An Engaging and Magical Asian Adventure (2017 trip) - New Update 09/12/2021

[Captain_Oblivious]

This is not the freshest of all trip reports. Our trip was in summer 2017.

Don't worry, you still beat @glennbo123 .

We have had all sorts of good, bad and ugly ... everything from my mom having her car stolen to hurricanes to health issues with family to weddings to ... to ... even spending the longest 45 minutes of my life in a Disney outlet store with a bunch of crazed wide-eyed newbies from ... from ... sorry, this is hard to get out ... from ... from ... Delaware!

But hey, at least it ranks right up there with the wedding on memorable occasions.

Me (Magdalene) and my – then boyfriend, now – husband Michael
Yes, she used the Dark Arts and Black Magic and somehow gained a husband. Please, please save meeeeeeee!!!!!!

You? What about her???

I think the first plan was a late 2014 trip and we figured it was going to cost too much after our DCL Panama Canal cruise, so naturally we took another DCL voyage and went to WDW to save money. I will now pause for 60 seconds for y'all to laugh as much as you require.

Thanks, I needed that.

I will get more into details about the hotels we stayed at when we get to them. All in all we found early July to be a time when there was plenty of availability at decent prices in hotel rooms. You could tell that it was not a typical travel season.

Good to know! With my wife being a full-time teacher now, July seems to be the only time we can travel anymore.

I have to admit something here that will shock you, so sit down. I can be lazy at times.

In other news, the sun rises in the east.

I just sat back and let her run as wild as Delaware kids in a Disney outlet store!

No outlets were harmed in the making of this story.

I can tell that you haven't read the introduction yet - otherwise the comment would have been different!

Nah, the Delaware jokes have been coming for a long time now!

Spaghetti Eis is incredibly popular in Germany. It is actually just vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, strawberry sauce and white chocolate sprinkles. So, kind of basic. But the way it is arranged is what makes is special. The whipped cream is on the bottom, then the vanilla ice cream gets pressed through a potato ricer.

Interesting. I've never seen this, but it's a fun way to present the ice cream.

However, there is an exemption to this rule: The so called “144-hour-visa-free-transit”. This rule applies to various of the larger cities in China, one of them Shanghai and says that you do not need a visa if you are transiting through China and do not stay longer than 144 hours (i.e. 6 days). A transit is flying from country A to China to country B (only looking at the direct flight to and from China, not your overall starting point and end point). So, for us this worked brilliantly. We were flying from Switzerland to Shanghai for three days and then on to Japan.

I can see where run-of-the-mill airline employees can find this confusing!

And then we we were ready to settle into our seats for the flight! This was going to be the first time in our relationship that we were flying together for a transcontinental flight and I was so happy that I finally had someone in the seat next to me whom I knew and liked!

The real test is: did you like each other at the end of the flight?

The flight took an interesting route across the Balkan region, getting out on the Black Sea at the Bulgarian Coast, then across the Black Sea, over Georgia and Azerbaijan, across the Caspian Sea and then over Kazakhstan to China – avoiding all kind of countries in the area like Ukraine, Iran, Turkmenistan, Russia. The line of the flight was not nearly as neat as it would be when flying over the Atlantic.

I would definitely appreciate the pilot avoiding many of those areas!

The flight left Zurich at 1:05 p.m. and was due to arrive at 7:05 a.m. in Shanghai – which would be 1:05 a.m. for us. Our plan was to check into our hotel after arrival and then hit Shanghai Disneyland immediately on the first day.

What smart planning on our part, right?

I can usually sleep whenever and wherever I want. Of course on this flight sleep just did not happen for me. I think I managed to sleep for maybe one hour before we got served breakfast. I was getting very nervous about how sensible our plan was…

Well....sounds like it's time to get a pot of coffee brewing.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much sun we got. I spent months living in Beijing in 2008 as part of the organizing team for the Olympiad and the smog there was unlike anything I have ever experienced. My American volunteers were coughing up and blowing out black gunk.

Yikes! That sounds terrifying.

They also told us that we were not allowed to bring cockroaches into China. Another sigh of relief that we did not pack any of those!

Good planning!

Yes, besides, my dear, where would we get them? Everyone knows there are no bugs in Germany!

But there are plenty in the swamps of Florida. Believe me, I know.

And when I packed my things, I could not find that little wallet. Unfortunately it never reappeared (I even made a claim with Swiss for a lost item) and with that the trip had immediately gotten 100 € more expensive.

Well...crud. That's awful.

This seemed to confuse him, but then he saw the Mickey head on the print out and got excited and said “Disney”!

It's a universal language!

 

[glennbo123]

Don't worry, you still beat @glennbo123 .

Well it's still fresh in my mind.

Okay, okay, it's fading a little.

 

[Flossbolna]

Huh interesting. I do like that everyone is wearing kimonos!

Yes, this was really lovely! I especially liked the young men in kimono with man purse and straw hats!

Subbing! Thanks for the heads-up and congratulations to both of you on your matrimony! I literally walked in the door a couple of hours ago after returning from Aulani, so please forgive me if I don't get back to read for a while.

Thank you for the congratulations! And to this trip report. I hope you had an amazing time at Aulani! Do we get a trip report? We are planning on an Alumni visit in 2019, so I might have a couple of questions...

Is this supposed to look like Imagineer Joe Rohde? 'Cause it does!

Yes!! More about this when we get to Tokyo Disney Sea!

Very cool! I've never seen that.

I always think this would be a great dessert to be sold at the Germany pavilion at Epcot.

Wow, nothing ever goes wrong in trips that I plan. Sorry that happened though, I know it is a terrible feeling.

Lucky you!

