Anyone visit the other Disney Parks in other countries?

[tink5656]

We spent one day at Disneyland Hong Kong last year and absolutely LOVED it. I felt a little guilty about spending a day in HK at an "American" theme park but my husband had left to go to a conference and I was alone with my two kids and thought they would enjoy that more than anything else. I will say the experience was beyond expectations. Believe it or not, we learned as much about Chinese culture as we had on any other day of our trip. We could compare behavior, cultural norms so much easier because the Disney part stayed the same. People were so friendly, everyone spoke English and my kids felt like celebrities because dozens of times, mainland Chinese patrons asked to take pictures with them - I guess because we were among the handful of Americans at the park. We now want to visit all the other parks as a part of our travels because of how much we learned at HK Disney.

 

[Murron]

Paris and Tokyo....an entirely different experience! We laugh because we've been going to WDW forever (50 + club), did Paris and Tokyo but have never gone to Disneyland! Go figure.

 

[That Mom]

My dd studied abroad and I met up with her for two weeks in 2010. We were in London for the Royal Wedding then went to Paris for a few days. I know most people look at Paris as the destination but we really went for Disney.
We only had three days and spent one of them at Disney Paris. It was a great time, very different feel and, as a pp said, the food was awful!
I doubt that I will get the chance to go to any of the other international Disney parks but I would go in a heartbeat if the opportunity arises.

 

[minnie mum]

I'm SO used to WDW that all the subtle differences at DLP made it feel just a little off.

Like when you have a dream where everything's the same but a tiny bit different and it just doesn't feel right? That..

One of my DDs would agree with you. She's been many, many times to DL and WDW. And 3 times to DLP. She calls it "Bizarro Disney". But in a good way.

 

[Pakey]

I've been to all but Tokyo. I can't wait for the new one in Shanghai.

 

[DDM101]

tcherjen, I would also LOVE to visit all of the Disney parks located throughout the world. I have only had the pleasure to visit Disney World in Florida thus far, but I am looking forward to visiting all of the other Disney landmarks to include new and fascinating countries. Although Disney would play second fiddle to a lot of my touring expectations when visiting other countries, I would ultimately be giddy to encounter the "most magical place on earth" no matter where that magical place lies.

 

[Belle83]

I'm trying to plan a honeymoon so that we could go to Tokyo Disney

 

[afnaechiquita]

I went to Tokyo DisneySea. I'd like to get to HK and back to Tokyo for the other park. I went to Tokyo because I have a friend there and he had to work some of the time, so I made the decision to go to Disney. Afterwards he asked why I didn't propose that idea when he had the day off!

 

[palavra]

We live in southern China about 2. Hours from Hong Kong. Next month we are going to HKDL for the first time. I'm really excited to be living so close to a Disney park. We will probably try to get season passes.

 

[the_princess]

Yes, a lot of people do. That is what keeps them in business.

Hahahha...

I have been to DLP more times that I can count. Paris is a weekend trip for me, where WDW and DLR are big vacations.

 

[Groovee]

Been to Paris a few times but its not got the magic that WDW holds. I find the Europeans terrible at queuing and not willing to wait. One time me and Ds age 3 were waiting to see mickey as the characters are in the hotels, and mickey shooed everyone away to let ds see him. That was lovely but my back was sore from the daggers coming from the ride guests.

 

[MrRomance]

I would love to visit every Disney theme park. Anyone do this yet? Did you do anything else while on vacation in another place?

We went To Disneyland Paris (we are in the UK so it is a 2 hour train trip for us) and HATED IT! In my opinion, Disney should be ashamed to associate themselves with it and it lets the Disney brand down in so many ways.

The staff (and other guests) were on the whole rude and unhelpful. Despite the park having Designated Smoking Areas, they were not enforced even in the loosest possible sense (we had people smoking in the line for rides!). At the time, we were smokers and we stuck to the rules, but I really didn't appreciate people in line blowing smoke in my kids faces.

We stayed at a higher end Disney Hotel (Newport Bay) which was filthy dirty and poorly maintained. Day 1, I tripped over carpet that was not stuck down properly. For our entire 5 day stay, there was a bag of trash outside the room next door (which was a hotel bag left by room service). My daughter got food poisoning. We had half board (breakfast and dinner).

On our final day, we were walking outside and saw a young kid (around 13) who clearly had learning disabilities. He was crying and frantic and was crying out for his father. We watched as 3 members of staff walked by him, looking in his direction and walking on by without stopping to help. My DW and I went over to him to try to help, but he was French and neither of us speak French. I did some French at school (many moons ago) so I could work out that he was lost but couldn't communicate with the kid. We took him with us and tried to find someone from the hotel but when we explained they look at us and this poor kid like we were just a pain in the backside.

He was eventually reunited with his father but we did not even get a thank you from the hotel staff or the kids father!

All in all, it left us feeling that we'd wasted a lot of money on a rubbish trip and that the parks that are not owned and operated by Disney which most of the parks outside the US are not (they are run by other companies who pay Disney to operate) are just not up to standard. For that reason I would not travel to any of them for fear we'd have another rubbish time!

