As I’ve mentioned in a previous post we heard the way to do the trifecta of Asian Disney Parks is to start in Hong Kong then head to Shanghai and wrap things up in Tokyo. I couldn’t disagree more. Hong Kong Disneyland is a tiny, tiny little park. You could probably fit four or five of HK Disneylands into the space Shanghai Disneyland takes up. This made HKDL super easy to navigate and made for Way less walking. Also, the park was not even close to being crowded.
Lack of crowds mean no waiting in lines for rides and no having to figure out a fastpass strategy. While we don’t have complete theme park burn out, I’m not sure we could enjoy a huge, super crowded park at the end of this epic trip. Short walks from one land to the next, little to no wait times for rides…this is the perfect park to end our trip.
I’m sure the advice to do the Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo order was to build from the least spectacular park to the most. There is some sense to the drama of that but while HK Disneyland is the least spectacular of the Disney’s we’ve visited it still really packs a punch.
HK Disneyland has seven lands. Toy Story Land, Mystic Point, Grizzly Gultch, Adventure Land, Main Street USA, Fantasy Land and Tomorrow Land. The park hours are from 10:30am to 8:45pm though only a few rides open right at 10:30am. The outlying lands (Grizzly Gultch and Mystic Point) don’t open until 11am and then close around 7:45pm. We could find no rhyme or reason for the weird times but since he park was so empty we went on everything we wanted to multiple times. The longest wait we ever had was 15 minutes but most times we would pretty much just walk on a ride. 
We started the day in Adventure Land with The Jungle Cruise. 
They had three cues, one for Mandarin, one for Cantonese and one for English.
Our guide was lovely and we were able to give her one of the gifts we’d brought from California Disneyland. Her reaction to the gift was terrific.
From there we played a game of chance to try and win a prize. I won a cute Pirate Mickey.
By this time Grizzly Gulch and Mystic Point were opened sonwe headed over to ride the Grizzly Gultch Runaway Mine Cars. 
This roller coaster is most like Thunder Mountain in Anaheim Disneyland. The story is (there’s always a story) bears have gotten into the mining shafts…
…and begin to cause problems. During the first hill you see a big Grizzly Bear scratching his behind on the device that switches the train from on track to another which, of course, hurdles you down a crazy curving track. As you climb the next hill you hear sounds of straining metal. That can’t be good…
You see a cable snap on one of the fly wheels pulling you up the hill and you go careening backwards through more twists and turns. Surely nothin else can go wrong as you back into the area where they store the dynamite…
Unless some pesky momma bear and her cub are trying to reach a string of fish the prospectors have caught only to accidentally push the dynamite plunger…Kaboom!
The first two thirds of this coaster is pretty tame but once you get blasted out of the dynamite room the speed is pretty good and the curves get pretty intense. Fun ride!
Off to Mystic Point and to the ride that I’ve been most looking forward to at this park, Mystic Manor!!
Lord Henry Mystic and his monkey Albert have traveled the world collecting antiquities so that you can tour their manor and see their treasures. (Photos below are from the cue)
Their most recent find is a music box that may or may not have magical powers. (Spoiler alert…it does.) Albert the Monkey is can’t keep his hands off the box and when he opens it…
The animatronics of the Monkey (Albert was super cute), Lord Henry and the statues that come to life were fantastic. The illusions were terrific, too. There were three different paths you could take through the room of the manor depending on which carriage you were on.
We rode this three times today and saw something different each time. Bravo Mystic Manor! 
We were ready to try out HK version of Space Mountain so we began to head in that direction. The path took us through Toy Story Land so we hit a couple of the little rides there.
The land is laid out as if the live toys have used the other items in Andy’s toy box to build a carnival in the back yard. 
We tried out the RC Racer first. It looks like it would be similar to one of those pirate ship rides you’d see at the fair where it swings back and forth so our expectations were low. It was much more fun than we thought since the top of the track curves back putting you not quite upside down, but close.
We made our way over to Tomorrow Land and hit Space Mountain, or Hyperspace Mountain as it is currently called since is has the Star Wars overlay.
Have I mentioned yet how hot and humid it is? The low overnight was 81 degrees and the humidity hasn’t dropped below 75%. Every time we’d walk into a a ride cue the air conditioning was a blessing.
While in Tomorrow Land we headed over to The Iron Man Experience. 
Identical 3D ride technology and ride vehicles as Star Tours, but instead of flying through the Star Wars Universe you actually depart from Tomorrow Land and fly into Downtown Hong Kong. Weird alien robots are trying to steal some sort of Tony Stark Tech so Iron Man comes flying into save the day. Not bad but I prefer Star Tours.
The heat of the day was demanding that we nap. Who are we to argue with the day? Here’s a fountain outside the entrance of the park.
Art’s Travel Adventures 