Asia Park Trip Report (SHDL, HKDL, TDR)

jaxonp

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I hope this is the appropriate place for my review of the Asian Parks so if it’s not, feel free to move, mods!

Arrived at Shanghai Pudong International Airport after a 13 hour flight from Chicago. Not too bad of flight on American in their business class (used miles). First two days were spent exploring Shanghai. One of the things I was looking forward to besides Disney on this trip was the incredible skylines of Asia. I’m a building nerd and Asia is full of building , so to speak. Unfortunately, the smog made viewing the skyline difficult. Major bummer! I visited Tai zi Fung (former French concession), Yuyuan Garden, The Bund, People’s Square and had some street food during the first two days. All of this took place under the gloom of China’a smog problem. It’s depressing.

Day 3 and 4 - Shanghai Disneyland-

Shanghai Disneyland Hotel-
We stayed the first night at the lovely Shanghai Disneyland Hotel. Really great service, the hotel staff opened doors, never let us handle our bags, walked us everywhere. Can’t say enough great things bout that. The room was nice, although not over the top. I don’t think the rooms hold a candle to top Disney deluxe resorts elsewhere but it was pretty great. We had a theme park view that, again, was shrouded in the gloomy doomy smog. Tear.

Hotel 7/10
Service 9/10

We had diner at Aurora. A restaurant that has the best service I’ve encounter anywhere. Unfortunately the food wasn’t so. It wasn’t even good. The service made up for it though. It was almost like art. Can’t even put into words how the night went down.

15/10 service
3/10 food



Toy Story Hotel-

Second night was at the Toy Story hotel. This place surprised me. Best “budget” Disney hotel ever. Rate was 82 USD. Room was upgraded. Staff was incredible. Maybe best Disney staff I’ve ever encountered. Reminded me of Disney resorts in the early 90s. You know, when they took care of you...

I love this resort and would easily choose it over the Disneyland Hotel. It’s not luxurious and it’s not my taste but it gets everything right. The rooms, the shower, the beds.

Hotel 9/10
Service 10/10

While we were eating at the quick serve at this hotel, the head of Disney food and beverage company wide, plus the heads of food and beverage for al three Asian Disney parks were touring the resort. We chatted awhile. Great people who gave us a lot of insight and asked us so many questions. Greta experience.

Let’s go see Mickey-

A short ride to the park on the nice bus transportation (WDW, please take note) and we were dropped off outside Disneytown to be greater by Starbucks. Can we not move beyond this place. I love it so much too but I don’t need it as if it were water. Anyway, we walked up to the turnstiles around 2pm, headed into the park for the reason we came.... PIRATES! We waited 45 min as the park was MK on a Saturday during the holidays, slammed. We’re talking 3 hours for Soarin, SDMT and the water ride. Tron was well above 2 hours as well. We bought fast passes. We weren’t about that life. We came to ride rides and see the park. So we did. Lines can’t hold us back!

The park is huge, vast empty open spaces. The castle is giant and beautiful as is the area leading up to it. Disney did a great job in this area. That area before it though is not that good imo. I missed Main Street so much that when I stepped foot in HKDL I breathed a sigh of relief. It’s like Magic Kingdoms 101. It needs to be there Shanghai!

Tomorrowland is nice. I like the change of pace.

Toy Story land is meh. Whatever there.

Fantasyland is the worst of any castle park I’ve been to, which at the time of writing this is all of them but Tokyo which happens tomorrow. There just nothing there. So bland, so boring. Where’s the Disney?

The pirates and adventure isle sort of blend together for me. Some of it is nice but the sight lines sort of ruin this place for me. The entire park is just wide open and the foliage is so small. Disney is the master of brining in larger trees. You’d think 5.5 billion dollars would have bought a few more mature trees. I can see the highway and power lines from inside the park.

Anyway, let’s talk pirates. After all the baby Jesus reviews about this ride and the best ever titles given, expectations were on level 10. The ride is great. Better than great. It’s not Pirates of the Caribbean, though. It’s something else. The ride system is genus. The pacing is not. At times part of the ride feels so next level and at other times it does not. The ride vehicles definitely favor the front row. Tiered seating would have been helpful here! I feel like the ending was rushed and the final sequence is ruined by the lift for the drop. Why not start the ride higher and have the lift after the drop?? That’s how this imagineer wannabe would have done it. Let talks the queue. It was bland, boring, basic and (b)pedestrian. This was not designed by the team that’s been behind the past 5 years of Disney attraction. It’s bad.

