We woke up from our nap around 4pm refreshed and ready to spend the last few hours we had with Shanghai Disneyland. The park closed at 8pm so we decided to grab a fastpass for the Tron ride and then do a good bye stroll through the entire park. We looked for areas we hadn’t seen yet and ran across a walkway that let us check out all of Challenge Trails, a ropes course where you are tethered to a harness that is connected to rope that slides through a metal girder track above you to keep you fall falling to your death. Most crossings have an easy route, a hard route and a really hard route to choose from. In the pictures below look for the three reddish girders then the three pathways below them. The person in the second picture has chosen the hardest path.
The walkway we took led us behind the waterfall and under most of the challenge trail. For me this was challenging enough. Nine days of racking up hundreds of thousands of steps through three Disney theme parks have my legs and feet aching!
As we continued our stroll we ended up in Treasure Cove. We had no intention of riding on Pirates again but saw that the Single Rider line was short so….
This was our fifth or sixth ride on Pirates. Again, this ride alone would have been worth the 11 hour flight for me. So well done. Here’s a little clip of an incredible animatronic of Davy Jones.
It was around 6:30pm and our fastpasses were ready for Tron. This is a video of the beginning of the ride where you are launched at a super fast speed to the outdoor track. The picture below the video is an on-ride photo taken at the peak speed of the launch.
The launch starts really fast (think California Sceamin’ from DCA) but then another burst of speed kicks in. That’s when they snap the picture. We ended up riding Tron twelve times in three days. Brilliant ride. This last time we went there was this little Chinese grandmother with her 6 or 7 year old grandson. It was clearly their first time riding it. It was really cool to see someone of an older generation enjoy the ride so much! Her on ride photo was precious.
There’s a moment in the Tron cue where you are standing in front of an opaque window that has digital projections. The window all of the sudden becomes transparent revealing the ride below just at the one of launch. In the video below listen for the crowd’s reaction. This happened every time! Love it.
We wrapped up our evening with the Light up the Sky fireworks/projection spectacular. I didn’t shoot any video or pictures (I just wanted to sit back and savor the experience) but you can find plenty of high quality videos of this on YouTube is you’re so inclined.
I am really surprised the fireworks in the US parks are better than the ones in Asia. I was expecting to be really blown away since the Chinese invented fireworks (right…?) but they were lack luster compared to the regular fireworks that happen in Disneyland, Anaheim. Still, the show was enjoyable and a nice way to wrap up Shanghai Disneyland.
Final Thoughts on Shanghai Disneyland
We both felt a little sad leaving this park since we don’t if know if we’ll ever return. Clearly the winning rides for Shanghai were TRON Light Cycle Power Run and Pirates of the Caribbean, Battle for the Sunken Treasure. Mike’s favorite was Tron mine, Pirates.
Despite vastly different cultural norms there is a universal joy that was evident here. Kids (and grown ups) giggling though a goofy ride moment, gasps at cool effects, screams at scary moments, the joyful high exiting a really fun ride were all such common human experiences that they, for a few moments erased cultural differences.
The differences in staff between Shanghai Disneyland and the Tokyo parks were vast. The Tokyo staff (or cast members as Disney likes them to be called) are bend-over-backwards crazy polite. For example the security bag checkers in Tokyo were almost apologetic as they checked your bag always asking if they may open it and touch it. The Shanghai bag checkers were very no nonsense, grab your bag, dig through every nook and cranny and fling it back to you. In fact security guards were everywhere throughout the park always looking stern and a little intimidating. The Chinese cast members were trying really hard to be the polite and friendly Disney employees one might expect but they seemed really uncomfortable trying to pull it off. Still, they were excited to test out the bits of English on me and Mike (once they realized Mike didn’t speak Mandarin) and did pretty well, far far better than I could have communicated with them in Mandarin. We had to keep our questions and requests simple and there were a few times we were misunderstood but it was sometimes easier to patiently listen as they answered a question we didn’t really ask and thank them for the information we didn’t really need rather than try and clarify. The employees manning the lines in Shanghai seemed a little disorganized compared to their Tokyo counterparts. In Tokyo, everything was crystal clear since, as they were giving boarding instructions in Japanese, they were miming exactly what to do down to removing your backpack before boarding the ride. It was almost over-explaining in Tokyo. It was the polar opposite in Shanghai. This lack of clarity combined with a population not super familiar with theme parks made for moments of confusion for anyone riding a ride for the first time and a general sense of disorganization. This is unusual for a Disney park but this is a very young park. I’m sure they were still trying to get their shit together in Anaheim a year after that park opened, too.
We’d heard lots of stories about people in Shanghai cutting in line and breaking other social norms westerners might find offensive. We were braced for the worst after having such pleasant experiences with people’s behavior at the Tokyo parks. (So polite!)
While there was a time or two when it seemed like someone might be cutting a line, this was very rare. It did seem like if you left an opportunity open someone would take it, but so what? No one else seemed particularly miffed by this so why should we? When in line Mike and I just stayed side by side not leaving an opportunity open. There was nearly always someone moving up the line to meet their party, but this happens in the U.S. with nearly the same frequency. People in line had a very different sense of personal space than we might in Disneyland, Anaheim. This was the same in Tokyo. We quickly adjusted ourselves to that and it was fine. There were huge differences in the volume of regular speaking voices of the Japanese vs. the Chinese. The Chinese almost always talked very loudly to a Westerner’s ears. It seemed like they were always shouting. Mike and I would joke when we would hear someone talking in a regular (still loud) volume that they were whispering in Mandarin. Talking (yelling) into a cellphone with the phone on speaker was also a pretty regular occurrence. We got used to this norm, too. Mostly. When it was getting close to nap time or was particularly hot and humid it became a little harder to take.
There are a few other differences we noticed that are worth mentioning. First, there was always someone selling what we guessed was counterfeit merchandise outside the park entrance. Park tickets, Minnie Mouse ears, ponchos (when it was raining), discrete vendors, disguised as tourists would push their way through the security line hocking their wares always keeping a wary eye out for the police. When the bus that took us from hotel to Park pulled up to Disneyland it was rushed by five or six guys selling tickets (or maybe fastpasses?), Disney keychains and Mickey Ears. Once we got into the park there were a few times we saw the covert vendors selling their stuff in the middle of a walkway. We were both really surprised by this. Park tickets aren’t as expensive as they are in the U.S. but selling inside the park must really cut into their bottom line since they have to pay to enter. Or maybe not. On our last day there was a large group of adults in front of us trying to use what were clearly counterfeit tickets. There was quite an argument between them and the employees manning the gates. I would imagine there was a real problem with counterfeit fastpasses because, unlike any Disney park we’d ever been to, the fastpass checker would scan a QR code on each fastpass to make sure it was valid. Sometimes they would check the fastpass and your park pass to make sure they matched. Intense FP security!
In Tokyo, nearly everyone had some serious Disney Drag on. Most had matching Disney shirts or other outfits that they’d clearly chosen for their day in the park. (I felt under dressed (aka not having enough Disney Merch hanging of my body) a few times in Tokyo. In Shanghai people dressed far more casually without all the Disney Flair (except maybe a pair of counterfeit Minnie Ears.) Perhaps this was because this was many of these folks first time to Disneyland. It seemed like most had never been to the park before which isn’t surprising since it has only been open since June 12th, 2016.
Bottom line, Shanghai Disneyland was great. The cultural differences were easily navigated and interesting to observe. The park is fresh and new and the rides are some of the best we’ve experienced in a Disney park. Bravo Shanghai Disneyland!
Art’s Travel Adventures 