Timchat2
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2010
- Messages
- 109
We just got back from our first trip to the Shanghai Disney Resort and I thought it would be helpful to share some of our experiences for those planning to visit anytime soon. Reading about the experiences of others on this forum was extremely helpful for us when planning our trip.
We stayed at Shanghai Disneyland Hotel. It was quite nice. The cast members were all very friendly and helpful despite the occasional language barrier. They helped us link our tickets to the app so that we could save time once we got into the park. The walk to the park from the hotel is deceptively long but pleasant nonetheless. We walked to the park our first morning and found that we were being routed all the way to the Metro station and back along with the day guests coming from the parking lot before we could get through to the Disneytown entrance. This was an unexpected detour that we could have avoided by taking the resort bus, which drops off guests almost immediately nearby the Disneytown park entrance. We made a point to be at our resort bus stop before 7:00AM to catch the first bus out.
If nothing else we learned that staying on-site is a HUGE advantage for touring the park, especially in the morning. Being able to pre-book one FastPass for each park day is quite nice. We used ours for Soaring Over the Horizon since it generally has the longest stand-by times. The early entry in the morning provides a distinct advantage as well. Each morning we were able to enter the park by 7:30AM (with 8:00AM being official park opening) and begin booking FastPasses as soon as we were through the gate. This allowed us to book FPs for major attractions like TRON, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, or Roaring Rapids within the first hour, which meant our window to book again came up not long after the park officially opening. Having all of that secured feels pretty good as you watch all of the times rocket up as the day guests enter the gate and start booking FPs.
After being let in at 7:30AM each morning we were held at the Gardens of Imagination ("the hub") until around 7:40AM. We were then released to go anywhere we liked in the park. For the most part attractions wait until official park opening to start admitting guests but we were able to ride Roaring Rapids, Winnie the Pooh, and Peter Pan starting at 7:45AM on each of our mornings. There is a chance other attractions might start operating early. We weren't sure if it was a matter of the crews being ready or if it was officially scheduled that way.
With the early starts and hotel FP we were able to start the day with FPs for Soaring and Seven Dwarfs while squeezing in early rides on Roaring Rapids, the Toy Story Land attractions, and/or Fantasyland dark rides before 8:15AM. And since our booking window would open with our early Seven Dwarfs FP we could secure a TRON FP before 9:00AM. It felt pretty good. I doubt we would have been able to secure as much if we had to process through the front gate with the day guests at the regular park opening time.
It is worth noting that while the park states that you can only book up to three FPs a day we were able to book four FPs (along with the additional hotel FP) before the app stopped showing us available times. It was hard to tell if all of the times had been truly booked up or if the app was throttling us a bit. Either way we were pleasantly surprised that we were able to get one beyond the first three.
I hope our experiences are helpful to anyone visiting the park soon. If you have any other questions feel free to ask and I'll answer them as best I can.
We stayed at Shanghai Disneyland Hotel. It was quite nice. The cast members were all very friendly and helpful despite the occasional language barrier. They helped us link our tickets to the app so that we could save time once we got into the park. The walk to the park from the hotel is deceptively long but pleasant nonetheless. We walked to the park our first morning and found that we were being routed all the way to the Metro station and back along with the day guests coming from the parking lot before we could get through to the Disneytown entrance. This was an unexpected detour that we could have avoided by taking the resort bus, which drops off guests almost immediately nearby the Disneytown park entrance. We made a point to be at our resort bus stop before 7:00AM to catch the first bus out.
If nothing else we learned that staying on-site is a HUGE advantage for touring the park, especially in the morning. Being able to pre-book one FastPass for each park day is quite nice. We used ours for Soaring Over the Horizon since it generally has the longest stand-by times. The early entry in the morning provides a distinct advantage as well. Each morning we were able to enter the park by 7:30AM (with 8:00AM being official park opening) and begin booking FastPasses as soon as we were through the gate. This allowed us to book FPs for major attractions like TRON, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, or Roaring Rapids within the first hour, which meant our window to book again came up not long after the park officially opening. Having all of that secured feels pretty good as you watch all of the times rocket up as the day guests enter the gate and start booking FPs.
After being let in at 7:30AM each morning we were held at the Gardens of Imagination ("the hub") until around 7:40AM. We were then released to go anywhere we liked in the park. For the most part attractions wait until official park opening to start admitting guests but we were able to ride Roaring Rapids, Winnie the Pooh, and Peter Pan starting at 7:45AM on each of our mornings. There is a chance other attractions might start operating early. We weren't sure if it was a matter of the crews being ready or if it was officially scheduled that way.
With the early starts and hotel FP we were able to start the day with FPs for Soaring and Seven Dwarfs while squeezing in early rides on Roaring Rapids, the Toy Story Land attractions, and/or Fantasyland dark rides before 8:15AM. And since our booking window would open with our early Seven Dwarfs FP we could secure a TRON FP before 9:00AM. It felt pretty good. I doubt we would have been able to secure as much if we had to process through the front gate with the day guests at the regular park opening time.
It is worth noting that while the park states that you can only book up to three FPs a day we were able to book four FPs (along with the additional hotel FP) before the app stopped showing us available times. It was hard to tell if all of the times had been truly booked up or if the app was throttling us a bit. Either way we were pleasantly surprised that we were able to get one beyond the first three.
I hope our experiences are helpful to anyone visiting the park soon. If you have any other questions feel free to ask and I'll answer them as best I can.
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