Since I’ve only just done a Hong Kong Disney report, this one is going to focus mainly on the Halloween event this year.
From Thursday until Sunday throughout October, the park is open until 11pm instead of the usual 9pm, and it’s possible to get cheaper night-time tickets which allow access after 6pm. This was perfect as I didn’t really want or need to spend a full day after only just visiting, and yesterday I managed to get out of work at 4pm, meaning I could get home, get changed etc. and head to the park, giving me a full five hours there.
The ticket’s about £12 cheaper than a full day ticket, so for a first time visitor it’s well worth the extra for the full day, but for locals who just want to spend a few hours after work/school etc., it’s perfect.
I don’t think I posted any pictures of the Disneyland Metro train before. There’s a separate MTR line for the Disney resort that’s connected to the main system. The trains are really cool.
There were lots of people getting on the train as I was getting off, which I took to be a good sign as it meant that a lot of the day visitors were leaving.
As it turned out, I got there a little early, so just had to hang out around at the fountain for half an hour with about a hundred or so other people who clearly had the same ticket, which was fine as I got to see the “show” for the first time. Basically, it’s just coloured lights, music and a bit of “dancing” water, which I’m sure would actually look really good at night. I think it runs every 15 minutes or so.
I headed straight for the first scare attraction at the end of Main Street. There’s some nice theming in the area.
At first, I didn’t see the entrance, so I had a wander back down Main Street. It gets dark really quickly in Hong Kong, by the time I’d figured out that I had actually been right next to the entrance – the queue is hidden in the trees – and walked back up (about 5 minutes), the park was already looking like this:
Graves Academy had quite a long queue. I ended up waiting about 45 minutes. To be fair though, whenever I passed it later, the queue didn’t seem to be much better. You can’t take photos inside, not that I would want to anyway, but here’s the entrance to Graves Academy:
I’m not really up on my scare mazes, so I don’t have a huge amount to compare it to, but I was really, really impressed. The idea is basically a haunted, Victorian boarding school, and you walk through different areas of the school. I can’t remember the order or a lot of detail, but these areas included a couple of classrooms with desks and chairs moving around the floor, offices, a library with a fab librarian behind a central desk, an infirmary with syringe-wielding nurses, a dormitory, a gym, changing/shower rooms, various corridors with doors all along the side, a kitchen, a meat freezer with bodies hanging in it – after you went into this room you stopped, the whole room moved and you went back out the way you came, only into a different part of the “school”. The whole thing lasted about 10 minutes.
There were actors all the way through it – there must’ve been between 20-30, who were basically just the typical “jump out and say boo” variety, and you could usually make a pretty good guess at when they would pop out. The costumes and makeup were great though. The sets were amazing and the atmosphere was really creepy. The actors jumping out made it less scary in a way because people in the group would be laughing at themselves and each other when they jumped. It was completely not Disney at all, yet somehow wasn’t completely undisney either, as the whole thing was done in a very tongue-in-cheek, rather than all out scary, way.
By the time I got out, it was completely dark and really atmospheric.
The Chernobog statue wasn’t particularly big, but was still impressive set amongst the gravestones with the mist swirling around it, the lighting and the projections against the wings.
It was about 15 minutes until the parade, so I thought I’d get a quick single rider on Space Mountain in. This year again had the Ghost Galaxy overlay, which includes projections throughout the ride of weird space ghosts and a different soundtrack than usual. It’s fab.
It turns out I needn’t have bothered with single rider. I thought perhaps the queue was empty because people were waiting for the parade, but actually none of the rides had more than a 5 minute wait. Most people were there for the Halloween stuff and were just enjoying spending time outside around the park.
I’m not a massive fan of parades, and this one seemed a bit short. Here’s the only decent picture I managed to get:
I had a quick go on the Winnie the Pooh ride since it was walk-on, as opposed to the hour I had waited last time, then walked through Fantasyland to Toy Story Land. This was on the path and was very popular with people having their photo taken in front of it:
It didn’t move or do anything, but it was still awesome.
I didn’t ride anything, instead choosing to head straight through to Mystic Point for a couple of rides on Mystic Manor, which had a 5-10 minutes queue and was still awesome.
I love this ride so much, and started to notice smaller details that I hadn’t before. For example, in the music room, while all the instruments are playing, there’s a drum which has a skin projected onto it that very subtly vibrates in time with the drum beats.
Because it was so busy last time, I didn’t have much of a look in the shop, but I had a quick look last night and saw a pretty great piece of tat.
I don’t buy random, pointless crap, but I thought this was great. It’s an actual music box – a proper old fashioned wind-up one – that slides open in the centre, like the one from the ride, and plays the tune from Mystic Manor. It was about £25, which I didn’t think was too bad actually.
