Greetings all. I'm coming out of long term lurker mode to post a report and pictures from a recent trip I was lucky enough to take to Shanghai Disneyland. I've never done one of these, so apologies in advance for long winded descriptions, poor picture taking, and anything else I manage to screw up.
The Preamble
I was in Bangkok for business. Shanghai Disneyland was the only Disney Park I hadn’t been to, and my OCD, completionist tendencies took over. I had to check the last one off the list, had a weekend to myself on the way home, and Shanghai was “only” 4.5 hours away. That’s a long flight when I’m staring down the barrel of a similar trip from my home in Chicago to Los Angeles, but on the back end of 26 hours of travel from Chicago to Bangkok, 4.5 hours isn’t so bad.
Because I’m impulsive and don’t think things through, I just booked my trip without thinking of pesky issues like, you know, getting a visa so I could legally enter the country. Didn’t even cross my mind.
So, I just booked the flights, and three nights at the Disneyland hotel. I was thrilled with how “cheap” the hotel was. $200 a night or thereabouts. Not cheap by an objective measure necessarily, but when I just paid $320/night for Port Orleans last year...
Anyway, after booking flights and a hotel I decided to actual start researching and planning the trip. Always good to do things in the correct order. About 10 minutes into my research I uncovered the whole visa thing, and a feeling of cold dread ran through my body about all the money I had just gifted to United an ANA.
But, what’s that? A loophole!! I learned about the transit visa in China. Anyone passing through the country, specifically anyone departing to a different country from which they arrived, can enter China for 144 hours without a visa. In typical semi-charmed fashion, my flight from Bangkok to Shanghai, coupled with my flight from Shanghai to Tokyo (and on to Chicago) just so happened to work perfectly.
The Preamble
I was in Bangkok for business. Shanghai Disneyland was the only Disney Park I hadn’t been to, and my OCD, completionist tendencies took over. I had to check the last one off the list, had a weekend to myself on the way home, and Shanghai was “only” 4.5 hours away. That’s a long flight when I’m staring down the barrel of a similar trip from my home in Chicago to Los Angeles, but on the back end of 26 hours of travel from Chicago to Bangkok, 4.5 hours isn’t so bad.
Because I’m impulsive and don’t think things through, I just booked my trip without thinking of pesky issues like, you know, getting a visa so I could legally enter the country. Didn’t even cross my mind.
So, I just booked the flights, and three nights at the Disneyland hotel. I was thrilled with how “cheap” the hotel was. $200 a night or thereabouts. Not cheap by an objective measure necessarily, but when I just paid $320/night for Port Orleans last year...
Anyway, after booking flights and a hotel I decided to actual start researching and planning the trip. Always good to do things in the correct order. About 10 minutes into my research I uncovered the whole visa thing, and a feeling of cold dread ran through my body about all the money I had just gifted to United an ANA.
But, what’s that? A loophole!! I learned about the transit visa in China. Anyone passing through the country, specifically anyone departing to a different country from which they arrived, can enter China for 144 hours without a visa. In typical semi-charmed fashion, my flight from Bangkok to Shanghai, coupled with my flight from Shanghai to Tokyo (and on to Chicago) just so happened to work perfectly.