Freshly back from HK, so time to bump this again and reshuffle my rankings:
1. Disneyland - Not only tops on general principle, but what an embarrassment of riches: long-form Pirates, Matterhorn, submarines, Rivers of America, Indy, Mr. Toad, Alice, Lincoln, Primeval World, Walt's freakin' apartment, etc.!
2. Tokyo Disneyland - Next deepest attraction roster. Another Frontier/Westernland with a proper river, plus old school Country Bears, a shooting gallery and SPLASH MOUNTAIN! Basically it's Magic Kingdom except still good.
3. Tokyo DisneySea - A tribute not only to uncompromised execution, but to having a strong idea to begin with. They looked at the site, gave some thought to the setting, went big, and didn't slash it to death by opening day.
4. Disneyland Paris - Such an exquisite build. Would benefit so much from even modest additions, if not for the fixer-upper next door sucking up all the expansion budget. BTMR and riverboat were under refurb when I was there, so I gotta go back...but that's OK with me, as oh, by the way, it happens to be a quick train ride from arguably Earth's best city.
5. Animal Kingdom - Again, well conceived from the start, should keep aging well. Hopefully the additions hit the mark.
6. EPCOT - Sigh. Ironic that this, of all parks, serves as a reminder that not all change is progress.
7. Magic Kingdom - Oof. Ditto. Like EPCOT it still has enough good stuff left, and enough happy memories, but yikes, the attractions just keep getting worse along with the guests themselves.
8. Hong Kong Disneyland - What a cute park! And what a fascinating city. Further reflections below.
9. California Adventure - I'm letting it flip HS which has lost appeal if anything. DCA had nowhere to go but up, and it did.
10. Hollywood Studios - Eh.
11. Studios Paris - I do like their simple, aggressively scary Tower of Terror and the random preservation of Catastrophe Canyon (in an otherwise pointless "Cars" tram ride). Crush's Coaster is kinda cool, and Pym Kitchen is a great buffet. Can't factor in new rides no one's even ridden yet (highest hopes being for Lion King), so this still belongs dead last.
OK, so HK....
Want to get my first impressions down before the jet lag wears off, and this seems like the best thread to do it in. If anyone's interested but perhaps hesitant, I hope this is informative and encourages you to take the long flight!
First, the city. British imperialists found a fishing village and built it up to insane Manhattanlike proportions around a big deep natural harbor. On the south shore is mountainous jungle Hong Kong Island with its unbelievable bloom of futuristic skyscrapers called Central (up there with Rio de Janeiro, Vancouver, or San Francisco for eye-popping urban topography). On the north shore is the flat peninsula of Kowloon, where we stayed, which gets more residential, grittier, and cheaper once you walk a few miles away from the waterfront. As a relatively new, commerce-oriented city, Hong Kong doesn't have an enormous tourist checklist of must-see attractions like in Paris or Rome, but the cultural blend is rich and unique, and anyone will tell you to take the historic Star Ferry and Peak Tram, both offering incredible views. Great food (roast goose, suckling pig, dim sum, crazy seafood, plenty of good Western options if you get homesick) and shopping.
Now, Disneyland. This is actually on outlying Lantau Island, along with two other major points of interest: 1) the cable cars to the mountaintop Big Buddha statue at gorgeous Po Ling monastery, and 2) the airport...so as with DLP near CDG, you want to make it either the first or last stop of your itinerary. The MTR (subway system) connects you easily and cheaply to just about anywhere, but when schlepping all your luggage you may want to take the (cash-only) taxis instead.
There are three hotels (Hollywood, Explorers Lodge, and Disneyland Hotel, in ascending order of park proximity and price). Each is quite nice. You can walk back and forth between them (we stayed at Explorers but ate at the two others) and to the park (though they won't really tell you this, encouraging you instead to take the shuttle, which does get you closer to the entrance but goes the long way around). There's a longer but very scenic walk along the seawall, or a shorter 20-minute path along Magic Road. The train station drops commuters from the city right at the park gate, like in Paris. There's also a ferry pier, which sadly only saw service for a brief few years and is now just kinda lying dormant.
Unlike the other two Asian castle parks, this one does have a Main Street USA, but there's a noticeable flatness and lack of architectural detail to the facades. The railroad sadly wasn't running. (Nor was this entirely clear from the app, as Fantasyland Station was still open...for a trick-or-treat/photo op with a pumpkin. Boo indeed.) Other refurbishments were Orbitron (no great loss) and Tarzan's Treehouse (on an island in the middle of Jungle River Cruise, which if you look at a map is shaped like Rivers of America).
The bigger problem was the weather. We were there as two typhoons approached. The first one, Mitag, buzzed by to the east, but caused a level 3 typhoon warning, and HKDL's policy is to shut down all outdoor rides in a 3 or higher. So Friday half the stuff was closed even though it barely rained a drop. Saturday they lowered it to a level 1, so everything was open most of the day although it was POURING rain for much of it. It eased off by afternoon and was lovely Saturday night, fortunately, especially as we had already rescheduled our canceled fireworks/dinner package at the delicious Explorers Club semi-buffet next to Mystic Manor from Friday to Saturday.