Great start to your trip! I'd be a little nervous traveling to Asia...the language and writing are so different. At least in Europe I can manage with the language barrier a little bit. I know I couldn't do that in Asia.

I was a bit scared about this as well, but ultimately it was not an issue. Yes, there were situations were we needed patience and we might have missed out on some things that could have made the trip better. But modern technology helped a lot! I should actually write something about this in the trip report, thanks for reminding me!

On a different note Magdalene -- you may be pleased to hear that Marlene is in Paris right this moment! She is living out her long-held dream of visiting France (and Paris in particular) this summer. She is visiting the french exchange student we hosted (once officially, once unofficially) in Marseille and they are visiting Paris right now for a couple of days.

That is wonderful!! I was actually thinking the other day when I read your trip report about how Marlene is doing and whether she is still so much in love with France. I do hope that visiting there lives up to her dreams!

Yay! I'm excited to follow along on your adventure!

great to see you here!

 

[Flossbolna]

I could no resist any longer so I am here. I am missing China something rotten at the moment even though I have only been back less than 2 months and I am going again in December.

Sounds like you really love it there! Happy to have you here! I did enjoy China, but the country that totally spoke to me was Japan. I think Michael is more of a China fan.

I am glad that you went on this as I got to meet you on this cruise.

That's true! And what a cruise it was!! I briefly had stupid ideas of booking the EBPC cruise next November for after our planned trip to Hawaii. But then I realized that I would have to give up Hawaii and California touring time. And was afraid that another Panama Canal cruise would not live up to this amazing cruise in 2014!

It is always good to have an incentive to go back.

And we will be back!

I came to the same conclusion when we took to the bullet trains in China.

I was really impressed with public transport in Shanghai as well.

Oh, I so wish I could have one of these right now. I used to love them.

I wish I could send you one in the mail! Or you need to book one of those cheap Ryanair flights between Manchester and Nuremberg and come and have one with me!

I can assure you it does not. I used to work with this database on a daily basis and it very clearly explains about the visa free transit, but it is so wordy that people tend to not bother reading it all.

Ah, I totally forgot that you are an expert! I guess that explains why one of the most common recommendations on this is to just keep insisting!

Goodness, you are brave.

Ha! It actually worked out really well! At least for some days. We each ended up paying for this start at a later point in the trip.

Oh, what a pain. I am sorry that you never found this again.

It definitely taught me a lesson to be less fidgety with my stuff when I am a nervous traveller.

 

[Flossbolna]

Don't worry, you still beat @glennbo123 .

Well, that depends on when I finish this trip report!!

But hey, at least it ranks right up there with the wedding on memorable occasions.

You would be surprised, but the Delawarians at the outlet does rank very highly for Michael!

You? What about her???

Thank you Mark!!

Good to know! With my wife being a full-time teacher now, July seems to be the only time we can travel anymore.

It was hot, but you have done a lot of summer trips in the heat. The good thing is that hotels were affordable in the cities as there were no business travelers.

In other news, the sun rises in the east.

No outlets were harmed in the making of this story.

Interesting. I've never seen this, but it's a fun way to present the ice cream.

As I said above, I do think it would be a hit at Epcot!

I can see where run-of-the-mill airline employees can find this confusing!

Especially since @dolphingirl47 spilled the beans and told us that it is mainly just an issue of too much text and too little patience...

The real test is: did you like each other at the end of the flight?

Hey, we got married after this flight and another equally long flight! And the German officials kept asking Michael multiple times if he really wanted to marry me voluntarily or if he was forced to do this. So, I guess we did like each other at the end of the flight!

Well....sounds like it's time to get a pot of coffee brewing.

Surprisingly we did not have any coffee on that day! I guess a new Disney park is better than coffee!

But there are plenty in the swamps of Florida. Believe me, I know.

Ha! Michael was talking about doing a day trip to the Everglades National Park when I am going to be there in the winter. I am a bit wary of this after reading about your experiences. But then I hope that winter will be better than summer!

It's a universal language!

Well...crud. That's awful.

Yes, it was really stupid. I see it as an expensive lesson learned.

 

[Flossbolna]

Day 1: Shanghai Disneyland

Part 1: Trying to get on a ride – FINALLY!!

So, we just pulled in with our lovely taxi driver at the Toy Story Hotel and immediately there were three very helpful CMs helping us unload the taxi and wanting to take the luggage to luggage storage. This caused a bit of confusion on my part at first as I needed to rearrange things to be prepared for the park – and change clothes.

The need to change clothes became apparent as soon as we got out of the taxi. We stepped into a sauna. I just checked how hot it was and official it was “only” 28°C/83°F, but with a humidity of 85% it did feel unpleasant.

It felt like something I knew well: China in summer.

The CMs were very nice about me briefly being all stressed out and said that they would just hold on to the bags outside until we were checked in and then we could get the bags, arrange what we needed to do and then drop them off with them. That’s exactly what we did and we quickly spoke to the check-in CMs. As you can see from this, we did not have any language problems at all in Shanghai. All the CMs spoke decent to very good English. I think we only encountered one that was insecure and got a better English speaking colleague.

Many sheltered Americans use the alleged 'language barrier' as an excuse to not travel internationally. Not simply to China, but really exotic locations like France and Germany and Spain and ... and ... they are crazy. I have been to about three dozen countries (just added Austria and Hungary to the list in July!) and never had a serious language issue anywhere. Children in most countries, including China, are taught English as a mandatory second language from an early age. So, yes, if you wind up thousands of miles from a major city and surrounded by people over 40, then you could have an issue. But traveling to Shanghai you are likely to encounter more English speakers than parts of Orlando!