Ride 8/10
Queue 2/10

Tron-

My favorite ride at the park. Yes it’s short but the queue is great, the ride experience is unique and the building is awesome. Everything about this ride oozes cool and sophistication. It almost feels like something universal would have built at IOA and it seems like it will be similar but compliments space mountain well at MK. People will love this attraction. Honestly happy that we are getting this over Pirates. I’d like to see that ride with a different theme though.

Ride 9/9
Queue 9/9

SDMT, Soarin and Pan are all the same for the most part. Soarin has a better queue that both US parks but SDMT feels like it was built on the cheap compared to MKs version.

Fireworks show is decent. Not better than HEA though.

Park guests are not great. They cut, the spit, they smoke, they run, the throw trash everywhere.. yea it’s all the things I had heard. It’s not unbearable but it’s not what you’re used to.

This park needs work. Pirates and Tron do not make a park. Soarin is the most popular thing and it leaves one thinking that pandora will come to SHDL who’s in desperate need of more attractions. Toy Story land wasn’t even hardly busy 3 days after the grand opening. Food and Merchandise need major help too. The other notable thing is the infrastructure is huge. Disney planned for this place to be big and they were right. They will build a second park here sooner than most think.

Rides 6/10
Castle 8/10
Nighttime entertainment 7/10
Guests 2/10
Food 3/10
Merchandise 4/10

Overall 6/10

HKDL review coming next...
 

RandySavage

Well-Known Member
Thanks for the interesting report.

I had really high expectations for Shanghai Fantasyland, because, IMO, Disney had dialed in its new 'Storybook Vernacular' style in numerous recently-opened areas (e.g. Tangled bathrooms, DL's Fantasy Faire, MK's Belle's Village), all of which work well in their own context. I was thinking it will be great to see this newest approach applied to an entirely fresh and expansive land, avoiding any clashing of old and new approaches to the theme.

But, oddly, SDL's Fantasyland's architecture is all over the place, drawing on elements from original Anaheim, new Anaheim, original MK, new MK and adding a few of its own inventions. It doesn't appear to gel the way I had hoped, and in several areas the 'carved wood' elements and shingles often look plastic and waxy in photos (I think making the Crystal Grotto boats look like they were built of aged, natural wood would have helped as well).

One large miscalculation, IMO, was not using crenelation (battlements) on the western Village Side to conceal the showbuildings, as in all the other castle parks. It's an inexpensive, effective way to tie all the buildings into a walled castle town. Shanghai uses themed (thankfully) warehouses instead, but they don't have an equivalent building-type in a storybook town setting.

Shanghai without crenelation:
33052663165_b6bb73294f_h.jpg


Paris with crenelation:
29877184703_e71c9906e6_k.jpg


The other big miscalc in Fantasyland, IMO, was the placement of the giant theater. Something that tall, big & blocky needs be be absorbed into the aforementioned castle-town battlements (see HKDL's Philharmagic building) rather than be isolated out in the Woods section, where its impossible to merge into the landscape and looms over everything around it.

I also have a bunch of minor quibbles that can be applied to a lot of Disney's recent design decisions worldwide. E.g., using visibly hi-tech equipment (such as wait time displays, speaker boxes, surveillance cams or tv menu boards) in pre-digital themed areas; using cheap metal railings instead of 'stone' balustrades around parts of the castle; plastering modern photos of food on boards outside restaurants.


***

How much of your problem with Pirates queue was the excessively bright light levels in what should be the depths of a dark, foreboding, abandoned fortress? Because the display areas they have (e.g., Map Room, Jack's Quarters, etc.) seem to be much more lavish than what you'd find at some of the other PotCs. MK's Pirates had the first great theme park queue, but they've since jacked up the lighting levels and removed the original sounds of a siege underway.
 
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jaxonp

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Pirates queue had just two rooms of interesting stuff to look at. The lighting and lack of music was definitely off now that you mention it. Lighting was a problem everywhere to be honest. Maybe the attention to detail was there on day 1 but perhaps those details aren’t being kept the way they were set up. Surprise surprise, Disney.


