Monday, April 1 - Dragon Wind Breakfast and Early Entry
I had a horrible habit on this trip of waking up at 4 or 5 am before our park days because I was so excited. At the same time, at least it meant I was always ready to get an early start! We went to Dragon Wind for breakfast right as they opened at 7:30 am. I booked our hotel rate without breakfast included, just so we would have some flexibility, but decided to get a nice big meal in before our park day. The cost was 328 HK$/$42 USD and it was definitely worth it this day!
I could fill up an entire post with just breakfast pictures, but I will try to just show the highlights
The buffet starts with a bunch of fresh dim sum, we are in Hong Kong after all!
They they had a live station where you could customize noodle soup bowls, along with some other various hot Asian dishes. They also had a congee station with 2 base options. OMG I don't know what they put in it here, but the Explorers Lodge has turned me into a Congee lover. Their flavors change daily and my favorite today was a Chicken and Pumpkin one.
They also had some great fresh fruits, an array of salads, western dishes, cereal, a carving station, and an omelet bar. The breads and pastry station included the obligatory Mickey Waffles, along with some Mickey muffins.
When you sit down at breakfast, they give you a card with your arrival time as there is a 1 hour limit on the buffet. You also get a card for the character meeting, which is once per table. The character meeting on a given day is random, so we were super excited to see Goofy come out at 8am! He is my DH's favorite, so we were lucky. They had an official photopass photographer there, but also a cast member who did a great job taking pictures on our phone for us.
We then headed out to the park for Early Entry. HKDL didn't officially open until 10 am the day we visited, so we decided to pay for Early Entry, which I think was about $20ish pp. The Explorer's Lodge has buses to the park, but since we weren't in a rush, we decided to walk to the park. There is a promenade along the water, along with a sidewalk along the street, and we went with the sidewalk since it is a bit faster. They really do a great job maintaining the grounds in Hong Kong, and it was a really peaceful walk. We didn't see anyone else walking to the park, I think most people took the buses. According to our photos, it was about a 20 minute leisurely walk.
We made it to the park entrance about 10 minutes before Early Entry, and at 9:05 am we were walking into the park. It was a bit of a surprise to see Duffy as the flower mural, but it was just a small hint at how big Duffy and Friends are here!
Crowds were definetly light for Early Entry, and we followed everyone back to the World of Frozen. For Early Entry, just the Frozen themed land and a few things in Fantasyland were open. On the way we snapped some castle pictures. I love seeing the mountains behind a Disney Castle!
Everyone was going towards the main ride, so we went to Oaken's Sliding Sleighs first. It was a walk on and we got the front row! As everyone has said it is a short ride, but it is good as a kids coaster. I don't think I would want to wait very long in line to ride it personally though.
Frozen Ever After was just like the Epcot version, but with much better animatronics. We waited about 10 minutes in line. I'm glad we went on it second, because once we got off Oaken's sleighs were at a 20 minute wait. We gave the land a quick look around, but then we headed out and went on the Pooh ride, another walk on and we got our own Honey Pot. This one is a nostalgic favorite from Magic Kingdom for both of us. If I'm not mistaken it was pretty much an exact copy.
And with that, it was 10 minutes until official park open. Like I mentioned before, I like to plan, so before our trip, I researched into Duffy and Friends. I knew a base line amount about them, especially since Duffy came to Epcot for a little bit. However, I wanted to know about each character and their personalities before we visited the Asian parks. This really came in handy, especially in Hong Kong. The level of popularity of these character that are basically unknown in the US is really hard to describe without experiencing it. Honestly, I think they get more love than the Fab 5 does in America.
With all that said, since we had a few minutes before the park opened, we decided to head over to the Duffy and Friends Playhouse to meet one of the characters. There are 3 meeting on any given day, and I am not sure if it is random or if there is a schedule I don't know about. On our day, it was LinaBell, StellaLou, and CookieAnn. There is a line out front of the Playhouse and then are walk through AR photo spots. Then, you get to pick one of the three characters to stand in line to meet. From my research, I was really liking LinaBell, so that's who we decided to meet. They let us into the Playhouse at park open, and we were 3rd in line for LinaBell. Then, at 10:15am the characters started meeting. The lines were building up behind us, so if you really want to meet one of these characters, the Early Entry really helps. The guided us into a separate room and we got to meet LinaBelle!
I almost never meet with characters in the US, but we had a great interaction with her. Like at breakfast, they had the official Photopass Photographer and someone to take pictures on your personal phone. Since we had such a great time, I was considering getting in line for StellaLou, but it was already at 45 minutes long. And LinaBell's line was already at 120 minutes at 10:30am! The lowest I saw it go all day was 90 minutes long which really shocked us.
Coming up, lots of snacks, rides, and a special Pin Trading Carnival!