Originally Posted By FerretAfros There aren't any still photos of it, but the park sure does look great at night from above! It's also really cool to see the fireworks from that angle, where you can see the lights on the castle, the launch points on the show buildings, and the 9-line in the back. It really gives you a sense of just how big it is (which is especially crazy, since it's a fairly small show by Disney standards) and how much tech work must go into it
Originally Posted By dagobert >>>I'll just be curious to see what HDKL looks like in 10-15 years when the train route goes through the middle of the park, rather than around the outside; it's particularly strange since they have the inward-facing passenger cars<<< At first I didn't like it at all that there are so many attractions outside the railroad berm. But now the park is growing and I think it is great that you can look out of the train in both directions. The railroad becomes a bigger part of the park, since it is "inside" it. As long as the outside lands are connected so that the guest flow is in tact, I'm fine with it. I'm still disappointed that SDL doesn't have a railroad. They have always been part of Disneyland and SDL shouldn't be an exception.
Originally Posted By dagobert >>>And the Iron Man site: is that whole thing for the attraction? It seems like the part where the crane is located is pretty far away from the in-park guest areas, and on the other side of a backstage access road. Maybe it's just for a backstage building?<<< I'm talking about the first picture in the D&M article. I think the big building at the back is housing the simulators, because the area where the bigger crane is located has the footprint of the Iron Man building as seen in the concept art and I guess that's the queue and pre show building. The simulators for Star Tours need also a lot of space.
Originally Posted By dagobert According to HK MS Gazette, Disneysea was registred as a trademark in Hong Kong. <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://twitter.com/wonderland912/status/550639322836131840">http://twitter.com/wonderland9...36131840</a> I doubt that HK will get a DisneySea park, when there's already one in Asia, but maybe it is something completely different.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros Interesting. I suspect it's just a preventative measure to ensure that someone else doesn't try to use the name, or so Disney can advertise the Tokyo park (unlikely), but it's neat to think of the possibility. They have the land for a 2nd park and the resort was designed for a layout similar to DL/DCA, but I haven't heard anything about what the 2nd park would be, or when it would open. I think the available land is roughly the same size as HKDL, which is significantly smaller than TDS
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "I doubt that HK will get a DisneySea park, when there's already one in Asia, but maybe it is something completely different." There are already 2 magic kingdoms in Asia with a third on the way, so why rule out a second DisneySea?
Originally Posted By friarthe If they built a Disney Sea down here, I'd just about move in. You know what everybody is going gaga for on the mainland, though? This place -- a big aquarium expansion of the Six Flags-like park complex in Guangzhou, built next to Macau. I haven't been there to comment, but people are going crazy for it. I expect it may give Ocean Park a run for its money, partly because it requires no visa to get there. THAT'S what they should look at, for Shanghai expansions. <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://zh.chimelong.com/oceankingdom/en/">http://zh.chimelong.com/oceankingdom/en/</a>
Originally Posted By friarthe Sorry, to clarify -- Chimelong's got four parks in Guangzhou, and they've expanded by plopping this one in Zhuhai, about 2 hours away, on the Macau border. No hassle for locals to get there, and they love the live animals. Disney doesn't need to build more fancy, cutting-edge rides, sadly. There's never a line for Mystic Manor or Grizzly Gulch when I go. There are lines for the Toy Story rides, though...
Originally Posted By FerretAfros I had dinner at a fancy restaurant next to one of the Chimelong parks many years ago, and we had a room that overlooked a tiger enclosure and got to see a really neat animal show after. This aquatic area seems like it's very much in line with what I saw, but appears to raise the quality a lot. I wonder if Disney would consider building another Animal Kingdom-type park in China; given the large landscaped areas they're building for SDL, it seems like the park's detail-oriented style might fit really well >>There's never a line for Mystic Manor or Grizzly Gulch when I go. There are lines for the Toy Story rides, though...<< How is the line for Space Mountain these days? It was extremely short on my visits, which surprised me. It does have relatively high capacity compared to other things in the park (Pooh and the Toy Story rides, whose apparent popularity may be misleading), so I wonder if that plays into it. Given how popular it is in the other Disney parks, I just have a hard time believing that it's so unpopular in HKDL
Originally Posted By leemac <<I think the available land is roughly the same size as HKDL, which is significantly smaller than TDS>> Obviously I can't/won't comment on the second gate but the expansion landfill is significantly larger than the 60 acres currently occupied by HKDL (and that excludes the three expansion pads and the Iron Man site). It is c.120 acres and conceivably additional landfill could be reclaimed from Penny Bay. There is also a parking lot at the end of Fantasy Road that is rarely used that could be taken back too.