I won’t comment too much on anything else and my re
 

GiveMeTheMusic

Well-Known Member
Loving the report! The Pirates queue didn't bother me much, as I have low expectations for Pirates queues being a native Disneylander.

Fantasyland at SDL is indeed a huge waste. Other than Peter Pan, which is truly fantastic, the land itself is a charmless hodgepodge with no sense of place or throughline. It doesn't even feel like a land - it's so spread out and so disparate. Contrasted with SDL's cohesive feeling (even if very oddly designed) Tomorrowland, it's a big disappointment. Crystal Grotto is a nice idea that ends up being a soft thud. The Frozen theatre out by itself is ugly and weird. The mini-Pooh land has no cohesive style or theme to speak of. And then there's just SDMT by itself. The whole land feels like an afterthought.

And agreed that SDL needs more capacity stat, and TSL doesn't do the job. They need some new, big people eaters and they needed them yesterday.
 

jaxonp

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Loving the report! The Pirates queue didn't bother me much, as I have low expectations for Pirates queues being a native Disneylander.

Fantasyland at SDL is indeed a huge waste. Other than Peter Pan, which is truly fantastic, the land itself is a charmless hodgepodge with no sense of place or throughline. It doesn't even feel like a land - it's so spread out and so disparate. Contrasted with SDL's cohesive feeling (even if very oddly designed) Tomorrowland, it's a big disappointment. Crystal Grotto is a nice idea that ends up being a soft thud. The Frozen theatre out by itself is ugly and weird. The mini-Pooh land has no cohesive style or theme to speak of. And then there's just SDMT by itself. The whole land feels like an afterthought.

And agreed that SDL needs more capacity stat, and TSL doesn't do the job. They need some new, big people eaters and they needed them yesterday.

To be frank,

SHDL is my least favorite resort overall now that I’ve completed the castle parks and I’d put it at probably number 10 with only Studios Paris and Hollywood Studios behind it. Two great attractions and a nice castle but the rest of it is major meh to me. There are many parts of the park where you can see the outside highways and power lines. Maybe in 10 years, once trees grow, will it be better regarding that kind of stuff.

At Tokyo now... completely sold with it being the best resort and I’m not sure it’s even close. I do love Disneyland resort and parts of WDW but Tokyo seems to get it right at nearly every corner.
 

GiveMeTheMusic

Well-Known Member
To be frank,

SHDL is my least favorite resort overall now that I’ve completed the castle parks and I’d put it at probably number 10 with only Studios Paris and Hollywood Studios behind it. Two great attractions and a nice castle but the rest of it is major meh to me. There are many parts of the park where you can see the outside highways and power lines. Maybe in 10 years, once trees grow, will it be better regarding that kind of stuff.

At Tokyo now... completely sold with it being the best resort and I’m not sure it’s even close. I do love Disneyland resort and parts of WDW but Tokyo seems to get it right at nearly every corner.

There’s no comparison to TDR. It’s the best by every conceivable measure, and you’re right, it’s not even close.
 

BasiltheBatLord

Well-Known Member
TDR is a very good resort but I don't really understand what makes it so clearly the best in people's eyes. Tokyo Disneyland in particular is a great park (it seemed like it kind of married the charm of DL with the scale of WDW's Magic Kingdom), but nothing in Tokyo (or anywhere else for that matter) is able to top DL for me. I'm also not really a fan of Disney Sea, the only thing it has over a park like DCA is the fact that its theming is at least kind of coherent, the park just doesn't really have that many attractions.

I can say though that the claim that Tokyo is the best park in terms of attraction maintenance seems to be true. When I went I only counted one show element across every attraction in the resort not working properly.
 

jaxonp

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Let’s see Tokyo is:

Cleaner
Well maintained
Attractions are generally better or more updated ( not all )
Cast members are second to none.
Parades are the best.
Tokyo DisneySea is a marvel in design and quality.
What second park has more or better E-ticket actions than Disney sea??
Cute merchandise for some.


Bad:

Food needs work.
They need some classier merchandise.
Cast Members English not as good as Chinese parks.
 
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Ag11gani

Well-Known Member
Let’s see Tokyo is:

Cleaner
Well maintained
Attractions are generally better or more updated ( not all )
Cast members are second to none.
Parades are the best.
Tokyo DisneySea is a marvel in design and quality.
What second park has more or better E-ticket actions than Disney sea??
Cute merchandise for some.


