First International Trip!! May 2019 *Day 1 continued - update 8/14*

MinnieWebster

Mouseketeer
Joined
Jun 3, 2017
Hi friends! DH and I went to Asia this spring, to visit his birth mother in Seoul, South Korea. To make the trip a little more exciting, since I was pretty nervous to be traveling to a foreign country (where I do not know the language, and the person we are visiting doesn't know English), we decided to visit Hong Kong Disneyland and Tokyo Disney Resort before getting to Seoul.
A little background, DH and I are both in our 30's, no kids. DH was adopted as a child, and recently his birth mother has found him and his bio brother, so we have been slowly getting to know her. We are frequent visitors to WDW, trying to get there at least once each year. We have recently decided we want to try to visit all of the Disney parks eventually. DH went to Shanghai Disneyland last April, after an impromptu visit to Seoul to see his birth mother.
After a lot of research, I decided our best itinerary for travel would be to go to Hong Kong first, then Tokyo, then Seoul. I wanted non-stop flights so we wouldn't have to try to figure out immigration/baggage/customs for connecting flights, and was eventually able to book all non-stop flights.
For our first leg of the trip, we flew out of Chicago O'Hare International Airport. It's about a 3 hour drive from home, but our flight left at 3:20pm, so we had plenty of time to get up in the morning and drive to Chicago. There wasn't much for traffic, even though DH was worried we would have some.

2019-05-08 21.52.45.jpg It looks like we packed light, right? Deceiving! We packed smaller suitcases inside the large suitcases, because while our first flight allowed 2 checked bags per person, our smaller 2 flights in the middle of the trip we had to pay for bags, and I was initially only able to add one bag per person. So I thought we could try to keep things condensed for the first part of the trip, but still have more space for souvenirs at the end of the trip.
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Finally, we're off!!
I was nervous about such a long flight, having never been on a flight so long. 16 hours from Chicago to Hong Kong felt like an eternity! :crazy2: However, we got through it just fine, and I didn't have any problems with motion sickness (I have in the past, so we brought along lots of Dramamine!). They had a halfway decent selection of movies to choose from to watch onboard. First movie I watched was Wall-E, it's so cute! :-)
I was very surprised about the size of the meals they served on the flight!
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That was my pick. It was pretty good.
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And DH picked this choice.

2019-05-09 17.49.36.jpg Dessert!!
Not long after the first meal was finished, the lights went out so passengers could rest.
DH and I managed to get some rest, although not a whole lot, since we are not used to long flights like this and it is hard to get comfortable on a plane.... :faint:
The second meal served later in the flight, DH and I picked the same thing:
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Again, pretty tasty, considering it's airplane food :rotfl2:
I decided to watch Aquaman, even though we watched it in theaters.
Towards the end of the flight DH got me a "snack" of some ramen, which they provided chopsticks to eat it with. Now, I had tried to use chopsticks maybe once before this trip, and it didn't go so well. I had wanted to practice in the weeks before we left, but it didn't end up happening :rotfl: DH wanted evidence of my first attempt during this trip:
2019-05-10 05.45.06.jpg I must say, I didn't do too badly :rotfl2:I did manage to eat all of the noodles without too much trouble :cool1: Go me!

One thing I found really interesting about our flight, was that we didn't go west, over the western US and the Pacific Ocean, like I expected we would. Instead we went north/south, over Canada and Russia/China.
Eventually we made it to the Hong Kong International airport, where we made it through immigration, baggage claim and customs without issue. We then (after a little wandering) found a blue Lantau taxi to take us to Disney's Hollywood Hotel.
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It was a long day, so after checking in we did a little getting ready for the next day at the park and went to bed :faint:
 
I happen to like airplane food. Of course it can't be compared to restaurant food. I think that's where most complaints are about but it's silly to expect it to be the same as restaurant food
 
I happen to like airplane food. Of course it can't be compared to restaurant food. I think that's where most complaints are about but it's silly to expect it to be the same as restaurant food

That's all I've ever heard, is how bad airplane food is, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I was definitely very happy with how my meals tasted.

Seoul is on my travel wishlist! One day I'm going there for sure!

It's a nice place to visit!
 


I’m following along! The first time I went to Australia, I was so impressed with our steak dinner on the plane. I loved flying Quantas such good food!
 
