First timer thoughts from Hong Kong Disneyland

[marni1971]

I’m interested to hear more about Hong Kong in general as a destination. As much as I’m a Disney fan, I’m not sure I could justify a trip across the planet for any park on its own merit.

(I say as I plan a trip across the planet for a park on its own merit in Epic Universe in 2025 )

As a visitor, beautiful. Clean. Interesting. Great metro system. Great airport. Amazing architecture. Easy to navigate. 29 minutes from Disneyland resort station to central Hong Kong via the metro. Never felt unsafe.

We barely scratched the surface and knew before arriving we would need to return to do more. We didn’t do any of the (numerous) museums or galleries. Victoria Peak was stunning. Symphony of Lights was great. Just walking the promenade along both sides of Kowloon Bay was worth it alone.

 

[marni1971]

@UpAllNight

 

[marni1971]

Nah i refuse to believe anyone can do 6 days in Hong Kong. That level of commitment and love for Disney is insane

How long did you spend there?

 

[DonniePeverley]

How long did you spend there?

A day. And even then, i was struggling to fill a day. It's a very small park in my opinion - its just over half the size of Magic Kingdom to give you an idea of how small it is.

 

[marni1971]

A day. And even then, i was struggling to fill a day. It's a very small park in my opinion - its just over half the size of Magic Kingdom to give you an idea of how small it is.

Mate. I know quite a lot about the park. Both of them.

 

[Robbiem]

As a visitor, beautiful. Clean. Interesting. Great metro system. Great airport. Amazing architecture. Easy to navigate. 29 minutes from Disneyland resort station to central Hong Kong via the metro. Never felt unsafe.

We barely scratched the surface and knew before arriving we would need to return to do more. We didn’t do any of the (numerous) museums or galleries. Victoria Peak was stunning. Symphony of Lights was great. Just walking the promenade along both sides of Kowloon Bay was worth it alone.

Hong Kong is an amazing place - I agree it has probably the best public transportation system of any city. The airport is fantastic and the trains are so easy to use and clean. Star ferries are fun, cheap and historic. The city has plenty to see itself and in the greater Hong Kong area there is amazing hiking and nature, fishing villages the giant buddha etc to see and thats before you add in shopping and dining. The city has my favourite skyline in the world with skyscrapers, mountains and water. If you are there longer its easy to take the hydrofoil to macau which is a different east meets west mix - think Lisbon crossed with las vegas Chinese style or a train to Shenzen where you can visit the original splendid china amoungst other places. You could spend months there and only scratch the surface

I would love to go back and explore more when I can some day

 

[jaxonp]

What an adventure! HKDL is soooo underrated! My second visit took place at HKDL this past summer and couldn't believe how much the park had grown since my my first visit in 18. It's night and day better than Shanghai in my opinion outside of one attraction. The setting is just wonderful! The mountains and the landscape give the park an advantage that no other park has.

 

[jaxonp]

As a visitor, beautiful. Clean. Interesting. Great metro system. Great airport. Amazing architecture. Easy to navigate. 29 minutes from Disneyland resort station to central Hong Kong via the metro. Never felt unsafe.

We barely scratched the surface and knew before arriving we would need to return to do more. We didn’t do any of the (numerous) museums or galleries. Victoria Peak was stunning. Symphony of Lights was great. Just walking the promenade along both sides of Kowloon Bay was worth it alone.

It truly is a world class city. How was the weather? It was oppressively hot when I was there in July.

 

[hopemax]

Since I'm down here in the other parks forums, I was surprised to see Martin's TR and I'm so happy you had a great time! As fate would have it, HKDL was our first international park (May 2018) followed by Tokyo in Dec 2018. It was interesting to experience two opposite ends of the experience so close together. But we loved HKDL. It was so low key and not stressful, it reminded me of Disneyland in the 80s. The park didn't even open until 10AM, so we could sleep in. Ride Hyperspace Mountain as much as we wanted. All the CMs were wonderful. I'm a pin collector, and they have pins as prizes for the games in Adventureland area and all the CMs came over to encourage us to win or lose as the case may be in order to get the characters we wanted. Obviously, Tokyo is the creme de la creme, but it is work to get the most out of your experience, so it was refreshing to just wander from place to place with no plan other than to just explore.

We stayed at Explorer's Lodge, and had multiple meals at the Chart Room. The breakfast buffet at Dragon Wind is my favorite Disney buffet for the food. We also did the buffet at Enchanted Garden which was great for characters. Finally, we did the dim sum at Crystal Lotus, which was completely adorable. I would absolutely love to go back, if China wasn't China *sigh*. Hong Kong is such an interesting city. We did 4 nights at a hotel on Hong Kong Island (2 days in Kowloon, 2 days on Hong Kong island), and then did 4 nights at HKDL. The first day, we did the dim sum, and hotels, two days in the park, and then one last day where we took the train back over to Hong Kong Island. The trains are fabulous, and now that we've done it, it would be so easy to fly in and hop over to the park. Unlike Tokyo, where I think it would take multiple trips to really get comfortable. Note: the Octopus card which you use for the Metro, can also be used to pay at convenience stores AND the pressed penny machines at HKDL. So convenient! But East meets West, modern and the traditional, sociologically it just so fabulous. Love the Ding Dings too.

