Culture Shocks and Disney Magic... in Asia!!! A TR on all Asia Disney Resorts! [Update Dec19!]

[TestingH2O]

Such amazing photos!

 

[coloredimage]

I love this sign!

I'm so glad someone else is freaked out by this statue because I am slightly scared of it!

 

[bcwife76]

Um, creepy queen of hearts! lol

That castle is stunning, it really is. And all lit up.....I can't decide if it's more gorgeous at night or in the day

The boats for POTC seem huge! Much bigger than the ones at Disneyland, right?

 

[theseacallsme]

To be honest... we didn't buy a lot of stuff. We were really worried about baggage so we concentrated more on our experience than buying actual trinkets. SO we took photos of all the things we liked haha. Brian got the passport, though, which was easy to take back. (We started our trip off very conscious of luggage space because we still had two more stops! Then... Japan happened haha)

LOL! I spent sooooooooo much on Disney merch in Japan!!! It was impossible not to--between the amazing Disney Stores and the parks, everything was irresistibly kawaii!!

 

[jesterrific]

So many great updates. I just love seeing Tron at night. Can't wait until Disney World gets it.
I totally agree with you about being in the parks at night. It's just a whole different vibe.

Yes!!! SO excited for it to come to Magic Kingdom!! I think it will be SO popular! Before they officially announced Tron to Disney World, I definitely would have said a trip to Shanghai is worth it to experience Pirates and Tron!

 

[jesterrific]

Um, creepy queen of hearts! lol

That castle is stunning, it really is. And all lit up.....I can't decide if it's more gorgeous at night or in the day

The boats for POTC seem huge! Much bigger than the ones at Disneyland, right?

Hahahaha I KNOW because even in the movies when she's a relatively normal-sized person with the out-of-proportion head, she was still weird. But at 15 ft tall or however giant this figure is... it's just CREEPY!

I also can't decide if I like it better day or night!! Such a neat castle

The pirates boats I think are only a little bit bigger seating wise, but the mechanisms make the actual boat part huge! I think it kind of sits on a base that runs on a track, because the boat turns and rotates and goes backwards

 

[jesterrific]

LOL! I spent sooooooooo much on Disney merch in Japan!!! It was impossible not to--between the amazing Disney Stores and the parks, everything was irresistibly kawaii!!

We didn't buy anything in Shanghai, but that's because we were certain we would get stuff in Japan haha. Too many cute things, we had to do a lot of "when would we use this again" "are you SURE it will get used more than just this trip?"

 

[jesterrific]

I love this sign!



I'm so glad someone else is freaked out by this statue because I am slightly scared of it!

 

[jesterrific]

AY CARAMBA Where have you been, Jessica?! Update…​

I must, right now, apologize for not being able to post up an update in such a while. This summer has been a little bit hectic, with lots of random family engagements (had a mini family reunion trip this summer!) as well as birthdays and the general enjoyment of the warm weather… I haven’t had a lot of time to be on the computer. To be honest, I’ve kind of completely hated going on the computer this summer! But alas, here in Canada, especially in Edmonton, it seems as though Summer decided to end early, and skip over the entire fall season, and enter early winter. Which hopefully means that I will be more inclined to type up some lovely updates for you folks! I haven’t even finished off the first day yet, there’s still 15 more full days to go!!!



Alright, let’s get back on the grind. Here we go! Continuing where I left off…

 

[jesterrific]

Day 3 [part 13]: TRON AT NIGHT! TRON AT NIGHT! TRON AT NIGHT! And fireworks too.​

Walking around Tron in Tomorrowland at night is a whole other experience all on its own. Music blasting around you, lights glowing, you get excited just BEING in it. And watching the ride go by you too! Some bad phone photos of Tomorrowland at night…

Blue lights don’t photograph well… Anyways, they light up the fountains with pretty blue lights that LOOK amazing but don’t photograph haha

A happy Jessica in Tomorrowland selfie

The Tron ride sign!