I should add that we also relied on technology to help us out. I used Google translate on my phone quite a bit. It did a halfway decent job in translating signs and such and that really helped feeling a little less lost sometimes. It does need an internet connection though and there is an issue with the internet in China as it does not give you access to a number of websites. Google and all its subsidiaries for example. Also lots of the social media sites. Since we were there for such a short time I did not deem it necessary to invest in a SIM card or a VPN (both ways of getting around the Chinese fire wall issues). I had also found out that both my German email-provider as well as my Apple account were fine to use in China. In the end it turned out a non-issue as I had decided to get one-day data roaming passes from my German mobile provider and it turned out that when I was data roaming I had the whole internet available without any fire wall issues!

As to the language: I totally agree with Michael that it really is not an issue in Shanghai at all. And even when there was a bit of a barrier, people were so friendly and helpful! Yes, some patience was needed sometimes and a couple of times we had to shrug something off that we could not figure out. But all in all it worked so much better than I had expected! But back to the trip!

Standing at the check-in register a lot of my travel tension started to melt away. We had arrived without any major problems, everyone was nice, we were about to head to a new Disney Park! So, I finally got around to start taking pictures:

This is the front of the check-in desk. The “marbles” are about the size of a small ball.

All over the lobby there are pictures of the Toy Story characters having fun on vacation:

I promise that there will be more pictures of the hotel and its various areas forthcoming over the next days!

Spoiler Alert: We both loved Toy Story Hotel. This was the only part of the trip planning that I was demanding about. I knew we needed to be at the resort (although close friends stayed at a nearby Courtyard by Marriott and loved it!) and M wanted to, at one point, switch hotels for a night to save money. I knew that was a horrible idea and we paid more for our third night at TSH than any other night of our 2.5 week Asian Adventure, but it was worth it. The hotel in some ways is comparable in theming to WDW value resorts. But it has all interior corridors and both quick serve dining and a buffet. It has no pool as many hotels in China don't. Overall, it had more of an upscale feel inside than I expected. Also had the best beds in the Mainland that I have ever slept on.

We were checked in, but were told that we had to come back to get our room keys and room number.

At 9 am we were standing at the hotel bus stop to take the shuttle to the park. Getting there was painless, the shuttle ran continuously and it is about a 5 minute drive to the park. You get let out on the parking lot side, most day visitors will come from the opposite direction, the metro side. From the bus stop you walk past Disneytown and the large World of Disney Store and Starbucks to the entrance area. The park had opened at 8 a.m. and there were loads of people everywhere!

We had seen online that for both of our days they had sold out of tickets (we had purchased ours months ago, so that was not an issue) which meant that the park would be at capacity. We were a bit surprised that it was already crowded at the end of June. Chinese summer vacation was not due to start for another week. But we then figured out that as of July 1st the ticket prices would rise substantially due to them introducing peak period pricing in the summer. I think by nearly 50% if I remember correctly (and yes, I could research that…). So everyone and their cousin was trying to squeeze in a visit under the lower pricing structure.

When we got to the entrance I admired the little fountain that was in the middle of the entrance plaza.



What I did not admire were these lines that you see to the left and right of the fountain. Here is a clearer picture of the lines:



The little roof that you see ahead are the security check points. Once we had cleared those, we had to get into the turnstile lines that were equally long.

Even though it was morning, it was already very hot and humid.
After we left, they had a period of 17 straight days of temps above 100 with feels like temps often over 120 ... yes, global warming is a lie! On top of that, Chinese people are really good in filling up all available space (as they so often want you to do at WDW). So we spent a long time standing in a sea of people.

This is something that can be uncomfortable for Americans. There is no concept of personal space in China due to the sheer number of people in the country. People will rub, shove and push you in a line. And they also will attempt to get in front of you if you leave too much of an opening -- say an inch! This isn't considered rude or wrong. It just is. Sorta like we have the Kardashians in the USA. You have to stand your ground and often leaving an elbow or two pointed behind you helps.

I have to admit that while it bothered me, I felt far more adapt to the pushing. That's the way we got on the train or bus that I used to take to school. Germans are not the most polite queuers in the world,



It was pretty bad. However, I had my first experience of someone wanting to take my picture. It happened a couple of times and people were always very polite about it. To be honest, it kind of made me feel special, but I also felt a bit awkward as I certainly did not look my best this morning!

I am sure they simply wanted a photo of someone lucky enough to be traveling with MOI!!! (Don't worry, his delusional episodes are not contagious...)

Some people had fans and one lady who was next to us was nicely fanning a little air to us now and then.

Security was quite a sight as they were physically holding people back from crashing the check point and letting a few people through at a time. There it became a real crush. Then on to the next line. The reason why the turnstiles took so long is that they printed the tickets there at the turnstile. You show your print out of your reservation and then they issue your tickets. They also check the passports of every person who gets a ticket.

To be honest, I found this whole process ridiculous and felt that they really needed to offer a designated entry for resort guests. Well, it turns out that by now they have one. To me this whole getting into the park stress was really taking away from my enjoyment of the park. I am aware that this is something that is bad during high season and hot summer temperatures. If I ever were to visit during that time again, staying at an official hotel would be a necessity for me in order to get access to the special park entrance. (Not that I would not want to stay at the Toy Story Hotel anyway as we really loved it!)

The special entrance is in Disney Town, which is basically their version of DD or DS, and runs parallel to Mickey Avenue (the land that takes the place of Main Street USA here. I recently read, while visiting my wife in the hospital, a bloated blog by someone named Madness Kingdom on the Disney Tweeter. I don't want to comment on the merits of his entire blog post, which I think was about 786,000 words. But he talked about SDL being American without the Americana and that point was a great one.

