Originally Posted By FerretAfros I don't know if it is right or not, but the population on the train station said 5,000,000. I only remember that because I thought it was a really high number for a park that is so new. If it is true, I really don't think they will have any issue reaching their attendance goals.
Originally Posted By SuperDry The number on the train station reflects the anticipated first-year attendance, not the attendance so far. It read 5,500,000 on Opening Day.
Originally Posted By Witches of Morva ORWEN: Well, if things don't improve they'll just have to close down Hong Kong Disneyland I guess. ORGOCH: Why? Ya ain't been able ta improve yer own dang self ever since I knowed ya an', yet, YER still 'round!!
Originally Posted By FerretAfros So, here it is, the official trip report. I was just going to say what I thought about everything, but it ended up being a mix of narrative and my opinion. The park was open from 10:00-8:00, and we got there around 10:30. We managed to get in every attraction, and a brief walk through each hotel. My mom came with me, since it was the only day that she didn’t have any meetings for the whole day. Sorry about the length, I had a lot of free time with a computer, but no internet, so I just typed it in Word, and did the copy and past routine. It is a little over 7 pages in word, so grab a snack, sit back, and have fun! We got started along our way around 9:45 on Tuesday morning. The concierge at the hotel said that the easiest way to get to the park was just taking a cab, but I thought it would be a lot more fun to take the train, since it looked fun, and very unique. We took a taxi to Kowloon station, where there were plenty of signs telling us where to go. We knew which line we wanted, but they also had signs telling us how to get to the park. On the MTR maps, the HKDLR line is marked by Mickey ears, making it easy to recognize. The whole trip took about 30-45 minutes. Once we arrived, we walked over to the ticket booths, where there was no line to speak of. It seemed like as soon as somebody got to the end of the waiting area, the next window would open up, which was really nice. It looked like most people had already bought their tickets, as they were bypassing the ticket booths. When we got the tickets, we were also handed maps of the park. I had heard that people didn’t know where everything in the park was and they just stayed on Main Street, so it makes sense that they wanted to make it painfully obvious how to get to all the different attractions. After entering the park, we walked down to the end of Main Street. Since it looked like it had rained while we were on the train, everything was wet and it was fairly hot and extremely humid. It felt really good to walk past all the stores on MS, with their doors open, letting the air conditioning spread out into the park. After spending a few more days in Hong Kong, I realized that this is a fairly common practice, but it was still very welcome. All the nicely decorated windows along the street were completely fogged up, and we couldn’t see in at all. I thought that was a real shame, since they looked like they were pretty neat, but we couldn’t really tell. When we got to the end of MS, we went to Tomorrowland, thinking that, like the US parks, people would head left and then go around the park in a clockwise direction. We walked to the center of TL, and I noticed that it didn’t seem particularly crowded. The wait for Space Mountain was posted at 10 minutes, so I headed over to do that, since my mom isn’t into coasters and I figured she wouldn’t have to wait very long at that point. I went toward the FP return and single rider entrance, since I was alone. There was a CM standing there, and he looked at me like I was crazy, and directed me over to the main entrance. I walked through the right entrance, and the line went right in the door. We stopped temporarily in the area with the video screens, which I assume were giving a safety spiel, but I couldn’t understand it at all. I was stopped for about one minute, and then went right into the boarding area. I was very impressed with how it looked, especially considering that it was the same layout as the DL track. I thought it was neat to enter by the trains, instead of over the track and take the ramp down and around. I really liked all the planets and things hanging overhead, but I thought the metal things on the walls were a little strange. Once the ride started, we headed up the first lift in complete darkness, which caught me off guard, since I was expecting something at least mildly similar to what is in DL. Along the first flat part, between the two lifts, I really liked the things that lit up. I have no idea what they were supposed to be, but I thought they looked like the things from Tron. On the way up the main lift, I was totally surprised by the mirror-ish things with the star/lights in them. It was a very neat effect, and really fit the overall theme of the land. At the top of the lift, I was pleased to see the asteroid lit up, but it was a big let down. I was expecting it to be something at least mildly exciting, but it just sat there. Most of the ride was pretty much the same, but there were some meteor flats in the second half. Now that I think about it, they were probably supposed to be related to the one at the top, but I didn’t make the connection on the ride. The breaking area was the same as DL, and then we got back into the load area. We exited on the right, which was a change for me, but it