I went to Hong Kong Disneyland or a full day in August, and wrote up some details about my trip for anyone looking to plan a trip!
Hong Kong Disneyland -- Park opened at 9:45 according to the website, but they let us in around 9:30. Not sure if the rides didn't open til 9:45, or what, but caught me off guard slightly. We took the subway to the park from downtown Hong Kong and it was very easy to do. You get off the train at the last stop, and you switch to a specific disney train with Mickey windows and different statues in the cars.
Rides:
1) Teacups - Same ride as in the US. Classic ride, but the teacups are VERY small and it was near impossible for 3 adults to fit.
2) Space Mountain was very similar to the rides in the US Parks, but it had all of the effects working and the ride mechanisms were very smooth. Great ride that we went on a few times throughout the day!
3) Toy Story Land - Not impressed with the rides that they had here (my little brother liked them) but the theming and overall appearance of the land is very cool. Really glad the DHS land will have all new rides.
4) Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin - Weird that it is not in Toy Story land (makes sense to me) but its the same ride as in Tomorrowland at MK.
5) Mickey's Philharmagic - The theater was very nicely laid out, but everyone stopped in the middle of the theater so we all walked all the way around and came in from the other side to get better seats. Luckily it was entirely in English too!
6) Mystic Manor - Really cool ride with lots of special effects. All of them were working great and if the wait didn't get so long near the end of the day i would have loved to have ridden this again. Wish they had something else in this area but it was just this ride and a restaurant so it was kinda quick to walk through and not do much in.
7)Big Grizzly Mine Car - Nice rollercoaster that reminded me a lot of Big Thunder Mountain mixed with Mine train mixed with Expedition Everest. Have some parts that go backwards. Very smooth ride system, and lots of neat scenery. Kind of weird that they didn't theme this around a Movie/Characters and it was just about bears in general.
8)Jungle Cruise - Very disappointing ride. The guides spoke very poor english (they had 3 versions, English, Cantonese, and Mandarin) and they did not do any Puns at all. The commentary was all "Look at the baby elephants" and "don't stick your hands out of the boat". Hiring an employee who speaks fluent english would help tremendously and i am curious if the other version had puns and was more similar to the US version?
9)Small world - have a huge walk up to the ride with an area dedicated to just this ride. Can hear the song for a while leading up to it as well. Pretty much the same ride but the main difference is that in each of the "countries" they put disney characters in the ride. Had Woody in a western themed area, Aladdin and jasmine in morocco, the 3 Cabballeros in Mexico, etc. Some fit really well and were cool to see, but others seemed forced. Overall a nice addition and a way to make this ride more "modern" and tailored to little kids.
10) Winnie the Pooh - Did a fast pass for this because the standby line was over 60 minutes when nothing else had a line in the park...no idea why it was so long. The ride was good, but basically identical to at WDW.
Food:
1) had all of the big snack foods, Carmel Corn, Churro, Mickey Ice Cream Bar, and tried to get a dole whip, but the 1 place in the park that they were sold was out of them...huge disappointment.
2) Only have 2 table service meal places and they all had pretty long waits but we ate at the Corner Cafe (sponsored by Coke). Had pretty good food, and both western and Chinese options. Nothing amazing but the Rueben i ordered was a good sandwich. Cost about $15 per plate so nothing outrageous.
3) Had dinner at the Tomorrowland cafe where the only item of note was the "Baymax Burger" which was a crab patty one a rice bun with some sort of avocado mayo. My little brother got it and said it was really good.
Shows:
1) Lion King - This was (unfortunately) different than at DAK. The story was weak, and they had no acrobats in the show other than 1 lady being a bird. They did nothing with the meerkats and it seemed very short. The theater was full and was still a good production but i was going in with the high expectations of DAK, and it fell short. Show was in english with a few parts in cantonese, but they also had TV monitors with translations around the theater.
2) Flight of Fantasy Parade - Very short parade, about 10 minutes long. High quality floats, including some lesser popular ones in the US (Lilo and Stitch, Pooh), and some staples (princesses, Lion King, Mickey, Tinkerbell).
3) Character Meetings - They had Duffy right at the front of the park when we walked in and there was a wait to see him. They also had some meetings with princesses near the castle throughout the day. And we went to the main character meeting square which was 5 gazebos with Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, and Pooh. One thing i noted was the awkwardness of Mickey/Minnie who were showing awkward amounts of PDA. Felt weird watching them walk into the are/leave and kept "kissing" each other and stuff (lasted probably 3 minutes).
4) Paint the Night parade - Great parade, and I assume very similar to the version at Disneyland in LA. Lots of floats, lasted around 25 minutes and was a great way to end the night. Left before the fireworks to beat some traffic to get on the subway back to downtown hong kong.