The lit up circle in the O spins


Launch!

Here is what the handicap-assessable vehicles look like! They are at the back of every other rotation, and you sit like you would a regular roller coaster, and you have the option to lean forward to hold onto the hand rail in front of you

Here is Brian and I super excited for our night time ride on Tron

Since we’ve been mixing up riding partners for Tron all day, the last combo would have been for myself to ride with Brian, and Jenna to ride with Glendon. While we were loading onto the ride, Glendon decided to back out and exit. His stomach wasn’t feeling the greatest and he had a feeling laying flat on it for an entire ride was going to upset his body more. SO since we’re already basically loaded into our ride vehicles, poor Jenna ended up riding on her own.

Here are our ride photos!

Brian and I tried to raise our bodies and put our hands up, but you can’t tell for me because I’m short, and I’m wearing mittens ahaha

Jenna still looks like she’s having a good time!

After riding, Glendon met us at the exit. Not gonna lie, Brian and I were super stoked on going on the ride again. We were ready to run back in line (because at this time of night, there was actually NO line whatsoever.) Jenna had decided that her stomach was done being pressed down on for the day, so she and Glendon decided to go ride Buzz Lightyear while Brian and I went for another round of night time Tron!

Some more ride vehicle beauty even though you can’t see the vehicles only the lights and the reflection of the lights haha

I was so daring, taking my phone out to snap this photo after leaving the loading station

Pre-Launch ride selfie!

We would be lying to ourselves if we said we were done for the night haha. I’m pretty sure Brian and I could have ridden that until they kicked us out of the park. But alas, it was a long day and we were secretly a little bit tired. Plus we didn’t want Glendon and Jenna to have to sit around waiting for us to do ANOTHER ride through.

They managed to get a pretty good Buzz Lightyear ride photo though haha.

They really look like they’re battling Zorg haha


I think this was Glendon’s high score

So, turns out it was good timing for us to decide that Brian and I were done with Tron for the night. Glendon and Jenna had actually gone though Buzz Lightyear twice AND they were still waiting by the time we were done the one ride through. Plus it was good timing because the castle show and fireworks was about to start, so we decided to go into the hub and try and catch some of it. (I’m a HUGE fireworks fan, but the show in Shanghai is more a castle show with bits of fireworks.)


Disclaimer: I am not a fireworks or show photographer. So feel free to be disappointed in my show photos haha. But here are some random snippets from our vantage point in the garden hub! (This is where all the people are. That's why there was virtually no line up at Tron.)

Small Pirates segment

Small Star Wars segment

After the show, most of the rest of the park were closed off. So really, all that was left for us to do was head back to the hotel. But after such an eventful day, turns out we were pretty hungry. At least, Glendon was really hungry haha. So on our way back to the bus loop through Disneytown, we decided to pop into Ippudo for some Japanese ramen and gyoza. (Glendon decided to break the whole “let’s eat local style foods” thing and was craving Japanese even though we were going to be in Japan in a few days haha)

Late night ramen

And our late night gyoza

And then we finally made it back to the hotel, and completed our first official day in our brand new park. We were extremely excited, and it was still a shock to us that we were in SHANGHAI. This trip that has been in the works for so long, it’s finally happened, and we had completed day 1 of parks. The best part was, it seemed as though our plane-sleep-routine we tried to do seemed to have worked, as we basically had a pretty normal day with little-to-no jet lag. Mind you… park hours were 9am to 8pm. So by the time we got back to the hotel and into bed and falling asleep, it was only 10pm haha. But alas, fell asleep at a decent time we did. Necessary for our next day of adventures!





Next to come… Shanghai Disneyland DAY 2!!!!

