Monday July 9 , 2018
Everyone woke up 4:30 am from a combination of jet lag and being super excited for our day at the park. We went down for breakfast at the Sunnyside Market on the ground floor of the hotel. It opened promptly at 6:30 am. There are only 4 tables inside, but we were the only ones eating there; everyone else was heading for the sit-down Sunnyside Cafe next door.
There was an amazing assortment of cute pastry items at the Market, which made it hard to decide what to order. We were also riding the ‘first day at Disneyland’ high, and likely went a bit overboard! The doughnuts were ok, but looked better than they tasted. The pork moon cake was delicious. We finished up as quickly as possible and headed out the door to the park around 6:55 am.
The first shuttle bus to the park was scheduled to leave at 7:10 am and there were already several buses’ worth of guests waiting in line for it.
We had planned to walk, figuring it would take 12 or so minutes to get to the Disneytown gate. We headed out and took the ‘back way’ to shorten the trip as much as possible. We arrived at the park entrance just steps ahead of the first busload of hotel guests. We weren’t the first ones in the park, but we were pretty close!
Bag and ticket check only took a few minutes, and we were in the park at 7:20 am. Official park open would be at 8 am. We stopped in front of the castle to take a couple of quick photos while Chad tried logging into the app to book our first in-park Fastpass.
Unfortunately, the front of the castle is one of the places in the park with poor wifi. We couldn’t get onto the app, so we continued on to to Peter Pan, our first planned ride of the day, while we kept trying to access it. There was no wait to ride Peter Pan so we did that, and enjoyed the modern version of the classic attraction.
We were able to log into the app successfully as we were coming out of the attraction. By then it was about 7:45 am and Fastpasses for Soarin’ were already booking for 5:30 pm! We chose not to book one, since that would tie up our Fastpass availability for too long. Instead, we booked 7 Dwarfs Mine Train with a return window of 9:40-10:40 am, and headed over to Soarin’ to ride standby before the queue got too long. The wait time was posted as 60 minutes, so we hopped in line.
I should perhaps say now that we knew heading into one day at Shanghai Disneyland that we would not have enough time to see and do everything. Our plan was to do the attractions that were unique to Shanghai, spend some time soaking up the park atmosphere, and not worry about the rides we’ve done many times before. Peter Pan was a good fit for this strategy, because it was interesting to see how much the updated technology added to the experience.
On the other hand, we had had the opportunity to ride Soarin’ Around the World before, so this wasn’t really new. However – we were surprised to see that the queue and pre-ride show were completely different here than they are elsewhere. They have a very Indiana Jones vibe to them in Shanghai. So that wound up being a good use of our time. We made it to the pre-ride show after 35 minutes, then boarded the ride, and enjoyed it immensely, as always – it really is one of my favourite attractions.
Exiting Soarin’, we found a couple of park tickets, stamped with today’s date, on the ground. I tried returning these to a cast member, thinking someone would be looking for them, needing them for Fastpass booking or room charging or some such use. Instead, the cast member acted like I was crazy for caring. As the day went on, we found more and more park tickets on the ground, and it became clear that this was just a case of littering. On the bright side, I did find several Mickey Mouse themed park tickets, and kept one of them to add to my colour- and character-coordinated park ticket series.
Just a few steps later, we found a 100 yuan note on the ground beside a snack cart. We picked it up and tried returning it to the cast member at the cart, who wouldn’t accept it. I was starting to feel like returning things to their owners is simply not done in China. We pocketed the yuans (vowing to spend them at Disney; not hard to do) and moved on.
From Soarin’ we went to the Camp Discovery Challenge Trails. They had opened right at 8 am (we had heard they usually open sometime later) and we knew that the line there builds quickly, but the wait time was still only 20 minutes. The trails were on my must-do list for the day, and they did not disappoint – they were a lot of fun. Note that you must wear closed-toe shoes to be allowed on, and that you can change between the easy, medium and difficult options at each challenge.
Chad and Liam attempted the difficult waterfall challenge and made it by the skin of their teeth; there were a few times I thought they were not going to finish. There is also a bypass option, so you can skip the waterfall altogether if you so choose.