Originally Posted By leemac <<You know what everybody is going gaga for on the mainland, though? This place -- a big aquarium expansion of the Six Flags-like park complex in Guangzhou, built next to Macau. I haven't been there to comment, but people are going crazy for it.>> Macau is dying on its feet. There is going to be major overcapacity next year unless they start to get more visitors into the territory. The Macau SAR are getting very nervous about the downturn. I've yet to make it out but it has been positively received. The park is laid out like a Western park (first I have seen). There is also a very glitzy hotel (2k rooms) that is also ocean-themed (I gather there are elements that are direct rip-offs of Atlantis Dubai). The park was master-planned by PGVA who have been Sea World's partners for years. They did Discovery Cove. They know aquariums very well (even did Ocean Park's expansion). Chimelong want to create Orlando on that island. The transport links are rotten and need major investment before it will expand quickly.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros >>Obviously I can't/won't comment on the second gate but the expansion landfill is significantly larger than the 60 acres currently occupied by HKDL (and that excludes the three expansion pads and the Iron Man site).<< I just looked at an aerial, and I didn't realize how much empty 'backstage' space still surrounds HKDL, within Magic Rd. The park's awkward growth made me think that they had used up all of the available space, but there's still a ton of room on the west side It looks like the available land is roughly a mirror image across the Promenade of the park and hotels. Especially if they don't add any hotels on the east side, there's certainly a large chunk of land there for something of a potentially significant size (150+ acres). And if they wanted to reclaim more land, of course they could continue to increase that area
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "Disney doesn't need to build more fancy, cutting-edge rides, sadly. There's never a line for Mystic Manor or Grizzly Gulch when I go." I wonder if that has to do with the park's relatively low attendance numbers compared to other magic kingdoms. "There are lines for the Toy Story rides, though..." Don't those attractions have low capacity and throughput?
Originally Posted By FerretAfros >>Don't those attractions have low capacity and throughput?<< Yes, yes they do. I think the 3 of them together have an hourly capacity that's marginally higher than a single Fantasyland-style darkride. It really makes you wonder if the money that they "saved" by building cheap additions was really just spent in the additional labor costs of running 3 separate attractions (though obviously it's much easier to advertise multiple rides at once)
Originally Posted By leemac <<"Disney doesn't need to build more fancy, cutting-edge rides, sadly. There's never a line for Mystic Manor or Grizzly Gulch when I go.">> The park is a classic first guest park - they tend to get to the south side of the park last so MM is usually busiest after the parade. I regularly gets to 45-60 minutes. Runaway Mine Cars isn't as popular but I think a big part of that is that guest don't really know what the attraction is when they approach the entrance as it is divorced for the visible elements.
Originally Posted By friarthe Good point about the low capacity on Pooh and the Toy Story flat rides. Seems obvious to me (now that everybody has pointed it out). I suppose that also explains the steady lines on the somewhat awful Jungle Cruise. We just figured it was some backwards ratio, high quality = low lines.
Originally Posted By dagobert According to D&M, the government of Hong Kong is in talks with Disney to start phase II, a second park, at HKDL. <a target="blank" rel="nofollow" href="http://disneyandmore.blogspot.com/2015/02/hong-kong-disneyland-phase-2-should.html">http://disneyandmore.blogspot....uld.html</a>
Originally Posted By FerretAfros Wow, 2020 seems like a pretty aggressive timeline for a new park if we're just starting to hear about it now, but I'm excited to see what it could be. The resort infrastructure was clearly designed for a 2nd park, so it will be neat to see how this plays out As they mentioned in the link to their FB page, it seems like they might want to do something with Star Wars, since it's not included in the existing park