 

[jesterrific]

Day 4 [part 1]: Goooooood Morning Shanghai! (Second Park Day!)​

Before we fell asleep, we all came to the consensus to turn down the temperature in the room. Nobody said it that morning, but before falling asleep we all mentioned that the night before seemed to have gotten SO hot during the night time. SO before sleeping, we turned the temperature to about 17 degrees celsius. Which to me, sounds like too cold since at home we keep a continual condo temperature of around 20 degrees celsius. Either they turn off the AC or they just regulate ALL the rooms at the same temperatures regardless of what you try to set the room as, or there’s just literally NO circulation… because every single one of us sort of woke up in the middle of the night sweating and kicking all the blankets off. Not sure if that’s the jet lag waking us up at 4 in the morning or the ridiculous humid heat… either way we all sort of didn’t have the smoothest of sleeps. But that’s okay. Come 7am it was time to get up and head down to Sunnyside Cafe to eat so we could head back over to the park!!!

This morning I had a very traditional breakfast… CHICKEN CONGEE

Congee is basically rice. But made with a whole ton of water. So it’s like a soup rice. Chinese porridge basically, with rice haha. This one was with chicken, and they also came with some packets of peanuts, some marinated bamboo shoots, and a Chinese donut. Again, your meal came with a beverage as well! (The coffee is basically just a package of instant coffee ahaha. Also, you have to be very very careful when you fill your cups with the hot water. It’s HOT. We grabbed some ice cubes to go, so that we could add them to our hot beverages so we could actually drink them. Again, the water is HOT.)

I’m ambitious so I threw everything of all my packets in.

Glendon decided to have the dim sum breakfast, with siu mai and buns. Brian had an American breakfast again, and Jenna have the same buns she got yesterday.

Right outside the doors of Sunnyside Cafe in the courtyard, there is a giant Buzz Lightyear statue.

Yes, I approve! I love how much Toy Story stuff there is

The front of the hotel is so cute. The entrance looks like a giant toy box.

(We definitely did a photo op in the toy display window later on)


And here is the bus stop sign! I think it’s cute

We were actually a little bit worried. This was a Saturday now, and already just waiting for the bus we could already feel that it was a lot busier than our previous day. Yikes. Did we wake up early enough?? How many people are already waiting at security?? Our bus was PACKED! Ahhh… but that’s okay right? Whatever happens will happen. When we got off the bus we went immediately to the security area.

I couldn’t help myself. I had to snap this photo because IT’S SO CUTE

Our plan for the morning was to run over to Soaring to either grab a fast pass or wait in line. But uh oh… They were already letting people into the park, we didn’t have to wait long at security. And as soon as people got through the ticketing gates, people were RUNNING. WHAT DO THEY KNOW THAT WE DON’T IT MUST BE SOARING. YES THEY ARE ALL RUNNING TOWARDS SOARING!!! Sadly, we found out they still weren’t doing fast passes for Soaring. SO the boys decided to high tail it to Tron to grab fast passes for all of us, and Jenna and I were to hopefully get in line for Soaring. A little risqué, as all the signs say you have to keep your party together when waiting in line ahaha.

I had planned on vlogging, so I have this ridiculous reaction video aha

Basically right after I took that video, the line up kept on increasing. Literally it felt like every single person who was entering the park booked it straight to Soaring. The park hasn’t even opened yet, and the line up was at 180 minutes and still growing. We were not wasting our morning waiting in line with everyone else. SO when Glendon and Brian managed to get back to us with our Tron fast passes, we decided we were doing the ropes courses at Camp Discovery! (This was on our “must do” so we were really excited!)

Camp Discovery Challenge Trails

View of the first few trails, and mountain

Rules of the Challenge Trails

Secure all loose items in lockers or leave with non-participant.
The harness must be worn at all times while on the experience.
Harness cannot be altered or adjusted after being inspected by the Challenge Trail Guide.
Do not touch the overhead tracking system.
Lanyard line should stay in front of you and between your shoulders at all times.
No running, jumping, hanging in harness, falling on purpose or horseplay.
Follow all instructions given by Challenge Trail Guides.
No food, candy or gum in your mouth while on the course. No spitting please.
Only one participant on a challenge at a time, unless a child is being assisted by a supervising companion.

