WARNING!
THIS BLOG POST WILL BE ABOUT DISNEY!
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
OK, you still here? Good. Some folks get tired of hearing about Disney all the time. But hey, when you go to Disneyland with your family, you want to talk about it and post pics, right? And, if you go to Disneyland… In Hong Kong… it sounds even cooler, right? Right???
China has a National Day just like the States have Independence Day. But instead of a day off from work or school, we got a whole week. I ain’t complaining. We knew we wanted to use this first holiday to get away for a bit so our first thought – Disneyland. Its not too far away from us, and after a quick web search, we found out that it was a LOT cheaper than the Mickey lands stateside. We decided to even stay at Disney for a few days because of the great prices of their hotels. We were waiting for payday to actually make our purchase, so we hadn’t pulled the trigger on anything the week leading up to the holiday. That’s when we got some red flags about our trip that had us second and third guessing our plans. The folks at work told me that Disneyland Hong Kong may be slammed full of Chinese during the holiday because, well, it’s a holiday. We aren’t the Disney family that will stand in lines for hours, so we immediately began to work on Plan B.
Plan B could have been a trip to Vietnam or South Korea or Thailand or any other little trip that was dirty cheap. We even looked into a really cheap flight to Russia, but we need visas and that would have taken more time to get than we had. But that’s a trip we’re now thinking about for the future! We still weren’t sure what we wanted to do the Friday before the weeklong holiday started. That’s when we heard that Disneyland might not be so crowded. Why? The Hong Kong protests. If you have no idea what I mean by that, just watch some national news. There was a news article we found that said Disneyland Hong Kong was almost empty because tourists were scared away from Hong Kong for fear of their safety. Now, thankfully we know that Disneyland is pretty far away from where the actual protests are/have been taking place, so we (well me. Alanna wasn’t so sure) were fairly certain that we would be fine making it to and from Disney. So, after going from Plan A to Plan B and then back to Plan A, we finally booked our tickets and hotel reservations the NIGHT BEFORE WE LEFT, and were all set to head to the happiest place in the world. Oh, and we still got a really good deal.
When travelling to Disney in the states, you will most likely drive there if you’re close enough to do so, or hop on a plane, rent a car, take the shuttle, the works. For us in China? Let’s just say it was a process. The short version – we took a car to a border – went through Chinese immigration office – went through customs – got on a bus – crossed the world’s longest bridge – which also went through an underwater tunnel – arrived in Hong Kong – went through Hong Kong immigration – went through customs – got on another bus – made it to Disney – got on another bus – arrived at a Disney hotel. Total time travelled? About four hours. But it was a smooth four hours will minimal snags or breakdowns from our children, so I consider that a win. We also didn’t let the kids know we were going to Disney, only to Hong Kong, so when we finally arrived at Disney and they saw where we were, we became the parents of the year.
For those of you that are interested, I’ll give you a quick highlight/review of Disneyland Hong Kong –
Overview –
The park itself is much smaller than the American counterparts. Most people say you could hit everything in one full day, but we went for two days so we could take our time. Disney HK is basically just one park – Magic Kingdom kind of thing which consists of Main Street USA, Tomorrowland, Adventureland, Fantasyland, Toy Story Land, Grizzly Gulch and Mystic Point. For those of you that are Disney veterans, please forgive me if I get anything wrong or it sounds a little off – its been awhile since I’ve been to a Disney park. The last time was Disneyworld with the college crew in 1994.
The Hotel –
Our hotel was one of the older ones, though still in great condition and very nice. The room had two Double Beds. Yeah, I know. That was the largest bed we could get unless you only got a one King Room, but I couldn’t throw the kids on the floor. So, we squeezed into those Double beds for two nights. There’s a dinner and breakfast buffet here and Chef Mickey visited us both times to take photos. Most of the food is still of an Asian flare, but there’s a decent amount of western items sprinkled in so that my kids could get some calories. While the dinner was great, the breakfast buffet was DA BOMB. Anything you could think of, they had. Well, except for grits. But its China.
The hotel also had a grand piano-shaped pool we took full advantage of, as well as a nice walking area with a view of the Hong Kong coastline. The shuttle bus to and from the hotel to the park took us less than 5 minutes. Alanna and I agreed we made the right decision on staying on Disney island.
Main Street USA –
The area everyone is funneled into once you get into the park. You’ll find all the overpriced Disney swag, photo hawkers, survey takers and everything else helpful for your journey down this crowded road.
Tomorrowland –
We headed straight to Space Mountain, or as it’s called in HK land, Hyperspace Mountain. They basically modified the whole thing to have a Star Wars theme to it. The line wasn’t bad. We even got to sit in the very front. I love rollercoasters and from what I remember – Space Mountain was pretty tame by coaster standards. Hyperspace, however, was about 90% dark the entire time, with occasional Star Wars sounds and lights that would pop up now and then. Logan and I had a decent time, my wife and daughter hated it like the plague and also hated me for next hour. There was a great Disney ride photo of all four of us – Logan and I smiling, having a good time, Alanna looking like she was going to puke, and Abby with her head between her legs. The photo was blurry though and not worth buying, but it completely captured each of our feelings while travelling at light speed.
Other highlights of Tomorrowland – Antman and Wasp ride – your standard sit in a cart and ride slowly around while shooting at targets. The Iron Man Experience – 3D VR ride. This was fun, but Alanna broke the machine. Like, literally.
Alanna has one superpower, and that is that anytime she is around technology, she shorts it out with her mind. We had to wait 5 minutes in our seats while they repaired whatever was wrong with the ride. Multiple technicians were called in to fix the problem before we were allowed to ride it.
