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Shanghai TR

Shanghai TR

Ajk

Let's party like its 2019.
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I FINALLY finished writing up my trip report from my China trip this past Spring. I figured the portion people here care most about is Shanghai Disneyland so I posted that portion below. If you would like to read about the rest of the trip, it's on Trip Advisor starting in the Beijing portion. (I'm ajk1_10 there.) I still have two more pieces to post over the next couple of days, but most of it is there. And here's SDLR (Due to length I need to break it into a couple posts:

Day 6 – Yay! Disney!

As I think I mentioned earlier way, way, at the beginning of these lengthy reports, I’m not usually much of a breakfast eater and I don’t like to take up much time with it so I’m always looking for something light and quick in the morning. The hotel has a nice little pastry shop that does the trick with doughnuts, croissants, etc. We grab some and eat in the room while getting ready so we can get an early start to the park. We want to get there in time for the early start for hotel guests to get the most out of things. Once we are ready we head downstairs and….just miss the bus to the park. Since it’s 10 minutes between buses, and they take a few minutes to get to the park, I figure we’ll walk and probably get there a little sooner, or at least no later. I was wrong. The walk was longer than I had realized/remembered and I see the second bus go by before we even make it to the edge of Disneytown. And then we have to walk through it to the special entrance in the back corner. Although we were behind the bus, it wasn’t a big deal. We were still there before it opened and among the first people to go through the gates and into the park. (As others have mentioned, you need to show your passports along with your tickets and also your hotel key so be sure to bring all with you.)

While waiting for rope drop, I figure I will try to grab my first in-park fast pass since you can use the app to do so once inside the park, which we now are. And that’s where my plan fell apart. The specific failed plan was that I was going to just use the park wifi just like I used wifi everywhere else and haven’t needed, or arranged for, any cellular service in China. So I pull out my phone, open up the Disney app, and….hmmmm….that’s odd. It’s saying it has a problem getting any information. But I was able to access it in the lobby of the hotel no problem. Oh. I guess they have different wifi in the park than in the hotel. That makes sense. Okay, so I just need to log onto the free wifi in the park. I find that and click on it and…nope. Still no luck. It requires a code. Hmmm….How do I get the code? Oh, I click here and they’ll send it to me. Via text. To my cell phone. That doesn’t have cellular. Or wifi. So can’t get a text. Which I need to get on the wifi. Which I need to work the app. Which I need to get fast passes. Shoot. So no in-park fast passes. Will the one fast pass I got at the hotel work?! Yes. It’s on our ticket as well and we can just use that. Also, technically, you can get paper fast passes in the park. But there are like two place to get them and the park is HUGE. You will do a ton of walking, even getting from attraction to attraction. I don’t want to waste a lot of time running over to the fast pass kiosk. Since the hotel fast pass is usable, I figure we could always get the concierge service for tomorrow if necessary so we decide to just see how it goes.

We grab a map from the cast member controlling the crowd and after just a couple of minutes, he lets us in. First thing we do is head left to Tomorrowland (yes, it’s to the left there, not right) to get on Tron. Folks are heading in various directions and there weren’t a ton to begin with so there’s only about six of us or so heading toward Tron. This is going to be great! We’re going to have Tron as our first ride and will be in the first car. After quite a bit of a walk (again, Shanghai Disneyland is Huge!) we get to Tomorrowland which looks really cool. But no time for pictures, we’ll get those later after we ride. We take the ramp to the left towards Tron, get closer, see the cast members waiting for us, see the people in front of us reach the cast members, see the cast members say something to them, see them turn around. Tron is closed. AARRRGGGGHHHH!! This is not a good start.

My niece has never been on Soarin’ and that gets really long waits here (like most of the parks I guess) so we figure we’ll head over to that. Which is diagonally opposite of us so will take a while to get there. The park isn’t a complete hub and spoke layout but it’s somewhat like that so we can go somewhat directly across it and there’s a couple different paths. But we decided to go a little bit more around the outer circle so that we go by Pirates on the way. And they have a 5 minute wait! Yay! Day is picking up. We walk right through and hop on a boat and it is AMAZING! Best. Pirates. Ever. And one of the best rides, anywhere. Picture all the best parts of pirates combined with the best parts of SpiderMan (or Transformers if you prefer) over at Universal. And then double the awesomeness. Oh, we are so going to ride this multiple times. In fact, the line is still short when we get off so we hop right back on.