Mystic Manor is of course the best ride in the park. For a Haunted Mansion superfan like myself, it was practically worth the 8,000-mile flight just to check it out. I rode it 5 or 6 times over the course of 2.5 days.
But a surprisingly strong second is Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Rail Cars. If this were at any of the non-Chinese parks, everyone here would be talking about it all the time as possibly the world's most perfect Disney roller coaster. Go watch the ridethrough at martinsvids dot net for a sense of why (spoilers, though, I guess...it has a couple of nice surprise moments). Imagine Big Thunder Mountain redesigned as Expedition Everest but with *functioning* animatronics that are almost low-key Country Bears.
Probably the next most interesting ride in the park is Jungle River Cruise, which as mentioned has the Rivers of America layout, pauses for rafts to Tarzan's Treehouse island when they're running, and has three separate queues for Cantonese, English, and Mandarin (most tourists in Hong Kong are mainland Chinese). I thought about riding all 3 for fun, but I could barely understand the first 2 English skippers anyway, who were quiet, accented, and mumbly. Luckily, the 3rd time was the charm: I got a good nighttime ride with a loud, animated skipper. It's funny to reflect that you're on an actual tropical jungle island already. We were surprised by some cool explosive special effects just before the boat returns to the dock.
From there, the attraction lineup is modest but decent enough for a park that's only 20 years old. There's a Toy Story Land that's essentially identical to the one at Studios Paris, with 3 flat rides. The view from the parachutes is underwhelming in most directions, as the foliage is taller than the ride, but if you sit in the right spot you can see the Central Skyline on the horizon behind Mystic Manor.
As someone mentioned above, Fantasyland badly needs a couple more dark rides...it only has Pooh, Small World, and a bunch of flat rides and walkthroughs. There's a Frozen land behind it with a clone of Maelstrom Ever After, a good quick service restaurant specializing in massive lamb shanks, and a unique but short kiddie coaster.
Tomorrowland is underwhelming, although we'll see if the new Spider-Man ride makes any real contribution. There's a decent Anaheim-style Space Mountain in stark white but with the Star Wars overlay. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Nano Battle! is a Buzz Lightyear re-skin, but the things you shoot at are boring, just glowing hexagons, where I was hoping for scenes with more eye candy. Iron Man Experience is a Star Tours re-skin, which is kind of welcome in itself (I'm not a huge Star Tours guy, but if you are, there are still 4 pretty much identical copies in the world). Still just kind of a lame simulator ride where they shake you around in a box full of stale sweat and barf smell, but the cool thing about it is that the ride film is actually set in Hong Kong, so you get to see a big Marvel fight scene among all the familiar sights of the city you were just in. (Also there's a super cute moment in the safety preshow where Stan Lee is sitting next to a Chinese kid in an Iron Man costume, and the kid takes off the mask to reveal Tony Stark facial hair facepainted onto his cute little face, and Stan laughs in a way that looks like they genuinely surprised him with it.)
The Saturday night fireworks show was the grace note of a sometimes challenging trip. The previous and following nights they canceled the drone and fireworks parts (still leaving projection mapping, lasers, fountains and music), but we got the full 20th anniversary Momentous experience from a reserved viewing area, and it was phenomenal. When the park opened, the castle was just tiny pink Sleeping Beauty Castle from Anaheim, but they've grafted a bunch of over-the-top additions onto it and renamed it the Castle of Magical Dreams. Whatever. It's gaudy but in a cool way. What really strikes you is the lush mountains in the distance behind it. You don't get anything like that view in any other Disney park. Most of the time they're trying to screen out the outside world, but there the landscape beyond the berm already looks magical.
In the end, though, as delightful as it was, it's much the least of the castle parks when compared to Anaheim, Orlando, Tokyo, or Paris. Which is not a bad thing, not damning with faint praise, just a petite version of something wonderful!
Checkout day we finally had beautiful weather, so I went and used the pool at Disneyland Hotel in the morning (it had a hot tub where my hotel didn't...unfortunately the jets weren't working anyway, but the walk was worth it just for the views along the sea). And thank God it was beautiful, or I might be stuck there in a weather emergency. Cathay Pacific canceled at least 500 flights starting the day after I left, as Hong Kong is now under the maximum level 10 warning for "super typhoon" Ragasa. It's not their first rodeo (nor mine as a former Gulf Coast resident), but pray for them this week.
So should you visit Hong Kong? Yes you should, but (as with Florida), don't make reservations in September when it'll be hot and rainy with a small but disastrous chance of tropical storms. In fact, if you're thinking of going to *any* of the Asian parks, you should ideally do it in late October or November when it's cooler and less rainy than in the spring or summer, and also check the calendar to work around the many fall holidays that are specific to China or Japan. I will follow that protocol for Shanghai and probably go in late fall 2026. The mainland feels even less approachable for me as a Westerner, but now that I've checked 11 of 12 parks off my list, it's an irresistible white whale to pursue. And I've always been intrigued by the city, especially after reading Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard.
Sorry I turned this thread into a TLDR HKDL trip report all of a sudden, but I figured it might be of use to WDW-goers who are interested in trying the worldwide Disney parks!
