Culture Shocks and Disney Magic... in Asia!!! A TR on all Asia Disney Resorts! [Update Dec19!]

Wondering why the waiter could see you struggling with Mandarin yet he answered in English. Was he just playing with you?

I love Disneytown. It's so cool seeing how alike and then so different they are. I would say you had a very successful day.
Oops! I should have clarified. He replied in Mandarin. All of the people eating at the restaurant were Chinese, and I don't actually think many of the servers spoke English! My listening skills for mandarin is much better than speaking or reading haha.
 
Thanks for the link about soup dumplings! I have a question for you regarding food in general in China. Did you find that it was similar to what you find back home? When my father-in-law went to China on business many years ago he said the food there didn't taste anything like the Chinese food he had back here in the States - that the Chinese food we have here has been "Americanized." I realize this is a very broad question and might really depend upon where you live, etc but I'm curious about your opinion. Thank you!
 
Thanks for the link about soup dumplings! I have a question for you regarding food in general in China. Did you find that it was similar to what you find back home? When my father-in-law went to China on business many years ago he said the food there didn't taste anything like the Chinese food he had back here in the States - that the Chinese food we have here has been "Americanized." I realize this is a very broad question and might really depend upon where you live, etc but I'm curious about your opinion. Thank you!

That's true to a degree. What we have in North America is quite different.

However there are a lot more types of regional Chinese food. So what you have in Shanghai will even be very different than what you have in Hong Kong.
 
That's true to a degree. What we have in North America is quite different.

However there are a lot more types of regional Chinese food. So what you have in Shanghai will even be very different than what you have in Hong Kong.

Interesting. I hadn't even thought about that aspect. Certainly applies here in the States and I would assume Canada.

Thanks for responding.
 


Just found your TR and read the whole thing so far. Love it!
Disneyland Shanghai was in our plans for 2018, sadly we have had to delay plans a few years. We were in China 7 years ago (Beijing, Wuhan, Guangzhou & 1 night in HK) & would love to go back. Our plan was to fly into Beijing, the tour a few cities and depart thru Shanghai after a few days at Disneyland.
Love the xiao long bao! Dumplings of any kind are my son's fave foods. We loved all our food in China, not the same as Americanized Chinese but much better we thought.

Can't wait for the rest of your TR!
 
I love your TR! I have thought about doing this kind of trip someday, hopefully when i find that special someone lol! And I love your super detailed style of reporting :)
 
haha their Duffy obsession is hilarious! Super cute!

So what's the deal with tap water there? Is it like Mexico (which I've been to many times and never bothered to find out why we can't drink the water from the tap there either!) 4 glasses of boiled water :rotfl2: Well, at least you know it's safe! Looking forward to reading about your first day in the parks!!
 


Joining in! Loving your report and getting to see what the Asian parks are like! My husband and I are also twenty-somethings an just went to disney together for our honeymoon a year or so ago. Maybe we will make it to one of these parks someday as well! Looking forward to reading more! :)
 
Sorry for my mini hiatus! It's been hockey playoffs season in our city and honestly it kind of took over our life here so everything else fell on the wayside, oops!
 
OOH! I contemplated eating at Food Republic but ate somewhere else instead. So glad that I didn't eat there now....because I don't think I would have figured out how to pay either.
Hahaha yeah, if we weren't already starving by this point, we probably would have been able to figure it out. But when you are running on an empty stomach, you don't really want to spend time trying to figure out how to buy food, you just want to buy it hahahah!
The food looks good there!
Yeah! It was quite good, and prices weren't bad
I definitely need a trip back now. I never made it INSIDE the store.
Omg!! did you run out of time??
It was weird how it was the only Innisfree store around!
I'm not too chapped that we didn't get anything. Mostly we just wanted to pick up some sheet masks, but they're actually quite reasonably priced when you order off amazon.
I so agree. It was a decent enough size store but no where near as large as I thought it would be.
Hahahaha I honestly thought it was one large room that led to another, so deep down I was SUPER shocked that it wasn't more!
I don't think I even looked at those cups at night. I saw them in the morning and didn't give them a second thought at all! Nice.
Yeah! Pretty cute lit up as lanterns
 
I loved seeing all the Duffy & Shellie May representation! Love them so much :lovestruc Sounds like a good night in Disneytown!
There is much much much more Duffy and friends to come hahaha

I WOULD BUY EVERYTHING. ugh so cute
It was very hard to say no to buying everything. But it's still the beginning of our trip and having to pack and travel with a ton of stuff didn't make sense! Plus, we found that merchandise pricing wasn't the greatest in Shanghai compared to the states!

Interesting. I hadn't even thought about that aspect. Certainly applies here in the States and I would assume Canada.