Next up, a couple of walk-on rides on Big Grizzly Mountain. Since I single ridered it last time, I didn’t see any of the queueline, so I’ll stick a couple of pictures in now.
I didn’t get a night ride on it last time, and it’s actually quite a bit more fun. It’s really well lit and actually feels a bit faster for some reason. They had some side-show/carnival games set up in the area, which had a bit of a queue, so I didn’t give them a go.
Next up was Adventureland for a quick night ride on Jungle Cruise. On the way, I came across these carnival stages:
Nothing was happening with them, so I thought maybe they were just theming. More on those later.
Jungle River Cruise is decent at night. It feels almost like an actual night cruise, since the majority of the lighting actually comes from the boat, or at least appears to, giving it quite a natural, for want of a better word, feeling.
Next up was the fireworks show which I’d missed last time as I wanted to get to the trains before thousands of people emptied from the park. This time the park was open for a couple of hours after the show though. It was pretty good. There were some projection and lighting effects which I didn’t think were that great, along with the expected fireworks timed to music. Definitely worth a watch.
I went back into Adventureland to try out the other Halloween walkthrough.
Revenge of the Headless Horseman was set in a Victorian freakshow/carnival, where you walk through some of the freakshow tents and backstage areas/dressing rooms/trailors etc. It was similar to Graves Academy in that it was excellently themed, with amazing costumes and a genuinely creepy atmosphere, with people jumping out at random, yet usually predictable, times. Again, it was very well done, very non-Disney, yet with a tongue-in-cheek attitude that prevented it from being truly terrifying.
Walking back through Adventureland, there were now some performances going on on the carnival stages. The atmosphere was amazing and it really complemented the theme of The Revenge of the Headless Horseman at the end of the path.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVR6Eao84Mo[/youtube]
I went back into Tomorrowland for another couple of rides on Space Mountain, not needing to use single rider since it was walk-on, and then circled back for a last ride on Mystic Manor.
All time park first for me; I got evacuated. Yay! Right before the big finally room, the whole thing just shut down. We were left sitting for about five minutes, with announcements to remain seated etc. I was stuck facing this:
After a few minutes the ride ops came to let us off. We then got to walk through the final two rooms.
I had a quick last go on Big Grizzly Mountain and then headed out of the park. Main Street was full of actors taking pictures with guests. Again, they weren’t particularly scary-looking, and they weren’t trying to scare kids and stuff, but it created a great atmosphere for the people leaving the park.
That’s it.
From Thursday until Sunday throughout October, the park is open until 11pm instead of the usual 9pm, and it’s possible to get cheaper night-time tickets which allow access after 6pm. This was perfect as I didn’t really want or need to spend a full day after only just visiting, and yesterday I managed to get out of work at 4pm, meaning I could get home, get changed etc. and head to the park, giving me a full five hours there.
The ticket’s about £12 cheaper than a full day ticket, so for a first time visitor it’s well worth the extra for the full day, but for locals who just want to spend a few hours after work/school etc., it’s perfect.
I don’t think I posted any pictures of the Disneyland Metro train before. There’s a separate MTR line for the Disney resort that’s connected to the main system. The trains are really cool.
There were lots of people getting on the train as I was getting off, which I took to be a good sign as it meant that a lot of the day visitors were leaving.
As it turned out, I got there a little early, so just had to hang out around at the fountain for half an hour with about a hundred or so other people who clearly had the same ticket, which was fine as I got to see the “show” for the first time. Basically, it’s just coloured lights, music and a bit of “dancing” water, which I’m sure would actually look really good at night. I think it runs every 15 minutes or so.
I headed straight for the first scare attraction at the end of Main Street. There’s some nice theming in the area.
At first, I didn’t see the entrance, so I had a wander back down Main Street. It gets dark really quickly in Hong Kong, by the time I’d figured out that I had actually been right next to the entrance – the queue is hidden in the trees – and walked back up (about 5 minutes), the park was already looking like this:
Graves Academy had quite a long queue. I ended up waiting about 45 minutes. To be fair though, whenever I passed it later, the queue didn’t seem to be much better. You can’t take photos inside, not that I would want to anyway, but here’s the entrance to Graves Academy:
I’m not really up on my scare mazes, so I don’t have a huge amount to compare it to, but I was really, really impressed. The idea is basically a haunted, Victorian boarding school, and you walk through different areas of the school. I can’t remember the order or a lot of detail, but these areas included a couple of classrooms with desks and chairs moving around the floor, offices, a library with a fab librarian behind a central desk, an infirmary with syringe-wielding nurses, a dormitory, a gym, changing/shower rooms, various corridors with doors all along the side, a kitchen, a meat freezer with bodies hanging in it – after you went into this room you stopped, the whole room moved and you went back out the way you came, only into a different part of the “school”. The whole thing lasted about 10 minutes.
