Day 8 - Part 5 - On the Grid
We had a bit of time after dinner before our Tron Fastpasses so we thought we'd take some night shots. Unfortunately for us, we hadn't packed the tripod that day (oops) so we thought it would be a good opportunity to test out or green pod photography beanbag that we'd bought as a camera stabling tool for photography when at Tokyo Disney (where tripods/gorilla pods etc are banned). The issue with using this at Shanghai Disney was that many of the places we found (i.e. bins) were not stable enough and the camera shake created motion blur in the photos. In addition, while Tokyo Disney has many wide railings and ledges you can use the green pod on Shanghai Disney didn't seem to! We were also still learning that you had to let the beans in the bag settle for a few seconds before taking your shot, once again due to the motion blur it causes in your photos. Because of all that we spent a lot of time this evening trying to take photos, but not really having a lot to show for it. Here are the few we managed.
We finished up in beautiful Tomorrowland and I was so completely in love with this area at night!! The modern sleek feel, the lighting design was all so incredible. The music really added to it as well, making you feel as though you were in a futuristic space port. My favourite part though (which may seem a little weird) was the paved path leading into Tomorrowland which was paved with some sort of cement which, at night with the lights shining on it, would sparkle! Not just a little sparkle, it was like looking at stars in the night sky and as I am super partial to sparkly things I felt very drawn to it (you should see my collection of Swarovski figurines for evidence of my love of sparkly things!).
Anyway, after we tried a few photos, nearly dropped the camera off a second story railing (yep that happened - I told you the railings at Shanghai Disney weren't wide!) we continued onto our last ride of the day, TRON!
Tron may not be one of the best dark ride/coaster hybrids Disney has ever managed, but hands down it's the most thrilling of any of the coasters! It works so well as a futuristic coaster too, the lighting and effects in the coaster were really well done! The queue was also brilliant, the lighting really made it. There was also a really cool section where you enter a sort of 'pre-show' room with what looks like a blank wall when all of a sudden there is a flash of light and the wall is replaced by a glass viewing window down to the ride loading area! We were very much caught by surprised by this the first time on the ride, and it helped add to the awesomeness that is Tron. We did noticed however, on future rides, that sometimes you'd just walk through this 'pre-show' room (I think it depended on where you were in the line as it didn't seem like we caught it every time through).
I apologies for the quality of the pictures of the TRON boarding area and ride vehicles. You have to put all your things in lockers before riding TRON, though there is a smaller contain in the ride vehicle in which you can store valuables that fit in your pocket, so all the pictures I have are from my iPhone. Speaking of the TRON lockers, they were some of the weirdest ride lockers I've ever come across. There were multiple computer monitors to activate a locker, but unlike at Universal, where the monitor relates to the section of lockers it's located within, each window seemed to open lockers anywhere in the locker complex. As a result you spent too much time searching for which row your locker was located in, and the place got pretty hetic. When it was busy, there was probably a 20 minute wait just to get into the lockers, let alone to wait for the actual attraction! It wasn't smart planning on Disney's part, as at least if each monitor related to one section of the lockers the CM's could have allowed 2 or 3 people in each section, who wouldn't trample over each other trying to find their lockers, and the whole process would have gone much quicker! This, and the management of FP distribution were, I feel, two of Disney's biggest planning fails (it's like they didn't think it through knowing the large crowds expected at Shanghai Disney).
Anyway, enough of my ranting, onto the pictures of the loading area.
Just a warning for anyone visiting Shanghai Disney and planning to ride TRON (no it's not a don't ride if you have high blood pressure warning, though you probably shouldn't ride if you have high blood pressure)! This section, down to the main loading area, if filled with static electricity, and if you touch both sides of the railing at once you will get zapped (will, it happened every time to me, I kept forgetting to keep my hands off!).
The lighting on the ride vehicles themselves was also very cool, when the vehicles pulled up they were dark blue...
but as you locked yourself into position in the car the lights turned to a lighter aqua colour, as an easy way for the CM's to check who was locked in I guess!
The ride vehicles themselves were strange. I've never been on a 'motorcycle' coaster before and I didn't love the position these seats put you in (Jared tells me my problem was that I wanted to keep my upper body up and didn't allow it to rest follow along the front of the ride vehicle - but I wanted to be able to see what was around me and that position limits your ability to move your head easily to see your surrounds!). Still the seats were also not as uncomfortable as I had expected, they didn't push, press or pinch anything, it just wasn't the most comfortable position for me. Also, it was hard to get in and out of the vehicles as you had to navigate your way around the leg lock braces!
The slightly uncomfortableness of the vehicles was completely forgotten though, as soon as you took off on the ride. The coaster launches you off from 0 - 60mph (97km/h) in no time, and after a short outdoor period you enter the grid, which as I mentioned early is really fun with it's cool lighting and projections. My favourite part involved the ride vehicle 'duelling' with a projection of the orange team cars. We really loved this ride - the speed, the fun theme, the lights and the futuristic vibe make it a real winner as far as coasters go. Honestly I would not be sad if this replaced Space Mountain at the state side parks. Even with the theme it sort of feels like a twisted take on Space Mountain 2.0, and it has a lot more going for it than Space Mountain does.
After this we were off to our first viewing of Ignite the Dream, Shanghai's castle projection/laser/light/fireworks spectacular...find out how we did finding a spot in the Chinese crowds next...
A short summary here of my thoughts on our first day at the park though. We had loved everything the Disney Imagineers had bought to the table with the incredible new attractions we'd tried at Shanghai
Disneyland, and had been blown away by how much we'd managed to achieve in about 4.5 hours in the park - 4 attractions, 1 Fastpass, a table service dinner and character meet and greet plus photos on an empty Mickey Avenue, half a parade and a fireworks show! We were really surprised by how quite the park had been and commented to each other that if the park continued to be like that for the rest of our visit we'd be so happy (I had expecting it to be much busier that day). Of course you really shouldn't say these things out loud like we did (we jinxed ourselves a little) as we never saw the park this manageable again. Still, we had the perfect first day at Shanghai Disney and it was a great introduction to such an amazing new park!
Continued in Next Post...
) we headed over to the Royal Banquet Hall for dinner. The entrance/waiting area was lovely, and completely empty when we showed up!