Day 1: Hong Kong Disneyland
We got up and ready for our day in the park, stopping to take some pictures around the hotel before going out to the shuttle to take us to Disneyland.
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This was the view from our room, really nice!!
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Not sure why these are going in sideways.... but we eventually made it to the shuttle, which was a short ride to the park.
DH got in line to exchange our Klook vouchers (which I had purchased online) for the 3-in-1 meal voucher, giving us lunch, dinner, and a snack in the park that day.
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These were very easy to use, we just showed them to the cast member when we ordered our food, and it was very convenient to already have the meals paid for. They came with a small drink, although we couldn't upgrade to a larger drink without paying the price difference.
There weren't too many people lined up at the entrance when we got there, and everyone was let in to Main Street at 9:30am (the park opened at 10am, which we were not used to, with most days getting EMH for an 8am opening at WDW). There were several CM's at the end of Main Street, keeping guests gathered until it was time to open the park for the day.
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Once the park opened, right at 10am, DH went to grab fastpasses for Space Mountain (he got a return time of 10:40-11:40), while I went to get in line for Ant-Man and the Wasp2019-05-11 10.01.09.jpg
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This is similar to Buzz Lightyear, although obviously a different storyline
Up next we went to Iron Man, since it was right next to Ant-Man. Similar to Star Tours, I enjoyed it, but DH doesn't like the jerkiness of these simulation rides.
We did Space Mountain standby next, then we went towards Fantasyland. We got fastpasses for Pooh (return time 11:25), then got in the standby line as it was only posted at 5 minutes.
I will continue with Fantasyland in the next post...
 
Once in FantasyLand, DH grabbed fastpasses for Pooh, which had an 11:25 return. We entered the standby line because it was posted at 5 minutes.
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This was pretty much a clone of the ride in WDW, but we still enjoy it. One difference I did notice was that this version had a ride photo in the Heffalumps and Woozels part of the ride.
Up next was it's a small world.
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For the most part it was the same was WDW, with some cute additions!
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We found characters from Disney movies throughout the countries! So cute.
Next we went back to Hyperspace Mountain, to use our FP.
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Hyperspace Mountain, while similar to Space Mountain in MK, has a Star Wars theme to the queue and ride. It was neat, although DH didn't really like the theming, he prefers Space Mountain.
We were eligible to grab our next FP after our ride, so we picked up another one for this ride. The only attractions currently offering FP at Hong Kong Disneyland are The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and Hyperspace Mountain. So we were limited in options, but we did enjoy both of these rides.
Next we rode Pooh again, with our FP.
We had lunch at the Royal Banquet Hall, a quick service restaurant in Fantasyland.
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We ordered the "Baked Pork Chop with Rice" Combo (on the right) and the "Baked Sole Fillet Florentine Cream Sauce with Rice" Combo (on the left). I got a Coke to drink, I think DH got a Sprite here.
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We thought both were pretty good, although I think we both liked the sole fillet Florentine better than the pork chop. I thought the Mickey-shaped carrots were a cute touch to the meals :-)

Up next, we head toward Toy Story Land, but I'm at my picture limit, so that will be continued in the next post.
 


Toy Story Land! Different rides than what we have at WDW.
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First up was RC Racer, which is a "thrilling, gravity-defying race, speeding back and forth on a soaring U-shaped track".
I didn't get a picture of this, but it is in the background of a picture coming up. I was a little nervous while waiting in line for this ride, but it was fun.
Next was Slinky Dog Spin, which is a ride on Slinky Dog, but instead of a coaster like at WDW, he chases his tail.
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(RC Racer is the half-pipe track in the background)
Slinky Dog Spin was fun, more geared towards kids. The posted wait was 20 minutes when we got in line, but we waited a lot longer than that.
We wanted to get back to Tomorrowland to use our next FP for Space, and I believe the line was fairly long, so we didn't get to the 3rd ride in Toy Story Land, Toy Soldier Parachute Drop.
After using that FP, we got another FP with a return time of 4:25pm.
While wandering the park, we came upon an outdoor theater that had a bunch of people gathered for a show that was about to start: Moana: A Homecoming Celebration. We decided to join the crowd and found a place to stand.
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It was a neat show, storytelling and dancing as they recount Moana's adventures to restore the heart of Te Fiti. We enjoyed it.

We eventually found the Grizzly Gulch area, and got in line to ride Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars, which was a super fun coaster. It was kind of a combination of Everest and Big Thunder Mountain, it was a wild ride through mines in the mountains and did go backwards. So fun.
Next up was a ride unique to HKDL, Mystic Manor. The standby wait was posted at 30 minutes, so we decided to use one of our priority passes (we got one each for each night of our stay, since we were staying at Disney's Hollywood Hotel. The website has a list of rides they could be used for, which was a bigger list than rides that offer fastpass). Mystic Manor was AWESOME!! We loved everything about this ride, from the trackless ride vehicles (Mystic Magneto-Electric Carriage) to the theme throughout the entire ride. It was amazing. Go to Hong Kong Disneyland just for this ride. Seriously. Pictures won't do it justice.
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If you can't guess from those few pictures, the monkey is the main character in the ride, and gets up to some mischief.

Next we got in line to watch Festival of the Lion King. We love the show that's put on in AK, and figured this one would be good too.
It was. HKDL has a moving stage, which was so cool. I loved how they did this performance!
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I will continue our day here in the next post!
 

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