In case anyone would be interested in the article, it can be found here: Link to long blog post

So after a little over one hour we finally were inside the park. At that time Shanghai Disneyland was only distributing paper FP (now you can get them through the app as well) from centralized FP stations. We wanted to try to get one for Tron, so we headed to Tomorrowland just to see another massive line that seemed to go around half of Tomorrowland for the FPs. It did not look like the line was moving quickly and I vetoed standing in another line. I think I would have had a melt down if I had to do anymore standing in line. So, we moved on.

There is another way to get FPs in SDL: purchase them. You can buy one, if available, in shops in the various lands for about $18. Or a set of seven (one for every FP attraction in the park for over $80 or more than the cost of a one day pass. In hindsight, I might have actually sprung for a set of these for one of our days as it doesn't prevent you from getting others the old fashioned way.

I think we had a brief restroom stop at the bathrooms that were to become part of Toy Story Land (which was still being built then) and we continued on to Fantasyland.



Yes, this is my first proper picture of the park. Which tells you how much the heat and the entrance procedure affected me. If I am not feeling good, I am not in the mood to take pictures.

We were already exhausted before we had done any touring and decided that we need a drink. So, we stopped at the Tangled Tavern:



It is a quick service restaurant selling roast chicken and Chinese food. The food looked good, but we were not hungry yet. But we loved these:



We sat outside (I think there was no inside seating available), but there were fans and it was comfortable enough. The drinks really helped to refresh us!

Note: Pepsi, not Coke, branded beverages are served exclusively at SDL. This, despite Coke having a contract for worldwide rights to Disney Parks. I am sure this has nothing to do with the Communist Party, which owns the majority of the park through Shanghai Shendi, and the fact that Pepsi was in the country before Coke.

We moved on after the drinks realizing that everything had really long, long lines. So, we picked something that is a walk-through and did not have lines: The Alice in Wonderland Maze.

Lines were crazy everywhere, the heat and exhaustion were starting to kick in and I wondered if we were actually going to see much. Thankfully, that wasn't the case ... but didn't know it yet!



This is the second Disney park to have an Alice in Wonderland Maze, the other is in Paris. The difference is however, that this maze in Shanghai is themed after the recent live action Alice in Wonderland movie, Paris has the animated original as its inspiration. You could tell from the art work:





The maze was really well done! I loved what it looked like and even though there were lots of people inside, it absorbed the crowds quite well. The baffling thing was however the amount of un-licensed sellers we encountered in there. We had seen people selling stuff while we were in line to get into the park. It is something that Shanghai Disneyland has plenty of: Locals selling cheap Mickey plushes, umbrellas, mouse ears etc. Obviously not official products nor official sellers. One wonders how park security is not doing more about it, but none of the sellers were ever aggressive to us and while we noticed it, I don’t remember it taking over. It does not seem the Disney way at all, but then this park is “authentically Disney, distinctly Chinese”… I recently came across a blog that went into some more detail about the culture behind this in case you are interested: another link to a blog part 1 and part 2

Back to the maze! The design aesthetics are definitely steam-punk:









The Cheshire Cat was hiding in many places:



There even are flamingos!!



(They are THE trend animal of this summer here in Europe and Michael has become obsessed with the German’s love for the unofficial Floridian state animal.)

An overview over a small part of the labyrinth, it was actually quite large!



You also could have an interesting view of the castle from here:



Everyone kept telling me before the trip that the castle looks better in person than on pictures. And while some people love the Shanghai castle, I can tell you that I think it is the ugliest of them all. To me it looks like a box dressed up with turrets. And it did look like that in person as well as on pictures. Yes, being in a theme park with other beautiful surroundings makes it feel a bit less out of place than just in a picture. And I do have some pictures of it that I actually like. But when you compare it to the beauty of the other three castles that Disney has designed so far (Anaheim/Hong Kong, Orlando/Tokyo and Paris) this one just falls flat for me.

Agreed. While Storybook Castle does look better in person than pictures. It is the ugliest of them all. It was built because Chinese officials demanded the largest, most ostentatious castle of them all. It isn't horrible. But it does not give off the same vibe as the others.

The maze ends at the tea party which was fun.



You can see the crowds in this picture quite well.

Getting out of the maze we checked wait times on the app and noticed that The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (which is a clone of the ride in Orlando) had only a 20 minute wait. Normally neither of us would ever wait that time for it in Orlando, but we were in a new park and just wanted to go on a ride! Any ride!! So, we got in line.

Actually, prior to the trip we decided on rides and attractions that we felt we could completely skip on the visit. Rides like Dumbo and the Carousel were high up there, as were the temporary Marvel and Star Wars 'attractions' and things that were basically the exact same as other versions, like Soarin, SDMT and ... yup ... Pooh. But when you see waits listed in hours and one is 20 minutes well ...



While in line we started talking about how Michael now had become “Theme Park Royalty” again, i.e. visited all Disney parks. He had that (self-awarded) title from 2010 until the opening of Shanghai. And now he got it back. He even made sure that the shoes that travelled to Japan with him in 2010 were along as well, so he now owns a pair of shoes that have hit the ground in every Disney park:

Yes, except M had me murder them in June by running in them. I got in one good run ... and then the heel of one shoe started to fall off!



The wait ended up longer than 20 minutes but that was fine with us. The ride was really cute. It does make a difference if everything is brand new!

Wait was actually 35 minutes because ... well, many Guests have never been in any theme park let alone a Disney one before. They don't listen to CM instructions, often doing unsafe things, and they make boarding an adventure. FWIW, I have not largely seen this behavior at HKDL (and I was a local to the park while living in the area in 2010).

Getting off we had a look at the Fantasyland wait time board:



We were amazed at the wait times and felt happy that we had no ambition to ride the Seven Dwarfs coaster. This is the same as the one in Orlando (I think it was actually designed for Shanghai and then thrown into Fantasyland at WDW at the last minute) and we had both been on it often enough that we felt we ought to concentrate on other things.