Bad:

Food needs work.
They need some classier merchandise.
Cast Members English not as good as Chinese parks.

I would say that Epcot had more E tickets when it opened but now definitely not. I acctualy think that TDS is quite weak in terms of attractions, as only Journey, 20K leagues, Sindbad and Indy are any good and everything else is just meh. Although the design and beauty of the place make up for it more than enough.

Although I will say in comparison to its neighbor TDL is a design mess. Tomorrow Land is fine when you walk in but around monsters it is all beige and ugly. Fantasyland has the awful green concrete and is just bad looking. But the entertainment and more the most part great attractions make up for it.

And if you haven't already make sure you see Big Band Beat at TDS, it is worth the stand by if you don't win the lottery.
 

Piebald

Well-Known Member
I dont get the complaints about food at Tokyo, their crappiest food items would probably have the Disney foodie blog people stateside drooling. I ate Chandu tail 5 times, not one thing at WDW or DL that comes close to that IMO. Im purely speaking snacks and quick service, all ranging from pretty weird but good to wow I wish we had stuff like this. Of course the US parks have some excellent table service restaurants but I really really liked Tokyo.
 

jaxonp

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 5 & 6

After 2 days at SHDL 4 in total in Shanghai, we took an early flight to Beijing for one thing. The Great Wall. We hired a local tour guide to drive us up to the Mutiyanu section of the wall. We spent 4 gorious ave exhausting hours climbing that wall. The sky’s were finally clear as it had rained the night before and it was quite the beautiful sight. It was a dream, a lifetime of dreaming about this day, leading to pure joy. A bucket list item right here! The Great Wall is one of those must do touristy things that really lives and exceeds the hype IMO.

The next day we did some other touristy things like visiting the forbidden city and the temple of heaven. It was all fine. Ok fine, let’s talk Disney. We flew to Hong Kong that night on a dirt cheap flight with Hong Kong Airlines in their coach. I haven’t ever experienced service this good, leg room this long, and food that actually tastes like something, ever in my 34 years of flying. American air carriers, you need to revaluation what you’re doing because my $128 flight to Hong Kong from Beijing was the best experience I’ve had flying coach and almost better service than I’ve had in business. Great job HK airlines, highly recommended!


Day 7 and 8 Hong Kong

We spent the first too days at perhaps the best hotel I’ve ever stayed at, the Cordis in Mongkok, Hong Kong. Wow, what a place. I won’t get into that but suffice it to say, it’s worth a trip to HK just to stay at this wonderful place.

Tourist activities: Took ngong ping 360 gondola to Tian Tam Buddha, saw the skyline, did some street markets, rode the MTR like locals and lived like Kings. Hong Kong is the most beautiful metropolis you will ever find. It’s like New York City in Hawaii.

Hong Kong Disneyland -
On our 8th night we left for HKDL to stay at the Explorer Lodge. What a beautiful place reminiscent of wilderness and animal kingdom lodge. The lobby was so beautiful only to have its beauty usurped by the view out the window. Mountains, Ocean and just before that, the resort pool.

As we arrived, we were greeted by hotel staff welcoming us as we got out of the taxi. They immediately took control of the situation, handling our bags and walking us to the checkin desk. I haven’t had this service since before 2000 at a Disney resort.

Resort checkin was a breeze. The cast member spoke excellent English and told us everything and anything we needed to know!

Finally with keys in hand we headed off to our room. A ocean view room equipped with this cutest amenities any Disney resort has ever had. Those slippers are too cute and just like Shanghai and Tokyo, you get to take them home.

Room was very large and the shower was pretty standard. As with any Asian hotel, the beds are very very from but I quite enjoy that.

Room 7/10

The view was nice but not that great as we had hoped for a water view room which really faced the HK Disneyland hotel. The design itself was basic but well done.

Room 7/10
Value 7/10

Room was 179 dollars for the night.

HKDL

This park is the most beautiful of the Disney Parks simply because of its natural beauty. The park is literally surrounded by mountains and they play as a nice backdrop to many things including sleeping beauty castle. The lush, tropical setting is unlike any other park. It’s fantastic.

Section of the park that needs work is Tomorrowland. It’s easily the weakest of all the castle parks worldwide.

