12 Parks in 16 Days - Disney Parks Around the World Trip Report

[alohamom]

I wish the US could get these popcorn containers. They are so cute!

Oh my goodness, they are really cool! Such a simple but really smart design!
I usually don't buy popcorn at Disney, but I feel like I would if it was in one of those, just for the novelty.

 

[Rimmit]

Oh my goodness, they are really cool! Such a simple but really smart design!
I usually don't buy popcorn at Disney, but I feel like I would if it was in one of those, just for the novelty.

I agree! Our next stop when we get to Japan has a pic of more popcorn buckets than you can imagine when we visit The Big Pop. You’ll be super jealous of the stuff Japan has.

 

[Rimmit]

We then head over to the World of Frozen to try and go on the Frozen ride.

We walk to over to the corner of the land where Frozen is.

Arendelle is absolutely gorgeous at night.

This part of the park is actually pretty crowded and the first time we felt crowded all day. The land just opened up in the last year, so it’s definitely the new hot thing.

Unfortunately, when we get to Frozen, it was closed for some reason. It’s about dinner time, so we go get some food at the Royal Banquet Hall in Fantasyland. We stay close as if Frozen open back up, we’ll go do it real quick before the nighttime show. This is a massive quick service restaurant with 4 different bays, Entrèe Royale, International, Japanese, Grill that served different items at each. The Japanese line was the longest by a mile, with the more wester food being pretty much a walk on.

We opted for some pizza, pasta and dumplings. It is absolute madness inside, and we spend over 10 minutes trying to find a seat. We eventually opt for outdoor seating despite the cold due to the inability to find a place to sit. We eat our food, as I watch and wait to see if Frozen reopens.

We got to the bathroom and right after we get out of the bathroom, I notice that Frozen had reopened and we immediately dashed to go on it before a line had a chance to form. It didn’t even take 10 minutes from the time we entered the line to when we were on the ride. Even though we’ve been on the Frozen ride in Epcot many times, I really wanted to see the differences and newer animatronics that did not have the projector faces like what they had in Epcot.

The ride was definitely an improvement over the Epcot version. Given it was custom built for this space rather than just shoehorned into the Maelstrom’s old location makes a big difference in just overall layout.

The change from the weird screen faces to standard animatronic faces is easily the best decision ever.

We found it definitely superior to the Epcot version. Not that the Epcot version is bad, it’s just this one improves on Epcot in almost all aspects. We chose not to do Oaken’s Sleighs, it is the shortest coaster in Disney at 25 seconds long and has a 40-50 minute wait or you can pay about 50 USD for Premiere Access. For the cost or wait time it just did not seem worth it.

We then walk out of Arendelle. We love the little and not so little details they add to the land to give it a real Frozen vibe.

It was getting close to fireworks time, so we went and found a spot for Momentous, their nighttime spectacular. We stake out a spot and Kendall and Lucy went to Main Street to try and find a some small gifts for friends and family, and a magnet. We truly buy minimal stuff when we travel, as we just in general do not like clutter in our home. There is only one thing we do buy as a souvenir from everywhere we go and that is a magnet. Magnet options have been pretty thin in Hong Kong so far, but we are hopeful Main Street will have something. Thankfully, Kendall did manage to find one, albeit not exactly the best, but beggars can’t be choosy and we were begging at this point.

The castle like any Disney castle looks gorgeous at night.

The show starts on time as expected. Overall, the show was great as most nighttime spectaculars are with a montage of Disney songs and video, combined with fireworks, water, and projections.

Very nice, and I liked it better than the fireworks portion of Illuminations but not as much as Happily Ever After.

The story has some heart to it and it’s not just a random collage of pictures and videos. The fireworks were not as elaborate as other nighttime shows, so they definitely cut the budget there some, but the lighting, laser effects and water features make up for it as they were impressive.

After the show, we walk back to the room on the same pathway we had used previously.

I go settle our bill at the desk as we have an early morning out of the airport. Yep! SURPRISE! I forgot to mention we aren’t staying our third night in Hong Kong. We had originally had 3 nights here, but after seeing the park today and how long it would take for us to do everything, we decided we could instead take that extra night and head to Shanghai, so throughout the day I was also cancelling and rebooking us to get us to Shanghai.

So we ARE going to do all 12 parks, rather than just 11. It would have gutted us to have been so close to doing all 12 in one trip, so we decided we’d tough it out, and fly to Shanghai for one night so we could make it to Shanghai Disneyland for half a day. We’ll obviously have to go back someday to do a more extensive park day, but we’ll at least be able to make it for a short bit this trip.