We also ate lunch in Tomorrowland. This isn’t America Disney, so you don’t find all that scrumptious junk food here. It has more of a Chinese flare, which of course, our children didn’t enjoy. Typical park food though, nothing to write home about.
We also signed up the kids for the Jedi Training show, which was done in a weird combination of Chinese and English. Abby had a breakdown before the show even began and was dropped from the cast. Logan stayed in for the long haul, looking half bored most of the time as he could only understand 50% of what the Jedis were saying. Vader spoke English though, so I guess English is the Dark Side language. He did love fighting Darth Vader with his light saber.
Fantasyland –
Main thing to see here was the Castle, but it is currently getting a facelift. Maybe next year. Other things here were – the Carousel, Dumbo ride, Tea Cup ride, It’s a Small World ride. No one threw up on the Tea Cups, though Alanna was the smart one by not participating and just taking pictures from afar. The highlight of the area? It’s Small World. I think people either love or hate this ride. I think I thought it was dumb when I was in college. Doing it with my kids? Had a blast. True, it does have a China slant, but hey, when in China. The Americas were lumped together with the US mostly just being about the Wild West. But it was a blistering hot day in HK, so the chance to relax in a dark, well air-conditioned environment for a 10 minute boat trip around the world was a welcomed break from the outside world.
This section of Disney also had Mickey’s PhilharMagic, which was the 4D movie experience. It was crowded, but fun and my kids were really confused when they got wet while watching a movie.
This is also where we took in the big afternoon parade. It was a very random thing, unplanned for us, and a lucky deal we were right on the street, no one in front of us and had the perfect view. Disney parades are an awesome experience and HK Disney did a great job with theirs as well. We took way too many pictures here but it was worth it to stand there in the blinding sun and heat to watch the floats, characters and dancers go by us one by one.
Adventureland –
We’ll call this jungle area? Yeah, the jungle area. The highlight was Jungle River Cruise. You were able to select which language you wanted your tour guide to speak by getting in “that” line. Park goers had three choices – Cantonese (Hong Kong speakers), Mandarin (Most of China) or English (Dumb white people like us). This was Logan’s least favorite ride, as the boat motor was too loud and the lady on the speaker was way too noisy for his ears. Alanna and I loved this ride though because the tour guides are unintentionally hilarious. English obviously wasn’t there first language and listening to them describe our trip down the river was a treat to the ears indeed.
We passed by Tarzan’s treehouse on the boat and saw people climbing up and down a lot of stairs. None of us were about that life and decided to skip it. We had some snacks in this area and fed popcorn to birds while arguing about whether Toppins/Tuppins in Mary Poppins were the food you gave the birds or the money you paid to the lady to feed the birds. Answer? Tuppence – two pennies, for goods or services.
Grizzly Gulch –
A Wild West type of area, with not much to do other than the Runaway Mine Cars coaster. It’s a fun ride that goes forwards, then backwards and then fast forward. Just me and Logan for this one, both of us enjoyed the trip. Because we bought the Disneyland package, it included one priority pass in which we could bypass any one ride. There were at least 200 people in line for this ride, so we decided to use our pass to go around all 200 people and hop right on! That was a pretty nice perk.
Mystic Point –
This area is dominated by Mystic Manor, Hong Kong Disney’s version of The Haunted Mansion. Apparently Chinese culture isn’t that into scary stuff. I was worried about this ride, as The Haunted Mansion was such a neat ride from my memories that I figured that Mystic Manor would pale in comparison. Thankfully we were all pleasantly surprised. Mystic Manor follows a storyline of an antique collector who brings back a magic box from his travels. His pet monkey opens the box, which releases the magic that brings all the other antiques, statues and everything else in the manor to life. While there really wasn’t anything spooky about it, the family had a blast and were happy we gave it a shot.
Toy Story Land –
This seemed to be the newest area of the park and also the most crowded. We didn’t spend too much time here. I rode the RC Racer coaster, which is basically the old pirate ship ride that goes back and forth, except you’re in a toy remote control car instead. This was my favorite of the thrill rides at Disney HK. We also got a nice photo op with Woody and Jessie while here in Toy Story Land as well.
That’s Disneyland Hong Kong in a nutshell. We like to make things a little more interesting when we travel though. So, we decided to be sick while on the trip as well! Logan was just coming off a nasty little bout of sickness heading into the trip, which he in turn gave to me. It didn’t hit me until I woke up that first morning in the hotel. Flu-like symptoms galore – headache, sinus, sneezing, coughing, sore throat. We picked up some kind of medicine at the hotel gift shop, which did absolutely nothing for me. I was pretty miserable physically the entire trip, but did my best to champion on and take one for the team. Let me tell you though – there’s nothing like having flu-like symptoms, hot and humid weather, amusement park food, walking 10 miles a day and riding thrill rides all rolled into one.
Want to know my favorite part of the trip? I had to think long and hard about this one, as Disney always offers many amazingly good and bad experiences each time you go. I, however, wanted something more than “this cool ride” or that “awesome parade” as my favorite memory of the trip. While all that stuff was amazing, it was a singular moment during It’s a Small World that stuck out most for me. What was it, you may ask? It was… standing in line.
Yes, standing in line, the thing that people, including myself, usually hate the most about theme parks was in fact the highlight of my trip. While standing in long lines can leave you frustrated and annoyed, I found the one thing that makes my world go around – my wife and kids. We would stand there, move a little, stand around some more, and on and on. It was during these pauses in time though that I could talk to my kids, kiss my wife, and really appreciate the amazing life we all have. I wasn’t thinking about work, or American politics, or protests, or my stuffy nose. I was interacting with the people that matter most in my life. Sure, my kids were impatient and cried now and then, my wife got nauseous on most of the rides, but standing in those lines is something I will always treasure. The little pauses between this and that is where I want to live my life.