Let’s talk marquee attractions:

Mystic Manor

Ok maybe it’s just me but I don’t think this ride is as good as many say it is. I’m beginning to think many people have based their reviews on YouTube videos of it rather than seeing it in person. I’ve now ridden all three LPS attractions and IMO the one that gets the most grief for its screens is the best of the 3. They all have nice tricks up their sleeves but they also have many problems too. MM is nice but it feels like the story is weak and I’m not sure why or what’s going on besides the magical music box that brings things to life sort of like night in the museum. I needed it to be more... something. I was let down. Is it good? Yes. Is it a top 5 attraction worldwide? No. I’m not even sure it’s the best thing at HKDL.

Mystic Manor-
Ride 7/10
Queue 6/10

Big grizzly

I wasn’t sure what to expect here but I loved it. It’s a low to the ground expedition Everest but it’s almost more fun. The launch is nice. The turns are tight and precise and the theming is strong. The queue is forgettable, but it’s made up by the rides ability to be thrilling for such a tight and compact ride that doesn’t require a lot of height to achieve that effect.

Grizzly
Ride 7/10
Queue 6/10

Iron Man

The good- the attraction is a star tours 3.0 ride. Much smoother feeling than Star Wars cabins. The seats are made of mesh, similar to the seating on Soarin. This helps your body to absorb the bumps abs jolts much better.

The bad- the story, the cgi and the experience are not great. Feels cheap.

The queue has lots of Easter’s eggs and is pretty good. Not near as good as Guardians at DCA but quite good.

Iron Man
Ride 6/10
Queue 7/10

It’s a Small World
Loved this rendition of the ride. It’s so much more vibrant than that of its US counterparts!

So much detail and working, smooth animatronics.

iASW
Ride 8/10
Queue 6/10

Jungle Cruise

This is the most unique of the cruises. It’s dramatic and has a fiery ending. I liked it but couldn’t understand what was being said in “English” so I might as well ride the Chinese version. Queue is pretty standard.

Cruise-
Ride 6/10
Queue 5/10

Space Mountain

This is definitely the most zippy mountain of them all. The turns are tighter and the Star Wars overlay is strong with the force. It seems like a near carbon copy of Anaheim’s version yet is a bit more intense somehow.

Ride 8/10
Queue 7/10

Paint the night
9/10 - such a great parade.

Overall this is a great small park with little wait time s with little to no crowding. I would come here over Shanghai again. It just felt more Disney to me and I couldn’t get over seeing the mountains and lush vegetation at every turn. Sure it needs more to do but that is coming. The cast members here are fantastic. Near Tokyo level and sometimes better because they speak good English!

Food sucks, imo. Merchandise is better than Shanghai but needs work. People at the park are much much better than their Shanghai counterparts. People mostly behave here.

Lion King show is best of any I’ve seen!

Hong Kong Disneyland

Rides 7/10
Shows 7/10
Nighttime entertainment 7/10
Castle 5/10
Cast members 9/10
Merchandise 6/10
Food 5/10
Park guests 7/10
Park 8/10
 

IMDREW

Well-Known Member
Day 5 & 6

After 2 days at SHDL 4 in total in Shanghai, we took an early flight to Beijing for one thing. The Great Wall. We hired a local tour guide to drive us up to the Mutiyanu section of the wall. We spent 4 gorious ave exhausting hours climbing that wall. The sky’s were finally clear as it had rained the night before and it was quite the beautiful sight. It was a dream, a lifetime of dreaming about this day, leading to pure joy. A bucket list item right here! The Great Wall is one of those must do touristy things that really lives and exceeds the hype IMO.

The next day we did some other touristy things like visiting the forbidden city and the temple of heaven. It was all fine. Ok fine, let’s talk Disney. We flew to Hong Kong that night on a dirt cheap flight with Hong Kong Airlines in their coach. I haven’t ever experienced service this good, leg room this long, and food that actually tastes like something, ever in my 34 years of flying. American air carriers, you need to revaluation what you’re doing because my $128 flight to Hong Kong from Beijing was the best experience I’ve had flying coach and almost better service than I’ve had in business. Great job HK airlines, highly recommended!


Day 7 and 8 Hong Kong

We spent the first too days at perhaps the best hotel I’ve ever stayed at, the Cordis in Mongkok, Hong Kong. Wow, what a place. I won’t get into that but suffice it to say, it’s worth a trip to HK just to stay at this wonderful place.