Thanks for responding.
I'm glad Glendon was able to answer while I've been on hiatus!! Regionally, food can get quite adventurous! But stuff like the soup dumplings are great!! Many North American places have started to pick these up so we've definitely gotten a chance to try some before going and then experiencing the real deal if that makes sense haha
 
Just found your TR and read the whole thing so far. Love it!
Disneyland Shanghai was in our plans for 2018, sadly we have had to delay plans a few years. We were in China 7 years ago (Beijing, Wuhan, Guangzhou & 1 night in HK) & would love to go back. Our plan was to fly into Beijing, the tour a few cities and depart thru Shanghai after a few days at Disneyland.
Love the xiao long bao! Dumplings of any kind are my son's fave foods. We loved all our food in China, not the same as Americanized Chinese but much better we thought.

Can't wait for the rest of your TR!
Thanks for following along!!! I ended up loving Shanghai Disneyland! We recently all met up after this trip to exchange photos and talk about it, and Shanghai Disneyland surprised us all! We definitely made lots of great memories!

I love your TR! I have thought about doing this kind of trip someday, hopefully when i find that special someone lol! And I love your super detailed style of reporting :)
Thanks for reading!! I'm glad to hear you like it so far haha. Even my silly tangents :joker:

Joining in! Loving your report and getting to see what the Asian parks are like! My husband and I are also twenty-somethings an just went to disney together for our honeymoon a year or so ago. Maybe we will make it to one of these parks someday as well! Looking forward to reading more! :)
Yay! Thanks for joining!

Hopping on board here! Thanks for posting so many photos- I'm excited to see the rest of your trip :)
Thank you!!! Hope you enjoy the rest as well!
 
haha their Duffy obsession is hilarious! Super cute!

So what's the deal with tap water there? Is it like Mexico (which I've been to many times and never bothered to find out why we can't drink the water from the tap there either!) 4 glasses of boiled water :rotfl2: Well, at least you know it's safe! Looking forward to reading about your first day in the parks!!
Hahahaha! Duffy gets crazier throughout the trip, I'd say!

I just think they don't have proper filtration system for their tap water, so it's not safe. It's by law in North America that all the water that comes out of our taps is deemed drinkable! I think sometimes we really take this for granted!! I think this is similar with Mexico... except their water can be contaminated including by hep a. SO definitely don't drink the tap water in Mexico!
 
I had no idea there was a Toy Story hotel until your thread! That's so cool! My son would love it. Too bad we live extremely far from China, especially to travel with a small child. I'll have to live vicariously through your post for now. Thanks for sharing.
 
I had no idea there was a Toy Story hotel until your thread! That's so cool! My son would love it. Too bad we live extremely far from China, especially to travel with a small child. I'll have to live vicariously through your post for now. Thanks for sharing.
Hahaha yeah, this trip took us 3 years to plan! And with no children. It was definitely a big one!

Thanks for following along!
 
Day 3 [part 1]: SO MUCH EXCITEMENT! LET’S GO TO DISNEYLAND!


We woke up and took the elevator down to level 1, where Sunnyside Cafe is located! The lobby is on floor 2. Here is a video of the elevator ride down to level 1 haha



There were a few options for food for breakfast… You could choose between dimsum, noodles, or American breakfast. Jenna and I both chose to get the dimsum, Glendon got some curry noodles, and Brian went with some American breakfast!


Here is Glendon’s curry noodles and my dimsum on one tray.
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With your food order, you also got to choose your morning breakfast beverage: coffee or tea!​


Here is Brian’s American breakfast of sausage, eggs, hash brown
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Mickey shaped hash brown!​


Close up of my dimsum breakfast:
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The pixar ball plate is so cute haha. The buns on the left, one is a pork bun and one is a veggies bun. The dumplings are crab meat.


Sorry, blurry photo but look at the Mickeys on the chopsticks!
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Mmmmmmmm pork bun
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And veggies wasn’t bad either!
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And close up of the Grand Opening paper cups!
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SO then after breakfast we got onto the bus to take us over to the park! It’s the same bus that takes you over to Disneytown. This time instead of walking into the shopping area, we walked to the right! And there was already huge lines for security. We waited and this was our first experience of the “no personal space” business that we were expecting in China. It wasn’t TERRIBLY bad… we decided to incorporate the 4-person wall strategy and most of the people understood. We also noticed a ton of signs around the park that tells you that when you’re waiting in line, you have to have your entire party with you. The way that you redeem your park ticket is to bring your passport with you, and they scan it right in at the turnstile! Pretty neat. Also, we discovered that they have hidden cameras that take a photo of your face as you walk in. I’m sure this is because we had a 2 day park ticket and now they secretly have a photo of you for when you walk in the next day.


