First Time at HKDL & More!

Animaniac93-98

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Recently went on vacation and visited HKDL & Universal Singapore for the first time, along with another visit to TDR. This thread won't be so much a day-by-day trip report, but my feelings about the three resorts/parks during this visit.

Hong Kong Disneyland

I'll start with the elephant in the room. I went straight from the airport to HKDL and back and did not see or hear anything relating to the protests. There was a note in the room from the hotel manager about paying attention to the news and that travel around the area could be impacted, but it did not affect me for this trip. I realize I was lucky in that the airport and nearby roads were not targeted on the days I visited. I had originally planned to stay in the city proper and visit there, but decided it would be safer to stay on site. I guess I was right, but with these things you never know.

I stayed on site at the HKDL Hotel, because it wasn't much more than the other two, but I liked the theme better, it had more amenities and was a closer walk to the park's front gate. I truly loved staying here. I always wanted to stay at Grand Floridian or another of the "Mickey Mouse Victorian" hotels, but this was the first one I could realistically afford and it did not disappoint. I only paid for a "standard room" but was lucky enough to get a large corner room with King bed in one of the turrets with a view of the pool and Hong Kong Bay. Very nice to watch the boats go by on the water and be in a somewhat private area surrounded by trees. I went to the pool before visiting the parks and very much enjoyed the water slide. They have a nice gym too, but I did not get around to working out during my stay. The hotel also has one gift shop with the same stuff you can find on Main Street.

I ate at both Walt's Cafe and Enchanted Garden's character breakfast. Walt's was fine, they have a set lunch menu that hotel guests could get 20% off for and that was worth it, but Enchanted Garden was not. It was around $45-$50 USD pp after gratuity and there were only 4 characters who were slow to make their rounds, even though the restaurant wasn't full. Buffet selection was just OK, with strangely no egg option (scrambled, omelet or anything). You can pre-book EG as part of your room package at a slightly lower rate, but I paid full price out-of-pocket and did not think it was worth it. I skipped Crystal Lotus, the resort's signature restaurant, because of time constraints and I didn't want to spend $100+ on one meal.

The resort's grounds and guest areas are beautiful, including a neat hedge maze and walking paths to the park and other hotels along with a ferry pier with departures one or twice a day to the city around noon (I think?). They also have a piano player and orchestra in the lobby and I made a point of listening to them when I heard The Avengers theme drifting down the hallway towards the elevators after one of my swims. Best use of Marvel in a Disney park that I've seen so far! Mickey and Minnie announce the floors on the elevators, Mickey in English, Minnie in Cantonese.

Without question I would stay here again, especially at a similar price point. Staff was helpful and they all spoke English. I know many Disney fans love and prefer Explorer's Lodge, but I don't see the point in staying there when again, the HKDL Hotel is not much more and has better facilities and is an easier walk to the park's front gate. Maybe I'm just biased towards the style of the hotel, but I would recommend it to anyone wanting to stay on site.

Next post on the park itself...
 

Animaniac93-98

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Hong Kong Disneyland maybe the smallest Magic Kingdom, but I wouldn't say it's the worst. The park and really the whole resort property may be the best looking of all Disney resorts. Ocean on one side and the rest surrounded by mountains. It's very picturesque and the landscaping along the roads and grounds is top notch. It's the most that's like a park. Lots of benches too! It's really beautiful at night and a shame it wasn't open later than 8:00pm.

I visited over the course of two days. On Sunday some wait times were up to an hour, but on Monday most waits were 15 min or less. Lots of guests, but many with pre-school children so any ride with a height requirement was skipped by them, but they went to the shows and kiddie rides. It's clearly more of a weekend/holiday park with the three on-site hotels not having enough people to fill it.

It was during the first week of Halloween Time so I saw nearly all the activities related to that and they're all included in park admission. "Let's Get Wicked" is the best, it's a stage show in the Lion King theatre with live singing, dancing and acrobatics and it's very impressive. One of the best park shows I've ever seen and totally unique to this park. There's also "Journey to Halloween Town" which is a maze based on Nightmare Before Christmas with scare actors who jump out from behind boxes and corners and then give you candy. Nothing graphic or vulgar, just scary, but still appropriate for a Disney park. There's a separate line if you just want a picture with Jack. The parade is OK, not much too it. You can see the dancers melting in the humidity from the front row. There's also a villain stage show in front of the castle, but I only saw it out of the corner of my eye when exiting the first night.

The park does have lots of rides and things to do, with more on the way, but the problem is that outside of Mystic Manor there's nothing that's truly GREAT. Lots of good like Iron Man and Space Mountain. They have the best Jungle Cruise (even better at night), but they need more attractions that make you go WOW. Mickey and the Wondrous Book might rival MM for best thing in the park, though. Outstanding show and again better than any at WDW. Visiting the foreign parks makes you realize how bad live entertainment is at WDW.

I had no trouble finding CMs who spoke English. They were all helpful in answering questions from a first timer. I told one at City Hall I'd been to nearly all the Disney parks and she commented on how small HKDL is (yes, they know). She said she liked DCA better than Disneyland Park in California. I guess because for her as a HKDL regular it was more unique.

I ended up skipping some things like Tarzan's Treehouse and the animation exhibit on Main Street, but I whipped through nearly all rides on Monday, having Fantasyland practically to myself Monday morning as everyone at rope drop ran to Iron Man and Ant-Man (yes that ride was a lot of wasted potential). I noticed the Winnie the Pooh ride went slower through the building than at WDW, I guess they can do that with fewer guests. Really weird that the Mr. Toad and Mole cameos were copied even though the reference makes no sense in the park or to its guests.