Tourist activities: Took ngong ping 360 gondola to Tian Tam Buddha, saw the skyline, did some street markets, rode the MTR like locals and lived like Kings. Hong Kong is the most beautiful metropolis you will ever find. It’s like New York City in Hawaii.

Hong Kong Disneyland -
On our 8th night we left for HKDL to stay at the Explorer Lodge. What a beautiful place reminiscent of wilderness and animal kingdom lodge. The lobby was so beautiful only to have its beauty usurped by the view out the window. Mountains, Ocean and just before that, the resort pool.

As we arrived, we were greeted by hotel staff welcoming us as we got out of the taxi. They immediately took control of the situation, handling our bags and walking us to the checkin desk. I haven’t had this service since before 2000 at a Disney resort.

Resort checkin was a breeze. The cast member spoke excellent English and told us everything and anything we needed to know!

Finally with keys in hand we headed off to our room. A ocean view room equipped with this cutest amenities any Disney resort has ever had. Those slippers are too cute and just like Shanghai and Tokyo, you get to take them home.

Room was very large and the shower was pretty standard. As with any Asian hotel, the beds are very very from but I quite enjoy that.

Room 7/10

The view was nice but not that great as we had hoped for a water view room which really faced the HK Disneyland hotel. The design itself was basic but well done.

Room 7/10
Value 7/10

Room was 179 dollars for the night.

HKDL

This park is the most beautiful of the Disney Parks simply because of its natural beauty. The park is literally surrounded by mountains and they play as a nice backdrop to many things including sleeping beauty castle. The lush, tropical setting is unlike any other park. It’s fantastic.

Section of the park that needs work is Tomorrowland. It’s easily the weakest of all the castle parks worldwide.

Let’s talk marquee attractions:

Mystic Manor

Ok maybe it’s just me but I don’t think this ride is as good as many say it is. I’m beginning to think many people have based their reviews on YouTube videos of it rather than seeing it in person. I’ve now ridden all three LPS attractions and IMO the one that gets the most grief for its screens is the best of the 3. They all have nice tricks up their sleeves but they also have many problems too. MM is nice but it feels like the story is weak and I’m not sure why or what’s going on besides the magical music box that brings things to life sort of like night in the museum. I needed it to be more... something. I was let down. Is it good? Yes. Is it a top 5 attraction worldwide? No. I’m not even sure it’s the best thing at HKDL.

Mystic Manor-
Ride 7/10
Queue 6/10

Big grizzly

I wasn’t sure what to expect here but I loved it. It’s a low to the ground expedition Everest but it’s almost more fun. The launch is nice. The turns are tight and precise and the theming is strong. The queue is forgettable, but it’s made up by the rides ability to be thrilling for such a tight and compact ride that doesn’t require a lot of height to achieve that effect.

Grizzly
Ride 7/10
Queue 6/10

Iron Man

The good- the attraction is a star tours 3.0 ride. Much smoother feeling than Star Wars cabins. The seats are made of mesh, similar to the seating on Soarin. This helps your body to absorb the bumps abs jolts much better.

The bad- the story, the cgi and the experience are not great. Feels cheap.

The queue has lots of Easter’s eggs and is pretty good. Not near as good as Guardians at DCA but quite good.

Iron Man
Ride 6/10
Queue 7/10

It’s a Small World
Loved this rendition of the ride. It’s so much more vibrant than that of its US counterparts!

So much detail and working, smooth animatronics.

iASW
Ride 8/10
Queue 6/10

Jungle Cruise

This is the most unique of the cruises. It’s dramatic and has a fiery ending. I liked it but couldn’t understand what was being said in “English” so I might as well ride the Chinese version. Queue is pretty standard.

Cruise-
Ride 6/10
Queue 5/10

Space Mountain

This is definitely the most zippy mountain of them all. The turns are tighter and the Star Wars overlay is strong with the force. It seems like a near carbon copy of Anaheim’s version yet is a bit more intense somehow.

Ride 8/10
Queue 7/10

Paint the night
9/10 - such a great parade.

Overall this is a great small park with little wait time s with little to no crowding. I would come here over Shanghai again. It just felt more Disney to me and I couldn’t get over seeing the mountains and lush vegetation at every turn. Sure it needs more to do but that is coming. The cast members here are fantastic. Near Tokyo level and sometimes better because they speak good English!

