There was another long weekend here recently thanks to a public holiday falling on a Monday (we’re getting shafted next year though), so we decided to head to Shanghai, mostly for Disneyland. I’d been before, but it was quite a while ago and there’s new stuff since then. I also decided to hit up Haichang Ocean Park on the Monday since I’d never been.
Having kept an eye on queue times for the previous couple of weekends, Sundays seemed to be a bit quieter than Saturdays, though obviously neither day would be ideal. On the Friday night, we stayed in a fancy hotel in the Pudong area, next to the Oriental Pearl Tower. Hotel views with pissing down rain on the Friday night, which didn’t bode well.:
We just spent the Saturday around there, including an art gallery which I won’t bother to add pictures of.
Despite being in this area a couple of times before, I’d never tried the Sightseeing Tunnel, an overpriced tram type thing that crosses the river. It’s horrendously tacky and I highly recommend it.
Here’s a video from the back:
And here are some views from that side of the river. We only had a quick walk and headed back since it was horribly crowded and we’d both done it a couple of times already. Well worth a visit though.
It was only midafternoon, so I had a sneaky look for any nearby +1s. There will be a fair few around Shanghai, but I’d need to spend a bit of time figuring them out. Luckily, the nearest one was one I knew I hadn’t done and was only a few metro stops away.
Century Park
Yep, standard park with a small ride area. The coaster is just a standard Jinma affair. I thought I was going to get a solo ride, but a handful of other people sowed up at the last minute.
Anyway, a +1 that hadn’t been planned for. From there it was back to the hotel to collect bags and relocate to another (much cheaper) one closer to Disneyland. This would also work better for Haichang on the Monday as well. Heading back from dinner in that area, we went past a shopping mall with an unlisted kiddy cred outside. I managed to stop throwing myself from the moving taxi, but made a note of it to come back later.
Shanghai Disneyland
My original thought, knowing that we’d be there at the weekend, was to throw money at one of the high-level fastpasses, but looking into it, they were filled with fluff that wouldn’t really need them. Instead, we decided on just getting a regular entrance tickets and buying a handful of individual fast passes.
The weather was s**t. It literally didn’t stop raining the whole day, moving between heavy rain and pissing down until after we’d left.
The park had opened at 8:30, but we got there about an hour later, figuring that the place was open until 9pm anyway and we were going to skip the lines for a some stuff anyway. We started off with Tron, which only had a 20-minute queue at that point. I’d done this before, plus the Orlando one just a few months ago, but it’s a solid attraction.
They’ve made a few changes to the way they run it though. There’s a large locker area before you go into the queue line, and you used to have to put everything in those before joining the queue. Now, you just take everything with you and leave it on carts which the staff then wheel to the exit platform. It doesn’t take any more time since you put the stuff on the carts at the bottom of the queue ramp rather than when you’re getting on the train.
There was a show nearby that hadn’t been there on my last visit: Mickey’s Storybook Adventure. You have to reserve a standby pass for it, but this was free and easily available. I knew nothing about it, but the name was suspiciously similar to Mickey and the Wondrous Book in Hong Kong. Yep, it’s the same f**king thing with a couple of scenes/songs switched out.
I was wondering how I’d either missed it before or how they’d built a huge theatre without me finding out about it, but I figured out quickly enough that it’s a theatre that used to be part of their Disney Town area outside the park. It used to be a “proper” 1,200 seat theatre with the Broadway/West End Lion King show, followed by Beauty and the Beast, but I guess it just wasn’t doing very well, so now they’ve added an entrance within the park and are using it for a regular theme park show.
Pirates of the Caribbean only had a 20-minute queue, and was down to 5 minutes later in the day. It’s a combination of having a huge capacity and being an “old” ride now I guess. The show next to it was also only 15 minutes off starting, so we did that as well. It’s ok. There are two “wow” moments, but it’s otherwise quite tedious, especially the convoluted preshow.
Yes, I know, why are we bothering with shows when there are other coasters and a whole brand new area to check out? We’d already bought fast passes for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Zootopia, and I’d got one for myself for the Toy Story Cred, but they’re not timed, so there was no rush.
After the pirates show, we did Soarin’, which had a 90-minute queue. We had the time, but not the inclination, so bought fast passes for it. The fast passes here are about 20 quid each, regardless of attraction. I would’ve happily skipped it. I tried to frame it as “I’ve paid 20 quid to save myself an hour and half” rather than “I’ve paid 20 quid for f**kin’ Soarin’.” Not a fan.
Anyway, we did the Snow White castle walkthrough and the nearby boat ride, Voyage to the Crystal Grotto, which both only had 10-minute queues and are decent enough filler attractions.
The nearby Peter Pan ride hovered between 45-60 minutes all day and we ended up not bothering with it. I’ve done it already, and it’s better than the US original, but by the time we got back round to it later, we were both pretty much over the whole day/weather and couldn’t be arsed.