worked. Overall, the ride was very different, considering that it was the same track as DL. I don’t know if I liked it better or not, but it certainly fit the land very very well. DL’s has a retro-60’s look, much like the rest of the land, and HKDL’s TL is very bright and colorful, as was most of the ride, so it worked well. After that, we went over to the Astro Orbiter. The line wasn’t too long, so we decided to go for it. While we were waiting, the trashcan-playing janitor/drummers, sorry I don’t know the name but I think it is either the Jammators or the Trashcan Trio, came along. It made the line more entertaining, and they gathered a pretty large crowd by the time we got on. I was impressed by the cards we were given to load us into our flying saucer, complete with the number. That made it a little confusing, but it seemed to work. I was surprised by them being printed on paper that was laminated, since that didn’t seem very durable. The ride itself was alright, but not particularly thrilling, since there were trees all around it, making it feel like you were a lot lower than you really were. This is a problem that I only see getting worse as time goes on. The four-person cars seemed to help, but most groups had two or three people, so I don’t know if it really helped that much. The new design of the ride itself was very neat looking, and really inviting, unlike the one at DL, which is obviously too big for its space, which makes you want to move away from it. At night, the fiber optics in the large starry globe looked really neat as well. After that, we went over to Buzz Lightyear. Once again, there wasn’t a wait at all. I noticed right at the boarding area that it was a different track layout than DL, or if it has the same one, it is configured differently so you can’t see the load and unload at the same time. I also noticed that the first room, where the guns don’t work was completely eliminated. It felt a lot cheesier this way, as it didn’t seem to even pretend to have a story to follow. My mom had never been on it before, and having a short line didn’t help her understand what the purpose of the attraction was. She realized at the very end that you can just shoot the came target over and over, and it will give you more points. I really couldn’t tell any major differences, other than the overall track layout, since I was shooting the whole time. I did notice some really cool “electricity†effects in one room, which looks like neon colored fluid flowing through tubes, but made out of lights. On the way out, I really liked looking at the Mr. Potato Head display, with all of the neat Disney themed items that you can attach to it. Since we had finished all of the operating attractions in TL, we headed over to FL, using the little path that connects the two around the back. On the way, we noticed the new Stitch attraction’s sign was completely visible over the wall. It is inside the Space Mountain building, along the very short path from Tomorrowland to the parade route. As we were walking into Fantasyland, we noticed some construction walls that were covering up the Festival of Foods. I don’t know if they are doing major changes to the menu, or retheming it, or even taking it out to put in a new attraction (Peter Pan anyone?). In an unusual way for Disney, the wall had no signs on it to say anything as simple as “Sorry for the inconvenienceâ€, which made me think that this wasn’t totally planned. We went over to the teacups, which, once again, had nearly no line. We got there just before they closed the gate, and we grabbed the last cup. I really didn’t notice anything special about this version of the ride, since each version is pretty much the same as the others. The only thing that I did notice was that I personally prefer it to not have a roof, but I completely understand why it is there, since the rain can be so strong. From there, we decided to go to Winnie the Pooh, since I knew the line for that could get pretty long. The posted wait was 20 minutes, which was pretty accurate. Compared to the sister attraction at DL, I really didn’t like this version very much. Most of the rooms were the same, but the Tigger room in HK looked very very bleak. There were only a few bushes that he popped out of, and a dark blue wall. This would have been a really strong scene, had there been more to look at. The Heffalumps and Woozles room seemed really small, and pretty cramped because of the oversized props. Once again, the birthday ending really looked out of place, but I guess they assume that little kids like parties, so they could throw it in. The flooding room is neat here, using the same effect as DL, but it was a little too big. My eyes had time to adjust to the darkness, and the effects started to give themselves away. There was also a service light focused on Eyore that gave some of the effects away. After that we headed over toward Mickey’s Philharmagic. I haven’t seen it in WDW yet, so I was really looking forward to it. I have to say that it is by far the most convincing 3-D effects that I have seen in a long time. It appeared to add depth into the screen, rather than trying to poke out into the audience, which worked very well. Most of the transitions between songs were great, and it all had a consistent look to it. Except for the Lion King segment. This had a totally different look to it, the transitions were bad, and the 3-D tried to come out of the screen, making the effects look really bad and cheesy. I thought that it was by far the worst part of an otherwise