After that we get over to Soarin’ which doesn’t have much line yet also so we hop on that. If you’ve been on Soarin’ before you can skip this one. It’s the same as you’ll get elsewhere but for some reason, the panels of the screen are very visible, even while the film is going. Not sure if the seats are too close to the screen, or they built it wrong, or whatever, but it’s really annoying. It also seemed like the film was blurred at time. We did not enjoy it. (And I’m a Soarin’ fan. Do you know the story of how they figured out the design of the seating? Check it out some time.)

Now they are letting other folks in and the park is getting a bit more crowded. There’s one other ride that I heard can have a really long wait so we want to get that out of the way while still not bad – Challenge Trail. This is an adventure rope course similar to those that have been sprouting up in the rafters of malls and such lately. But with that great Disney theming of course. It takes a while to do because you first spend time getting suited up in a harness. And then some people on the path are slower than others so you have to wait if there is someone slower in front of you. But there are two different paths you can take and there are three different levels of difficulty and you can change from one section to another. On the easy path you are basically walking through; on medium you are stepping across the gaps on the rickety bridge (for example); and on hard the gaps are big enough that you are going to jump a bit between them. This was my first time on one of these but I’ve always enjoyed climbing and balancing and jumping and such so I kept to the hards. It was a little disappointing that some of the hard ones were blocked off, but most of them were available. Before we knew it we were at the end of the course but you have the choice of getting off or going around again on the other path so we definitely did that. It’s a lot of fun, even if you don’t do the hard, so check it out. We probably could have kept going, but there was still a lot for us to check out.

Now that we have a few rides out of the way, we can slow down a little bit and check out scenery, shops, etc. One thing I suggest you do, if you are like me and like doing a little something extra in the park, is get the passport. You get it for about $10 at any of the stores and is somewhat similar to the passport at Epcot. There are kiosks spread throughout the park that you turn to the matching page, insert the passport and get a stamp. Just going around and getting all the stamps is fun and gives you a little something extra to do. But if you get all of them, you bring the book to the main store and Mickey Avenue (their Main Street) and they give you a final stamp and a gift. At the time I was there it was a set of stickers. At first it looked like we would have a tough time getting all the stamps because several of the machines were not working properly. But we quickly learned that, when that’s the case, just go to the closest store to that machine and they will manually stamp it for you.

Speaking of the stores, if you like stickers, just ask any cast member in a store. They pretty much all have really nice stickers behind the counter to hand out. The people at the information kiosks throughout the park (and they have a few of them) also have stickers. You can collect quite a stack if you keep asking for them. And if you are a pin collector, know that they have plenty of pins for sale, very heavy on the Duffy and friends. And many of the cast members have lanyards with pins to trade. But there really isn’t any pin trading between guests. (The only guests I saw trade with the CMs were clearly other tourists like myself.) Similar to most of the parks, you will find a lot of scrappers on the lanyards, but there were some decent pins mixed in as well.

We’ve been on the go for a bit and it is Disney so time for a snack! We stop at Remy’s Patisserie. They have lots of nice danishes and such. Their coffee wasn’t great, but got the job done. Refueled, we head towards the castle to see the attractions over there. We walk through the Garden of the Twelve Friends (just a line of mosaics representing the Chinese lunar years with Disney characters), take some pictures of the really big and really nice castle, and try to find the entrance to Once Upon a Time Adventure. (Hint-It’s on the far side towards the back near the corner.) That was a very nice and well done little walk through. We then ride the Voyage to The Crystal Grotto which was a nice little boat ride around movie scenes. Also well done ad something you should definitely do.