The only FP still available was for the one ride that we had already been on!



This was before noon!

Walking towards Treasure Cove we passed a grassy area with a tent with this sign:



Michael was throwing fits about how unfair it was that he was not allowed in this magical tent where he would be able to find all kind of unique opening day merchandise at a great discount. Every time we passed the tent there was unhappy mumbling… If he had only known what would happen this spring in Florida! Loads and loads of SDL stuff, much of it from the Grand Opening, appeared at the Disney outlets for totally cheap prices. He was able to take advantage of this and ended up with buckets of opening day merchandise that we did not have to carry with us to Japan and then back home.

Yes, I have even returned vast quantities of merchandise and rebought as much of it, even after the eBay pirates have been through, has simply not moved or they made a zillion units too many. I likely have bought over $1,500 worth of items for less than $150. Grand Opening 'Limited Release' (not Limited Edition) pins were at my local outlet through last week for 99 cents each for example. And everything from plush to keychains to mugs to stamp sets to toys to backpacks to umbrellas etc. And it costs Disney a pretty penny to bring this stuff from China to the FL swamps to dump.

Treasure Cove is one of the two lands that would otherwise be called Adventureland in other Disney parks. The other part is Adventure Isle. Adventure Isle has this amazing (Roaring) mountain:



I sent this picture to my father and his comment was: “How ridiculous, where does the water for the waterfall come from at the top of the mountain?” Of course he is right with that, but it does look cool! I guess one can imagine that there is some kind of geyser in the mountain providing the water?

But we were heading to Treasure Cove to Pirates of the Caribbean.









This ride is kind of the signature ride of Shanghai Disneyland among the Disney theme park fans. So, we were really excited about going on this ride. When we got there the wait time was posted as 70 minutes, however the ride has a single rider line. There the wait was posted 60 minutes. I decided that I rather would want to wait 10 minutes longer and ride together, so we got into line.

I have joked that this ride alone is worth buying a plane ticket for. That might be taking it a bit far, but only a bit. I have never experienced an attraction that so seamlessly combines a ride system, projections, animatronics and huge set pieces so effectively. This isn't like Soaring Over Pandora or even the Harry Potter rides at UNI. This thing envelopes you in the story. The fact it has won multiple THEA Awards is proof the industry agrees!

If you know the Pirates lines at WDW and in Paris, they are these dark caves and I was really looking forward to a long dark and cool wait. Ha, they really did not up their line game here! The line was mainly through courtyards and such in typical switchbacks. More like the lines for Jungle Cruise or Big Thunder Mountain.

Add to that the Chinese way of queuing – i.e. making sure that no spot on the ground is empty – it became a rather unpleasant wait despite the ceiling fans giving at least a little bit of air movement. I kept thinking we will soon get to the inside portion of the line. There were some fun things to look at like this board:



I was intrigued that even the jokes were in two languages.

And then we finally got inside – for the last 5 minutes of our wait time or so.



The ride is very different from the other Pirates rides. It starts with the boats that are much larger, with individual seats and a lap bar. They seemed to have issues filling the boats correctly as a lot of people had no idea on how this was supposed to work. You could tell that a fair number of visitors had never been to anything like a theme park before. People were jumping lines, not understanding that there was an assigned number of spots in every row etc.

Besides the different boat the whole story is different, it is more a ride inspired by the movies than the other which are the rides that inspired the movies. There is some impressive use of technology in the ride, especially how the use of screens and ride experience was combined to an amazing experience. There were scenes where I did not understand until the third ride whether I was seeing a screen or a physical set. It just all fit together so effortless.

Regardless of story and personal preferences, I do think this is the most impressive theme park ride that is out there at the moment. I was totally in awe!

And that is why Flight of Passage at AK did not really impress me this much. Ultimately it is just like Soarin with a more intense ride seat. But like Soarin, Mission Space, Ratatouille or the Forbidden Journey and Gringotts at Universal the action is on the screen and you are just being moved around. Shanghai Pirates has screens, but the action is rarely on the screens, they set the environment. There are some amazing animatronics (far fewer though than at the other Pirates) and large set pieces. And it all comes together in such a breathtaking way.

And with that the day that had started with so much frustration suddenly turned into a great day! I was in a new Disney park, I just had been on the most amazing attraction I ever experienced in my life! Life was good. And we decided that we were hungry and needed food.

We were, as you can tell, completely wowed. And by this point, with three aattractions under our belts, including the one we most wanted to see, we were starting to feel really good despite the heat, crowds and lack of sleep. Our Asian Adventure was a reality and the magic had begun! Turns out there was so much more ahead ...

Up Next: A Pirate’s meal and a super cool room!

 

[Haley R]

Yes, this was really lovely! I especially liked the young men in kimono with man purse and straw hats!



Thank you for the congratulations! And to this trip report. I hope you had an amazing time at Aulani! Do we get a trip report? We are planning on an Alumni visit in 2019, so I might have a couple of questions...



Yes!! More about this when we get to Tokyo Disney Sea!



I always think this would be a great dessert to be sold at the Germany pavilion at Epcot.



Lucky you!



I was a bit scared about this as well, but ultimately it was not an issue. Yes, there were situations were we needed patience and we might have missed out on some things that could have made the trip better. But modern technology helped a lot! I should actually write something about this in the trip report, thanks for reminding me!



That is wonderful!! I was actually thinking the other day when I read your trip report about how Marlene is doing and whether she is still so much in love with France. I do hope that visiting there lives up to her dreams!



great to see you here!

Omg lol. Straw hats and man purses?

 

[glennbo123]

With the exception of the crowds, sounds like a great first day in the park.