Thankfully, since our Hong Kong to Tokyo flights were booked with Delta miles there is no penalty to cancel that. I luck out and find some business class availability on Cathay Pacific for 84,000 miles total, so we book that from Hong Kong, and then book an economy flight on China Eastern from Shanghai to Tokyo for about $500 dollars. I also do a last second booking for the Shanghai Disneyland Hotel. Given we were flying an Asian carrier out of Hong Kong we figured the chance of them not understanding that we DO NOT need a visa was slim to none, as Hong Kong IS part of China.

On another celebratory note, today we hit ANOTHER milestone. I have tried to avoid writing about Kendall’s injury too much, as that is not the focus of these articles, but today we accomplished something that we truly never thought would be possible after the accident. Previously, in Paris we started the day at about noon so it wasn’t quite a full park day, but Kendall did manage to walk it. While Hong Kong is not the biggest park, Kendall walked a true ENTIRE day in the park with no wheelchair assistance!!!! She walked over 22,000 steps!!!! This is massive and a true cause for celebration as we truly believed it would never happen again. On this trip she continues to break through walls we believed were unbreakable.

Day 11, December 29th, 2024 Step Count – 26,362 Steps

Total Step Count – 177,050

Start from Day 1 of the trip here.

 

[alohamom]

I totally understand the situation with Kendall as my husband had a workplace injury with his ankle (tendons torn and ligiment totally split) and had to have it rebuilt. It has taken him over two years of recovery and I don't think he could do Disney full day so bravo to Kendall for that!

 

[Disney Ella]

This sounds like such a fun trip (travel problems aside). It must have been so interesting to see how other parks compared to the U.S. parks. I also clicked on your link about Kendall's accident. What a harrowing experience! I didn't think poor Kendall was ever going to get to Johannesburg. It's nice to see that she was able to do so much walking on this trip.

 

[kaleopp09]

I'm super jealous of the TSA precheck line! The Polynesian sounds incredible, and I love that you got to experience both the old and new parts.

 

[Mathmagicland]

been so close to doing all 12 in one trip, so we decided we’d tough it out, and fly to Shanghai for one night so we could make it to Shanghai Disneyland for half a day. We’ll obviously have to go back someday to do a more extensive park day, but we’ll at least be able to make it for a short bit this trip.

So very happy for you all that you are able to get to all 12 parks! And you must have mad travel arranging skills!!!!

 

[Rimmit]

I totally understand the situation with Kendall as my husband had a workplace injury with his ankle (tendons torn and ligiment totally split) and had to have it rebuilt. It has taken him over two years of recovery and I don't think he could do Disney full day so bravo to Kendall for that!

I’m so sorry about your husband. It’s been a lot of PT, but she’s walking pretty good now thank god and doing things we never thought possible when her heel was originally ripped off.

This sounds like such a fun trip (travel problems aside). It must have been so interesting to see how other parks compared to the U.S. parks. I also clicked on your link about Kendall's accident. What a harrowing experience! I didn't think poor Kendall was ever going to get to Johannesburg. It's nice to see that she was able to do so much walking on this trip.

Yes. Thank god we got out of Vic Falls. If you read the blog article it was insane. Thank god we got out and after a lot of PT is walking a decent amount again.

I'm super jealous of the TSA precheck line! The Polynesian sounds incredible, and I love that you got to experience both the old and new parts.

Apply for Precheck! It’s not that expensive or get a CC that gives you to for free!

So very happy for you all that you are able to get to all 12 parks! And you must have mad travel arranging skills!!!!

Necessity is mother of all invention or award searching and rebooking. lol.

 

[ksinniger]

This trip report is amazing! Seeing all the disney parks is on my life list (I've done Florida, California and Paris thus far), and your experiences in Hong Kong are reigniting the fire to get to the Asain parks. Thanks for all your details (good and bad) - can't wait to read more!

 

[David G Farr]

I can't imagine having your trip planning skills, and I thought I was pretty good at it. Being able to change flights and adjust points/itineraries is quite the skill.

 

[Rimmit]

I can't imagine having your trip planning skills, and I thought I was pretty good at it. Being able to change flights and adjust points/itineraries is quite the skill.

Thanks, although I'd say the real skill was getting Kendall out of Zimbabwe. That's the story of a lifetime right there. I couldn't make up that up if I tried.

 

[hardcorestitch]

We then head over to the World of Frozen to try and go on the Frozen ride.

We walk to over to the corner of the land where Frozen is.

Arendelle is absolutely gorgeous at night.

This part of the park is actually pretty crowded and the first time we felt crowded all day. The land just opened up in the last year, so it’s definitely the new hot thing.

