I didn't see much at all once you get out of the city on that side. I'm sure a few more options will start popping up though to cater for Disneyland guests, or possibly what's there already will become a bit more mainstream and easier to find info on.

EDIT realised you might be referring to where the line travels after it's extension... Now that does seem like a tougher question

Yes, that's what I meant

Maybe I can help with this? As I have gone through the same things. If you check my earlier post, I was looking for a hotel close to a subway station. The two I have found so far are:
* Dikang Boutique Hotel (1 stop away)
* Home Inn Sanlin Subway Station (~7 stops away)

For locations of subway stations I have used baidu. Basically the line extension is adding three stations, two of which have already opened. Disney Resort Station is the only one which hasn't opened yet. In order to find their locations, I have just had baidu maps and Google maps open simultaneously and worked out based on the road names where each station is located.

For the location of the Shanghai Disney Resort station itself, the websites about Shanghai Village can help. The metro station is positioned right next to Shanghai Village, presumably to tempt people to visit the shops there on their way to Disneyland. I saw some new aerial shots of Shanghai Village over at LATTOF recently and it's looking great!

As for my hotel for the 15th, I went ahead and booked a room on Air BNB. The house is in the high end residential area at the southern end of the Disneyland block, and the host has offered to give me a lift to Disneyland on her way to work in the morning! I will have to get a taxi there from the airport, but the host will send me all the directions in Mandarin so that I can just give it to the taxi driver.

I'm a little nervous, I've never used Air BNB before, and not sure that a trip to China is the best place to start! It did seem to be the most logical option though, and the host gets great reviews and seems like she will be very helpful. Plus, only $70 for a private room, which is great news for my completely busted budget.

Good luck! You are much braver than me, needing my creature comforts!!

Dining reservations

Had a chat with Annie from reservations on the phone today for over 1 hour! Wow it's so frustrating, as the staff don't speak good English, and don't have a lot of information, and seemingly don't want to tell me they don't have lots of information. Often it feels like you are speaking to an automated service. Because several times after I asked a question, I was asked "So, you want to know about dining at Shanghai Disney Resort, right?" And I said yes, and then she read me some pre-scripted information, which she had repeated to me five or six times during the phone call, despite my protests. And this was mostly copied from the official website! No disrespect to the staff, seriously, they are just doing their jobs, and are very nice people. But it is very frustrating the way it's organised.

Anyway, basically I was able to confirm the following information:
* Booked breakfast is available at Lumiere's Kitchen and Aurora only (within SDH - I didn't ask about TSH)
* Booked breakfast times are at 6:30, 6:45, and so on every 15 minutes until 9:45 which is the last timeslot
* Bacchus Lounge and Ballet Cafe are also open in the mornings for breakfast, but don't take bookings. And the food provided would be a lot more basic because these two venues are intended as "a place to relax" only
* Dinner times are also every 15 minutes
* For both breakfast and dinner, you have to arrive within 15 minutes of your booked time or the reservation will be cancelled

About character dining, Annie told me that every restaurant offering character dining (which is only Lumiere's Kitchen (SDH) and Royal Banquet Hall (in-park) currently) is offering character dining for every single dining slot at breakfast, lunch and dinner. But to me this seems quite unlikely to be true. In fact, Annie did not even seem to know what character dining was until I explained it to her. Does anyone know for other Disney parks what times character dining is usually available at participating restaurants?

She was not able to tell me anything about the food available at breakfast at each restaurant, or any further details about dinner choices than what's already on the website.

Disneybounding

Yes, there are rules that prevent adults from cosplaying in the parks. Disneybounding is much different though. It's just wearing normal clothes inspired by Disney characters. It's very popular in the US and I've successfully done it over there.

This sounds really interesting. Is there a thread/board on disboards to discuss disneybounding further? I want to know more like where do people buy clothes from, where to draw the line about what's acceptable, ideas for guys etc!

Other things

Also noticed the 18th is sold out for park tickets as well.

Unfortunately it seems 16th-18th sold out within the first 24 hours... Source: http://shanghaiist.com/2016/03/29/disneyland_ticket_scalpers.php

Oh dear. I've booked through Qantas, but have found out that my flight will be operated by China Eastern. I hope they're not too terrible!

Don't worry, you will be fine I think you can cope with anything for 12 hours to achieve your dream!!

So... here's a question that I hadn't even thought of until it was brought up on a blog post I read recently. What do you think the safety standards are for construction at SDL in comparison to the U.S. parks? People have mentioned that the park has a delayed opening by months due to some areas needing to be redone due to poor construction initially. It was also brought up that China's construction safety standards are not on par with those in the U.S. I would think that with Disney having their name on this, they will ensure it meets the strictest standards. Thoughts? I've never been to a Disney park outside the U.S. so am curious about this.

Lol, I am clearly unconcerned with safety standards in China as this is an image of me walking along some ropes at Paradise Island water park in China:

In this image (not sure how to resize images on here?) I'm holding onto some ropes, but I walked around some parts of the course as a tightrope-artist without even holding on! Compared to this, SDR is going to be easy

 

[Dentam]

It looks like the scarcity in tickets can be partially explained by this story: http://shanghaiist.com/2016/04/01/boy_buys_friends_shanghai_disneyland_tickets.php. Too funny!

 

[zanzibar138]

Congrats to everyone who managed to score onsite accommodation! I'm kind of ticked off that I spent over A$600 on a concierge room at SDL Hotel and now there's a basic cheap room at the Toy Story Hotel again lol! Ah well, at least I get to experience both hotels, and I've never been concierge before either, so that should be fun!

Disneybounding



This sounds really interesting. Is there a thread/board on disboards to discuss disneybounding further? I want to know more like where do people buy clothes from, where to draw the line about what's acceptable, ideas for guys etc!

I'm not sure about the boards, but there is a whole community out there on the internet. This is a great place to start http://disneybound.co/ but you can also find a lot just by googling. There are heaps of options for guys too

As for me, I just buy my clothes from any old where. They're just normal clothes worn in certain colour combinations and combined with themed accessories. I tend to buy most of my accessories from ebay (jewellery etc).

It looks like the scarcity in tickets can be partially explained by this story: http://shanghaiist.com/2016/04/01/boy_buys_friends_shanghai_disneyland_tickets.php. Too funny!

As much as I can see the funny side of that, it is a bit of a shame for those many people who missed out on tickets.

Did anyone else read the part that said the father of the child was planning to buy tickets for all the parents too... I wonder how he's planning to do that lol!

 

[Bone Daddy]

Just managed to get a room for Toy Story Hotel 17-18th June. This was previously sold out but appeared again today. So if anyone is still hoping to find a night or two that was previously sold out it might be worth checking again over the coming days as you might just lucky
Anyone know the hours of operation for the parks??

 

[the_princess]

I'll just hang out here and wait for the opening. I can't wait to hear the opinions and see some pics from the park. I might look into a trip in April 2017 where the crowds hopefully has gone down a bit