 

[Malia78]

Regardless of story and personal preferences, I do think this is the most impressive theme park ride that is out there at the moment. I was totally in awe!

Disneyland Paris is still on my list but after visiting the three Asia parks in October, I came away feeling the best versions of some of the classic rides are all located overseas in the Asia parks--Pooh's Hunny Hunt in Tokyo, Mystic Manor and Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars in Hong Kong and Pirates in Shanghai...

--Kari

 

[franandaj]

Boy you are updating like a madwoman. I found the time to come back and read the intro and now you have at least two updates!

I read your travel day. I'm glad it was so easy for you. Everyone who has used the 144 hour rule, seems to encounter an ignorant employee. I have yet to read about someone who doesn't have to summon a supervisor.

Bummer about the lost wallet, and so glad you didn't get taken by the darned taxi frauds. One TR I read they paid 500 (yen?) is that the currency? to get to the Toy Story hotel and 100 to get back to the airport.

I'll have to come back and catch up on Day 1. Got to do some laundry and prepare a picnic for tonight!

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

You would be surprised, but the Delawarians at the outlet does rank very highly for Michael!

He must not get out much.

Surprisingly we did not have any coffee on that day! I guess a new Disney park is better than coffee!

I remember when we arrived at Aulani after 18 hours of being awake and traveling. We were so tired, but got an amazing second wind once we arrived at the resort. Something about Disney.

Ha! Michael was talking about doing a day trip to the Everglades National Park when I am going to be there in the winter. I am a bit wary of this after reading about your experiences. But then I hope that winter will be better than summer!

Winter will definitely be better! It has to be.

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

As you can see from this, we did not have any language problems at all in Shanghai. All the CMs spoke decent to very good English. I think we only encountered one that was insecure and got a better English speaking colleague.

Good to know! I wish I had stuck with languages longer in my own education.

We both loved Toy Story Hotel.

We're off to a good start here!

We had seen online that for both of our days they had sold out of tickets (we had purchased ours months ago, so that was not an issue) which meant that the park would be at capacity.

Uh oh. Dealing with crowds is never fun.

But we then figured out that as of July 1st the ticket prices would rise substantially due to them introducing peak period pricing in the summer. I think by nearly 50% if I remember correctly (and yes, I could research that…). So everyone and their cousin was trying to squeeze in a visit under the lower pricing structure.

That makes sense. If I lived there, I'd try to do the same thing! Or wait till peak season was over.

This is something that can be uncomfortable for Americans. There is no concept of personal space in China due to the sheer number of people in the country. People will rub, shove and push you in a line. And they also will attempt to get in front of you if you leave too much of an opening -- say an inch! This isn't considered rude or wrong. It just is. Sorta like we have the Kardashians in the USA. You have to stand your ground and often leaving an elbow or two pointed behind you helps.

That sounds awful. I don't think I'd do well with that.

It was pretty bad. However, I had my first experience of someone wanting to take my picture. It happened a couple of times and people were always very polite about it. To be honest, it kind of made me feel special, but I also felt a bit awkward as I certainly did not look my best this morning!

This has happened on our travels before. They really loved seeing a blond-haired, blue-eyed baby boy.

Security was quite a sight as they were physically holding people back from crashing the check point and letting a few people through at a time. There it became a real crush. Then on to the next line. The reason why the turnstiles took so long is that they printed the tickets there at the turnstile. You show your print out of your reservation and then they issue your tickets. They also check the passports of every person who gets a ticket.

That sounds like a terrible system.

There is another way to get FPs in SDL: purchase them. You can buy one, if available, in shops in the various lands for about $18. Or a set of seven (one for every FP attraction in the park for over $80 or more than the cost of a one day pass. In hindsight, I might have actually sprung for a set of these for one of our days as it doesn't prevent you from getting others the old fashioned way.

I keep worrying that eventually all of the parks will start making you pay for fast passes.

The baffling thing was however the amount of un-licensed sellers we encountered in there. We had seen people selling stuff while we were in line to get into the park. It is something that Shanghai Disneyland has plenty of: Locals selling cheap Mickey plushes, umbrellas, mouse ears etc. Obviously not official products nor official sellers. One wonders how park security is not doing more about it, but none of the sellers were ever aggressive to us and while we noticed it, I don’t remember it taking over

Wow. I'm really surprised to hear that. Read the blog, so I guess it's just a different culture and matter of laws.

The Cheshire Cat was hiding in many places:

There's a neat idea!

Everyone kept telling me before the trip that the castle looks better in person than on pictures. And while some people love the Shanghai castle, I can tell you that I think it is the ugliest of them all. To me it looks like a box dressed up with turrets.

I think I agree. It's underwhelming in the photo.

While in line we started talking about how Michael now had become “Theme Park Royalty” again, i.e. visited all Disney parks. He had that (self-awarded) title from 2010 until the opening of Shanghai. And now he got it back. He even made sure that the shoes that travelled to Japan with him in 2010 were along as well, so he now owns a pair of shoes that have hit the ground in every Disney park:

Yes, except M had me murder them in June by running in them. I got in one good run ... and then the heel of one shoe started to fall off!

I'm thinking it might be time to retire them.

Getting off we had a look at the Fantasyland wait time board:

Michael was throwing fits about how unfair it was that he was not allowed in this magical tent where he would be able to find all kind of unique opening day merchandise at a great discount. Every time we passed the tent there was unhappy mumbling… If he had only known what would happen this spring in Florida! Loads and loads of SDL stuff, much of it from the Grand Opening, appeared at the Disney outlets for totally cheap prices. He was able to take advantage of this and ended up with buckets of opening day merchandise that we did not have to carry with us to Japan and then back home.

Something to note the next time he gets grumpy!