There were actors all the way through it – there must’ve been between 20-30, who were basically just the typical “jump out and say boo” variety, and you could usually make a pretty good guess at when they would pop out. The costumes and makeup were great though. The sets were amazing and the atmosphere was really creepy. The actors jumping out made it less scary in a way because people in the group would be laughing at themselves and each other when they jumped. It was completely not Disney at all, yet somehow wasn’t completely undisney either, as the whole thing was done in a very tongue-in-cheek, rather than all out scary, way.
By the time I got out, it was completely dark and really atmospheric.
The Chernobog statue wasn’t particularly big, but was still impressive set amongst the gravestones with the mist swirling around it, the lighting and the projections against the wings.
It was about 15 minutes until the parade, so I thought I’d get a quick single rider on Space Mountain in. This year again had the Ghost Galaxy overlay, which includes projections throughout the ride of weird space ghosts and a different soundtrack than usual. It’s fab.
It turns out I needn’t have bothered with single rider. I thought perhaps the queue was empty because people were waiting for the parade, but actually none of the rides had more than a 5 minute wait. Most people were there for the Halloween stuff and were just enjoying spending time outside around the park.
I’m not a massive fan of parades, and this one seemed a bit short. Here’s the only decent picture I managed to get:
I had a quick go on the Winnie the Pooh ride since it was walk-on, as opposed to the hour I had waited last time, then walked through Fantasyland to Toy Story Land. This was on the path and was very popular with people having their photo taken in front of it:
It didn’t move or do anything, but it was still awesome.
I didn’t ride anything, instead choosing to head straight through to Mystic Point for a couple of rides on Mystic Manor, which had a 5-10 minutes queue and was still awesome.
I love this ride so much, and started to notice smaller details that I hadn’t before. For example, in the music room, while all the instruments are playing, there’s a drum which has a skin projected onto it that very subtly vibrates in time with the drum beats.
Because it was so busy last time, I didn’t have much of a look in the shop, but I had a quick look last night and saw a pretty great piece of tat.
I don’t buy random, pointless crap, but I thought this was great. It’s an actual music box – a proper old fashioned wind-up one – that slides open in the centre, like the one from the ride, and plays the tune from Mystic Manor. It was about £25, which I didn’t think was too bad actually.
Next up, a couple of walk-on rides on Big Grizzly Mountain. Since I single ridered it last time, I didn’t see any of the queueline, so I’ll stick a couple of pictures in now.
I didn’t get a night ride on it last time, and it’s actually quite a bit more fun. It’s really well lit and actually feels a bit faster for some reason. They had some side-show/carnival games set up in the area, which had a bit of a queue, so I didn’t give them a go.
Next up was Adventureland for a quick night ride on Jungle Cruise. On the way, I came across these carnival stages:
Nothing was happening with them, so I thought maybe they were just theming. More on those later.
Jungle River Cruise is decent at night. It feels almost like an actual night cruise, since the majority of the lighting actually comes from the boat, or at least appears to, giving it quite a natural, for want of a better word, feeling.
Next up was the fireworks show which I’d missed last time as I wanted to get to the trains before thousands of people emptied from the park. This time the park was open for a couple of hours after the show though. It was pretty good. There were some projection and lighting effects which I didn’t think were that great, along with the expected fireworks timed to music. Definitely worth a watch.
I went back into Adventureland to try out the other Halloween walkthrough.
Revenge of the Headless Horseman was set in a Victorian freakshow/carnival, where you walk through some of the freakshow tents and backstage areas/dressing rooms/trailors etc. It was similar to Graves Academy in that it was excellently themed, with amazing costumes and a genuinely creepy atmosphere, with people jumping out at random, yet usually predictable, times. Again, it was very well done, very non-Disney, yet with a tongue-in-cheek attitude that prevented it from being truly terrifying.
Walking back through Adventureland, there were now some performances going on on the carnival stages. The atmosphere was amazing and it really complemented the theme of The Revenge of the Headless Horseman at the end of the path.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVR6Eao84Mo[/youtube]
I went back into Tomorrowland for another couple of rides on Space Mountain, not needing to use single rider since it was walk-on, and then circled back for a last ride on Mystic Manor.
All time park first for me; I got evacuated. Yay! Right before the big finally room, the whole thing just shut down. We were left sitting for about five minutes, with announcements to remain seated etc. I was stuck facing this:
After a few minutes the ride ops came to let us off. We then got to walk through the final two rooms.
I had a quick last go on Big Grizzly Mountain and then headed out of the park. Main Street was full of actors taking pictures with guests. Again, they weren’t particularly scary-looking, and they weren’t trying to scare kids and stuff, but it created a great atmosphere for the people leaving the park.
That’s it.
