Supersnow84
Well-Known Member
Just finished a trip to HKDL (now at USJ) and on the ground not much has changed recently.
I saw some construction equipment in the empty western carpark but I can’t confirm if it was meaningful or just some stuff for Halloween/christmas. The rest of the current expansion plot is very hard to see, HK disguises its backstage areas well from outside the resort and the train faces the wrong direction. The eventual path that’s just north of iron man is currently unchanged
After some conversation with the cast members the 4th hotel seems to be off the table for a while due to the sheer size of explorers lodge. They seem to be indicating there is distant plans in place for both the area south of frozen and the big plot west of grizzly. Interestingly conversations I had with the ocean park cast seemed to back this up as the ocean park cast were discussing Disney getting 99% of the governments budget (though it’s hard to know how accurate oh the ground cast reports are from either resort) ocean park is severely run down these days while Disney seems to be flourishing (funnily enough both cast got super excited at my apparent interest in the parks)
As for the park experience itself it’s currently most unchanged since my last visit with the exception of additions. Food and merch are still strangely expensive (though HK punches far above its weight when it comes to food quality), Duffy is taking over more and more of the park space and continues to have the longest lines and the rest of the park continues to have shorter than average (but longer than my last visit) lines
Arendelle is fantastic as an addition and really balances the park. Fantasy springs is a better overall addition but purely rating the arendelle section HK is leaps and bounds ahead. We managed to fill 3 full days and didn’t feel like we were forcibly wasting time. However the hours are still rather short. This was my first time watching momentous and we possibly caught it in B mode but we found it relied a little too heavily on projections (though the castle does really suit the projections)
One final interesting thing to note is there is now 2 temporary shops set up on the esplanade for non park guests which seems to indicate some manner of movement towards a downtown Disney but that may be just overflow of stock
I saw some construction equipment in the empty western carpark but I can’t confirm if it was meaningful or just some stuff for Halloween/christmas. The rest of the current expansion plot is very hard to see, HK disguises its backstage areas well from outside the resort and the train faces the wrong direction. The eventual path that’s just north of iron man is currently unchanged
After some conversation with the cast members the 4th hotel seems to be off the table for a while due to the sheer size of explorers lodge. They seem to be indicating there is distant plans in place for both the area south of frozen and the big plot west of grizzly. Interestingly conversations I had with the ocean park cast seemed to back this up as the ocean park cast were discussing Disney getting 99% of the governments budget (though it’s hard to know how accurate oh the ground cast reports are from either resort) ocean park is severely run down these days while Disney seems to be flourishing (funnily enough both cast got super excited at my apparent interest in the parks)
As for the park experience itself it’s currently most unchanged since my last visit with the exception of additions. Food and merch are still strangely expensive (though HK punches far above its weight when it comes to food quality), Duffy is taking over more and more of the park space and continues to have the longest lines and the rest of the park continues to have shorter than average (but longer than my last visit) lines
Arendelle is fantastic as an addition and really balances the park. Fantasy springs is a better overall addition but purely rating the arendelle section HK is leaps and bounds ahead. We managed to fill 3 full days and didn’t feel like we were forcibly wasting time. However the hours are still rather short. This was my first time watching momentous and we possibly caught it in B mode but we found it relied a little too heavily on projections (though the castle does really suit the projections)
One final interesting thing to note is there is now 2 temporary shops set up on the esplanade for non park guests which seems to indicate some manner of movement towards a downtown Disney but that may be just overflow of stock
Also very much enjoyed the Iron Man Experience for its story telling and humor (looking at you coin press machine!). Everything was a walk on and people took dressing up very serious. Surprisingly, we noticed a guest who was not only wearing a mask that covered his entire head (so not just the face) but he carried a fake axe with him and had some blood spatters on his clothes. This would never be tolerated in the US parks or Paris for that matter.
