Day 7 - Shanghai
This was my first full day in the park and my intention had been to be there for rope drop for hotel guests at 7:30am. Typically, I overslept. Not dramatically, but it meant I wasn't heading out of the hotel until around 7:45am. As it was slightly later, it meant I didn't have to queue for the hotel shuttle and walked straight in via the hotel entrance at the park too (small wins!). One thing to note is that it is easily walkable from the hotel to the park, however to get in the hotel guest entrance you kind of have to walk around and back on yourself slightly and I found this a little irritating. Walking back it never seemed much of a problem so here I tended to shuttle to the park and walk back. It was along a busy road but with a decent path, security and good crossings, and only around 15 minutes or so.
My original plan had been to head over to Zootopia and smash that out before the main park opened at 8:30am, however even at that early time there was already a 90 minute wait just to get into the land, with the same sort of time for the ride too. For those that aren't aware, there are times when you have to queue up just to get into the land of Zootopia, with a separate queue after that to go on the ride.
With my original idea kiboshed, I instead headed onto the Seven Dwarves Mine Train. The queue was around 40 minutes, and annoyingly I hadn't spotted the Single Riders queue so joined the main one. It still seemed to go fairly fast and I was on the ride in less than the time stated. This is one key thing I noticed in Shanghai in that the wait times stated always seemed slightly shorter than stated. Nothing drastic like an hour being 10 minutes, but 40 minutes ending up like 30 or 25. The ride itself is just as fun as the one in WDW, and obviously just as popular! (the ride was a bit too hidden to take a decent photo so the below is just a mural nearby:
On exiting Seven Dwarves, I was at least satisfied to see that the single rider queue wasn't much shorter than the main one! And after that I went back to Treasure Cove and back on Pirates, as the queue was fairly short (which in Shanghai and my terms means less than 30 minutes). It really is such a beautiful park and a really nicely themed area!
After Pirates it was time for a snack, so I headed over to Adventure Isle to try a Crispy Nutella Croissant Biscuit from Chip & Dale's Treehouse Treats. As well as the nutella this also had a marshmallowy type filling too, but sadly this was another case of style over substance - it was SO dry and the marshmallow cream stuff was too thin. It was huge and needed a lot more Nutella and a much thicker marshmallow or cream.
Next up I headed over to Tomorrowland. The queue for Tron was too long so I jumped on Buzz Lightyear Planet Rescue, which nearly always seemed to have no queue. This version seemed slightly upgraded to the WDW one and I swear it must be easier or have higher points, as on the multiple times I went on this every time I smashed the 1 million point mark which I've never got close to before!
After this I had a look in the Pixar Adventurous Journey, which was an indoor attraction with lifesize scenes from all of the different Pixar films. It was really cute and surprisingly quiet!
Next I headed over to Toy Story Land, and jumped on their version of RC Racer, this time Rex's Racer. The queue was pushing an hour but I managed, even though I still hate how short this ride is when I love it so much!
After this I headed over to Fantasyland and into the castle for the Once Upon a Time Adventure, which again didn't have a queue. This takes you through the story of Snow White which some fun images and technology and afterwards I had a little look inside the castle itself.
Next up I went on the nearby Voyage to the Crystal Grotto as it had a short 10 minute queue, which was a nice little outdoor boat ride around scenes and animatronics from various Disney fairytales and films. Straight afterwards I had a wander through the Alice in Wonderland maze, which is really nice to walk around although may have been a little spoilt by the amount of people especially those taken photos with the statues!
By now it was past lunch time, so I grabbed a Winnie the Pooh Beef and Mushroom Ragout Sandwich from Pooh and Friends Treats. This was pretty much a toastie and I think the beef was fairly tasty, but the oil they used to fry it in is not a flavour I was 100% on and I think this spoilt it a little.
Even though it was now late lunch time, it was still fairly chilly so I decided to head indoors for the Eye of the Storm: Captain Jack's Stunt Spectacular. This is unsurprisingly, a stunt show based on the adventures of Jack Sparrow and it's based in this really beautiful looking theatre. The show itself was longer than I expected and well executed and a lot of fun. It was all in Mandarin but that didn't spoil the enjoyment, although I really do wish I knew what they were saying!
After this, I spent some more time taking photos of the park and going in all of the shops. I loved all of the Christmas decorations and with the beautiful yet cold weather, the park looked spectacular:
With the park getting busier and the queues longer, I decided to head out of the park and go back to the hotel for a rest, snapping photos of some of the Christmas decorations (new ones seemed to pop up each day!) and some of the features of my hotel:
I had a relax for a while and got myself nice and warm before heading back out to the park for the evening:
First stop was some dinner, a Spicy Chicken Burger at the Starliner Grill based on Anger from Inside Out. After my previous experience with a burger in HK I wasn't expecting much, but this was incredibly tasty and really spicy, but for me just on the right side of spicy without being too much. Bit messy to eat which I'm not a fan of, but otherwise really delicious.
The rest of my evening consisted of jumping on rides that had short enough queues for me to manage (not many) and taking photos, and in general just having a wander round the park and Disneytown in the dark. I don't think Tron had the full Ares overlay, but it did have a rolling red/purple/blue light thing going on which was nice (I'm not sure if this is standard or part of the Ares overlay, I can't remember what the WDW one does normally)
One thing I did do this evening was decide on my plan for the next day. Originally I had planned a day of sightseeing in the city, but with my slightly shortened trip and how busy the park was in general, I made a decision to cancel my day of sightseeing and book another day at the park. I was a little sad not to see the city, but ultimately Disney was my reason for the trip and I wanted to make sure I got chance to do everything - if it wasn't for my issues with super long wait times, I probably wouldn't have needed to.
So I bought another ticket for the park the next day and headed back to my hotel to prepare for a day of tackling Zootopia!
and this is genuinely the main reason why I take photos! With the other secondary reason being because I feel like I should.