I sent this picture to my father and his comment was: “How ridiculous, where does the water for the waterfall come from at the top of the mountain?” Of course he is right with that, but it does look cool! I guess one can imagine that there is some kind of geyser in the mountain providing the water?

Leave it to an engineer! But sure, I'll buy a geyser as an explanation.

I have joked that this ride alone is worth buying a plane ticket for. That might be taking it a bit far, but only a bit. I have never experienced an attraction that so seamlessly combines a ride system, projections, animatronics and huge set pieces so effectively. This isn't like Soaring Over Pandora or even the Harry Potter rides at UNI. This thing envelopes you in the story. The fact it has won multiple THEA Awards is proof the industry agrees!

Wow, this is high praise! I've seen a video of the ride on YouTube and it really does look amazing.

If you know the Pirates lines at WDW and in Paris, they are these dark caves and I was really looking forward to a long dark and cool wait. Ha, they really did not up their line game here! The line was mainly through courtyards and such in typical switchbacks. More like the lines for Jungle Cruise or Big Thunder Mountain.

Add to that the Chinese way of queuing – i.e. making sure that no spot on the ground is empty – it became a rather unpleasant wait despite the ceiling fans giving at least a little bit of air movement.

Yuck! This would be a very long 70 minutes.

Besides the different boat the whole story is different, it is more a ride inspired by the movies than the other which are the rides that inspired the movies. There is some impressive use of technology in the ride, especially how the use of screens and ride experience was combined to an amazing experience. There were scenes where I did not understand until the third ride whether I was seeing a screen or a physical set. It just all fit together so effortless.

Regardless of story and personal preferences, I do think this is the most impressive theme park ride that is out there at the moment. I was totally in awe!

Sounds incredible! I hope I get to see that someday. Or something like it.

 

[Pinkocto]

Thank you for the bat signal I’ll be back to read, looking forward to this report.

 

[Flossbolna]

Omg lol. Straw hats and man purses?

Yes!! They look very cute and exotic! The man purses are kind of little straw baskets. The ladies have the same time of basket bags, but lighter colors and different lining.

With the exception of the crowds, sounds like a great first day in the park.

It was! The weather was really getting to us, too. But a brand new Disney park is such a treat! Michael keeps saying that this will be the last "castle park" (i.e. Magic Kingdom like park) that Disney will build for a very long while and I guess he is right with that.

Disneyland Paris is still on my list but after visiting the three Asia parks in October, I came away feeling the best versions of some of the classic rides are all located overseas in the Asia parks--Pooh's Hunny Hunt in Tokyo, Mystic Manor and Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars in Hong Kong and Pirates in Shanghai...

Yes, Peter Pan and Buzz Light Year in Shanghai come to mind as well. I do think that Paris has the best Big Thunder Mountain of them all and the best classic Pirates. And maybe the best IASW (yes, I know sacriledge for not thinking Disneyland's is best, but if you take nostalgia out of it, DLP wins).

 

[Curiouser&curiouser!]

I just found your report now and I am all caught up. We have high hopes to make a very similar trip to Shanghai and Tokyo once our two boys are teenagers! I can't wait to hear more!

 

[Malia78]

Peter Pan and Buzz Light Year in Shanghai come to mind as well.

Agree....those Buzz laser guns were the best!

 

[dolphingirl47]

Sounds like you really love it there!

Yes, I do. I had my concerns about the culture shock before our first trip, but within a matter of hours, I was completely won over.

I did enjoy China, but the country that totally spoke to me was Japan. I think Michael is more of a China fan.

I think we have a similar thing going on here. China completely captured my heart. I like Japan as well, but not to the same extend as China. Graham likes China, too, but I think he slightly prefers Japan.

And was afraid that another Panama Canal cruise would not live up to this amazing cruise in 2014!

I get this. We had a kind of bumpy ride on our first Panama canal cruise in 2011 as the crew was ill prepared for such a long cruise so a do over was definitely required.

I was really impressed with public transport in Shanghai as well.

I have been very impressed with the public transport anywhere in China I have been. We have so far sampled it in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen and will soon add Suzhou to this list.

Or you need to book one of those cheap Ryanair flights between Manchester and Nuremberg and come and have one with me!

I really need to do something about this especially as I am going to break the vow to never fly Ryanair again in 9 days time when I fly yo Hamburg for a two day cruise to nowhere.

Ha! It actually worked out really well! At least for some days. We each ended up paying for this start at a later point in the trip.

I have only ever attempted doing something on the day I landed twice, once at Disneyland and in June in Hong Kong, but that was nowhere near as taxing as a full park day.

We stepped into a sauna. I just checked how hot it was and official it was “only” 28°C/83°F, but with a humidity of 85% it did feel unpleasant.

That sounds familiar. In June we had up to 34 degrees and high humidity in Hong Kong and Guilin.

As you can see from this, we did not have any language problems at all in Shanghai.

That has been my experience in Shanghai as well. Now Beijing was a different matter, but still no problem. Pointing and smiling goes a long way in China I find.

I have been to about three dozen countries (just added Austria and Hungary to the list in July!) and never had a serious language issue anywhere.

I could not agree more with this assessment.

And even when there was a bit of a barrier, people were so friendly and helpful!

I think that was the reason why I fell so completely for China. Yes, they have an amazing culture and history, but the people are so warm and welcoming.

What I did not admire were these lines that you see to the left and right of the fountain. Here is a clearer picture of the lines:

Goodness, this looks awful. When we were there in December, we commented that we would not want to visit when all the lines they have set up are full. Looks like you had just the experience.

This is something that can be uncomfortable for Americans. There is no concept of personal space in China due to the sheer number of people in the country. People will rub, shove and push you in a line. And they also will attempt to get in front of you if you leave too much of an opening -- say an inch!

