I left you in my last post with a
teaser for this current post – on our final day in Hong Kong, Meredith & I
wanted to share a special memory by doing something that we had never done in
Hong Kong before so we went to what I phrased in the last blog post as “the
happiest place in East Asia.” Where is
that you may ask??…Hong Kong Disneyland. J
Tuesday
Although we were beyond tired from our long, hot Monday, Meredith &
I managed to get up Tuesday and venture to Hong Kong Disneyland. A few people who knew we were going were kind
of confused as to why we would want to go to a place that you can find in the
States…but my logic was this: how cool is it to say you’ve been to Disneyland
in HONG KONG? J Pretty cool, I think.
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| HK Disneyland - the happiest place in East Asia :) |
It actually isn’t too hard to get to HK Disneyland – it’s basically a
few MTR rides away! Oh, how I wish it
was that easy here in America…unfortunately, I would have to drive like 12ish
hours from my home to get to Disneyworld.
Granted, the MTR ride is pretty much 45 minutes and we had to change
subways twice, but that definitely beats 12 hours waiting in traffic!
HK Disneyland actually has its very own MTR – the windows are shaped
like Mickey ears and the handles inside are mouse ears too! Since it was a nice day (and it was also the
hottest day since I had been there), we knew that it was most likely going to
be crowded and we weren’t wrong…the MTR was packed which was a very good
indication of the day.
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| HK Disneyland MTR windows |
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| HK Disneyland MTR |
When we got off the subway, we saw a welcome sign and got really
excited! We had to walk a ways to the
entrance, but there was Disney music playing and you couldn’t help but
smile! I had pre-bought our tickets
before I left the States, so all we had to do was go to a kiosk and type in a
code. I am SO glad I did this because it
cut our wait at the entrance considerably.
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| Welcome to HK Disneyland! |
We walked into the entrance to the park and were immediately in
Mainstreet USA…in Hong Kong (if that makes any sense) J The entrance is set up very similar to the
Magic Kingdom park in Disneyworld… there is also only 1 park here with little “lands”
setup inside (i.e. Fantasyland, Tomorrowland, Adventureland, etc.). We walked down Mainstreet and immediately saw
the Sleeping Beauty castle! Knowing that
the lines would be tremendous today, we realized that we were not going to get
to do everything in the park. We knew we
wanted to see the shows and that we wanted to try and ride a few rides, so we
began to scope out the things we wanted to do.
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| Mainstreet USA...in Hong Kong. |
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| Sleeping Beauty castle |
Our first “adventure” was to Adventureland to see the Festival of the Lion King show. It was in English with Chinese translation
and there was a mixture of both Asian and Western cast members. The show was really good and very colorful….PLUS,
you couldn’t help but sing along to the familiar Lion King songs! Oh yeah,
the air conditioned theater was nice too. J
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| Festival of the Lion King show |
Following the show, we ventured to Fantasyland to see what was going on
there. There were all sorts of familiar
rides – Cinderella’s carousel, Mad Hatter teacups, Winnie the Pooh ride, as
well as my favorite…It’s a Small World.
The lines for many of the rides were like 35-40 minute waits, however
the Small World ride was 15-20…so we opted to wait in that one. There’s just something about being in It’s a Small World in another country
that just is really cool to me…Meredith didn’t really get my excitement, but I
was excited nonetheless J The only thing that wasn’t exciting in this particular
ride is that about 15 people just cut straight in front of us so that they
could be in front of us (no real reason)…not sure why and we really didn’t want
to waste the energy to protest…but it was kinda nuts. We just told ourselves…we’re in a different
country with different rules and expectations.
I made the comment to Meredith that if that had happened in America,
there would have been complaints up and down…good thing we weren’t in America… FUNNY STORY #1: While waiting in line, a
Disneyland worker came out of a back room.
He was a husky looking young man who looked to be 16 or 17 and his name
was Machos…no, not Nachos, but Machos.
Hmmm…very interesting.
Anywhoo…we rode the ride and it was fun to sing along to the familiar song…yes, my dear blog reader, I can hear you humming it now. J One cool thing about the HK Small World is that there are different Disney movies represented throughout the various nation-rooms. There is also a special “Hong Kong” exhibit in the ride too.
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| Small World ride |
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| Inside the ride....so colorful |
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| Hong Kong portion of the ride...love the Star Ferry on the far left :) |
After riding this fun ride, we went to the Phillarmagic 4-D show. We’ve seen this one at Disneyworld in the US,
so we kind of knew what to expect. I won’t
give anything away, but it’s an animated 4-D show….3D with the extra “dimension”
of smell. It includes a lot of the famous
Disney movie songs and was a fun show…it was also nice to sit in an air-conditioned
room J FUNNY STORY #2: While waiting in this line, a
Disneyland worker came up to give an announcement. We looked at his name tag and saw his name
was Wicky…no, not Ricky, but Wicky.