1. Put harness on.
2. Attach harness and adjust harness.
3. Attach lanyard.
4. Adjust lanyard.
5. Remove harness and lanyard.

Pretty simple. If you’ve ever done any sort of these aerial courses before it’s the same thing, really. Except we had heard that this course had some paths that were downright SCARY. So of course, we were excited to see what they were all about! Don’t worry though, at each pass, there was always three options for you to get to the next landing: an easy one, one that’s difficult, and one right in between. You can visually see which one is harder than the others haha. Unfortunately, they didn’t allow ANYTHING on you at all, including all cell phones, wallets, cameras, anything… So those all got locked up in the lockers before getting harnessed up! (That’s what the big line up is for… to get yourself a locker. There’s only a smaller line after the lockers when you get fitted for a harness.)

SO here is my last photo before we put all our stuff away

I didn’t try to be bold and sneak something on. I know they have security cameras throughout the course. This is so they can get to you if for some reason you were having difficulties. And also to scold you if you had anything like a camera with you. Yes, I have indeed been scolded at our local ropes course once. Hence why I didn’t want to risk it again, especially in a foreign country where they could also kick me out of the park that I’ve worked so hard to get to haha.


Overall we had a good time! Some of the harder paths were literally impossible for me to get through. I’m simply just not tall enough, and my legs aren’t long enough for me to reach the next rope haha. So I took a lot of intermediate paths. But the REALLY SCARY one that we heard so much about. It’s basically a giant cave inside that lovely mountain. And you’d have to shimmy along a teeny tiny little edge to get to the other side while there’s a big waterfall in the middle of the cave hole! Brian and I had definitely thought we would TRY it. But luck was not on our side (or maybe it just meant we were not meant to do it at all…) they closed this path off! It did look ridiculously slippery. Still… it looked interesting haha. And if somehow we got a camera in, we definitely would have wanted photos if we got to do it! By the time we got near the end the course, though, you could tell tons of people also gave up on waiting for Soaring. The course was getting PACKED with people. And the whole only one person on a challenge at a time rule went out the door. It wasn’t so fun anymore when you’re trying to get through a difficult challenge and someone else has started right behind you and all the ropes are shaking and then you start worrying about weight limits ahahaha.


After our ropes course, we decided to go and ride Pirates! But sadly, luck was NOT on our side this morning. You could definitely feel the difference in crowd levels now that it was a saturday. Pirates was at 120 minutes!!! Since we got to ride it a few times the day before, and since we were pretty confident the wait time will go down later in the day, we decided to skip Pirates. We figured that all the people who either already finished riding Soaring or had given up, went to the closest next land: Pirates. So after all the morning rush died down, the wait time must go down, right? SO change of plans! On to the next land.

But first… miraculously no one was lining up for a photo op.

(Which then after we got our photos people were queuing up right behind us.)​

We decided to get ourselves some fast passes for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. We didn’t really have any sort of plans to ride it since it looks the same as the one in Disney World. But since we didn’t have anything else planned, why not get a fast pass, right? The fast passes for the rides in Fantasyland are in a central area inside of Fantasyland. And again, there was a line up. But that’s okay, gave us JUST enough time to wait out the wait time until we could get a new fast pass since we got Tron passes first thing in the morning.

See you later, Seven Dwarfs!

Even though by this time it was still only 10am (park opened at 9am), breakfast felt like too many hours ago. But it was only 10, so we decided we would grab some snacks! Right by the fast pass station there were two really exciting stands.

Brian got a churro!

And… Jenna and I got our Mickey savoury buns!

THEY ARE SO CUTE!

And the wrapper too haha

We decided that we would do the castle walk through until it was time for our Tron fast pass. So, more park wandering!

Hundred Acre Wood sign

The Snuggly Duckling that’s called Tangled Tavern

It looks so good from back here!


A small shop

But that Olaf sweater. We found it

A BEAST STUFFY

And I made my very first pressed coin of the trip!!!