With the castle area mostly done, we decide to head out the side, stroll through the Pixar area, and go check on Tron. Which is open! And the line isn’t bad so we ride it. Let me just say that it is AWESOME! So psyched they are building one at WDW. It’s a fast coaster but not too crazy (no loops or anything). I guess I would put it around Space Mountain level. But the fact that the seat is like a cycle really makes it feel more exciting. And the outdoor piece combined with the indoor is also pretty great. You can’t carry anything onto the ride so right before you board, they have a big cart that everyone on a particular “train” puts all their things in and then at the end of the ride everyone grabs their stuff out of it. I was a little nervous if we would find all our stuff but it was no problem every time. Just remember what you had! Also, there is a small storage compartment on the ride where you can stick your sunglasses. Or regular glass as well. Probably also cell phone. We used it and it worked fine. It’s an absolutely a fantastic ride and, with Pirates, one of the top attractions. We got immediately back on line.
 
Day 6 Continued

After that it was lunch time. We had heard good things about Barbosa’s Bounty so thought we would try them. They are basically a counter service place with barbecue. It was actually tasty and filling. I liked how they not only gave us wet naps but disposable plastic gloves. Very tidy. And although it was Barbosa’s place we ran into Jack Sparrow, coming through greeting folks. The cast member fit the part perfectly, and was clearly Caucasian and speaking non-accented English, which I guess is appropriate for that particular character. My niece collects Disney autographs so we got his and it was nice to see that he got it exactly right (compared to the signature on the wall at the Pirates ride) with all the extra flourishes and everything. He must have practiced that quite a bit.

We spent the rest of the day circling the park, hopping on rides, exploring the shops, taking pictures, eating snacks (the Minnie ice cream bar is fantastic, with strawberry ice cream in a white chocolate shell), etc. Just your typical Disney day. By the end of the day we had pretty much done everything we wanted to do and rode both Pirates and Tron at least four times each.

For dinner, we decided to go to Disneytown since it’s literally right there outside the gate near Tomorrowland (Only hotel guests can come in there, but anyone can go out there.) and has lots of restaurants to choose from. We decided to go to Ippudo for some casual noodles and dumplings and such. Then back into the park for a bit more fun and their castle projection. It was not as amazing as the one at WDW but nice enough. We then caught the boat across the lake back to our hotel for a good night’s sleep.


Day 7 – Disney Again! Yay!

Today we got a little earlier start so we got the bus over to the park this time, which definitely saved on the early walking. We again headed to Tron as soon as they let us in to give it another try. I’m a little nervous because we seem to be the only ones heading toward Tron. We get over near the ride and see the cast members standing in front again, just like yesterday. Oh oh. But we keep going to confirm. We get up to them and ask if the ride is open and they say...Yes! Woo Hoo! They were just waiting for us to get there as they have a different line for the early start and wanted to lead us through it. We are literally the first people. They walk us through what seems to be coming in the back way a bit and, with nobody else immediately behind us, we get to pause and take some awesome photos here and there. When we get to the cycle we get the very first seats. Let me say, if you can, you definitely want to ride at the front. It makes an awesome ride even more awesome. For the rest of the day we keep asking for the front row. And we’re off! The very first riders of the day, which was kind of neat. And then immediately ride it again of course.


Today is a nicer day than yesterday so the park is more crowded and the lines are longer. This would have been a good day for the concierge service, or at least the ability to get fast passes more easily. But we had done so much yesterday it’s no big deal. We just focus on what we like and get in another four each of Tron and Pirates. We also do a couple of smaller rides but spend more time today on things that don’t have lines like the Alice maze and such. I’m not normally a parade watcher but I think Shanghai has the best parade so we watch that. We also check out their shows. The Tarzan one is really good and you should see it. No issue with not knowing the language, especially if you’ve seen the movie. It’s basically a Chinese acrobat show with a Tarzan theme. Some of the stuff they did was really impressive. It’s a good show. The pirate show is another matter. The “stunts” are nothing particularly impressive. This show seems to be much more about the story which must be pretty funny based on the audience reaction, but it was lost on us. I suggest skipping this one unless you have time to kill.