Geez.
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| Fun show :) |
By this time, we were hungry so we scouted out a restaurant where we
could find a seat…which ended up taking a whole lot of time because there were
absolutely, positively NO SEATS at any restaurant. We knew we needed to sit under shade because
it was SUCH a hot day…finally, we found a restaurant and got some food. After eating, we decided to just walk around
the park to see some of the “extra” sights…we knew we didn’t really have enough
time to wait in a ride line (because we were going to go to another show), but
we did have time to walk around. We
ended up seeing ToyStory Land….it was so cute as it was like a gigantic land of
toys from the popular movie. It made you
feel like you were smaller than all the toys… pretty cool.
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| Toy Story Land! |
The final show we wanted to see was fast approaching, so we high-tailed
it there and had an enjoyable time watching The
Golden Mickey’s. It was a Broadway-type
show set up like an awards show for various Disney movies. There was singing and dancing and it was just
a very well put-together show. It was
nice to sing along with the songs in English…the dialogue was in Chinese, with
English subtitles, however.
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| Golden Mickey show |
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| One of the parts of the show - a tale as old as time....Beauty and the Beast! :) |
Following the show, we went to Tomorrowland to try and ride the Buzz
Lightyear ride. When we got there, we
found out the wait time was an hour…an hour!!!!!!!!!! We decided not to wait an hour for a 10
minute ride, so we opted for another one – the Orbitron…basically the
Dumbo-ride of Tomorrowland (in spaceships instead of elephants). I had a fun time on the ride…Meredith, not so
much! J Guess she didn’t like seeing a birds-eye view
of HK Disneyland.
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| The Orbitron ride |
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Even though she was scared to death...I managed to get Meredith to smile on the ride!
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Since the beginning of the day, Meredith had wanted to ride the Jungle
Cruise in Adventureland. Since I made
her ride the Orbitron with me, I let her decide what ride she wanted to do…and
Jungle Cruise it was. When we made it to
the ride, it began to get really dark…like storming dark. We were put in an English only line, and when
it was time to get on the boat, it began to rain. The ride kept going, though, so I guess it
wasn’t raining enough to close the ride.
This ride was basically taking a boat ride through the “jungle” and
seeing fake elephants, alligators, and the like…it was a relaxing ride if you
take into account all the walking we did most of the day. The best part about it was our tour guide…which
brings me into FUNNY STORY #3: When we
boarded the boat, our tour guide said in the most broken English I’ve ever
heard anyone in HK speak, “Hallo…my name is Pui, but you can call me Steve.” How in the world do you get Steve from
Pui? Not sure. His inferences throughout the “cruise” were
hi-larious. He was more entertaining
than the ride. Now that’s funny.
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| Riding the Jungle Cruise boat |
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| Our tour guide Pui....I mean Steve! :) |
When we got off the boat, it began to rain HARD. Meredith pulled out her umbrella, but we were
getting soaked anyway. We ran under a
shelter, but stood there for a long time.
Since it was both raining and beginning to get dark, we decided to head
out. We knew from the beginning of the
day that we weren’t going to stay until the park closing because of all the
crowds and the rain let us know it was that time. We wanted to stop at the Disney store, first,
however, to pick up some things for our Disney-fanatic friends. J
After making our purchases, we headed to the exit to leave for our
hotel. Let me just say, even though we left
early to avoid crowds…it really didn’t help because the crowds to leave were just
as horrible. Let’s just say there was a
lot of pushing and shoving…and Meredith and I were mustering up our grace and
patience. J It was crowded for a good portion of the trip
to the hotel, but it leveled off eventually.
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| Leaving Disneyland :( |
We made it back to our hotel, dropped off our stuff and went to the
infamous McD’s for our last dinner in HK.
McD’s was chosen because it was quick, cheap, and had free wi-fi J It was nice to just chill out and enjoy our
time together reminiscing about our fun day at Disneyland. Before returning to the hotel, we went to the
harbor nearby to see the gorgeous Harbor lit up at night. The lights are just beautiful and it was nice
to have this one last memory of HK. Our
day was catching up with us, however, so we then returned back to the hotel,
got our luggage together, and went to sleep, in order to wake up and take off
the next morning for our journey back home.
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| The gorgeous Harbor at night! Love the lights! |
I had a great time with my sister
in HK Disneyland. I am SO glad I got the
opportunity to share this special time with her. It was nice to have this as our special last HK
memory before returning home to America.
In my next and final post, I’ll share with you about our trip home…it’ll
be a lot shorter than these previous posts, promise… J
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