Alternate title - what the what, a blog post?
I finally remembered how to log back in....
As soon as MW booked the flight to HK I started planning the HK Disneyland trip. Disneyland in Tokyo and DisneySea were overwhelming and I didn't do enough planning - I wasn't going to make the same mistake twice.
Everything I read said HKD was a small park, easy to visit in one day but to get there early because the crowds show up later in the day. This is all very accurate. For us, the biggest downside was the rides and restaurants all closed well before the park closed. The day we visited, the park closed at 8pm and we missed riding the train because it shut down at 6pm! I'm used to the parks in the US where we are riding our last ride as the park closes. This was not the case in HKD. They even stop serving food early.
Tickets can be purchased online - in theory. I tried on the HKD website multiple times to purchase tickets, even with my credit card company on the line approving the foreign transaction, the purchase was denied on the HKD side. The same thing happened when MW tried to buy tickets and we had the same experience at the hotel with our concierge team. I wanted to buy tickets online so we would avoid lines first thing upon arrival. Our hotel did sell tickets, but they were the 'regular' tickets - clearly I wanted the "Priority +" tickets, no regular admission for us. The Priority + tickets are more expensive (but still a bargain compared to Disney US tickets) and for this additional cost you get priority access to 9 popular rides. The priority admission is in addition to the regular Fast Passes offered in the park.( Only three rides offer Fast Pass in HKD, pretty limited compared to the US parks.) We also purchased the meal combo. For a discounted fee you basically prepaid for two combo meals and a snack. The savings on the meal combo was a good value, but we could have skipped it and done dinner after HKD closed in the Disneyland Hotel. I had planned on three meals for us throughout the day, but really we only ate two. We ended up bringing the snack (caramel corn) back to the hotel for our concierge team as a treat for being so helpful.
One annoying thing about the tickets, each item beyond the admission ticket was a separate paper ticket. We had the regular admission ticket to get in to the park and to get fast passes. We had another set of tickets for the priority admission, and we had a third set of tickets for the meal purchase. They all looked the same aside from tiny writing on the back that required me to pull out glasses every time we needed a ticket for something.
For us the priority access was worth the extra cost. The park was relatively empty in the morning so we could hop on rides with a 5-10 minute wait. By lunch time the park was crowded and popular rides had wait times over 30 minutes. The cast members were also good at teaching us how to use the priority access, I wanted to just use them right away but they pointed out when the lines were short and to save the priority admission for later.
We used the HK metro to get to the resort. We had an unlimited pass that also gave us transportation to and from the airport. It worked out really well because our hotel was in a great location for taking the metro to and from the airport and to HKD. It was very easy and quick to take the train. When you get to the Disneyland Resort line, the trains are so cute! Mickey shaped windows and Mickey shaped handles to hold and even a statue of Jimny Cricket.
Even though the train was crowded, there was no line to buy admission tickets. They also had a cast member moving people to open ticket windows and making sure no one cut the line.
The entry plaza was decorated for the Lunar New Year (yay, year of the pig!) and I loved seeing all the characters represented in the decorations.
Once in the park, Main Street was fully decorated for the Lunar New Year.
I loved all the decorations - mixing Disney magic in to a holiday is the best.
And of course the Three Little Pigs were front and center.
MW noticed this as we were walking down Main St. Oh Imagineers you are are the best!
Also featured on Main Street was Cookie, a new friend of Duffy. Cookie is a very sweet dog who likes cotton candy waffle sandwiches - because why not make a sandwich from cotton candy and waffles!
Duffy and his friends all have Mickey shaped foot prints. So cute!
Once I was able to break away from Main Street I stopped taking photos - guess I was too busy enjoying the rides!
Hyperspace Mountain was great - it is basically Space Mountain with a Star Wars overlay and music. Love it - the Star Wars theme added to the ride.
Toy Story Land - why didn't I take any photos? It was so cute, all the details were amazing. The Toy Soldier Parachute Drop was definitely a favorite ride. It is a drop ride but had a controlled relaxed drop that gave you a good view of the park with a little thrill. I think we rode it three times.
Mystic Manor is the HKD answer to the Haunted Mansion. The ride runs on some fancy magnetic track so the cars just seem to hover through the Mansion. The ride had some great special effects. We only got to ride it once because by 7:30pm they had already shut it down for the night.
The most thrilling ride for us was the Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars. We thought it was going to be the same as Big Thunder, but it had a big surprise for us. At one point the train goes backwards and then after that it speeds up significantly. It was really fun and we were definitely not expecting to go backwards.
The food was excellent. All of the food was counter or quick service, no actual sit down restaurants in the park. We had lunch at Tahitian Terrace. We got in line as soon as it opened at noon and it was completely disorganized. They have different sections that serve different food, you need to know what you want and get in the right line - we managed to do that but then we had to wait an incredibly long time for any food to get served. I really don't know the issue but there were a lot of cast members looking busy but not putting out food. Dinner was similar, we ate at the Explorer's Club. Same kind of situation, you needed to decide what you wanted to eat and then get in the right line. The food was definitely served more quickly. I had a reservation at Crystal Lotus at the Disneyland Resort Hotel for a late dinner after the park closed but we ended up cancelling the reservations. We did not need another meal. Crystal Lotus is known for delicious dim sum - I would recommend one meal at the park, a snack at the park, and then dinner at the Resort after the park closes.
We did have the best snack. As soon as I saw the sign for egg waffles I knew I had to have one.
A fresh made egg waffle was wrapped around a whipped vanilla custard. It was so good. The custard was light and creamy and not too sweet. The egg waffle was crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. It was made to order and well worth the wait. I'm pretty sure I need an egg waffle maker!
We had a great day at HKD but we would have done a few things differently to enjoy more rides and less food in the park. I would definitely get the Priority + ticket again. For us, it was worth the extra cost. It allowed us to ride all of the rides we wanted (aside from the train) at least once.
I did some great shopping at HKD, they had some fantastic Lunar New Year deals. I think my treasures will have to be a separate post...