That was a steep learning curve for me as well, but I got used to it soon enough.

You have to stand your ground and often leaving an elbow or two pointed behind you helps.

My mantra in China is that I have been given a pair of sturdy shoulders and I will use them.

However, I had my first experience of someone wanting to take my picture. It happened a couple of times and people were always very polite about it. To be honest, it kind of made me feel special, but I also felt a bit awkward as I certainly did not look my best this morning!

My jaw just dropped when this happened for the first time. Graham and I always joke in how many Chinese family albums we are appearing now. Like you, it does kind of make me a little special and definitely makes me feel very welcome.

So after a little over one hour we finally were inside the park. At that time Shanghai Disneyland was only distributing paper FP (now you can get them through the app as well) from centralized FP stations.

I have to say, I never even saw the FP stations. By the time we went, I could get FPs via the app and I liked this approach a lot.

This is the second Disney park to have an Alice in Wonderland Maze, the other is in Paris. The difference is however, that this maze in Shanghai is themed after the recent live action Alice in Wonderland movie, Paris has the animated original as its inspiration.

I really like the Shanghai version whereas I can take or leave the one in Paris. I only tend to go to the one in Paris if I am with somebody who really wants to do this.

Everyone kept telling me before the trip that the castle looks better in person than on pictures. And while some people love the Shanghai castle, I can tell you that I think it is the ugliest of them all.

I am one of the few people who actually rather likes the castle in Shanghai.

While in line we started talking about how Michael now had become “Theme Park Royalty” again, i.e. visited all Disney parks.

I have joined those ranks in June when I visited Hong Kong Disneyland as the last park still missing in my collection.

Getting off we had a look at the Fantasyland wait time board:

That is just crazy. In December, we did Seven Dwarfs Mind Train 4 times in less than 30 minutes as the ride was essentially a walk on.

Loads and loads of SDL stuff, much of it from the Grand Opening, appeared at the Disney outlets for totally cheap prices. He was able to take advantage of this and ended up with buckets of opening day merchandise that we did not have to carry with us to Japan and then back home.

Oh, I would have been all over this.

When we got there the wait time was posted as 70 minutes, however the ride has a single rider line.

I had not realised that the ride has a single rider line.

I have joked that this ride alone is worth buying a plane ticket for. That might be taking it a bit far, but only a bit.

I would agree with this assessment.

Regardless of story and personal preferences, I do think this is the most impressive theme park ride that is out there at the moment. I was totally in awe!

I agree with this. I had told Graham as we were walking up to the ride that I had read and heard that this is the best ride Disney ever did. His reaction was that Disney nerds would say this, but when it was our turn, he was absolutely blown away by this. He has agreed to spend another day at the park with me just because of this.

Corinna

 

[Steppesister]

Crap! I'm so far behind! I may never catch up in the fashion I'd like to, BUT, I AM reading and making headway.

I took a picture of the flight path over Kazakhstan in honor of my friend @Steppesister:

You flew right over Crapistan!! And awww, you thought of me. I'm glad there was no forced landing in Almaty. It's awful there. Reminds me of the time a coal train derailed ahead of some friends' of ours journey and they were stuck on the train for 36 hours before help and supplies came.

And then it was time to get off the plane – and I had a huge shock! While on the plane I had put some of the Chinese cash that we had exchanged in Germany into my little travel wallet so that it would be easily accessible when it came to paying the taxi that we intended to take. And when I packed my things, I could not find that little wallet. Unfortunately it never reappeared (I even made a claim with Swiss for a lost item) and with that the trip had immediately gotten 100 € more expensive. Luckily I had not put all our cash nor any credit cards in the wallet, so it was just the loss of the money. To this day I have no clue what happened and can only imagine that instead of putting it in my bag, I put it next to the bag and with landing it wandered up or down the plane and someone found it and pocketed it.

We were warned of a pretty elaborate scam going on that people pilfer wallets from under seats and then pass them back to others involved.

 

[Steppesister]

So, yes, if you wind up thousands of miles from a major city and surrounded by people over 40,

Looks like the decor is simply stunning! I love these!

That is phenomenal!!

And that is why Flight of Passage at AK did not really impress me this much. Ultimately it is just like Soarin with a more intense ride seat. But like Soarin, Mission Space, Ratatouille or the Forbidden Journey and Gringotts at Universal the action is on the screen and you are just being moved around. Shanghai Pirates has screens, but the action is rarely on the screens, they set the environment. There are some amazing animatronics (far fewer though than at the other Pirates) and large set pieces. And it all comes together in such a breathtaking way.

While I AM all caught up and adored your updates to pieces, this absolutely stood out to me and makes me want to visit SDL a LOT! Maybe someday I will find my way there....

 

[Flossbolna]

Boy you are updating like a madwoman. I found the time to come back and read the intro and now you have at least two updates!

Haha! That was just a fluke!! You know that my trip reports move at snail's pace! But I am working on the next update, so you will most likely find a new one once you are back from your cruise.

I read your travel day. I'm glad it was so easy for you. Everyone who has used the 144 hour rule, seems to encounter an ignorant employee. I have yet to read about someone who doesn't have to summon a supervisor.

I have heard that the larger the airport, the better your luck. I would also asume that if you travel with a Chinese airline, they would know about it. And Corinna confirmed that it is just people not reading their instructions properly.

Bummer about the lost wallet, and so glad you didn't get taken by the darned taxi frauds. One TR I read they paid 500 (yen?) is that the currency? to get to the Toy Story hotel and 100 to get back to the airport.

Yes, I was prepared for the taxi frauds. But the airport was so empty in the early morning, there was no one even trying to approach us!