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

[missangelalexis]

Sounds like a great morning so far, even with all the walking! Hahaha

 

[Grumpy's Wife]

I can't even imagine stumbling onto Peter Pan and having no wait. That's crazy but a great score for you.

 

[coloredimage]

Oh, love the pictures!

And love this sign lol

 

[TXMNie]

Sounds like fun! That is crazy Peter Pan had no wait! Tron looks really neat!

 

[princessbride6205]

What an amazing trip! Looking forward to seeing more of the Asia parks!

 

[franandaj]

Sounds like a pretty productive morning, the Pork Buns sound good for breakfast, I would definitely hit up the Asian choices over the American ones.

Soarin' is slightly different in Shanghai (I hope you eventually got to ride it). Each one ends with something relative to the park where it is being shown.

Interesting that Peter Pan doesn't seem to have a line in Shanghai, perhaps they are not familiar with the story. I have a feeling that park would wipe me out with all the walking to do!

I found it funny that you would say "How could you not watch videos of a ride?" It never really occurred to me to watch videos of rides since you don't get the feeling of the ride, just the visuals. Perhaps this is something lost on my generation, as I find lots of people turn to YouTube for research on stuff. I've only used YouTube to watch music and cat videos!

 

[jesterrific]

Sounds like a pretty productive morning, the Pork Buns sound good for breakfast, I would definitely hit up the Asian choices over the American ones.

Soarin' is slightly different in Shanghai (I hope you eventually got to ride it). Each one ends with something relative to the park where it is being shown.

Interesting that Peter Pan doesn't seem to have a line in Shanghai, perhaps they are not familiar with the story. I have a feeling that park would wipe me out with all the walking to do!

I found it funny that you would say "How could you not watch videos of a ride?" It never really occurred to me to watch videos of rides since you don't get the feeling of the ride, just the visuals. Perhaps this is something lost on my generation, as I find lots of people turn to YouTube for research on stuff. I've only used YouTube to watch music and cat videos!

Spoiler regarding Soaring... we didn't get to ride it haha. Just didn't have the time! But that's okay, other than the ending the rest is the same, right?

I still can't believe we literally walked right onto the vehicle for Peter Pan!! I just don't think the Chinese are that into a more classic style ride, I think they like new and fancy

We got too excited during the planning stages! I just need to see that I'll enjoy the ride even if it's just a video haha. But that being said, I've refused to watch any ride POVs on the new Guardians ride in California!!! But this is because ToT is my favourite ride of all time (not just for Disney, but literally in general!) because of the overall experience you get from the ride. My very first ride on Tower, everything was so unexpected and amazing I literally couldn't stop smiling after riding. So even though I LOVE my Tower, I'm pretty sure I'm going to love Guardians too... and because I remember my first ride through of Tower being surprised at everything, I think my experience with Guardians has to be the same haha!

 

[franandaj]

But that being said, I've refused to watch any ride POVs on the new Guardians ride in California!!! But this is because ToT is my favourite ride of all time (not just for Disney, but literally in general!) because of the overall experience you get from the ride. My very first ride on Tower, everything was so unexpected and amazing I literally couldn't stop smiling after riding. So even though I LOVE my Tower, I'm pretty sure I'm going to love Guardians too... and because I remember my first ride through of Tower being surprised at everything, I think my experience with Guardians has to be the same haha!

I watched one video, and that was local reporters who rode the ride during the press preview. It was "live" on TV. I put it in quote because we DVR the news and watch it on a 20 minute delay so that we can forward through the sports and commercials. When I rode it last Sunday, I got the same one that they showed on the news. There are six different experiences, and I need to go back without my parents. My mom needed to go sit down and drink some Ginger Ale after riding because she felt sick. I could have gone back and done it another five or more times!

I think the Guardians ride is going to be really cool! I can't wait to go back and try it again and again to see all the "tunes" or versions of the ride.