I looooooove collecting pressed coins. But they aren’t as big of a thing in Shanghai, it seemed. I think this was the first machine we saw. I just chose a plain Shanghai Disneyland begin with the castle! After dollar conversion, it came to about $3CAD, which felt kind of expensive for a pressed coin, so I only got the one for Shanghai. Plus they don’t have pennies there so it was called a medallion.







UP NEXT…. Castle Walkthrough, more Meet and Greets

 

[TestingH2O]

Glad you’re back and I hope Summer was lots of fun!

I didn’t even know that Tron existed until this report. My brother and I loved that move so it was fun to see all the photos and videos.

That Buzz statue is cute.

What a fun trip!

 

[theseacallsme]

Yay! I love your trip report! Shanghai Disney looks SO different; I can't wait to visit some day!

 

[bcwife76]

Yay glad you're back! I love the fireworks photos, you did a great job!

Oh my gosh you guys LOVE Tron haha I need to find out when it's opening at WDW, hopefully I can try it.

*edit* Just checked, probably won't open til 2021 sometime. Bah, too far off!

 

[jesterrific]

Glad you’re back and I hope Summer was lots of fun!

I didn’t even know that Tron existed until this report. My brother and I loved that move so it was fun to see all the photos and videos.

That Buzz statue is cute.

What a fun trip!

Hahahaha can you tell that we quickly became OBSESSED with Tron

 

[jesterrific]

Yay! I love your trip report! Shanghai Disney looks SO different; I can't wait to visit some day!

I hope you get to!!! It's quite an experience! Not as many rides yet, though, but still enjoyable!

 

[jesterrific]

Yay glad you're back! I love the fireworks photos, you did a great job!

Oh my gosh you guys LOVE Tron haha I need to find out when it's opening at WDW, hopefully I can try it.

*edit* Just checked, probably won't open til 2021 sometime. Bah, too far off!

Hahahaha isn't it sad that 2021 feels like a million years away? I think it's just so enjoyable because it feels so immersive. I love that about Disney, you forget about everything else haha.

 

[GlassAct]

This report is great! Love seeing the different food and snacks!

 

[jesterrific]

This report is great! Love seeing the different food and snacks!

I'm glad! Thanks for following along, I still have a whole ton more to tell haha

 

[jesterrific]

Day 4 [part 2]: Castle Walkthrough, Meet and Greets!​

For some reason, for the life of us the day before, we could not find the entrance to the castle walkthrough. We walked through the bottom of the castle, saw the restaurant, but not the attraction line. SO when we got to the castle, we thought we would have to spend a lot of time wandering the entire outside of the castle before we could find the entrance. I think the attraction is called “Once Upon a Time” Adventure.


Anyways, as mentioned before, this was Saturday, and already we were feeling the crowds a lot more than the day before. SO it wasn’t all that hard to find where the line up for the walk through was. Because there was a long line. And now that we’ve seen where it was, it was kind of silly that we did not see it at all the day before. It’s literally just on the outside of the castle. The line up said it was a 15 minute wait, so we hopped in line.

A view of the ceiling while we were in line

First there was a small line outside. Then you step into the castle and you end up in this queue area with switchbacks. The line ended up being longer than 15 minutes, closer to over half an hour, so we spent quite a while staring at the ceiling. It looked really cute, but at the same time you could tell how quickly they put it all together, or didn’t maintain it, or whichever it was. At first glance up you notice that half the lights are out. Then since you’re already looking up, and you’re like us, you start noticing that some of the pieces weren’t painted. Or that it’s missing an entire chunk of something. Or the paintwork was sloppy in general. Oops. I don’t think they realized there would be ridiculous people like us who would stare at stuff like that. Or maybe they just don’t care, haha.