 

[the_princess]

We went To Disneyland Paris (we are in the UK so it is a 2 hour train trip for us) and HATED IT! In my opinion, Disney should be ashamed to associate themselves with it and it lets the Disney brand down in so many ways.

The staff (and other guests) were on the whole rude and unhelpful. Despite the park having Designated Smoking Areas, they were not enforced even in the loosest possible sense (we had people smoking in the line for rides!). At the time, we were smokers and we stuck to the rules, but I really didn't appreciate people in line blowing smoke in my kids faces.

We stayed at a higher end Disney Hotel (Newport Bay) which was filthy dirty and poorly maintained. Day 1, I tripped over carpet that was not stuck down properly. For our entire 5 day stay, there was a bag of trash outside the room next door (which was a hotel bag left by room service). My daughter got food poisoning. We had half board (breakfast and dinner).

On our final day, we were walking outside and saw a young kid (around 13) who clearly had learning disabilities. He was crying and frantic and was crying out for his father. We watched as 3 members of staff walked by him, looking in his direction and walking on by without stopping to help. My DW and I went over to him to try to help, but he was French and neither of us speak French. I did some French at school (many moons ago) so I could work out that he was lost but couldn't communicate with the kid. We took him with us and tried to find someone from the hotel but when we explained they look at us and this poor kid like we were just a pain in the backside.

He was eventually reunited with his father but we did not even get a thank you from the hotel staff or the kids father!

All in all, it left us feeling that we'd wasted a lot of money on a rubbish trip and that the parks that are not owned and operated by Disney which most of the parks outside the US are not (they are run by other companies who pay Disney to operate) are just not up to standard. For that reason I would not travel to any of them for fear we'd have another rubbish time!

Different people, different opinions. I love DLP, it's a lovely and beautiful park. It's small compared to WDW, so I only spend 2 nights there, then I feel like I have seen it all. But I think everyone should go there at least once, if they are into Disney. The service level is a lot different then WDW and especially DLR. DLP is very "European", which can be a good AND a bad thing, but the park and the resort is beautiful.

 

[Rose.Red]

Got to go to Tokyo DisneySea last spring during my study abroad program in Japan... I really loved it! It's a lovely and very unique park and not hard to reach on Tokyo's metro system, if you're not staying at one of the hotels close by.

The only thing I would suggest is try to avoid going there during Japan's spring break (pretty much the month of March), because it is SO CROWDED with college and high school kids. We ended up not really being able to go on the bigger rides like Tower of Terror, Journey to the Center of the Earth, etc. just because the wait times were 4 hours or more, and we didn't want to spend ridiculous amounts of time waiting in line during our only day there. I didn't have much leeway in when I got to go (it was my spring break as well), so we sort of just made the best of it and had a great time going on smaller rides and seeing shows (the Big Band Beat show and their version of Fantasmic were both very entertaining!), but it'd probably have been better to go during a less crowded time. That being said, it's still an awesome park!

 

[Jen_in_NH]

We live in southern China about 2. Hours from Hong Kong. Next month we are going to HKDL for the first time. I'm really excited to be living so close to a Disney park. We will probably try to get season passes.

Where in China do you live? We were there this past spring to adopt our son, and spent a week in Guangzhou. We loved it there, and can't wait to go back.

We spent a day at Hong Kong Disney, and had a lot of fun. It was a great treat for our older on after two and a half weeks away from home

 

[alisaaaaaaa]

I've been to Tokyo and Hong Kong. Tokyo is just incredible, and DisneySea is completely unique with their rides and shows. I also loved all the characters they had out! Hong Kong is a lot smaller but I loved Toy Story Land! I also loved that in HK it was completely fine getting around with English (having been under British control and all)...tthey even offered certain show times of the interactive stitch attraction (like turtle talk here) in English!

 

[wendyt_ca]

We just recently visited DLP for two days. We were in Europe for almost two weeks and spent the other days of the trip split between London and Paris. I loved it in Europe! DLP is not up to american park standards though. I couldn't believe how many people were smoking in queues or just walking around the park. I was not accustomed to this. But I still really liked the parks and the night show for the 20th anniversary was cool.

 

[AppleSister1]

We are dying to do Tokyo! It's our dream family trip!! Whoever posted the links to the TRs...thanks!

 

[RedOne3781]

I was lucky enough to be at Hong Kong DL for New Year's Eve 2006/2007 while visiting my dad there (He was working in Hong Kong for a bit).

It was really interesting. I especially liked their Space Mountain and Jungle Cruise.

I didn't get to take a lot of pictures, as we didn't get there until pretty late in the evening and pretty much hit the ground running when we did finally get there. But it was fun, and I really hope to get back there again someday.

 

[ImAllEars]

Different people, different opinions. I love DLP, it's a lovely and beautiful park. It's small compared to WDW, so I only spend 2 nights there, then I feel like I have seen it all. But I think everyone should go there at least once, if they are into Disney. The service level is a lot different then WDW and especially DLR. DLP is very "European", which can be a good AND a bad thing, but the park and the resort is beautiful.

I very much agree with this, and i love DLP and WDW for different reasons.