I wonder this as well. I also wonder how the park is going to be priced and whether attendance will be capped. There was talk about this park being more of a hybrid between a full MK and a Discovery Cove/boutique type experience and, thus far, we don't have an answer.
BTW, our pal @
WDWFigment seems to be enjoying his first visit to HKDL. Hopefully, he'll drop in here with some comments when he returns.
Yes, my wife and I were both very pleasantly surprised by Hong Kong Disneyland. Our expectations were low--the main reason we went to HKDL this year rather than pairing it with Shanghai when it opens is because adding the stop only increased the cost of our airfare by $50 each (<$1,000 RT!). It did screw with our schedule, which "forced" us to visit TDR over a weekend, but that's another story for another time...
With the exception of Mystic Point, I wouldn't describe anything at Hong Kong Disneyland as a "home run," but there are a ton of solid doubles. The park does what it does very well, with only a few exceptions (the level of detail on Main Street was a disappointment for me, and is one thing that struck me as subpar). The quantity of attractions and number of water play areas and photo ops instead of actual attractions is a legitimate gripe, but by and large, the attractions that are there are well done. Fantasyland and some fan-favorites are missing, but I'm not of the mindset that every Castle park needs clones of Pirates, Haunted Mansion, etc., and I can't say the "classic" cardboard cut-out Fantasyland dark rides do a whole lot for me, anyway.
Grizzly Gulch is
very close to a home run, but its size is a bit disappointing. I understand that it's a mini-land, but the concept there has so much potential that I think it should be a full land. I prefer Big Grizzly Mountain to every version of Big Thunder Mountain (even Paris'!), but I'm a sucker for AAs, and its bears go a long way for me in taking the themed rollercoaster concept to the next level. It did seem like the mountain icon itself was a bit on the small side, but then again, everything seemed slightly smaller in scale there (or maybe it was just me?).
Toy Story Land is what it is. I'm personally not a fan of the concept in Castle parks, although I don't totally hate it in general as I know many others do. I can understand adding it to up the attraction count, but I hope it's a temporary stop-gap not there in the long term. It seemed slightly better than the land in WDSP, but I really dislike that park, so perhaps I'm biased there.
Mystic Point is what I'd consider the flagship land of HKDL, and I think any discussion of top 10 Disney attractions all time should include Mystic Manor. It's my current favorite Disney attraction, and if you set aside nostalgia, history, etc., I think a case can be made for it being the best current attraction Disney has to offer. I'm glad I didn't watch videos or read spoilers before seeing it myself, in person, because I was blown away the first time we rode it. After 10 rides (we never waited more than 5 minutes for it...HKDL was pretty dead during our visit), I continued to see new things, and was still blown away by some effects. This is still relatively new, so I don't want to post any spoilers, but it's a good story, well-executed, and with a good balance of technology (screens are present, but they are used sparingly and in appropriate circumstances). There's no way video can do this attraction justice, so don't even bother judging it based on that.
Explorer's Club was pretty cool (they had this excellent drink called Blueberry Myst that's pretty addictive) as well, and well done. Not quite what I expected given the comparisons to the Adventurers Club, but still very nice. Mystic Point is smaller than Grizzly Gulch, and while I left wanting more of Lord Henry Mystic's adventures, I think a larger land with more attractions would probably be pushing the concept. The only thing I could see being done is expanding the play area to something more like Fortress Explorations.
Each of these three lands had puppet shows for "A Sparkling Christmas." The shows had nothing to do with Christmas and were entirely in Cantonese, but the Grizzly Gulch and Mystic Manor ones were cool. These should become permanent fixtures of both lands. In general, "A Sparkling Christmas" was fairly lame--I assume Halloween is the best time to visit HKDL.
Food was also a highlight of HKDL, and we were surprised by the variety and quality of offerings. Tahitian Terrace (which serves Halal-certified food) was a highlight, as were all of the restaurants we tried in the HK Disneyland Hotel. We never ended up trying the pressed squid, as we could only find it at snack stands and they only accepted cash, which we didn't have.
We took two days to do HKDL, and aside from Mystic Manor (ten times) and Grizzly Gulch (three times), we didn't do any attraction more than once, and we still didn't see everything. We waited very little for Mystic Manor (or anything, for that matter), but we also wandered around looking at stuff, took our time dining, etc., so I'd assume those factors would offset one another and the time it would take to experience the park during a "normal" season in terms of crowds by guests not taking their time would be about the same as it took us. I think the reputation that HKDL is a half-day park is definitely undeserved in 2013.
As a whole, HKDL is laid out well as a resort, with ample room for expansion and a solid foundation in place. While it doesn't come close to comparing to TDR (no other Disney resort does), it's no slouch. I wouldn't recommend flying to Asia just for HKDL, but combined with a trip to TDR or Hong Kong (we also visited Hong Kong, Macau, and TDR), it's an excellent place to visit. When we go back, we'll definitely devote another 2 days to HKDL.
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