Anyways!!! We finally made it in, and it’s kind of a guided tour. You go in with a group, and the first thing that happens is you go up a set of stairs. Along the staircase there are these displayers with disney princesses. So here are the ones we walked passed (we kind of got ushered through really quick to get to the show scenes up ahead) … (sorry a lot of these are blurry because I was climbing stairs and snapping while trying to keep up with the group heh)

Elsa and Anna (and Olaf)

A window

Merida and the triplets

Rapunzel

Tiana

Mulan

Pocahontas

The blurriest Jasmine ever

Book reading Belle

Ariel

Aurora

Cinderella!

And of course, the last one, Snow White

And just before the show room…

SO!! The castle walk through attraction is actually different animates scenes in a succession of rooms. I guess it’s kind of like the sleeping beauty walk through in Disneyland in California, except that each room is an animated scene. I didn’t get any photos since the rooms are dark, but the animations were all in Chinese, and the animation itself is kind of a more… cutesy Snow White? It’s kind of weird I’m not sure how to explain it. But anyways, there were a few scenes that gives you a quick overview of the storyline. Also, they don’t let you walk through the scenes if you don’t want to watch the animations. To be honest, it was not really worth the half hour+ wait haha. We were DEFINITELY underwhelmed. We didn’t love the weird animation style.

After the show scenes you get to walk through the castle. This part is pretty cool since you get to be inside the walls! There is a nice courtyard in the middle.

View of the courtyard and fountain through the windows

You can’t walk through it, but you do get to walk around it haha

From inside the walls

After our walkthrough, it was time to redeem our Tron Fast Pass! (I didn’t go excessive photo taking this time, so there won’t be a succession of Tron photos haha.) Glendon’s stomach was still kind of unhappy, so he wanted to see if I was able to ask the cast members if we could wait for the wheelchair assessable vehicles. I somehow managed to pull through with my broken mandarin to request it, and they understood! I’d say that was a win for me and I was rather proud of myself haha.

Just a quick video of pulling into the launch area from the back of the ride.

While sitting up in the seats at the back of the ride isn’t the same as riding on your stomach, if you get a chance to ride it I’d say it’s still pretty fun! Especially since it’s the back of the vehicle so you get all the forces. You can still lean over to hold onto the handles to get that “bike experience” but because now it’s like riding a regular roller coaster, I think it’s kind of fun to just sit back with your arms in the air haha. I’m kind of glad Glendon wasn’t feeling well and we got to experience that!


At the exit where the “Tron Realm” (Chevrolet Digital Challenge) there are some fun activities to do. There are vehicles to look at and digital games. Similar to Test Track in Epcot where you get to play random things.

We enjoyed playing this digital disc game thing

After riding Tron we decided to pop back over to Marvel Universe to try and catch a meet and greet with Captain America! And we were in luck!!! So exciting! There was a bit of a line but we didn’t mind.

“Captain America” sign in Mandarin (I think so, anyways)

Omg, just about the cutest thing we’ve seen yet

He was SO excited to meet Captain America!​

And our photo!

We definitely weren’t as cute as the mini Captain America, but we had a good time at the Meet and Greet. It felt like we had a longer meet and greet (the guy seemed to have gotten a little bit more excited to have been able to have full conversations since we speak English) We liked him. We think he made a pretty good Captain America. And Brian and I are kind of picky so not bad! After Captain America, we decided to go see Mickey again!

There were definitely a lot more people in the lineup than the day before, and we waited around in the animation room longer. At least we were entertained and got to look at all the photos and mini animations.

Jenna and Brian’s photo

Glendon and I’s photo

(I thought Glendon was putting up fists, I said why!!! but he was saying that he was holding his sweater like Mickey was holding his jacket ahaha. Hard to see when your sweater is black!)​

A view of the castle through the gate at Gardens of Imagination

The parade was about to start again, so we thought this was a good time for us to leave. We took some photos on our way out, since everyone was ready to watch the oncoming parade! We also planned to head over to the Shanghai Disneyland Hotel, to check it out and hopefully grab some lunch while we are there!




Up next… photos on Mickey Avenue and Shanghai Disneyland Hotel!