Since we were close to Pirates of the Caribbean, we went over to check the wait time. It was posted at 70 minutes, so we opted instead to use our 7 Dwarfs Mine Train Fastpass. I’m glad we had the Fastpass, because the standby line was already a couple of hours long. With that done, we went online again to book another Fastpass. The only ones available were Pooh or Buzz Lightyear for 6:25 pm. We booked Pooh and moved on.
The sun was out and the day was starting to heat up, so we looked for a snack cart. I wanted to try the Donald Duckburg ice pop.
We had our refreshments as quickly as we could. It took no time at all for them to start melting in the blazing sun. As we ate, we walked back to Pirates. The wait time was now posted at 80 minutes, and we decided ‘now or never’ (since there are no Fastpasses for this ride) and got in the queue.
The Pirates queue was the low point of the day for us. It was hot and crowded. The line started out in the sun, and even when it wound its way under shelter, it wasn’t the same icy cold queue we’ve come to expect at the Pirates attraction in Orlando. There was a lot of pushing in the queue – an aspect of the local culture that would take some getting used to – and a lot of litter, though to be fair, there weren’t many trash bins. Another thing we remarked on was how lawless it seemed – after getting into the queue, we really didn’t see another cast member again until we were in the boarding area.
This observation would turn out to be prophetic. Although the queue for the ride was long, not all of the corrals were in use. We had been in line for over an hour when suddenly something happened that we can only liken to a jailbreak. Hundreds and hundreds of people started running by in the corral beside us that previously hadn’t been in use. We were bewildered for a bit until we surmised that they had likely opened the extra queue space without doing any crowd control to ensure those already in the queue had priority over the newcomers. It was disheartening to have been in line for so long, only to see so many people essentially get a Fastpass to the front. We were still quite a ways out from where the lines merge together. There was nothing we could do about it, so we smiled through gritted teeth and queued on.
Finally we boarded the ride with a total wait time of about 90 minutes. There was a lot of trash in the boat that we picked our way over to get to our seats. But I do have to agree with everyone who says the ride is spectacular; it really is unlike anything else. I am certainly glad that we stuck it out and got to experience it.
After the marathon wait for Pirates, we were ready for some lunch. We chose the Wandering Moon tea house, since it had something that appealed to all of us. We had some meat and veggie skewers, corn on the cob, and watermelon, with some cold drinks to wash it down. (Fluid intake was critical in the heat. I had a refillable water bottle I had brought from home, and kept topping it up at the drinking water stations around the park. But again, I would liken the heat and humidity to what you’d experience in Florida at the same time of year, no worse.)
When we had finished eating, we realized that the next Tarzan stage show started in 11 minutes and that if we were quick, we could make it there before the show started. We booked it over and got seats near the top on the side that were still excellent view seats. The show was fun and we enjoyed it.
We used the bathroom nearby (good facilities, mix of western and squat toilets, toilet paper provided) and headed over to Roarin’ Rapids to use our Fastpass. It was just after 2 pm and it was hot, and a water ride sounded like a great idea. We were surprised then to see that we were pretty much the only ones in the queue who elected not to purchase a rain poncho for 1 yuan to wear on the ride. (I shuddered to think of all that plastic hitting a landfill afterwards.) We actually thought it was quite funny to see so many people so keen on not getting wet on a water ride. The attraction was good fun and we did, of course, get soaked – though probably not as wet as we’ve been after riding Kali River Rapids. But we dried out very quickly in the sun afterwards.
We came around the front of the castle, and passed Dumbo. Mallory wanted to ride, so we joined the 30 minute queue. This was not a great use of time (I swear the ride was no more than 45 seconds), but it made her happy, so there you go. Coming off of Dumbo, the afternoon parade was going down Mickey Avenue, so we watched the last 3 or 4 floats pass us by. Luckily we were able to see the Mulan float, which felt very apropos in Shanghai.
We walked through the castle to admire the mosaics there…
…and came out by the Voyage to the Crystal Grotto, which had a 10 minute posted wait. We hopped in that queue, and enjoyed the ride. It gives some good views of the back side of the castle. Next up, Toy Story Land. We had seen Toy Story Land in Paris last year, and were content with making this a quick rather than extensive visit. We jumped on Woody’s Roundup with a 10 minute wait, since that is not something they have in Paris.
And then we took a break at the Toy Box Cafe, and had some alien pizzas to eat. Again, not something they had in Paris.
