I just booked! Going to Shanghai, Hong Kong and Tokyo-update Disneyland Shanghai day 5 - 01/06

[AdamEfimoff]

I am seeing photos of Shanghai where is the pollution?

 

[Karin1984]

I am seeing photos of Shanghai where is the pollution?

There is not always pollution in Shanghai, like it doesn't always rain in Europe.

I'm here!! Excited to see how your experience was compared to ours!!!

Hope you enjoyed everything! Looks like SHDR was pretty good so far!!

Welcome! I think the experiences was the same for the parks. It was just overwhelming and great to be there and to tick off the three Asian castles! It was a great experience, but we did way too much in a short time. Still thinking of going back to Asia next year to take my time in Japan. (Unless I get a change of position and move to New York City for the coming 2 years! The chances are small, but still!)

I hope I will continue with the report, but life intervened and I realize that the negatives of the trip hold me back to continue to write on. I know I have the next day of SHDR ahead of me, which started with a fight between me and my friend, so not looking forward to the next installment. Hopefully during the Xmas break, I'll get back to this!

So to pump myself up for the next day I have to write about, here a some of the Photopass pictures of the second day. Pretty as a princess ;-)

 

[Karin1984]

Happy New Year everyone!

August 27th

We get up early, skip breakfast and go to the buses. It’s not too busy here, but when we get to the park… Oh. My. God. It’s 1 hour before opening, and we are stranded in a sea of people.

It’s hot and uncomfortable. There are a few people trying to push their way to the front, but it was okay. Only, this all doesn’t help anyone’s mood. We have a little discussion about buying Fastpasses. My thought: I am not going back anytime soon, I want to experience some things and what is 100 euro on my entire vacation budget. Nikki thinks differently. She has the argument that last night we did a lot in the last hour and why spend the money on it when you can do it in the last hour. Which is true, but those weren’t the exciting rides. We are both quiet for the rest of the hour.

When finally the gates open, we almost immediately run into Goofy and Pluto at the end of Mickey Avenue. Meeting Characters always improves a situation, so we start the day with this meet. We suspected Goofy being able to speak English, Pluto not so much. I like that the photographers here are sensible enough to just keep snapping, it is nice to have interaction pictures. And some weird ones.

Like this one, with me thinking: I am surrounded by dogs… Get me out of here! (I’m more a cat person )

We continue to our first big ride of the day. The queue at Tron is short, so we walk right on. Strangely enough I didn’t make pictures in the morning, but luckily we have Photopass. I think I like the ride better at night, but I’m not sure. I think you should experience the ride twice. By day and by night.

We then move on to Buzz Lightyear, we walk on as well, and immediately get to do it twice as Nikki’s gun isn’t working properly the first time. It’s a fun game, easier than in the other parks.

We walk back to Fantasyland which is deserted. So finally getting some pictures without other people in it

We browse around some shops. And they are absolutely beautifully decorated. It’s a bit more over the top and less subtle. If you compare it to the Emporium shops in the other parks, those are more decorated with things they bought at flea markets etc. Things that actually were around in the beginning of the 20th century. Here it’s all made and larger than life. Disney on steroids. But all within the theme.

Huge castle pictures!

We decide to continue with another thing we haven’t done yet: Alice’s maze. I’m not a big fan of the Tim Burton movie, but I also don’t hate it. I do love the look. The maze is nice and spacey, especially if you compare it to Paris’ maze. And the art is just gorgeous.

Gigantic squirrel attack!

 

[TLPL]

Where are the crowd ??!?!!

 

[Karin1984]

Where are the crowd ??!?!!

Some pictures are good angles, but I think most people immediately went for Soarin and Roaring Rapids instead of Tron.

 

[TLPL]

Some pictures are good angles, but I think most people immediately went for Soarin and Roaring Rapids instead of Tron.

So that's a good idea to FP roaring and go start with Tomorrowland at rope drop like you did then? With their electronic FP booking App is it easy to book FP first thing in the morning?

 

[Karin1984]

So that's a good idea to FP roaring and go start with Tomorrowland at rope drop like you did then? With their electronic FP booking App is it easy to book FP first thing in the morning?

We didn't have the option to book FP's electronically. We only had at the machines and buy them at Guest Services. But I would indeed go for an option like that, book an FP for a ride on one side of the park and then rope drop the other side.

 

[Karin1984]

We go back to the castle to see which princess is meeting and to our surprise and joy, it’s Rapunzel! Love little meet, just the perfect bubbly personality we needed to brighten up our day!

Needless to say, she loved my bag!

We talked about my dress and that it looked familiar to her. And if I made the dress myself. She was mimicking how Pascal makes her dresses with his tiny hands. Apparantly it is possible for chameleons to do embroidery as well

It’s finally time for breakfast, we go back to Mickey Avenue and go to Remy’s Patisserie for some breakfast.

I get the Mike melon bread and the chicken curry puff. Not that I am that hungry, but I just want to try different things. I loved the curry puff, the melon bread was a bit dry, not really my thing. The nice thing about this place is that they have a big band recording of I see the Light. I want that recording.

As you can see 70 RMB for all this, and I believe at the time it was about 8 euro / 9 USD. So very reasonably priced.

As we sit there, we see a group of garden CMs appear with an American garden CM/imagineer. For a moment he’s confused to hear people speaking English/seeing Western people, when we say hi in English, he replies in Chinese.

I think it’s about 10:30, when we get up as there is a little show starting. It’s Mickey and the Disneyland Band! It’s just a cute little show, there to make people happy

When we want to walk on, we see that Duffy is out and meeting. We are not Duffy fans, but a character without a line… We’re in! Especially when the character kisses my hand

Bear Hug!

We walk around, but it’s hot and we have to slow down. Queues are massive everywhere. We see that at the characters of the Lion King are out, and again, no one in line. Meeting characters is not a big thing here, so we don’t feel guilty of taking our time.

When meeting a monkey, always curtsey politely.

We walk back to the Pirates area. We plan to see the Pirate stunt show as it is time to get out of the sun.

I loved the fire alarm next to this decoration

When we get into the building, there are several paintings of the previous productions, and can anyone tell me why Jack Sparrow participated in King Arthur as an angel?

I liked the pre-show, and I think that if you turn off the sound in your head, and just looked at people, I think you can understand what’s going on. It’s a bit like an English Panto, I think. As you can see, my camera really starts to object to the heat and fogs up a bit, which I didn’t notice till I got home. The show itself is okay, not very special, but it’s a nice and entertaining, especially when it’s hot outside and you need a break.

 

[buteraa]

I'm really enjoying your trip report. What an amazing opportunity to visit all of the Asian parks.