Unfortunately, when we get to Frozen, it was closed for some reason. It’s about dinner time, so we go get some food at the Royal Banquet Hall in Fantasyland. We stay close as if Frozen open back up, we’ll go do it real quick before the nighttime show. This is a massive quick service restaurant with 4 different bays, Entrèe Royale, International, Japanese, Grill that served different items at each. The Japanese line was the longest by a mile, with the more wester food being pretty much a walk on.

We opted for some pizza, pasta and dumplings. It is absolute madness inside, and we spend over 10 minutes trying to find a seat. We eventually opt for outdoor seating despite the cold due to the inability to find a place to sit. We eat our food, as I watch and wait to see if Frozen reopens.

We got to the bathroom and right after we get out of the bathroom, I notice that Frozen had reopened and we immediately dashed to go on it before a line had a chance to form. It didn’t even take 10 minutes from the time we entered the line to when we were on the ride. Even though we’ve been on the Frozen ride in Epcot many times, I really wanted to see the differences and newer animatronics that did not have the projector faces like what they had in Epcot.

The ride was definitely an improvement over the Epcot version. Given it was custom built for this space rather than just shoehorned into the Maelstrom’s old location makes a big difference in just overall layout.

The change from the weird screen faces to standard animatronic faces is easily the best decision ever.

We found it definitely superior to the Epcot version. Not that the Epcot version is bad, it’s just this one improves on Epcot in almost all aspects. We chose not to do Oaken’s Sleighs, it is the shortest coaster in Disney at 25 seconds long and has a 40-50 minute wait or you can pay about 50 USD for Premiere Access. For the cost or wait time it just did not seem worth it.

We then walk out of Arendelle. We love the little and not so little details they add to the land to give it a real Frozen vibe.

It was getting close to fireworks time, so we went and found a spot for Momentous, their nighttime spectacular. We stake out a spot and Kendall and Lucy went to Main Street to try and find a some small gifts for friends and family, and a magnet. We truly buy minimal stuff when we travel, as we just in general do not like clutter in our home. There is only one thing we do buy as a souvenir from everywhere we go and that is a magnet. Magnet options have been pretty thin in Hong Kong so far, but we are hopeful Main Street will have something. Thankfully, Kendall did manage to find one, albeit not exactly the best, but beggars can’t be choosy and we were begging at this point.

The castle like any Disney castle looks gorgeous at night.

The show starts on time as expected. Overall, the show was great as most nighttime spectaculars are with a montage of Disney songs and video, combined with fireworks, water, and projections.

Very nice, and I liked it better than the fireworks portion of Illuminations but not as much as Happily Ever After.

The story has some heart to it and it’s not just a random collage of pictures and videos. The fireworks were not as elaborate as other nighttime shows, so they definitely cut the budget there some, but the lighting, laser effects and water features make up for it as they were impressive.

After the show, we walk back to the room on the same pathway we had used previously.

I go settle our bill at the desk as we have an early morning out of the airport. Yep! SURPRISE! I forgot to mention we aren’t staying our third night in Hong Kong. We had originally had 3 nights here, but after seeing the park today and how long it would take for us to do everything, we decided we could instead take that extra night and head to Shanghai, so throughout the day I was also cancelling and rebooking us to get us to Shanghai.

So we ARE going to do all 12 parks, rather than just 11. It would have gutted us to have been so close to doing all 12 in one trip, so we decided we’d tough it out, and fly to Shanghai for one night so we could make it to Shanghai Disneyland for half a day. We’ll obviously have to go back someday to do a more extensive park day, but we’ll at least be able to make it for a short bit this trip.

Thankfully, since our Hong Kong to Tokyo flights were booked with Delta miles there is no penalty to cancel that. I luck out and find some business class availability on Cathay Pacific for 84,000 miles total, so we book that from Hong Kong, and then book an economy flight on China Eastern from Shanghai to Tokyo for about $500 dollars. I also do a last second booking for the Shanghai Disneyland Hotel. Given we were flying an Asian carrier out of Hong Kong we figured the chance of them not understanding that we DO NOT need a visa was slim to none, as Hong Kong IS part of China.

On another celebratory note, today we hit ANOTHER milestone. I have tried to avoid writing about Kendall’s injury too much, as that is not the focus of these articles, but today we accomplished something that we truly never thought would be possible after the accident. Previously, in Paris we started the day at about noon so it wasn’t quite a full park day, but Kendall did manage to walk it. While Hong Kong is not the biggest park, Kendall walked a true ENTIRE day in the park with no wheelchair assistance!!!! She walked over 22,000 steps!!!! This is massive and a true cause for celebration as we truly believed it would never happen again. On this trip she continues to break through walls we believed were unbreakable.