great show. I don’t know if they have the Donald in the wall in WDW, but I thought it was a neat touch that only Disney would come up with. We went from there to the carousel. It was fun, but like the teacups, nothing particularly unique. I did notice that there was another pom pom tree next to the queue area, on the side with Philharmagic and the Royal Banquet Hall. I also noticed in other areas that the carousel music was playing throughout the entire land. Although it was nice, it was very strange to hear it all over the land. I think it would have been nice to have an orchestral version of the same songs playing at the same time, so it would blend well, be consistent, yet still keep some variety. After that, we had lunch at the Royal Banquet Hall. I had some sort of steak-type thing, and my mom had Dim Sung. About half way through the meal, we figured out why I was given a knife and fork, but she got chopsticks. It is just a little hard to cut steak with chopsticks, but most people prefer them for normal food. The service was amazingly fast, efficient, friendly, and the theming was great. We ate outside, but realized that we were actually inside. I notice the air conditioning vent above us, and thought it was strange, until I noticed the glass roof connecting the tent sections to the building and each other. The inside part was very crowded, since it was so we themed that you really couldn’t tell that the other part was still air conditioned. Thumbs up to Imagineering for creativity, but it was so good that nobody really knew that the outside was air conditioned, making it too crowded in the inside eating area. After eating, we headed over to catch The Golden Mickeys in the Storybook Theater. The line was out to the rotunda by the entrance, but started moving as soon as we got there. I noticed that the bench seats, although air conditioned, were not very wide, which made me sit up awkwardly straight, like in a bad caricature of a school. The little video that was showing as we sat there repeated itself several times, which is strange, since they only recycled footage from other films. I thought that the multiple languages was worked out well, using the screens like subtitles, talking in Chinese (I couldn’t tell if it was Mandarin or Cantonese) and writing in Chinese on one side and English on the other. I was very impressed with the show. At the end I counted to see how many people were in the cast, since there were many huge scenes, and I only counted about 25. I would have really liked to see this show from backstage, where I could see all the insane changes going on. I was surprised by the Mulan scene, but I figured that it was just left over from the cruise version. The Little Mermaid scene was by far my favorite, as it really felt like we were under water. The Hunchback scene threw me off, since it was in the hero section, but it was alright. Overall, the show had an amazing amount of energy, great variety, and it was very entertaining. After the show, we went over to Dumbo. The wait wasn’t too bad, and I really liked the theming of the queue area, like a circus train. The ride itself had good views of Fantasyland, and did not suffer the same tree problem that I found in Tomorrowland. I did notice from the line that the Hollywood Hotel is very easy to see and stands out along the tree line. From Dumbo, we took a stroll through Fantasy Gardens. We noticed a sign at the entrance that looked like there could be times when you had to wait just to get in, to wait more to meet the characters. The topiaries and gardens were nice, but I was surprised that the topiaries had not fully grown in yet, since I saw the same thing in another update a while ago. Overall, I think that this Fantasyland has one of the best cohesive feels. It is like a medieval fair, out in the country. Although each attraction has its own unique look, they all really work well together, making a great overall feeling for the area. After that, we took the path around into the back entrance of Adventureland. We walked past the drumming circle, which sat empty. I thought it was strange that it was not an attraction, but Snow White’s Grotto is, but I digress. We went over to the Liki Tikis, where there was a lot of watching, and not much playing. It may deal with the high humidity, which makes it difficult to get clothes to dry in any reasonable amount of time. We got on the Jungle Cruise, with about a 5 minute wait. I was very pleased by the variety of scenes, since most reviews I had heard said that it felt empty. Our guide had several really good jokes that many people in the boat totally missed. One good one was saying there were five giant spiders, counting the four of them, asking where the other when, then screaming and pointing into the boat and saying “I really like those shoes!†Another that I think you guys would appreciate was in the African scene, where she said “Now we are in Africa. As you can see we have zebras, and giraffes, and zebras, and giraffes, and…zebras…., and…giraffes…and that’s about it.