We were starting to feel a bit of urgency to fit in our last few attractions. We did the Hunny Pot Spin with another 10 minute wait.
And wandered through the Alice in Wonderland maze.
And at 6:30 pm we headed over to the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh to use our last Fastpass of the day.
We did a bit of pin trading (something we found to be not as widespread here as it has been on trips to other parks – but admittedly, our day was pretty packed with fitting in attractions). We checked on the wait time for Tron, which was posted at 75 minutes. Instead, we did the Buzz Lightyear Planet Rescue on standby with a 20 minute wait.
People were settling in for the castle projection and fireworks show, Ignite the Dream, and we made the call to skip it since we had seen Disney Illuminations in Paris and it’s essentially the same show. The wait time for Tron dropped to 40 minutes. Chad and Liam got into the queue; Mallory did not want to ride it, so I stayed with her and we took some photos of Tron all lit up at night while we waited for the boys. By the time they were off the ride, the fireworks had just begun, and we were watching the side view from Tomorrowland. Liam enjoyed Tron so much that he wanted to ride it again, and the posted wait time had dropped to 20 minutes. This time I went with him, and Mallory and Chad stayed behind. To our great surprise it was a complete walk-on. The benefit of skipping the fireworks, I suppose! As we exited the ride, there were masses of people running to join the queue – a sure sign that the fireworks had just ended.
Chad and Mallory had done Buzz Lightyear two more times while Liam and I rode Tron. We had less than an hour to go until park close, and decided to try riding 7 Dwarfs Mine Train one more time. The wait time was posted as 50 minutes when we joined the queue, and we made it through in less than 30 minutes. Good thing too, because the queue was rather stinky. I thought it was BO, and Chad thought it was urine. Either way, it was kind of gross.
With our last ride done, we did some shopping on Mickey Avenue as we made our way out of the park. The kids each picked up a pin to add to their collections. We took the shuttle back to the hotel since we were pretty tired from walking all day. The Sunnyside Market was still open when we got there, and we picked up some snacks to take back to our room to enjoy. I got the Shellie May panna cotta, which was pretty cute. It was strawberry favoured. I thought the Gelatoni panna cotta was even cuter, but I didn’t want matcha flavour.
Liam had to try the cucumber chips – cucumbers are his favourite.
And that was the end of our day at Shanghai Disneyland. A few more observations before I wrap this up:
Things we didn’t get to do that we wanted to – very few. We didn’t do the castle storybook walk through, and we didn’t get to see Mickey Avenue during daylight hours. The other things we didn’t do were things we chose to skip based on past experience. We knew we would only see one stage show, and prioritized the Tarzan show over the Jack Sparrow show.
With a bit more time, we could have done the Pirate Cove playground area, the Jet Packs (similar to Astro Orbitor) or spent more time wandering taking photos (something only I would enjoy).
We only saw one character meet and greet all day. We don’t usually seek these out, but would probably have jumped in line if we’d seen Mickey and Minnie in their traditional Chinese garb. I suppose we still have a chance to do this once we get to Hong Kong.
Further observations from our day:
People smoke everywhere.
People run everywhere. There are signs and announcements instructing guests not to, but no enforcement.
We could count the number of Westerners we saw all day on one hand. This truly is a Chinese park.
I’m surprised there is so much English spoken and signage in English given the very small non-Chinese attendance. Many cast members do not speak English per se, but they do know the few key words they need to know to assist an English-speaking visitor. (“Fastpass”, “how long”, “how much” etc.)
The lack of a queuing mentality is surprising. Even when you know to expect it, it’s something else to actually experience it. We’ll need to work on doing as the Chinese do if we want to keep up during our time in China.
The use of umbrellas drove me crazy. Many, many people used umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun, which isn’t a problem when everyone gets enough personal space. But in China, you don’t have that. We would be packed into an attraction queue like sardines, and people would have their umbrellas up, and not only did we keep getting poked in the face by them, but it also made it difficult to move or to see.
(If I thought the umbrellas were bad on a sunny day, they got exponentially worse during the rainy periods we experienced on our trip. It became a running joke on our trip that Mom thought that the Chinese were insufferable with their umbrellas.)
The kids were asked to pose for photos a few times, and I was asked once. It was kind of fun, and didn’t happen enough to be annoying.
Overall we felt very welcome, and had a great time.
Cook Family Travels 