Ticket! Park! PARK!!! (Sorry focus is off)
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ENTRANCE
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From here, I don’t have any photos until we got to our first ride haha. We were quite overwhelmed and excited to be in the park. So far, the park didn’t seem to be too awfully busy. When we were waiting in line at security it felt like a lot, but once we got into the park, it seemed like the park was soooo vast that the huge amounts of people just… dispersed. Anyways, so our plan was to run over to get ourselves a Soaring (SoarinG with a G and not Soarin’ in Shanghai!!!) to get a fastness, as we didn’t want to wait the 120 minutes in line. We ran over and turns out… they didn’t have fast pass running for Soaring!!! AND the line up already hit the 120 mark. Ahhhhh. So THIS is where all the people we were waiting in line with are. They are ALL here. At the Soaring line up. We had heard that it’s the same as in the American parks (the updated, around the world version) so we decided we’ll skip it for this morning, and watch the app for wait time all day to see if it will drop down. SO we decide…. let’s run over to PIRATES! Because that was our most anticipated ride of this park!


PIRATES!
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EXCITED JESSICA IN FRONT OF PIRATES!
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The wait time was about 15 minutes, so we definitely went for it! So so so much excitement!


Sign
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The spot where the lineup splits to two lines
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At this point, we realized tons of other people also decided to skip Soaring and came to Pirates. The wait became closer to 25-30 than the 15 minutes posted outside. But never fear! We were very fascinated with all the stuff to look at while we waited! I do believe we chose to go with the line up on the right hand side.


Our view to the right
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Just about at loading area!
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Guess who’s next!
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HERE COMES OUR BOAT
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Our very first ride selfie!!!
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Glendon and I had cheated before coming to Shanghai and watched as many videos on youtube as possible on this ride, only because we were TOO excited. So we already knew what was coming, yet we were so excited to see it for ourselves. Jenna had purposely not watched any videos whatsoever. How she did that, I have no idea hahaha. Anyways… all four of us came out of that ride with our mouths open. It was AMAZING. Glendon and I aren’t ones to like too many screens in a moving ride… but somehow Disney managed to make this beyond amazing. All of the effects and animatronics and scenes were just… perfect. The story is in Mandarin so really we had no idea what the plot was, but just the overall experience is mind-blowing. Easily became a ride we would love to ride over and over! (Glendon and I’s only disappointment though… If you have seen some videos already, like Glendon and I… you’ll have seen the really crazy skeleton-Jack Sparrow scene. From all the videos we’ve watched, it looked like literal magic. Lots of reviews were saying that they couldn’t figure it out, etc. So Glendon and I were so ready to see magic. Unfortunately, during even our first ride through, we easily figured out the trick!!! In fact, we thought it was pretty obvious! That’s okay, it’s still really cool)


After Pirates, we were on a little bit of a new-park-high haha. After riding our very first brand new ride, we decided to make our way over to our next brand new ride: Tron. Our plan was to get a fast pass and explore the park.


But on our way…
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We walked by Peter Pan’s Flight. And from the outside… it doesn’t even look open. There was literally NO line up. PETER PAN HAS NO LINE UP?! Oh my god, my last two trips to Florida, and my last trip to Disneyland, I had to cut Peter Pan out of my trip because the line up was constantly hovering 120+ minutes. So needless to say, we all had our minds blown in a different way than Pirates hahaha.


Ride selfie #2!
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The flying ships seat 4 (2 rows of 2)


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Yay! The ride is very similar to the classic Peter Pan rides, except that it’s clearly newer. The paint is brighter, the ride vehicles can adjust to different speeds. It was nice! I know lots of people love Peter Pan’s Flight for it’s very classic ride through. But the new-ness and effects in this one are nice.


Now here we go! Walking in to Tomorrowland! We walked from the Fantasyland side



View of Tron!
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Coaster track views!!
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Got our Fast Passes!!!
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More views
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(I actually don’t know why I took this photo. It doesn’t show anything haha)


And lastly… I was super excited about our Fast Passes.
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You can tell that so far, the park isn’t very busy. Considering we’d already spent a big chunk of our morning NOT getting fast passes, and after already walking around the perimeter of the park when we attempted Soaring first thing then hitting up Pirates, we still got a return time of 10:55-11:55!



This was our ridiculous path of our morning haha… WHY? Because we were stubborn and didn’t walk around with a map. We just went with it. End result… racking up the km’s on vacation haha

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Up next… Voyage to Crystal Grotto!
 
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Seems like a very familiar story indeed to our entry into the park! LOL!!!

Except we got the Soarin' FP and the Pirates ride was down. But we walked from one end of the park to the other and back.....and back again. I don't think I'll readily do that in any other park.
 

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