Shanghai Disneyland News And Updates

I very much agree with the previous post. I was at Shanghai Disneyland in september, and the wide, open areas that I’m not so fond of at Tokyo Disneyland is even more apparent at Shanghai.

I have been to all 12 Disney parks, and I would say this one lacked some charm and magic. I ended up having a good time, but to summarize:

• Mickey avenue was quite fun, and the mixing of styles worked better than expected. I liked the nod to Carl Barks and Floyd Gottfredson, and I liked that it was something different. On the negative side the flat, wide street without vehicles and kinetic energy and the open plan solution to the shops with a lack of a lot of items of personal interest (comics, books, movies, artwork, coffee) was sort of a let down and gave it more of a shopping center feel.

• The park is big, but there are a lot of wide, open areas with little theming that does not feel as immersive. Also, more visual intrusion than in other parks.

• Castle looks quite good from some angles, but not as charming as some of the others maybe.

• Fantasyland was too spread out for my taste, but the area closest to the castle was quite nice. It was my first time doing 7D mine train: it was good, but not great.

• I was not impressed by Tomorrowland! Except for the Tron roof, the area was too minimalist and lacking of interesting details for my taste. The Tron attraction was good. I still prefer the Jules Verne retro futuristic theme of Paris, the original’s 1950s futuristic style, and the cartoony style of HK in that order to this Asian airport theme.

• The greatest area for me was Pirates cove and Adventure Isle: some impressive theming and good atmosphere. The Barbosa restaurant was probably the coolest place to eat, and the whole Camp Discovery area was great! Fantastic atmosphere at night - true Disney magic. Roaring Rapids was fun, but a little lacking in story and theming I think. Both in the queue and the ride itself. The monster was not working and you could see the exposed metal neck. Weird that they can not get that to work consistently with all the experience they have.

• I looked forward to Pirates the most, and rushed right over to the attraction, but it was closed. Very little info. I ended up going back a couple of days later as the website said it would be open, but when I got there it was still closed. Luckily for me it opened in the evening, so I managed to ride it once. Funny thing was the real life Will Turner rode the boat behind us, so I guess they did what they could to open the attraction for him. It was very good, but I prefer the charm of the original.

• Did not experience anything problematic with guest behavior! Cast members could be in a better mood at the rides.

• Quite short queues on day 1, huge queues on day 2. Did not do attractions that I have done elsewhere or those that I think looked weak because of this.

• Closing show was good, but I much prefer a show like Remember from the original Disneyland. I think the projections work best when they transform the look of the castle (like the steampunk style and waterfall scene from the one in Paris), but when they smack a lot of characters in with scenes from movies projected like the castle is just a huge screen, I think it is lacking. There is too much going on without a story line, and the fireworks is less impressive than f.ex. Wishes because of the focus on projections.

So - I ended up having a good time, and I liked that it was different, but it is not my favorite Disney Park. Will probably improve a lot as they add new areas and attractions.

 

Thanks for sharing your experiences with us.

 

Thanks for sharing! That's too bad that they're still having reliability issues in the park; hopefully they can get those ironed out soon

In the areas of wide open space, did they seem like the types of places that would improve as the foliage grows in? Or are they just bland walkway areas? I know they wanted to put more focus on "gardens" than they've done in the past, but photos I've seen also appear to have a lot of oversized walkways

 

It will probably improve a little when the foliage grows in some places, but the walkways are very wide and everything seems to be built to accommodate huge crowds. The biggest problem, as I see it, is that there are walkways between lands that offers very little to no theming around them, and there are seemingly un-themed small park areas for people to enjoy food and relax on benches. I am not sure if these areas are supposed to be temporary, but I think they should do something more with them.

 

Sounds like you're talking in part about the area between Tomorrowland and Fantasyland, where there's a generic restaurant building with some Disney characters slapped on the side. That is actually part of Toy Story Playland, which was on-again-off-again, and ultimately didn't make it in time for the park opening. Depending how quickly they want to add stuff, that area could be completed in a few months, giving the park a new land in very little time

 

Disney has officially announced that they've "broken ground" on Toy Story, even though much of it is already in place. How does one break ground when some of the facilities are already in operation?
Shanghai Disneyland Breaks Ground On Toy Story Land

Even the article says that they "started the expansion even before opening Shanghai Disneyland in anticipation of its immense popularity", which seems to completely contradict the notion of a ground breaking ceremony

 

I guess it's a good thing that the Chinese government is heavily involved, because I think the resort is far from being very popular and overrun. Maybe SDL is not such a big failure like DLP, but it's definitely not as popular as Disney makes us believe.

As for TSPL at SDL, I think it will not look like the ones in Paris and Hong Kong or the one coming to WDW, because if you look closely at the picture in the article, there's a blueprint that differs from the existin TS lands.

 

I'm still not convinced that Disney's partnership with the Chinese government is the best, but I agree that they will refuse to let it fail. I assume that the government is largely behind the overreported numbers (though I'm sure Disney likes to keep the numbers optimistic), since they love to claim to be the biggest-and-best at everything

I'm sure the land won't be a direct copy of the others, but it will keep with the general concept of oversized fiberglass props and outdoor carnival rides. Individual details may differ, but the general result will be the same

 

I also think that the overall look will be the same, but I think it will have better rides than HKDL and WDSP. I assume it will be similar to WDW's version.

 

I hadn't really thought about it, but the WDW version had some inexplicable changes/cuts made after they released the first round of concept art, so I wonder if some of that was dictated by the SDL project, similar to how both share designs for the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train

Depending if they wanted/needed to do some "creative" accounting for Shanghai, that could also explain why the WDW land is costing so much (rumored near $200M) for so little (minimally themed coaster, Mater's clone, outdoor counter service restaurant, restrooms)

 

Wow, that is a lot of money. I didn't expect it to be that expensive.

I read about the changes, but as far as I remember, the attractions were not affected in terms of scaling them back.

 

The roller coaster layout was modified from the original art, removing the lift hill and adding another launch instead; I don't imagine that would lead to any cost savings (and would likely cause an increase).

However, the scenery around the roller coaster was significantly reduced and is now mostly generic green landscaping. Originally there were a lot of oversized toys scattered around (including some assembled to look like The Tower of the Four Winds from the 1964 World's Fair), and a lot of the track was in "trenches" dug into the ground that would presumably have rockwork on the sides. Almost all of that is gone, with not much to look at.I'm sure it will still be a fun ride, but it will be a lesser experience than what was originally shown (which was hardly "Disney quality" to start with).

The land is also taking up a ton of space (11 acres?) in a park with very limited space for future expansion. The whole project just seems like a wildly misguided use of resources

 

Bob Iger's nemesis Wang Jianlin has announced that Wanda will spend $7billion on a theme park in Changsha, which is about 550 miles inland from Shanghai:
Wanda Group to invest $15 billion to compete with Disney in China

I'll be curious to see what they're able to build for that much money, since I suspect their construction methods are cheaper than Disney's and they probably won't be paying nearly as much under the table to government officials. Did we ever find out where the $800M for "capacity improvements" at SDL went?

And in vaguely related news, it looks like the Google Earth imagery for SDL has been updated to a photo from after the park opened. Construction is complete and you can see people on the walkways

 

In a turn of events that should surprise nobody, smog has covered SDL, making for some rather eerie photos
Shanghai Disneyland Castle Vanishes in Smog - Theme Park University

Given that these photos were taken on a day that scored 225 on the 500-point scale, it's safe to assume that there will be worse conditions at some point this winter

 

That smog can't be healthy, but the Pirates Land picture looks cool.

 

Making of POTC: