Shanghai TR
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 – 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.