Food sucks, imo. Merchandise is better than Shanghai but needs work. People at the park are much much better than their Shanghai counterparts. People mostly behave here.

Lion King show is best of any I’ve seen!

Hong Kong Disneyland

Rides 7/10
Shows 7/10
Nighttime entertainment 7/10
Castle 5/10
Cast members 9/10
Merchandise 6/10
Food 5/10
Park guests 7/10
Park 8/10
Thanks for these posts! I'm planning on doing an Asia trip with the family myself in 2020, and these reviews are really helpful! I would love to hear (when you're done reviewing ;)) what your "perfect" trip would be now that you've done it. As in, how long you'd stay where..
 

fctiger

Well-Known Member
As someone who lived in Tokyo for awhile and went to TDR often, was just in Shanghai a few months ago and on their way back to HKDL in less than a week I loved reading this thread!

The Asian parks all have their plus and minuses but if you live in Asia and love Disney parks its going to be harder and harder to justify going to the American parks (unless you just want to do the originals). HKDL is easily the weakest of the four but it looks like in a few years its going to be a great park on its own. I haven't been there in 10 years now, since IASW opened, so I'm excited to see the new additions and just get a feel for it after being in SDL for two days, which I loved.

Will give more thoughts later but glad you had an amazing trip.
 

jaxonp

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Tokyo Disneyland-

Ohhh so good. Where does one start?!

Flew into Haneda from Hong Kong after 2 days at HKDL resort so it gets interesting doing all these Asian parks back to back. Got in around 7pm, took a few trains to maihama station, transferred over to a better monorail, a great harbinger of things to come, before arriving for our first night at the Tokyo bay Hilton. Honestly it was just a place to stay for the night and I was using points. It was fine, the breakfast buffet wasn’t very good. Ok- let’s get outta there and head over to vacation package pickup at Iskpiari.

I love the punctuality of the Japanese people. They do what and when there going to do something to the second. It’s incredible. As this was my first time to Japan, I was shocked, others that have been know what I’m talking about. Are these people robots???

So we got our tickets and package stuff for the next three days. They took our bags to the Disneyland Hotel so we could head over to Disney Sea for park opening. Today we had 3 goals. It was the last day of Golden Week so we were prepared with our expectations but it was also the last day to ride Journey to the center, Tower of Terror and Pirates. One, that’s just crazy to close 2 of the 3 biggest attractions at Disney Sea at the same time and two this is why we came a day early even though it was the dreaded golden week, or so I thought.

Ok, maybe golden week was worse the days before but it seemed like a busy day at a WDW Park. Many rides 2 hours... Orlando folk are used to this so I was like meh... I can do this. So we headed to tower to get a FP and then to ride standby for Jttcote.

Let’s go back a second. Can we talk about how epic and beautiful this park is. Geeez, you can’t take it in through a YouTube video. This place is something else. It feels like the best of Disney and dare I say Universal got together and made a baby. A baby that was child prodigy, goes to Stanford and cures cancer. This park is visually insane. It’s like pandora level to attention, everywhere. Now that I’ve been to all parks, only Animal Kingdom comes close to this level of detail and craftsmanship park wide. Tokyo Disneyland doesn’t seem to share quite the attention to detail as Sea. Alright, back to the rides.

Journey to the Center of the Earth
65 min wait 2 hours after park opening during golden week...

The setup and walk through the mountain and many caverns are just incredible feats of design and engineering. So well done. On to the queue, which I thought was sort of boring for such a cool place. The queue moves at a nice pace and the Japanese don’t molest you or rob your spot in line like the Chinese (Shanghai) do. What a nice change of pace that was...

So 65 min on the dot, we enter the preshow elevator, that’s actually a functioning elevator. It simulates going down but I feel like maybe it’s going up?? The effects are well done similar to Gringotts but not as cheesy.

The elevator doors open and we’re in another cavern. This one, leads to the load platforms. The ride vehicles are larger than its clearly related brothers, Test Track and RSR, which allow the ride to be much more efficient. The seats are a bit tight. I’m 6’1” and about 215. I’m not tiny but I’m not huge. A lot of the Orlando crowd would be challenged getting on this attraction. It’s probably more to do with how the restraints are positioned though..