†I almost died laughing from that one, because of the complaints of that scene. I thought the native attack worked really well, and people were actually getting on the floor and ducking from the darts. The Canyon of the Gods was neat, but not as spectacular as Disney made it out to be. It was hard to tell that the fire god was supposed to have a face, and once all of the fire was put out by the water there was a huge amount of steam. It was pretty warm, but not hot enough to burn you by any stretch. It was just really gross going through that, in the already hot and very humid weather. After we got off, we walked over to the rafts to the island. It was a pretty uneventful trip, but interesting, since I’m used to the rafts being in Frontierland, so it was a very new look for the surroundings. The tree house itself looked neat and the layout worked much better than in DL. I believe that the tree itself was bigger, which allowed the rooms to be farther apart and just lent itself to the Tarzan theme better. I also liked all the areas to take pictures of the surrounding areas. Something I noticed in the park that is very different from US parks, is that it is very nice to be able to take pictures of really random things, and not get funny looks from people, because they are taking the same picture. I was taking pictures of the field past the train, that will eventually be part of the park, and people didn’t think twice about it. I know I’m a weirdo, but it was cool. From there, we went to look at the exhibit in the Opera House. It was very small, but I thought that it was a nice way to show a little bit of Disney history. We went through it backwards, since there was nothing telling which way to go, but I still enjoyed it. My mom really liked it, because she remembered a lot of the stuff actually happening. We heard an announcement for the parade just as we were getting to the end (the beginning actually) so we walked across Town Square and grabbed some seats on a bench. Just as the announcement played that said the parade was starting, it began to rain. Everybody else just got out their umbrellas and stayed where they were. Being wussy Americans, we walked over to the Emporium, and looked around for a while until we heard the music start. We headed back out to the street, where it had stopped raining. I’m not one that’s big on parades, but this one was pretty good. There was a wide variety of characters, and a lot of energy, but nothing that really tied them together. There were no common dancers, music, or even a general style that you could see on all of the floats. After the parade went by, we headed over to see the Festival of the Lion King. We went to the first waiting area, and stood there for about 15 minutes. They kept playing an announcement that it was the waiting area, and we would move to the show area later. I couldn’t help but think that it would just be easier to let people in directly to the theater, letting them sit in the air conditioning and not have to deal with the stampede when they leave the holding area. This would also open up a huge area for development. They would have to leave room for a path to the theater, but they could easily build a decent sized dark ride, or have the entrance for POTC or HM there. I haven’t seen this show in WDW, so I can’t really tell how it compared, but I thought it was pretty good. The translation was handled well with the monkeys keeping it playful and interesting, even if you can’t tell what they are saying. I thought that the floats would have a more important role in the show, but they just sat there the whole time. I appreciated that the animals kept moving to the music and reacting to the show. I didn’t like the change to the music for Be Prepared, as lounge singer rhythms just don’t sit well with me. Can You Feel the Love Tonight ran a little long before the aerialist showed up, but after that it worked well. Also, when Simba and Nala met back up with each other, they did the weird rub against each other thing from the movie, except they didn’t really look like lions, and they weren’t touching. I think a hug would have worked a lot better there. Other than that, the show was really nice and they did a good job. I didn’t really like the reprise of the entire show at the end, but it sort of worked. After this, we walked back to the end of Main Street, and hopped on the train for a lap around the park. We noticed that the train just doesn’t have the same appeal here, where they use trains to move around every day. The train also seemed to move slowly, which made it even more obvious to me that there were only two stops. From the train, I was able to see the UFO Zone, which appeared to be almost ready. There were things that looked just like the pictures on the end near Buzz, and on the Space Mountain end, there was a large thing (sorry I can’t come up with a better word) that had little hoses on it that flailed around as water came out. Most of the fountains appeared to be working, which makes me think that it will open any day now. We got off the train on Main Street, and left the park to go explore the hotels. Following the signs, we walked to the HKDLH, even though we were planning on taking the bus. The public transportation center was one way, and the hotels were the other, so we just followed the sign to the hotels. I realized along the way that the path is extremely long. It is very well themed and nice to be on, but seems excessively long, even for leaving more room for expansion. The HKDLH was really nice and fancy, but just wasn’t my style. It reminded me of one of those fancy stores where you really don’t want to breathe too hard because you might break something. The Hollywood Hotel was really fun, and I liked the garden area. One of the cars appeared to have been missing around the back of the “Hollywood Hotel†sign past the pool. It was the second one along the path that leads to the “construction.