Day 11, December 29th, 2024 Step Count – 26,362 Steps

Total Step Count – 177,050

Start from Day 1 of the trip here.

You made a very good flex getting Shanghai in.

 

[Rimmit]

Day 12 - Shanghai Disneyland
“We didn’t come this far to only come this far.”

I was hoping to get a decent nights sleep but I ended up waking up at 4:00 AM due to jet lag so I try and check in for our flight with Cathay Pacific and not too surprisingly it was asking for a visa to finish online check in. This was not surprising as a I knew that was what was required from the beginning, but it does also state that additional documents maybe required to check in and to provide those at the airport. The additional documents in this case were documents proving that we had a flight leaving China within the 240 hours that we were allowed to transit in China.

What did worry me was that as I was checking in I noticed my name was Ramon Ymalay Ymalay.

When I first set up my frequent flyer account with Cathay Pacific a year ago I messed up inputting my name. I tried to fix this back in July of this year and sent in a picture of my passport, but they for some reason they were still unable to change my name. I did not think that would be a huge deal, as I just booked an award ticket as though it would be for someone else except it was for me so I could change my name to my correct name. That’s what I did when I booked our original Shanghai to Hong Kong ticket prior to our itinerary change.

I totally forgot about this when I booked another award ticket, and it automatically used the name listed with my frequent flyer account. 99.9 percent of the time your middle name does not matter on your ticket and it can be incorrect and the airlines will gloss over that error. That being said, 99.9 percent of the time an airline does not deny someone with a perfectly legitimate itinerary, and well above 99.9999 percent of the time people do not get run over on vacation, so I was starting to get REAL paranoid and my anxiety was going through the roof. The fact we were going to China which is notoriously strict with EVERYTHING just sent me panicking. I just rebuilt the itinerary and found a way to still accomplish our goal of doing all 12 parks in one trip and yet here I was again, this time of my own fault, with an error that could kill our goal AGAIN. I just wanted to die. I was pretty tired but I needed to make some phone calls, so I call Cathay Pacific at 4:00 AM.

I talk to the representative on the phone, and he tries multiple ways to change my name, but they all fail. Ultimately, he says since it was an award ticket, he cannot change my name as the award ticket is tied to my name. He says my best option is to go to the airport and hope they don’t care that my name is wrong. If they deny me boarding he says you will have to rebuy the ticket on the spot with your correct name. So at this point I feel better, as the worst case scenario is that I have to buy ANOTHER ticket. Through hell or highwater we ARE getting to Shanghai today. It’s not exactly ideal, but I can live with that, as it was my fault in this situation.

Our taxi was schedule for 7:15AM which will give us 3 hours prior to our flight to check in and go to the lounge. The front desk calls the room and lets us know our taxi has arrived. We finish packing up and I peak outside from our balcony one last time. It’s a beautiful morning.

We head downstairs, and walk outside. Strangely enough there is no taxi to be found. We talk to bell services and they make some calls to figure out what happened to our taxi. Apparently our taxi had mechanical issues and left, so they then call another taxi.

A couple minutes later another taxi arrived. This taxi is definitely on the older side of taxis. There is a single speaker that is playing classical music and it sounds like when in a movie or video game you find an abandoned bunker or home and it’s playing classical music on a crackly old speaker. It was kinda eerie to be totally honest. Our cab driver is nice enough and knows enough English to be able to understand which terminal we needed to go to at the airport.

We head toward the airport and hit heavy traffic. We literally are not moving AT ALL. I am in no way worried as we still have 3 hours till our flight and aren’t even a 1/2 mile from the airport so in the worst case scenario we start walking. As a matter of fact many people actually had gotten out of their car and had started walking.

Thankfully, that was not us. Due to the traffic the taxi was way over expected at $215 HKD. I only pulled out $200 HKD from the ATM at the hotel as bell services said it should never be over that. Luckily he was willing to take the $5 USD which more than covered the difference.

Once we arrived at the airport, we searched for the check in area. This was the moment of truth. We were denied once before 8 nights ago in Miami. If we tried to get to China and were denied again, I think I might just die or at least melt into a puddle of goo at the check-in counter. We finally found the Cathay Pacific check in counter. It’s a younger Asian woman. At this point we have totally optimized our chances to not be wrongfully denied. We figured it can’t get a whole lot safer than booking a Hong Kong carrier out of Hong Kong into China. Probably the only thing safer would be a Chinese carrier out of Hong Kong into China. We handed her our passports, and she proceeded to type in our info. At this point I am shaking as this is the point where in Miami it all fell apart, and I was just waiting for some denial out of nowhere again.

