Day 11 (Part 2) Hong Kong
Disneyland
Now it was what we were all waiting on - Hong Kong Disneyland! I've been to WDW and Disneyland. I went to Disneyland Paris last year, and I've been to Tokyo Disneyland many years ago, but not Tokyo DisneySea. So this was a major highlight for me. I was particularly excited to see Mystic Manor - their version of the Haunted Mansion. Mystic Manor has a trackless ride system. So, all the ride vehicles are independently operated. The ride itself is a brand new story created by Imagineering - the first for a slow moving dark ride in a long time. I was very excited to see it.
The ride over to HKDL was about 30-40 min. We talked about how funny HKDL just has that Disney look. The green wrought iron gates and fences. The very well controlled landscaping. Even though we hadn't been here before it has that familiar Disney style. It reminds me of seeing the Disney Magic pop up in Dover or Barcelona. You're in this foreign land full of new unfamiliar experiences and suddenly hey there's Disney! We got out and took some pictures at the HK Disneyland sign, and then they issued us our tickets and some fast passes. There's only two rides that have Fastpass - Winnie the Pooh and Space Mountain, but the park really wasn't too crowded so lines weren't bad at all. We arrived around 3:30 and were given 3 hrs of free time to roam around on our own.
Gavin and I headed down a somewhat familiar Main Street. It was definitely a different styling than WDW. I'm not as familiar with Disneyland even though I've been there a few times. I think it was closer to Disneyland's Main Street, but still a bit different. Of course there's Sleeping Beauty's Castle off at the end which was beautiful. A couple of things struck me as odd. One, there are no tracks on Main Street, and the street is all brick which is beautiful. I believe Paris was like this as well. Correct me if I'm wrong. Another difference was the windows don't have the names honoring previously imagineers, etc. Most are just blank windows. It looked odd or unfinished. But the whole street is picturesque. The entire left side is one continuous emporium and the right has the confectionary and bakery. It was a very similar set up to what most of us are familiar with. The Sleeping Beauty Castle choice is really perfect because it is set in front of a mountain. Very neat. If they had built a larger castle, the relationship between the castle and mountain would have been unbalanced. We headed left through Adventureland towards Mystic Point. It's a little unusual layout that is best seen with a map.
We walked on through Grizzly Gulch which is essentially Frontierland, and on to Mystic Point. Mystic Point is an area which houses Mystic Manor, a similarly themed restaurant and a little park with optical illusions you can take photos in. It's essentially built by a turn of the century British Colonial adventurer - Lord Henry Mystic (I'm working off memory, so I could have the name wrong. I believe the initials HM are a reference to Haunted Mansion.). 30 min wait. Longest we had to wait all day. The queue takes you inside the Manor where you can check out the artifacts he and his sidekick monkey Alfred have found. The queue takes you into a stretching room preshow of sorts - video explaining everything, then onto the vehicles. As I said trackless - very cool. 4 ride vehicles take off at the same time, but they all move in different directions. Sometimes you're all in the same room together and sometimes you separate. Very creative. You start off in the room where a new music box has been delivered. Alfred, against orders of Lord Mystic, opens it up to find the music has the power to turn inanimate objects to life. You progress from room to room - the music room, the armory, the Ancient Greek and Roman halls, the Egyptian room, the Tribal art room and more when things get more and more out of hand with the finally being in the Chinese arts room. It's absolutely amazing. They used all sorts of moderne special affect. There's projections, and animatronics. Everything. Plus the music flies through the air with a new special affect where it looks like dots of light scattering through midair. MM is the only ride I believe that has it. I'm sure I'm not doing it justice, but it's amazing. Easily now my favorite ride. We rode it maybe 3 times in a row. (The other wait times were about 10-15 min.) They also have a nice gift shop that has lots and lots of ride specific merchandise form shirts and pins, to an actual music box. I picked up a music box (hangs head in geeky shame) and Gavin got a fez like Alfred and Lord Mystic wear. Also picked up pins and shirts galore. If you are a Disney parks fan and are considering China, this is a must do. This is the best ride Disney Imagineers have ever made including Radiator Springs Racers.
The clock was ticking down to our meeting time, so we went over to Grizzly Gulch. The other big ride unlike anything in the US is Big Grizzly Mountian. It's a roller coaster that is kind of a combination of Big Thunder Mountain, Expedition Everest, and Rock n Rollercoaster. It looks like BTM, but goes backwards at times a la Everest (no spoiler as you see the coaster walking through Grizzly Gulch. It also takes off like Rock n Roller Coaster mid ride (also can be seen while waking around). It's my son's new favorite Roller Coaster. I still prefer Everest because of the theme, but this is a very close 2nd. He prefers this, because there are no big drops. The story line is very funny too, and unlike BTM (which I understand in principle) the story here makes sense. Another great ride.
We went back to do MM again and then walked through Fantasyland where we decided to use some of our fastpasses at Winnie the Pooh. It was pretty much the same, but the rain scene was even better. It looked like rain was falling through the sky all around you. At that point we only had a few more minutes so we walked over to the Emporium and shopped a bit more. I found my DW a couple of shirts, but the men's selections weren't very good.
Dinner was at 6:30 at the Plaza Restaurant. It looked very 19th century American on the outside and very Traditional Chinese on the inside. We had one last Chinese meal there. It was good. Nothing spectacular, but of course the atmosphere and being inside HKDL was very cool. Dinner finished a few minutes before the fireworks show started so we all walked outside and watched the fireworks. Not a bad way to finish up the ABD.
Afterward we had our finale. Not sure if that's a spoiler or not. Anyway it too was in HKDL. We left the park well after closing and took the bus home. Back at the lobby we all said our goodbyes. As I said before, it's always emotional when the these things end, but it was a great time. Even though tomorrow is technically Day 12, everyone is pretty much leaving early and so there's nothing really going on. As a quick comparison, in SE Asia the flights seemed to leave rather late so there was more time to tour around on Day 12. Not here in HK. So we said our final good byes to Christian and Steven and to all the other guests. We will miss them greatly. They were all amazing people. I hope we luck out and see some again on an upcoming trip.
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