The longest line of the day was for a character meet and greet. People really are just f**king stupid, aren’t they?
Seven Dwarfs was holding a steady 90-minute queue for most of the day, so the fast pass was worth it there. This is what that piece of crap in Hong Kong’s Frozen area should’ve been.
I was loathe to pay 20 quid for a clone of a not very good coaster that I could literally ride any day of the week at home, but didn’t want to wait in the rain for it either. Stupid hobby.
Finally onto Zootopia then. This is where the fast pass was absolutely worth it, especially since it’s priced exactly the same as all the others. The way it works is that you have to join a queue just to get into the area, and then queue again for the ride once you’re inside. These queues were much better than I’d expected, at a solid 40-50 minutes each all day, but the fast pass means you skip both of them.
By using the fast pass, it meant that we skipped most of the queue line, which I kind of wanted to see since it looks really decent, but whatever. There’s also a single rider line (they’ve removed those from the stuff that used to have them - Tron, Pirates, 7 Dwarfs – no doubt to boost fast pass sales), so I used that for an almost walk-on reride.
It’s a very good ride with some impressive sets and animatronics, but with a couple of “let down” moments. For example, there’s a section where the cars move into pods which are similar to the “simulator” section of Rise of the Resistance, but then not much happens before you’re reversing out again. It seems daft to label something like this as anything less than an amazing attraction, but Pirates is, for me, still the park standout.
We finished off with rerides on Tron and Pirates before calling it a day. We were both a bit tired and cranky by this point thanks to the constant rain, so decided not to hang around for the castle projection thing.
We’d already decided to get dinner at the shopping mall we’d passed the night before, the one with the unlisted cred. Unfortunately, it was closed because of the weather. Look how awesome it is though. The night before, it had been all lit up, so was clearly running.
Like I said earlier, I was planning to head to Haichang on the next day, the Monday. I’d be doing this by myself since the boyfriend had to get back to Hong Kong earlier for a cousin’s birthday. The weather forecast had it down as raining all day again, and when I woke up, it was indeed raining. In a childish strop, I just though “f**k this” and bought a new plane ticket to just head back t Hong Kong earlier as well.
Obviously, by the time I’d finished breakfast, the rain had stopped and it was totally clear for the rest of the day. By this point it was too late though since I’d forked out for a new plane ticket and cancelled the other one. Very silly.
Apparently, the Intamin at that park is often closed on Mondays for maintenance anyway, so whatever. I’ll be back in Shanghai at some point.
Having kept an eye on queue times for the previous couple of weekends, Sundays seemed to be a bit quieter than Saturdays, though obviously neither day would be ideal. On the Friday night, we stayed in a fancy hotel in the Pudong area, next to the Oriental Pearl Tower. Hotel views with pissing down rain on the Friday night, which didn’t bode well.:
We just spent the Saturday around there, including an art gallery which I won’t bother to add pictures of.
Despite being in this area a couple of times before, I’d never tried the Sightseeing Tunnel, an overpriced tram type thing that crosses the river. It’s horrendously tacky and I highly recommend it.
Here’s a video from the back:
And here are some views from that side of the river. We only had a quick walk and headed back since it was horribly crowded and we’d both done it a couple of times already. Well worth a visit though.
It was only midafternoon, so I had a sneaky look for any nearby +1s. There will be a fair few around Shanghai, but I’d need to spend a bit of time figuring them out. Luckily, the nearest one was one I knew I hadn’t done and was only a few metro stops away.
Century Park
Yep, standard park with a small ride area. The coaster is just a standard Jinma affair. I thought I was going to get a solo ride, but a handful of other people sowed up at the last minute.
Anyway, a +1 that hadn’t been planned for. From there it was back to the hotel to collect bags and relocate to another (much cheaper) one closer to Disneyland. This would also work better for Haichang on the Monday as well. Heading back from dinner in that area, we went past a shopping mall with an unlisted kiddy cred outside. I managed to stop throwing myself from the moving taxi, but made a note of it to come back later.
Shanghai Disneyland
My original thought, knowing that we’d be there at the weekend, was to throw money at one of the high-level fastpasses, but looking into it, they were filled with fluff that wouldn’t really need them. Instead, we decided on just getting a regular entrance tickets and buying a handful of individual fast passes.
The weather was s**t. It literally didn’t stop raining the whole day, moving between heavy rain and pissing down until after we’d left.
The park had opened at 8:30, but we got there about an hour later, figuring that the place was open until 9pm anyway and we were going to skip the lines for a some stuff anyway. We started off with Tron, which only had a 20-minute queue at that point. I’d done this before, plus the Orlando one just a few months ago, but it’s a solid attraction.
They’ve made a few changes to the way they run it though. There’s a large locker area before you go into the queue line, and you used to have to put everything in those before joining the queue. Now, you just take everything with you and leave it on carts which the staff then wheel to the exit platform. It doesn’t take any more time since you put the stuff on the carts at the bottom of the queue ramp rather than when you’re getting on the train.