We also spent time today checking out the Marvel attraction, which is basically a multi-character meet-and-greet. We arrive just before a switch and get to chat a bit with Thor and Natasha before getting first in line for Captain America. I must say, the people playing the roles were perfect. Similar to Jack, they were Caucasian and clearly were native English speakers. But more so, they had the personalities just right, and knew their Marvel history. It was fun chatting with Steve about Brooklyn and comparing notes about why we were in China.


We kept the Marvel spirit going for lunch and ate at Stargazer Grill where my niece had the Captain America burger and I went for a regular one. Both were very tasty. For dinner we decided to stay in the park and go to their Chinese restaurant. - Wandering Moon. I was a little annoyed that, for some reason, they were requiring that we order a combo meal. It was more food than we really needed, but it was good food so worked out fine. The combo came with pork soup that we didn’t want. They offered us another appetizer but we had more than enough food so we passed. Or at least tried to. After several rounds of “How about this one?” “No, really, we have more than enough food. It’s fine. Thanks anyway.” they finally gave up. Or so we thought. They came back a little later with two cocktails for us in place of the soups! That was actually pretty special. They just couldn’t accept us having less than the full amount of the deal. A similar thing happened yesterday at lunch. My niece didn’t need her drink at lunch. But the meal came with a drink. We repeatedly said we didn’t want the drink and they repeatedly said “But it’s free.” After repeatedly trying to pass on the drink, and them even escalating to the manager, we finally gave up and accepted it. I found it interesting that the idea of passing on something that was included was just completely foreign to them. Would be interested in hearing people’s thoughts on that.


We stayed till the end of the night and then realized we had been coming in the back way each day and never saw the front of the park, so we went out the front way to take a couple of photos before heading over to the boat back to the hotel again.


We had a couple of really nice days at Disney. I had been a little nervous with some of the stories rd but I am glad to say we observed very little of the bad behavior others reported. There were a couple of places where there was a bit of garbage off to the side, but for the most part it was a clean Disney park. And the only time anyone cut in front of us, they were clearly catching up to someone they were with farther ahead, just as people do at every other Disney park. In fact, I’ve been cut in front of far more often at other parks. Now, my niece and I made a point of standing next to each other to block the space, but still. We did see a child urinating, but just the one and they were off to the side by a bush. So, if that stuff is holding you back, don’t let it. Go have a great time at Disney!
 
Sounds like a great trip! Did you find the CMs were able to speak enough English that you could get around well? Also was there any English labeling on the merchandise or did you just buy what looked like something you wanted and hope it was what you thought it was?

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Sounds like a great trip! Did you find the CMs were able to speak enough English that you could get around well? Also was there any English labeling on the merchandise or did you just buy what looked like something you wanted and hope it was what you thought it was?

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The CMs had plenty of English. No issues with communication in the park. Not sure I understand the label question. Pins, stuffed animals, t-shirts, etc didn’t really need any explaining.
Hope that helps.
 
The CMs had plenty of English. No issues with communication in the park. Not sure I understand the label question. Pins, stuffed animals, t-shirts, etc didn’t really need any explaining.
Hope that helps.
Interesting. Yeah I was just wondering in case I ever plan some random foreign Disney trip lol.

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Awesome trip report! After reading it, I immediately shouted the following:

giphy.gif


Luckily, my wife has heard me say this countless times over the last year to know I was talking about SHDL. She still refuses to let me add it to next year's Disney trip docket. But yesterday, after telling her about your trip report, coupled with the fact that a friend of ours is going in a few months, and how it's only a two hour flight from HKDL, I think I inched closer.

This was me (basically):

Uf9Meye.gif



Tron at night in row 1, there's nothing like it, and I can't wait for it to open here. I would say, for me, Tarzan's stage show is probably my all-time favorite (maybe Big Band Beat) but I think Tokyo Disney's Dreaming Up beats out Mickey's Storybook Express. But that Mulan float is unbelievable.

Oh and almost forgot.

tenor.gif
 
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Yeah, that's my next project - Take my huge pile of photos and getting them down to something manageable/shareable. When I do that, I'll try to post a couple here.

Thanks everyone for the nice comments. It was indeed a very fun trip.
 
I've been watching vids of the Pirates ride, it looks so amazing, wow!

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