 

[marni1971]

It truly is a world class city. How was the weather? It was oppressively hot when I was there in July.

Hot. But manageable. We’d planned it to visit for when it was cooling down and less damp, which it was. Evenings were beautiful. It also possibly helped we missed a typhoon by 36 hours - the whole trip was touch and go for a day or so - which refreshed a lot.

 

[marni1971]

Hong Kong is an amazing place

It certainly is. I don’t think we were prepared for how much we’d enjoy it.

 

[TimeDuck]

It certainly is. I don’t think we were prepared for how much we’d enjoy it.

If you have any specific recs for the city proper let me know! Or tips in general.

 

[marni1971]

If you have any specific recs for the city proper let me know! Or tips in general.

I’m sure others know more but we found the metro MTR very easy to navigate and ultra efficient. Like most places signage is bi lingual. We did single tickets as opposed to a travel card and it was 29 minutes from Disneyland to central Hong Kong. Also every station we used had a manned info desk to buy tickets from if your notes / bills are higher than the machine maximum. We watched dozens of YouTube videos - some channels literally just walk around for an hour and were a great navigation resource - and studied lots of google earth.

We took the tram up to Victoria Peak. Stunning. Visited Charter and Hong Kong Gardens. Beautiful. Walked the promenade on both sides of the harbour. Rode the ding dings (historic street cars right out of Potter for a flat rate of pence per journey). Visited the Kowloon art park for sunset (too cloudy!) and watched the stunning nightly and free Symphony of Lights from Kowloon. Took the Star Ferry across the harbour. Saw a zillion skyscrapers of every shape and the only thing we couldn’t do was the Sky100 viewing deck due to low cloud and the fact it was shut for a private event. We also walked around the central business district and the edge of Kowloon day and night. No time for museums, galleries, or the glass bottomed cable cars across the mountains to a giant Buddha statue. Next time!

 

[hopemax]

We didn't time it right (long lines) to take the tram up / down to Victoria Peak, so we just took the city bus both directions. That was actually really cool because you get to drive through different parts of the island. Commercial district, residential areas. I would have liked to take the tram one way, but the bus was perfectly fine. We also visited the Chi Lin Nunnery and Nan Lian Garden. It's an oasis in the middle of a busy city, so pretty.

But one of the favorite things we did... DH collects LEGO and they make 4 exclusive Hong Kong themed sets, so we went to In's Point Shopping Mall on Nathan Rd. It's basically a shopping mall of toy stores. If anyone has visited Nakano Broadway in Tokyo, it's a lot like that. But more crowded, and narrower halls. We didn't buy the LEGO sets there, but we did see them, however, DH was concerned about the cost. But the last day of the trip, he changed his mind and we had a bit of an adventure getting them but we did. We also took the metro out to the Sham Shui Po section, where the "craft" district is. If anyone needs fabric, they can find their fill. If you like Miyazaki, there is also a chain of stores in Japan called Donguri Republic, they also have a location in Causeway Bay.... I spent so much money.

The gondola system was under refurbishment when we were there, so we didn't try to go to the Buddha either. We had such a good time that we thought we'd go back and it would be easy to do, since it's on the same island as Disney. But alas, China.

 

[amjt660]

Great trip report
I went to HKDL for a day and a half in2017
A Friday night and all day Saturday in October . It was hot and busy

The castle looks so much better now in your pics-It was dwarfed by the jungle backdrop before but it looks majestic now

Loved mystic manor of course
Hoping to go back some day

I enjoyed it more than Shanghai which I went to in November 2017


Max

 

[BrianLo]

All great recommendations. One of my favourite days that I’ve sort of perfected is to make a round trip of some Lantau island sites.

-Head to Tung Chung, which was at one point the terminus of the orange line, from there you can catch a bus to Tai-O
-Tai-O is a cute fishing village. You can get a boat ride/cruise around the town for some insignificant sum. There’s also a great hike up to a very photogenic area. You can sometimes spot the pink dolphins in the bay and now it looks at the mega bridge.

-From Tai-O you can take another bus to the big Buddha. In addition to some of the touristy things there, I recommend getting a vegetarian lunch made by the nuns in a food court area at the temple right by the Big Buddha.
-Take the cable car back to Tung Chung. Laugh In delight that you saved money and gawk at the 2 hour line that has now formed to come up (that you bypassed by doing the bus for the first leg).
-Tung Chung has lots of shopping and food courts (which are always more interesting for food that what Americans think of as Mall food courts).

If you are staying at Disney, you can head back very quickly and enjoy an evening at the park if you want or go to bed.

 

[nickys]

Some random ideas for @TimeDuck .

I remember just finding temples hidden in the middle of bustling Kowloon streets, usually with a lush green courtyard. The Star Ferries are such a fun way to travel across to HK Island. The views from The Peak are stunning. Aberdeen Harbour is worth a visit too - there are boat trips from there too. And if there is a race meeting on when you go, that’s a fun day out that’s more unusual.

And for the life of me I can’t remember the name of one place I visited. It was a outdoor attraction with scenes from the life of Buddha using brightly painted figurines, set on a hillside.

 

[marni1971]

 

[Figgy1]

You should post it as its own thread as it's more than worthy of one!

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Posting this here in case others didn't see it yet