Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 OK, you knew the Spirit wouldn't leave ya all for that long without dropping in with some provocative thoughts and comments. Well, here's one: right now, HKDL has improved enough that during seasonal events, like the amazingly well done Halloween celebration that I have experienced, it IS better than the stale, wall-filled, poorly maintained, Walmarted MK that so many fanbois think has never been better. I won't defend, and never have defended, the thought processes that allowed Disney to fool the Chinese government and build -- to quote Roy Disney -- 'a park on the cheap'. Cutting two lands and over a dozen attractions set that park up for failure and showed just how out of touch management at the time was ... and I am speaking of everyone from Eisner to Iger to Pressler to Rasulo to Goodman to Sklar. So ... I won't apologize for their collective stupidity. That said, I loved HKDL when I first visited in 2008. And I enjoyed it more than that last week ... so much so that I am now an APer ... all for less than the cost of a one-day, one-park ticket in O-Town. I know what the fanboi apologists will say. Has Spirit eaten some bad Chinese food? Did some strange gal in Kowloon spike his drink with something more potent than pixie dust? Nope. HKDL is still a park with no Mansion, no Pirates, no Pan ... no a lot of things (although they do have construction walls up for Toy Story Land ... I'm thinking of offering pics to Doobie for $8,888.88 since I doubt Sunshine will be headed here soon). But what HKDL does offer is all of the basics: A spotless, well maintained park. A cast that exists to serve guests and seems to enjoy it, even when there is a bit of something getting lost in the translation. True quality entertainment ... E-ticket caliber stage shows ... live bands ... music etc. Amazingly detailed seasonal entertainment from haunted houses that actually add two major attractions to the park (and would never fly in bumpkinland --WDW!) to a GREAT night Halloween Parade that even puts the MK's highly entertaining Boo To You Parade to shame to menus in every restaurant tailored to the season to huge (some might say even too much) seasonal merchandise. Oh, and all of that is included in the price of admission. No upsell hard tickets. Oops, I even forgot to mention the new Nightmare in the Sky pyro show and the Ghost Galaxy overlay on Space Mountain. Sure, the park needs attractions ...and the way they were going to town this week, it's obvious they are on the way (although I HATE the carnie crap that will arrive first). But on one hand you have a new park in a beautiful setting that gets all the important details right ... and one that is getting better every day. And on the other ... you have a stale, falling apart, dumbed down MK that is a pale shadow of what it was 15 years ago. At the end of the day nostalgia only gets you so far ... and riding around mindlessly on the AFKaTTTA because there's really nothing you want to do speaks volumes. For this Spirit, at least, HKDL is more enjoyable for a day's visit than MK is. I'm looking forward to seeing what HKDL will be doing for Christmas because they sure got Halloween done right ... OK ... this should be good!
Originally Posted By bobbelee9 And I posted that when I thought there were only 2 threads, only to find out he did it 3 times. Nice to see the needy Spirit in print again.
Originally Posted By EPCOT Explorer I don't think he did it purposely.... That HK internet, you know...Can be faulty. ;-) But yes, nice to see some posts that start discussion. Now if only we could get our friends in hiding OUT of hiding. *looks to the West*
Originally Posted By bobbelee9 I e-mailed one recently and told him we miss him. Hopefully he'll be back when he's ready.