After finding our booking she saw our itinerary from Hong Kong to Shanghai. I confirmed that, and then I handed them the rest of our flight info and they typed it in no questions asked. Literally zero questions. I just handed them a paper copy of our outbound flight from Shanghai the next day and they just typed it in. Not one word about it AT ALL. It absolutely kills me this was all caused due to incompetence of Air France, and their complete inability to listen to reason or ability to read the rules that were not just posted on THEIR OWN WEBSITE, but also the Chinese Embassy and US Travel.gov. They just shut us down the moment it said that a visa was required and refused to read the exemptions.

At this point we are at least past the initial denial. The second hurdle was my name. The worst case scenario is we have to buy a new ticket on the spot. I really don’t want to outlay more cash, but if that’s what it takes I can live with it. As she checks us in, I notice she notices my name does not match. She then brings over a supervisor and they chat in Mandarin for a bit. I have no idea what they are saying. Eventually, she prints my boarding pass, stamps it, and then initials it. She hands it back to me stating that for some reason their system printed my surname twice. She said it’s been ok’d, but just wanted me to be aware. CRISIS AVERTED! We are good to go.

We head through passport control, which is thankfully a pretty short line. They notice the name discrepancy as well, but I guess the stamp she puts on means ok to board, and we have no issues.

We were all pretty hungry and while we had access to one of the top ten business class lounges in the world, Cathay Pacific’s The Pier, we stopped and had some McDonald’s. Anyone that knows me knows this is my one true love, and I try to eat it in every country I travel to.

While Hong Kong is technically an SAR of China, they do have an Olympic team so it kinda lives in a grey zone. For my purposes, I consider it eating in a Chinese McDonald’s.

After finishing the greatest meal we’ve had on this vacation we start the 20 minute walk to The Pier Business Class lounge. I was super excited to see this place as it has gotten so many great reviews and thankfully it just was just conveniently located right next to our gate. Hong Kong is pretty sizable airport, so it could easily have been a 15-20 minute walk from our gate, so we definitely lucked out on that.

The Pier definitely lived up to the hype.

It is by no means the biggest lounge I’ve ever been in, but it’s definitely not small, and is packed with amenities such as sleep spaces, work spaces, showers, tea room and noodle bar.

It had probably the most “homey” feel of any lounge I had ever been in. It was very cozy despite its size and felt like a nice living room rather than business class lounge which is what most lounges obviously feel like.

To me the food was by far the most exciting aspect. They had a room for both Western and Asian options. The Asian options even consisted of a noodle bar and dim sum. They had quite an extensive selection.

Not as good as the McDonald’s McGriddle I had just consumed but pretty good nonetheless. The rooms with food were setup more like a restaurant which was nice.

I was not even remotely hungry but the food was so tempting I still had some noodles.

Lucy absolutely loved the noodles and had several plates. There was also a bar unlike the Air France lounge in Paris.

We chilled here until it was time to board our flight. It was a great lounge overall and definitely in my top 3 lounges I had visited primarily due to the food options alone. Definitely some of if not my favorite food I’ve ever had in a lounge and I loved how cozy it felt compared to most lounges.

 

[Rimmit]

It was eventually time to board our plane and we left the lounge and walked to the gate which was literally right next to the lounge. This was a short flight, but Cathay Pacific has enough passenger load to use their wide body aircraft for this route, so today we are flying on an A350-900.

For that reason, we lucked out and got the nice pods with lie flat seats.

It was a little worn, but still nice enough, especially for a two hour flight. It was definitely the best seat we’ve ever had for a two hour flight.

Our takeoff was delayed by 30 min, but they build in a buffer on the schedule so I’m not exactly worried. The business class cabin was split into two parts, and I picked seats in the smaller section so it felt very private.

Despite the flight only being 2 hours long it impressively had a full three course meal service on the flight.

After the McDonald’s and the lounge we are all absolutely stuffed. I do order the dessert though, the yule log. They also have some custom cocktails and I order one of those as well.

The yule log was had good amount of taste to it. I feel a lot of these airline desserts lack sugar or really any taste, but this one was actually sweet. I then take a brief nap to rest up for our half park day. Despite the delay, we do manage to land about 30 minutes early. Random note, the bathrooms had a window in Business Class. The only other time I’ve seen this so far was on Qatar in their business class. Definitely one of the best views I’ve ever had while emptying my bladder.

After we disembark, we walk a short bit to the immigration. We then fill out an immigration card and go to an automated machine to do our fingerprints prior to going through immigration. Typically they hand out immigration cards on the plane to speed up the process on landing if they are required, but for some reason Cathay Pacific did not. In our travels, I have found immigration cards to be becoming increasingly rare, and it’s been several years since we filled one out. We then go to passport control. They thankfully speak English well enough to be able to get by without Google Translate. I then hand them my outbound flight and hotel info along with our passports. We have no issues at all. They just stick a sticker in our passport stating 24 visa free transit stamp it and off we go.