Despite its flaws I still enjoyed visiting a lot. The park looks like California in parts, but feels more like a smaller version of DLP which makes sense given that people like Tom Morris worked on it. I wish they hadn't been so cheap in the beginning as they had the best canvas to build a park from but over time it has improved (mostly) and shouldn't be skipped by Disney fans.
 

Animaniac93-98

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Universal Studios Singapore

It's the smallest US park, but like HKDL, not the worst. You could argue it's the best looking actually, more comparable to Islands of Adventure than any "studios" park with boxy fake soundstages. The Egyptian area in particular looks great.

Quite a lot of rides are crammed into it's acreage. Some are clones like Transformers and Shrek 4-D, others that are original like Elmo's Spaghetti Space Race (yes, that's really the name and it's delightful). It has the "Lights, Camera, Action!" show that used to be in Japan and is without a doubt the most "Universal" thing in the park. You stand in front of a movie set and things go boom and splash. Classic.

There's more rides for younger children too, but some like Treasure Hunters don't even live up to their modest potential. They have a neat rock climbing wall in the Jurassic Park section, but I didn't have time to try it. I also wasn't sure if it was an extra pay or only for little kids thing.

Jurassic Park in this park is a raft ride and you get soaked. I appreciate that they did something different, but the staging of the scenes don't work as well, especially the T-Rex climax where it just sits there motionless until you get lifted vertically to the top of the final drop. It's still fun though and a better raft ride than Kali River Rapids.

The Shrek area looks great, but is devoid of anything worth doing. I skipped Madagascar, so I probably won't see it before it closes, but I won't miss it when its replaced with Nintendo and Minion Park.

There's no Harry Potter here, but I didn't really miss it too much. With so many Universal parks built mostly on clones you don't mind if one park doesn't have something vs another.

Battlestar Galactica was great, but I only managed to do the Human side. I also saw Water World for the first time here and it was a good show. So strange that one of movie history's biggest bombs has had such a long shelf life in the parks. There's no way most of the kids in the audience have seen the movie, but they loved it regardless. Another copy of the show is coming to Beijing too.

Park was busy, but I managed to do most everything without Express Pass. Many rides have single rider options and that makes a big difference in how long you spend in lines.

Overall I'd rank Singapore above Universal Studios Florida and maybe after 2025 I might rank it above IoA. If it did have Harry Potter along with Nintendo and Minions, there would be no contest.
 

Animaniac93-98

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Halloween at Tokyo Disney is largely a dud.

The decorations in Disneyland were cute, but the Spooky Boo Parade and Halloween High Fireworks are both very short and underwhelming compared to their American counterparts. I didn't get around to seeing the Mystique Show as it was cancelled due to rain on the one full day I had at DisneySea. DisneySea also had very little in the way of decorations outside of MH, not even in Cape Cod, the home of Duffy. You wouldn't know it's Halloween in the park except for the guests dressed up.

The guests themselves were easily the most elaborate thing. It's like Comic Con, people put A LOT of efforts into their outfits and I know these people are easily spending hundreds on them. IMO it was too humid or rainy to wear one. I felt bad for all the women in expensive Princess dresses that were getting wrecked in the rain.

Haunted Mansion Holiday was the best thing, but again I'd prefer regular Haunted Mansion for Halloween. It's better than DLR's HMH, but it suffers from the same problem by being too bright and cartoony. The additions make the regular special effects of the ride more obvious and at several points I could see the strings holding things up etc.

Merch was cute, but I didn't end up buying any of it. The more trips I make the less stuff I buy per trip. There just isn't room in my luggage for it, and I don't always know where I'll have space for it at home.
 

Animaniac93-98

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
The best thing about Soaring' at TDS is now it's much easier to get a FP for every other ride in the park except TSMM. I managed to get 2 FP for ToT, plus 1 for the King Triton's Concert and 1 for 20,000 Leagues. Journey to the Center of the Earth was closed for refurb.

30 minutes into park opening the line for Soaring was already 3 hours, and all FP were gone for the day. The shortest wait I ever saw was 2 hours and I didn't want to waste that time on Soaring.

I also won the seat lottery for the new Song of Mirage show. Very good, but different from any Disney show I've seen in a long time. It has Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy in it, but otherwise it's a totally original show with new songs. Talking is in Japanese, singing is in English, but it's not hard to understand the plot. I'm not sure how non-Japanese people would respond given that all Disney shows these days are movie revues, but if you can get a seat it's worth seeing.
 
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Animaniac93-98

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
When I was at TDR I stayed at the Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay. Staying here was like staying at Swan or Dolphin. It's not a "Disney" hotel, but it's on-site and you take Disney transportation to get to the parks (in this case, the Monorail which cost 1,100 Yen for a 3-day pass).

Room was large and modern, like any 4-star convention hotel you'd see in the states. There was a balcony, but no furniture on it. It had a view of the parks and the massive construction site where Fantasy Springs and the new hotel will be. Still hoping there will be another entrance to the park from this end. Maybe just for Disney hotel guests? Rooms on the other side of the hotel have views of Tokyo Bay.

The hotel has several shops and restaurants, including a Disney store that's mostly candy and snack tins. I did not get a chance to see what the pool and gym were like, but it hotel has them. There's also a desk where you can get your TDR park tickets from, the prices and options are the same as at the front gate, but it's obviously more convenient to buy them in the lobby.

I would recommend it to anyone visiting the parks, but keep checking Expedia to see if the price drops. The rate for my dates would change drastically day-to-day, but I got lucky and booked it when it was low (about $150 USD a night for room and breakfast after tax).

Next door to the hotel you can see the empty plot of land where the Toy Story hotel will open in 2021. I'm not sure what the appeal of staying there will be when the places next door on either side will probably be cheaper with nicer rooms and amenities.
 

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