Anyway, the ride starts with dark ride elements all while you begin to dive deeper and deeper into the earth. You see some weird while wonderful alien creatures hanging out bouncing about and then something goes wrong, the lights flicker, the sounds intensify and your vehicle starts picking up the tempo. All of a sudden you see huge flame on the left and then a giant creature to the right.. an impressive yeti sized animatronic that works.. he has a fit and you blast out of the mountain and get some great airtime for a Disney attraction at the end. Ok, all I can say is holy crap and by the time the day was over I would have ridden this 5 times. Yes, this is my favorite Disney attraction in the world. It checks off every box. Dark ride, animatronics, story telling, thrill, just everything. This is the best attraction the imagineers have produced since TOT in Orlando. This ride is better than anything Disney has in Asia. It’s just so well done.

JTTCOTE-
Queue- 8/10
Ride- 10/10


Tower of Terror

Ok I love the look of the building, the interior space and different spin on the story. That said, to me, the only interesting part of this version of TOT is the preshow with the disappearing dude. The rest of the ride is similar to DCA and Paris tower however it’s less intense. Let’s leave TOTerroring to Florida. Mmmk

ToT
Queue- 8/10
Ride- 7/10

Indiana Jones

Ok, how do you improve a ride that already has an incredible queue, story and experience... ohh year you just let the Japanese do it. The queue is quite different from DLs version but equally good if not more impressive. The ride is very similar but the story and effect are different. I think the story and soundtrack are better in Disneyland but the effects blow Disneyland’s away. Both rides are starting to show their age though. Good experience. Rode only once.. didn’t feel the need to ride again even though it had a 5 min wait on Monday and Tuesday after golden week.


Indiana Jones
Queue- 10/10
Ride- 8/10

Sinbad

My new favorite boat dark ride. I love this thing. It’s what we want small world to be. Those animatronics are so creepy and wonderful. I love the music, the story, the troll, the giant bird snatching the man, the banana smelling room full of monkeys... I love it, you love it, we love it. Love.

Queue- 6/10 not that interesting
Ride- 10/10

Nemo

I don’t know what this was. Like a huge star tours cabin but Nemo’d up. Meh.

Queue 6/10
Ride 5/10

20,000 leagues

Ok this is a classic done better than ever. A YouTube video doesn’t even makes sense. This is great, if you’re not claustrophobic. The little alien guys under water are creepy and cute. This is clearly something the Japanese are great at and enjoy. Creepy and cute.

Queue 9/10
Ride 9/10

Toy Story

Rode it last day at opening to just say I’d done it. Same as the other two but perhaps the set pieces between screens have more detail. Not with waiting more that 20 min if you’ve ridden before.

Queue 7/10
Ride 7/10

Didn’t ride- raging spirits, anything in mermaid area, anything that spins.

Big Band Beat

Quality of musicians in the bad are top
Notch... singers were hit or miss... show was good but not as good as the hype led me to believe.

7/10

Didn’t see Fantasmic, it was cancelled for rain or wind each night. Grrrr.

Easter celebrations a month after Easter are a little too much. I could have done without it. I get that they like it but a week after a holiday should be plenty me thinks...

Also, I’ll talk about merchandise at the end. So many things were purchase along the way. Merchandise is epic here.

At this point I left to go check into the my room at the Disneyland Hotel. I took the awesome monorail two stops to the entrance of the hotel and was assigned my park view room right away. I was on the 6th floor with a view that was pretty nice. I don’t think it’s necessary to have a theme park view unless you want to watch the fireworks from there but I’m always in the park so I didn’t take advantage of that. Anyway...

The room-

I’m over this Victorian decor that Disney loves so much. This hotel is 10 years old and while it’s beautiful maintained, it’s tired, and boring. Time to update this look.

Best part of the room is the shower room. All in one tub and shower next to it. It’s a large wet room. Great stuff!

Room decor: 5/10
Beds: 8/10
Amenities 8/10
Value 6/10

You’re paying for he location and the name but I’ve stayed at Better Disney resort. Honestly the Shanghai and Hong Kong resorts are better.

Later that night I headed to Disneyland to ride pirates before it closed. It’s very similar to Disneyland’s. The difference is that the animatronics are much more smooth. It’s has older scenes still in tow. Redhead, men chairing women.. it’s classic pirates but very well maintained.

Pirates

Queue- 6/10
Ride-9/10

Then I was exhausted so I went to bed..
10/10

More coming...
 
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