Today was our last day
*sad face*
I really loved it here, it's a nice park, but next I will be back when it's not so hot. It was 36 degrees Celsius at 14:00 hours. We managed to do Roaring River Rapids, Pirates, Tron, saw the Summer Blast show again, met Rapunzel again, checked out the Garden of the Twelve Friends (I'm a rat!) saw the Frozen show, the Travelling Troubadours show, saw Timon and Rafiki again (wanted to check for Judy and Nick, but they were not meeting) and the parade twice. The same CM manager recognized us from yesterday and moved us to the reserved viewing for the parade
More pixie dust! He also offered us again to use the reserved viewing for the fireworks, but we declined. We wanted to use the time at night to do more rides. Also did Voyage to the Crystal Grotto (Nikki loves ths ride, @night, but I still don't see the appeal) Nikki met Belle and Mickey again and I did Soaring (FP) and Pirates (last ride of my visit on the front row!)
So basically we did the parks with only one FP... Not my normal routine, but it's okay. We had some words about buying FP, we had discussed it in advance, but after the first day when we got so much accomplished during the firework/last hour, Nikki changed her mind about the necessity. I gave in, as we are on vacation together, I stuck to only buying one FP for Soaring, as Nikki didn't want to do this ride. In the end, I am happy to have saved the money, on the other hand, it would have given me peace of mind to do every ride more than once without waiting.
What did I like:
I love how the park looks, it's really well designed, lots of details and I didn't take enough pictures to capture it all. My camera doesn't do well in this heat.
Speaking of heat, they had manay arrangements for the heat, not just the Summer Blast show and the Pre-Parade where you can get soaked/drizzled with water. There were cooling areas with mistng fans, their were air conditioned tents, CMs with carts of water and other chilled drinks everwhere, most of them were holding a small misting fan, and they thought it hilarious that we asked them to spray us. Most queues have (misting) fans, which don't help that much, but it makes it bearable in this weather.
The CMs were amazing, not just because we got pixie dusted twice with reserved viewing for parade and fireworks, but also very nice. We were singled out easily as we were one of the few Western guests in the park (today on Monday there were more).
As a side note, I don't mean anything by it, just as an FYI, people with darker coloured skin, be aware that you might be the only one in the entire park. I saw more Caucasian people visiting, but maybe 3 people with darker coloured skin in total in Shanghai and in the park. I have been asked at least 5 times to take pictures with other guests as pale skin and red hair is something they only see on tv.
The music, Shanghai has very good music tracks, I heard Hunchback and Hercules, Enchanted and other Alan Menken songs Paris or US parks skip. An amazing violin version of I see the Light, Let it Go played by an oboe, which was lovely, but I am not sure who thought we would need a ukelele version of Let it Go? Oh, and in Remy's Patisserie I heard an up tempo Big Band version of I see the Light, and all I could think was: I want that CD!!!
Rides, I love Tron, don't do this ride on a full stomach, but the feeling of the forces pressing you in your seat... wow
and I love love love Pirates. How the boat moves in all directions, how you are in the middle of the movies, the amazing and huge animatronic of Davy Jones... one of my favorites.
I liked the parade, although it was short and a bit all over the place when it comes to style or theme, the Frozen float was missing, but hey, I got several good interactions with Flynn Rider
what else does a girl need! No, also good interactions with other characters on the parade, but again, being Western and standing out from the crowds was a huge plus.
Clean, overall, the parks were cleaner than I expected. 2 exceptions, right after the fireworks and in the queue of Tron on Saturday night. But all the bathrooms were clean. Didn't encounter many smokers most of them stuck to the smoking areas.
What didn't I like:
No matter how nice the CMs were, they spoke very little English. Sometimes asking where a ride/restaurant/show was or at what time was too much to ask for CMs at Guest Services throughout the park. So first question became: Do you speak English. As soon as I asked this, they got a colleague, but usually they weren't much of an improvement. If you want to have Engish at a decent level in the parks, you have to look for CMs with a Supervisor pin. At the hotel at the reception it is better.
For example, I encountered only 1 'cultural' incident, and am not 100% sure, but 99%, 2 minutes before the Frozen show started, 3 rows down a toddler has to use the bathroom, as I saw her father pull down her pants (I could see the girl's private parts) and held her down in a weird position. As mentioned, I am not entirey sure, but I think she was peeing. I am willing to understand a lot of cultural differences and little kids doing their business in the streets, okay... but inside and in a theater?! Sorry, that's where I have some issues. But the show was about to start, I didn't speak Chinese, and I was 3 rows to the back, what can you do? After the show was over, I wanted to alert a CM, so they could clean before the next show started, but none of them understood what I meant and as the crowds left the theater, I was dragged away by the crowds. I couldn't go back inside to show them.
That was a situation where I wished they spoke better English. I can figure out most things in a park, but this was something I'd like to have reported properly.
One tiny thingy about the music. What I like at Disney is the theming, that it's not just random throwing stuff together, when in Paris I sit in the Hakuna Matata Restaurant, all I hear is Lion KIng music, when I am the Tangled Tavern, all I wanna hear is Tangled music, not the same random music you hear in Fantasyland. Also heard You've got a Friend inMe in Fantasyland and sorry, that's just not the right place
We didn't encounter line cutters, except maybe once or twice when getting in when we saw people getting together with their group. For the rest of the time, we both held on to the railing/wall to make sure people couldn't sneak through. We did run into some people who never heard of 'personal space'. But also maybe two or three times, so not that bad.
Okay, closing down my laptop, it's almost 23:15 here and our taxi leaves to Pudong at 6:15 in the morning!
Night night!
We also checked putting it in the mail, a 5 kilo package from Japan the Netherlands is about 100 Euro, still a lot, but better than paying it to Emirates.
Also very decent size room. We do have a neon sign near our window, but the curtains are dark enough not to let through. T It's old and in need of refurbishment for new wall paper and carpets, but overall for this prize, no complaints! They were also very flexible at the reception when we checked in to split the bill. They don't speak a lot of English, but we manage to make ourselves understandable. One time the recepitionist pulled out his phone and opened a translation app and asked me to type in my question 
