{"id":8505,"date":"2014-06-15T21:58:35","date_gmt":"2014-06-16T04:58:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ever-lasting.net\/blog\/?p=8505"},"modified":"2021-08-08T12:25:59","modified_gmt":"2021-08-08T19:25:59","slug":"hong-kong-trip-report-disneyland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ever-lasting.net\/blog\/2014\/06\/15\/hong-kong-trip-report-disneyland\/","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong Trip Report: Disneyland"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m a huge fan of the Disney parks (Rob is too — begrudgingly :)) so one of my travel bucket list items was to visit all existing parks. And earlier this year we were able to cross that item off the list!<\/p>\n

We’ve been to the original Disneyland<\/a> more times than we can count (we’re lucky to have grown up with the park practically in our backyard). In 2011 we jump-started this quest with our 10 day trip to Walt Disney World<\/a>. Then we traveled to Tokyo Disneyland<\/a> in 2012, Disneyland Paris<\/a> in 2013 and finally Hong Kong Disneyland<\/a> earlier this year.<\/p>\n

We devoted about 1.5 days to Hong Kong Disneyland. The resort is pretty small and unlike all the others, it consists of Disneyland alone (all other resorts have a second gate). This was a good amount of time so we didn’t feel rushed.<\/p>\n


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We stayed on property at the Hollywood Hotel<\/a>, which was great. I loved the Hollywood theme and the art deco touches. I found it to be a really striking hotel.<\/p>\n


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We booked a “park view” room. Yes, Space Mountain and the RC Racer track is visible but I think this is more of a parking lot view. LOL. If I could go back, I’d probably select a garden view or sea view room.<\/p>\n


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I had to go out to the recreation area early in the morning to get a shot of this sign without anyone around. I was determined! I love it.<\/p>\n

Off to the park! From the hotel, we used the convenient shuttle bus. It runs frequently throughout the day and even late into the night which allowed us to visit the city after the park closed.<\/p>\n


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Ooohhh! So exciting!<\/p>\n

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A familiar sight — the main entrance plaza.<\/p>\n


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HAHA. On our second day, Rob’s ticket didn’t work so he had to wait while the gate attendant fixed it.<\/p>\n


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We’re in the park!<\/p>\n


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It happened to be the last weekend of their Chinese New Year celebration — loved seeing all the red and gold details and the characters in their traditional Chinese outfits.<\/p>\n


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At the end of Main Street USA is Sleeping Beauty’s castle.<\/p>\n


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The castle is virtually identical to Sleeping Beauty’s castle at the original Disneyland but in person it seemed smaller somehow. It also had more of a medieval look because of its muted colors.<\/p>\n


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Had to commemorate our visit with a picture in front of the castle.<\/p>\n

Outside of Main Street USA, there are six other themed lands. First let’s visit…<\/p>\n


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Toy Story Land! It was so cool to see all the signs in both English and Chinese. It’s pretty much identical to the same land at Walt Disney Studios in Paris. I love the vibrant colors and oversized feel of the land.<\/p>\n

As an aside, see how there’s no one around?! We arrived at park opening and felt like we had the entire park to ourselves. We managed to ride everything we wanted in a matter of hours (we spent the rest of the day eating and revising our favorite rides).<\/p>\n


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I didn’t chicken out of RC Racer this time (I did in Paris, haha) and we also rode the Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop.<\/p>\n


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The rides here are geared towards younger kids but these big kids enjoyed them too!<\/p>\n


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Mystic Point opened in May 2013 and is the newest land in the park. It has a really exotic, mysterious feel with its tropical rainforest theme. It’s beautiful. The only ride in this land so far is Mystic Manor, which is the park’s answer to Haunted Mansion. It features a trackless ride system and tells the story of Lord Mystic’s monkey Albert who opens a music box that brings everything in the house to life. Such a fun ride!<\/p>\n


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Grizzly Gulch is another new land recently opened in July 2012 and is the park’s take on Frontierland.<\/p>\n


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The main attraction in this land is the Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars. I LOVED IT! The first half is an easygoing train ride and at first part of me was thinking “is this it?” — when all of a sudden, the lift cable “breaks” and the cars are propelled backward at high speed. There’s a great ending sequence too but I won’t spoil the details. It’s too good!<\/p>\n


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This park’s Adventureland is the biggest of all the Disney parks. It’s particularly unique because Tarzan’s Treehouse is located on its own island.<\/p>\n


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The treehouse is accessible via a short ride on rafts.<\/p>\n


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You get a fun view of the park — that’s Disneyland Hotel in the background too.<\/p>\n


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Sadly we didn’t get to take pictures with Mickey & Minnie in their traditional outfits (I wasn’t paying attention to the times they were out, sigh). BUT we saw Duffy and Chip & Dale!<\/p>\n


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For lunch one day we went over to Crystal Lotus<\/a> at the Disneyland Hotel to enjoy their signature Disney dim sum. I LOVE dim sum so I wasn’t going to miss this!<\/p>\n


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Mickey seafood pancakes! YUM.<\/p>\n


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Little Green Men pork and vegetable buns. A little heavy on the bun versus filling but still so good.<\/p>\n


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Three Little Pigs barbecue pork buns and other dumplings. There were a few other character dishes but we tried not to go overboard (even though we totally did).<\/p>\n


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Loved seeing the castle as it started to get dark.<\/p>\n


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We had a great time and can’t wait to go back!<\/p>\n

Now I’m just waiting for Shanghai Disneyland<\/a> to open in late 2015… \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

For more pics, check our Flickr here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m a huge fan of the Disney parks (Rob is too — begrudgingly :)) so one of my travel bucket list items was to visit all existing parks. And earlier this year we were able to cross that item off … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[79,267,117,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ever-lasting.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8505"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ever-lasting.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ever-lasting.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ever-lasting.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ever-lasting.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8505"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/ever-lasting.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9140,"href":"http:\/\/ever-lasting.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8505\/revisions\/9140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ever-lasting.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ever-lasting.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ever-lasting.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}