†There were just little stubs sticking up out of the ground, with poles and ropes to keep people from walking through the area and tripping. We took the bus back to the park, and I noticed that they had done a really good job of theming the area. Considering that everything that is there was planted, it is amazing how natural feeling the area is. Once we got back to the park, we saw the Omnibus sitting in Town Square, so we hopped on, to help complete the list of attractions. As we drove down MS, I was upstairs and my mom was downstairs, and we both noticed how slow it was. I know that safety is the priority, but there were people leisurely strolling down the street moving faster than us. The top floor does, however, offer a great view and picture taking opportunities for the castle. It was getting dark, so I wanted to just go around and check out what each land looked like at night. We headed to TL first again, since I wanted to see what the Jungle Cruise is like at night. I rode Space Mountain again, and my mom and I both rode Buzz again. She said that having a second trip really improved her score, since she could just aim at the same target for a whole room which makes it easier to score tons of points. TL as a whole looked really neat by night, as there seemed to be lights in everything. A lot of the lights kept changing color, which really helped they are feel alive. We actually missed FL by night, but I can pretty much guess what it looks like, based on what the other FL’s around the world look like at night. We headed over to AL, where the torches that had been lit all day really came to life. The fire made for a very dramatic setting, and it really pulled you into the land. All the tiki lamps hanging on crooked bamboo looked neat, but the bamboo looked out of place, as it was very cartoony. Most of the time, you can go through a land in the day and have no idea how it will be lit later, but those stood out in the sunlight, and still looked a little out of place in the dark. By night, the Jungle Cruise is a lot of fun. There were really neat colored lights through out the attraction, which added to the feel. Unfortunately, the skipper wasn’t as good that time, but the trip was still pretty entertaining. The Canyon of Gods looked amazing by night, and there were lights for the water that helped it balance with the fire that had dominated by day. I also noticed that the steam created during that scene moved out of the river and across the path by the Liki Tikis and the drum circle. There was nobody over there, and the multicolored lights, in combination with the steam, made the area look like what I have always thought Adventureland is supposed to be about. After that, we headed over to the castle to watch the fireworks. Everybody was sitting down, so I grabbed a spot near an ODV on the left side of the castle, while my mom went to the bathroom. When she came back, I realized that everybody was sitting on the sidewalks and leaving the road completely empty. Knowing that there wouldn’t be any vehicles coming, we moved over to a center spot, and sat down just behind the curb. Others soon joined and we ended up in the middle of the crowd. I thought that the fireworks were pretty neat, but nothing too amazing. (I think after seeing Remember… Dreams Come True at DL, I will be very hard to impress with fireworks) I liked how they used the castle to show animation like they do for Wishes in WDW. I appreciated how everybody sat for the whole show, which made it a lot easier to see this from pretty much anywhere in the crowd. After the fireworks were over, and we couldn’t move anywhere, they showed the bubbles part of Fantasmic! from WDW, with all of the characters. I thought it was a nice way to pull everything together, and in a really minor way. We stayed around on Main Street and shopped for a little bit, letting the crowds for the trains die down. Once we got to the station, there were some people showing us how to use the machines to buy our tickets. This was nice, but it would have been really helpful a few hours earlier, when we were trying to figure it out for the first time in Kowloon station, but it was still very helpful, and I assume it moved the line along when there was a crowd. Overall, I had a very nice time. It is a very unique park, and will do quite well. Each land has a definite identity, which I don’t know if I can say for other parks. In most parks, the lands are clearly different from each other, but within each land, there can be some things that don’t fit. Here, everything adds to the feel and makes each land very strong. Adventureland seemed like a mini-DAK, where the plants are in charge, not the buildings. Fantasyland was a medieval fair set in the country, and Tomorrowland is a good balance of fantasy and future. Although the lands looked good, they lacked direction, and really didn’t pull you in a certain direction once you were in them. Overall, I really enjoyed the park and I hope to be able to visit it again some time.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros I also just found out that we will be spending the night at the Hollywood Hotel, since we have a really strange flight schedule, and it is a lot closer to the airport than anything else reasonable, it's a lot more fun, and it's the value season. (Try getting that in June in the US)
Originally Posted By FerretAfros Sorry, wrong thread...please ignore the massive post taking up the entire page... : /
Originally Posted By paulyahoo FerretAfros, thank you for your report. Now I have a little bit more hopes for our visit to HKDL in two weeks.