Hong Kong Disneyland -- Park opened at 9:45 according to the website, but they let us in around 9:30. Not sure if the rides didn't open til 9:45, or what, but caught me off guard slightly. We took the subway to the park from downtown Hong Kong and it was very easy to do. You get off the train at the last stop, and you switch to a specific disney train with Mickey windows and different statues in the cars.
Rides:
1) Teacups - Same ride as in the US. Classic ride, but the teacups are VERY small and it was near impossible for 3 adults to fit.
2) Space Mountain was very similar to the rides in the US Parks, but it had all of the effects working and the ride mechanisms were very smooth. Great ride that we went on a few times throughout the day!
3) Toy Story Land - Not impressed with the rides that they had here (my little brother liked them) but the theming and overall appearance of the land is very cool. Really glad the DHS land will have all new rides.
4) Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin - Weird that it is not in Toy Story land (makes sense to me) but its the same ride as in Tomorrowland at MK.
5) Mickey's Philharmagic - The theater was very nicely laid out, but everyone stopped in the middle of the theater so we all walked all the way around and came in from the other side to get better seats. Luckily it was entirely in English too!
6) Mystic Manor - Really cool ride with lots of special effects. All of them were working great and if the wait didn't get so long near the end of the day i would have loved to have ridden this again. Wish they had something else in this area but it was just this ride and a restaurant so it was kinda quick to walk through and not do much in.
7)Big Grizzly Mine Car - Nice rollercoaster that reminded me a lot of Big Thunder Mountain mixed with Mine train mixed with Expedition Everest. Have some parts that go backwards. Very smooth ride system, and lots of neat scenery. Kind of weird that they didn't theme this around a Movie/Characters and it was just about bears in general.
8)Jungle Cruise - Very disappointing ride. The guides spoke very poor english (they had 3 versions, English, Cantonese, and Mandarin) and they did not do any Puns at all. The commentary was all "Look at the baby elephants" and "don't stick your hands out of the boat". Hiring an employee who speaks fluent english would help tremendously and i am curious if the other version had puns and was more similar to the US version?
9)Small world - have a huge walk up to the ride with an area dedicated to just this ride. Can hear the song for a while leading up to it as well. Pretty much the same ride but the main difference is that in each of the "countries" they put disney characters in the ride. Had Woody in a western themed area, Aladdin and jasmine in morocco, the 3 Cabballeros in Mexico, etc. Some fit really well and were cool to see, but others seemed forced. Overall a nice addition and a way to make this ride more "modern" and tailored to little kids.
10) Winnie the Pooh - Did a fast pass for this because the standby line was over 60 minutes when nothing else had a line in the park...no idea why it was so long. The ride was good, but basically identical to at WDW.
Food:
1) had all of the big snack foods, Carmel Corn, Churro, Mickey Ice Cream Bar, and tried to get a dole whip, but the 1 place in the park that they were sold was out of them...huge disappointment.
2) Only have 2 table service meal places and they all had pretty long waits but we ate at the Corner Cafe (sponsored by Coke). Had pretty good food, and both western and Chinese options. Nothing amazing but the Rueben i ordered was a good sandwich. Cost about $15 per plate so nothing outrageous.
3) Had dinner at the Tomorrowland cafe where the only item of note was the "Baymax Burger" which was a crab patty one a rice bun with some sort of avocado mayo. My little brother got it and said it was really good.
Shows:
1) Lion King - This was (unfortunately) different than at DAK. The story was weak, and they had no acrobats in the show other than 1 lady being a bird. They did nothing with the meerkats and it seemed very short. The theater was full and was still a good production but i was going in with the high expectations of DAK, and it fell short. Show was in english with a few parts in cantonese, but they also had TV monitors with translations around the theater.
2) Flight of Fantasy Parade - Very short parade, about 10 minutes long. High quality floats, including some lesser popular ones in the US (Lilo and Stitch, Pooh), and some staples (princesses, Lion King, Mickey, Tinkerbell).
3) Character Meetings - They had Duffy right at the front of the park when we walked in and there was a wait to see him. They also had some meetings with princesses near the castle throughout the day. And we went to the main character meeting square which was 5 gazebos with Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, and Pooh. One thing i noted was the awkwardness of Mickey/Minnie who were showing awkward amounts of PDA. Felt weird watching them walk into the are/leave and kept "kissing" each other and stuff (lasted probably 3 minutes).
4) Paint the Night parade - Great parade, and I assume very similar to the version at Disneyland in LA. Lots of floats, lasted around 25 minutes and was a great way to end the night. Left before the fireworks to beat some traffic to get on the subway back to downtown hong kong.