No Visa Required!
We walk out into the terminal and unlike in Hong Kong have zero issues finding our meet and greet. Lucy spots the driver with the sign with our name on it immediately. He speaks no English, but we use Google Translate without issue for times we needed to communicate. We then head to the Shanghai Disneyland Hotel which is about a 30 minute drive away.

As the car approaches the hotel entrance, the bell hop team immediately starts mobilizing. The eagerly await for the car to stop to offer any assistance. It was impressive service and the best we had received thus far this trip. We only had carryons and a backpack so we were happy to move our own bags. They truly wanted to do everything for you. Most spoke minimal to no English, but they were always smiling and very courteous, and with gestures you could typically get your point across. We got here right about 3:30 PM and check in was incredibly hectic.

You could start checking it at 3:00PM, and I suspect that’s when everyone arrived. There was a cast member moving through the lines handing out forms you could prefill to expedite the check in process when you got to the desk. She spoke pretty good English thankfully. Once I get to the front of the line I was directed to a Cast Member that spoke some English which made things a lot easier. She explains to me some things about the property and the transportation to the park.

Interestingly enough, she is totally shocked we don’t have a visa. I try to explain the 240 hour visa rule, but obviously things get lost in translation. I eventually show her our visa free transit sticker in our passport, and she then finally understood, or at least pretended too. Apparently, the Chinese are not super up to date on their own immigration laws. I find that totally reasonable, as I am not up to date with our own US immigration laws either. I do expect a larger international carrier like Air France to be up to date on the laws though, as there whole business is moving people from one country to another.

While I was checking in Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Pluto made an appearance in the lobby, which was some added magic to our day.

 

[Skywatcher1206]

Continuing to love your trip report!

 

[Rimmit]

I must say the service we receive in the lobby was truly amazing. Everyone we met from the moment we got out of the car was super enthusiastic to assist. We only had carryons and backpacks so we don’t mind moving our luggage ourselves, but they basically refused to let you do it. After finishing check in we were then walked to our room like they used to do on cruise ships.

Also to add a little pixie dust, we were upgraded to a lake view room albeit the lake is definitely a bit far off.

Our room was very nice and we wish we would have had more time in it. It was originally supposed to be 4 nights, but I guess 1 night is better than no nights. What was really cool was our headboard had LED lights that would twinkle. It wasn’t just twinkling though, in that it was like a wave across the headboard. It was a neat effect and definitely looked tinker bell was sprinkling pixie dust over the bed. Lucy and I tried several different things to see if we could trigger it, but we never could figure it out as I really wanted to get a video of it but is a was a really neat effect and definitely added some magic to the room.

There was mini Murphy bed underneath the TV that pulled out similar to the Polynesian. Lucy absolutely loves these beds and was excited to sleep on it.

The room also had some holiday touches like winter static clings on the mirror and headboards and some fun free presents like a plastic cup and wash cloth in a tin. Unfortunately, we have zero space to bring the plastic cup home with us.

It also had the standard amenities like a robe, slippers, and amenity kits. The bathroom was fully stocked as well, and very nice.

We freshen up and then head out the door as we don’t have a lot of time at this point as it’s already past 4:40PM. By the time we get out to the shuttle stop it’s about 4:45PM. Unfortunately, we forgot our passports in the room. This is normally not a big deal, but Shanghai Disneyland on December 23rd, 7 days prior to our arrival started requiring a government ID to enter the park. This was to cut down on park ticket scalping. The ID must match the name that the ticket was purchased for. I remember at the last second right as the shuttle arrived, so I had to run back to the room and get our passports and we have to take the next shuttle.

By the time we get on the shuttle and dropped off at Disneytown it’s 5:30PM. Up until 5:30PM the shuttle will drop you off at the Disneytown stop where hotel guests can enter a more convenient and exclusive side entrance. Disneytown is the Shanghai equivalent of Downtown Disney. After 5:30PM they drop you off at the West Parking Entrance which is a bit of a walk to the main park entrance. It’s an overcast cool day today, but luckily, not painfully cold.