There was a show nearby that hadn’t been there on my last visit: Mickey’s Storybook Adventure. You have to reserve a standby pass for it, but this was free and easily available. I knew nothing about it, but the name was suspiciously similar to Mickey and the Wondrous Book in Hong Kong. Yep, it’s the same f**king thing with a couple of scenes/songs switched out.
I was wondering how I’d either missed it before or how they’d built a huge theatre without me finding out about it, but I figured out quickly enough that it’s a theatre that used to be part of their Disney Town area outside the park. It used to be a “proper” 1,200 seat theatre with the Broadway/West End Lion King show, followed by Beauty and the Beast, but I guess it just wasn’t doing very well, so now they’ve added an entrance within the park and are using it for a regular theme park show.
Pirates of the Caribbean only had a 20-minute queue, and was down to 5 minutes later in the day. It’s a combination of having a huge capacity and being an “old” ride now I guess. The show next to it was also only 15 minutes off starting, so we did that as well. It’s ok. There are two “wow” moments, but it’s otherwise quite tedious, especially the convoluted preshow.
Yes, I know, why are we bothering with shows when there are other coasters and a whole brand new area to check out? We’d already bought fast passes for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Zootopia, and I’d got one for myself for the Toy Story Cred, but they’re not timed, so there was no rush.
After the pirates show, we did Soarin’, which had a 90-minute queue. We had the time, but not the inclination, so bought fast passes for it. The fast passes here are about 20 quid each, regardless of attraction. I would’ve happily skipped it. I tried to frame it as “I’ve paid 20 quid to save myself an hour and half” rather than “I’ve paid 20 quid for f**kin’ Soarin’.” Not a fan.
Anyway, we did the Snow White castle walkthrough and the nearby boat ride, Voyage to the Crystal Grotto, which both only had 10-minute queues and are decent enough filler attractions.
The nearby Peter Pan ride hovered between 45-60 minutes all day and we ended up not bothering with it. I’ve done it already, and it’s better than the US original, but by the time we got back round to it later, we were both pretty much over the whole day/weather and couldn’t be arsed.
The longest line of the day was for a character meet and greet. People really are just f**king stupid, aren’t they?
Seven Dwarfs was holding a steady 90-minute queue for most of the day, so the fast pass was worth it there. This is what that piece of crap in Hong Kong’s Frozen area should’ve been.
I was loathe to pay 20 quid for a clone of a not very good coaster that I could literally ride any day of the week at home, but didn’t want to wait in the rain for it either. Stupid hobby.
Finally onto Zootopia then. This is where the fast pass was absolutely worth it, especially since it’s priced exactly the same as all the others. The way it works is that you have to join a queue just to get into the area, and then queue again for the ride once you’re inside. These queues were much better than I’d expected, at a solid 40-50 minutes each all day, but the fast pass means you skip both of them.
By using the fast pass, it meant that we skipped most of the queue line, which I kind of wanted to see since it looks really decent, but whatever. There’s also a single rider line (they’ve removed those from the stuff that used to have them - Tron, Pirates, 7 Dwarfs – no doubt to boost fast pass sales), so I used that for an almost walk-on reride.
It’s a very good ride with some impressive sets and animatronics, but with a couple of “let down” moments. For example, there’s a section where the cars move into pods which are similar to the “simulator” section of Rise of the Resistance, but then not much happens before you’re reversing out again. It seems daft to label something like this as anything less than an amazing attraction, but Pirates is, for me, still the park standout.
We finished off with rerides on Tron and Pirates before calling it a day. We were both a bit tired and cranky by this point thanks to the constant rain, so decided not to hang around for the castle projection thing.
We’d already decided to get dinner at the shopping mall we’d passed the night before, the one with the unlisted cred. Unfortunately, it was closed because of the weather. Look how awesome it is though. The night before, it had been all lit up, so was clearly running.
Like I said earlier, I was planning to head to Haichang on the next day, the Monday. I’d be doing this by myself since the boyfriend had to get back to Hong Kong earlier for a cousin’s birthday. The weather forecast had it down as raining all day again, and when I woke up, it was indeed raining. In a childish strop, I just though “f**k this” and bought a new plane ticket to just head back t Hong Kong earlier as well.
Obviously, by the time I’d finished breakfast, the rain had stopped and it was totally clear for the rest of the day. By this point it was too late though since I’d forked out for a new plane ticket and cancelled the other one. Very silly.
Apparently, the Intamin at that park is often closed on Mondays for maintenance anyway, so whatever. I’ll be back in Shanghai at some point.
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. LinaBell got sick. LinaBell had to leave early. LinaBell had a family emergency. Anything to avoid a 300 minute queue! The longest I've waited for a character was an hour for Woody and Jesse, and that was about the maximum time I'd ever wait. 
. LinaBell got sick. LinaBell had to leave early. LinaBell had a family emergency. Anything to avoid a 300 minute queue!