We get to the entrance and there is a bit of confusion regarding our park tickets. I purchased our park tickets on Klook, which is basically a more international Viator. It is VERY well known and established company outside of the US. I show them the QR code for the ticket, and they seem very confused. I attempt to use Google Translate, but they speak a small bit of English and ask if I am staying at the hotel. I say yes. They ask for our room key, and I show it to them. They then ask for our passports, and they scan them. They then tell us to just walk through the turnstiles. They never scanned our QR code or looked at the Klook Ticket. When I bought our tickets on Klook I inputted out passport info and names. I’m assuming that they no longer need your ticket and just use your passport and that it is linked to your park ticket. It was all very confusing, but they let us in, so I wasn’t going to argue.

At this point we only have 4 hours maximum at the park as it 5:30PM, but that doesn’t matter to us. What mattered is WE MADE IT!!! We honestly had just accepted that despite all the planning we were going to somehow come up one park shy of doing all 12 parks in one trip. We had already mourned the loss of our goal, and accepted the death of our dream. While we would absolutely have loved to have more time here that was not in the cards this trip. We were absolutely exhausted and jet lagged, but at this point, the adrenaline just kicks and we were just pumped to have actually made it to Shanghai Disneyland.

Typically the first thing we do after entering a park is to rent a wheelchair, but today Kendall decided against it. We at most had 4 hours in the park, and Kendall had done much longer park days this trip including a WHOLE park day yesterday so we figured she’d be able to make it without one. So first thing’s first and we go and get our castle pic. It is an absolutely huge castle.

The scale is very impressive and dwarves all the other castles we had seen thus far this trip. Given Tokyo is a carbon copy of Magic Kingdom’s Cinderella Castle and Sleeping Beauty’s castle in Disneyland is pretty small, it’s safe to say that the Enchanted Storybook Castle is definitely the biggest of the Disney Castles.

After getting our picture, we had two things on our list that we absolutely had to do in our short time and that was Pirates of the Caribbean, as it’s supposedly the best Pirates in the world and we also wanted to see Zootopia and do the new ride there. Today seems to be a pretty slow day for Shanghai as the majority of rides times are 5-25 minutes at most with a handful of outliers such as Tron. Pirates was just a 10 minutes line when we arrive to the entrance.

The ride system was pretty much identical to the other pirates in that it is a dark water ride.

It was absolutely stunning technologically. The scale of the ride is only matched by Rise of the Resistance.

The set pieces are absolutely huge, and the ride is very long.

This ride was based off the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and included many characters from the movies, unlike the other Pirates that at most have Barbossa and Jack Sparrow.

It was entirely in Mandarin, so I have no idea the plot of the ride, but the effects of the ride are stunning.

The animatronics are incredible and one of the Jack Sparrows truly moves like Jack Sparrow.

It was just overall VERY impressive, and easily the best Pirates in the world. It did not disappoint. I was impressed they built something of this scale in Shanghai to be honest. I was not expecting the set pieces to be as big as they were. I’m honestly shocked they have not tried to incorporate the technology they developed for this ride into newer rides as it is impressive.

At this point it’s time for dinner, so we get some potstickers for dinner from the Snackin’ Kraken right across from Pirates. This is just a snack stand with no place to eat, so we walk over to a Barbossa’s Bounty, a quick service restaurant with some indoor seating to eat as it’s getting a little chilly. Of note, unlike the other Disney Parks this vacation, there is very little pop in Shanghai Disneyland. Your options are primarily water, tea and maybe Gatorade. Occasionally you may find a Pepsi. There is absolutely zero Diet Pepsi or diet drinks in general in Shanghai Disneyland.

We then walked over to Zootopia which is right next door to Pirates. This is a the newest land that just opened up in December of 2023. There is typically a wait to get into the land, and you can see the queues set up for people to line up to get into the land, but the crowd today is very low, so there is no queue and you can walk right in.

 

[Rimmit]

The land is beautiful at night, and definitely feels like the Zootopia from the movie.

There are lots of details everywhere, and lots of advertisements for the Zootopia equivalent of Taylor Swift, Gazelle.

We find the ride entrance to Zootopia: Hot Pursuit and get in line. It’s just a 10 minute wait. The queue was very well done with tons of details and an animatronic Clawhauser.

The line moved sooo fast we had zero time to appreciate the queue unfortunately.

There were some English subtitles in the preshow on a screen that helped understand the plot. Between the queue and preshow, you could get a pretty good idea of what the plot of the ride was.

The ride had pretty much no English, but you could figure it out what was going on for the most part. The ride was fun, and for a trackless dark ride was better than most.

They had some impressive animatronics, especially for Gezelle, the Gazelle impersonator.

Gazelle was just as good if not better.

It was better than Remy’s but not on the level of something like Rise of the Resistance as it didn’t have the same scale. It definitely had some fun moments to it and was cute.

Afterwards, we started walking toward the front of the park. We then went on Voyage of the Crystal Grotto which was a walk on. There is no Jungle Cruise in Shanghai, and this was basically the Jungle Cruise with an entirely different theme.

This was basically a cruise through a river that passed by a variety of different scenes from various Disney movies.

Think of it as like a bigger grander Storybook Canal Boats. they had some nice touches such as lights in ceiling of the boat that changed color based on the scene you were passing by.

Overall it was very cute. It’s not an earthshattering ride, but it was relaxing. It was entirely in Mandarin so not sure if there was any story to the ride at all, or if they have any dad jokes like the Jungle Cruise but there was some commentary throughout the ride.

We debate staying for the nighttime spectacular, but we weren’t sure just how the crowd is afterward, and we needed to be out the door of the hotel at 5:30AM to make our flight per the front desk of the hotel. For that reason, we decided to not wait it out for fear the crowd right after would delay us getting to our hotel for a considerable amount of time as there is just a ferry or the shuttle to get us back and we aren’t sure just how backed up they get at the end of a park day. If it’s anything like Magic Kingdom that can easily be an hour wait after the fireworks show. We absolutely needed to get some rest tonight as we were running on fumes as in the last 62 hours we have flown from Paris to Hong Kong, did a full day in Hong Kong Disneyland, flew to Shanghai, and then did a half day in Shanghai Disneyland. While we would love to have spent more time here we need a little rest. We know we’ll back sometime in the next several years, and figure we’ll just see the rest then.

 

[alohamom]

The Disney+ show "Imagineers" had an in depth look at the Shanghai Park Pirates and it looks incredible, you are so lucky you got to ride it!

 

[Rimmit]

The Disney+ show "Imagineers" had an in depth look at the Shanghai Park Pirates and it looks incredible, you are so lucky you got to ride it!

I specifically skipped that part of "Imagineers" so I wouldn't have any idea what it was like going in. It was absolutely incredible. I wish I could understand mandarin, but even without that, just the scale and technological achievement for that ride was quite impressive.

 

[Rimmit]

The hotel is pretty close to the park just across a lagoon, so we were hopeful there would likely be a place we could watch from at the hotel. I tried to google if they pipe in the music from the show, but there is VERY LITTLE info in English about Shanghai Disneyland. Unlike if I was to google “Does the Polynesian Resort play the music for Happily Ever After?” and get a ton of hits, you get zero for Shanghai Disneyland. Knowing Disney, I figure they almost assuredly would play the music for the show if you are in a place where you can see it.

We shop for a short bit in the Main Street shops looking for our magnet. Unfortunately, the magnet selection is nearly nonexistent. We weren’t excited about the magnet from Hong Kong Disneyland, but the one from Shanghai is even worse. There was only one magnet that said “Shanghai Disneyland” and that wasn’t even the focus of the magnet.

This is literally the only magnet we could find that said “Shanghai Disney Resort”
This was our first time on Main Street as we entered via side entrance. Like other Disney Parks, given its Christmas season it’s decorated for Christmas and it’s snowing. To be honest, this is kind of shocking simply because there isn’t really much Christianity in China. There was even a tree lighting ceremony earlier today.

We then leave about 8:30PM and take the ferry back to the hotel.

We aren’t totally sure where the shuttle pick up is to be honest as it’s totally different than where they dropped us off but we see the dock immediately upon leaving the park, so figure we’ll just use the ferry. We figured it’d be nice to take a different form of transportation anyway.

We get back to the hotel about 9:00PM. The hotel looks gorgeous at night.

The show Illuminate, the nighttime spectacular, is at 9:15PM so we go to the cafe which has quite a selection of Disney themed snacks.

They also serve some pizza and pasta. We order some pasta and Lucy get’s a Mickey Donut.

Conveniently the cafe has a balcony outside that has a GREAT view of the castle, so we go outside and watch the show while we have a late night snack. They pipe in the music as I figured they would and it was a magical way to end the night.

We couldn’t see the projections that well, but we could still see the lights and fireworks great. We really enjoyed the show, however, it’s tough to give a review of it without having seen the projections. Even with just the music and fireworks it definitely stirred some emotions which is what I look for in a nighttime spectacular.

We buy some pastries for us to snack on while getting ready at 4:30AM tomorrow as our taxi will be here at 5:30AM to pick us up for our flight to Tokyo. We walk through the lobby and it’s notably quieter than earlier in the day. Like all the lobbies this vacation it is absolutely beautiful at night.

It’s just a short walk back back to the room. We all get ready for bed, and despite the jet lag, it’s been a crazy last two days so we have no difficulty falling asleep.

Day 12, December 30th, 2024 Step Count – 18,025 Steps

Total Step Count – 195,075