 

[jesterrific]

Day 3 [part 2]: Not Astro Blasters. Voyage to Crystal Grotto​

SO now that we have secured our first ride of Tron with a fast pass, we still had plenty of time to do a bit of wandering. Seriously, even though the Tomorrowland at Shanghai Disneyland isn’t the largest of Tomorrowlands… Everything about it feels so right. It feels very much like the Tomorrowland in the Tomorrowland movie haha.

Here is another Happy Jessica photo

So, since it’s literally right next to the Fast Pass stations… it’s ASTRO BLASTERS TIME! Especially if there’s only a 5 minute wait and it looks like there is no one in this area of the park at the time.

Oops, it’s not called Astro Blasters. It’s Buzz Lightyear Planet Rescue

Also, how is it that with so few people in this area right now, I take a photo with a random person dead smack in the centre of my photo


Line up photo

And it’s ride time!

View into play area

Let’s go get some Zurg targets

We LOVED this version of Astro Blasters!! The guns all WORK, and the laser pointers on them seem so accurate. It also helps that there are a million targets!

Plus, you can break a million points?!

(Glendon hit the million. My score is the 913 haha.)


Our first ride photo haha

It became a goal for our group for each of us to break the million! During our first ride though, only Glendon got the million. But the rest of us were in the 900Ks so we knew we could do it!!

After Buzz Lightyear (I keep wanting to call it Astro Blasters!!) we decided to walk towards the castle! We haven’t gotten a chance to take a close look at it yet!

But first… we stopped off at a washroom. And Glendon wanted to share with everyone in case you don’t know what they look like… a squatty potty

Here is a fountain in front of the lineup for Peter Pan

On the way to the castle we walked by Voyage to Crystal Grotto, which is a ride we all wanted to see. And since it’s a 10 minute wait, we were excited to ride it!

Voyage to Crystal Grotto has the same kind of feel as Storybook Land Canal Boats in Disneyland… Except instead of looking at miniature settings, you get to see fountain displays! And the boats kind of look more like the boats in Jungle Cruise, except with a hard top cover.

Like this! But you can see seating is like the Jungle Cruise boats: Sit around the outside and kind of boxes in the middle

Heavy looking door!

Ride selfie!

We were literally the last people to get onto this boat, so I got stuck sitting in the middle of the boat. There isn’t actually a lot of room, so if you need to sit across from someone it’s a rather cozy experience haha.

Alright! And here we go! There’s the castle!

Looking up, this is the ceiling of the boat haha

First scene! Beauty and the Beast!

That was literally the best photo I could get… a selfie with the scene in the background haha. It was on the other side of the boat from us, and the boat was FULL so all our photos were mostly of people haha.

Brian managed to get this shot though!

On to Aladdin!

Fantasia!

Tangled!!

This one is beautiful, the lanterns go up and down with the fountains. My favourite fountain effect!​

Mulan scene!!

My best closer look

Little Mermaid

Another of Brian's shots!

Then… we are headed under the castle!

Door

OPEN SESAME!

The inside of the castle is a small show. We didn’t get a chance to ride this again, so I don’t really remember what the show was about. Princesses I’m pretty sure haha

Here is the exit

And the Castle!

Very slightly different angle of castle

I tried to selfie with the castle

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Up next... A closer look at Storybook Castle!

 

[jesterrific]

Day 3 [part 3]: Inside the castle! Grand Opening Mickey! And… a cute surprise!​

So from here, we went to walk through the castle. It’s all open walkways around the ground level, and the inside of the castle is the actual castle walk-through. (We couldn’t find the entrance to the castle walk-through… but we didn’t walk that far around the actual castle yet. Remember, this castle is HUGE!) Anyways, we decided to see what the inside of the castle looked like.

Chandelier!

You can see the lights inside the castle. You can also see the angling wall, which is actually a staircase inside the castle for the walk-through! So cool!!
Anyways, all around the inside where we were where all the open walkways are, each of the wall had a different tile mosaic! They were all sooooo beautiful!

Frozen

Brave

Princess and the Frog

Tangled

And here is the entrance to Royal Banquet Hall, as well as Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique

One last photo of this! I can’t get over how enchanting this feels

Outside castle details

Look at the hub in front of the castle! Built specifically to hold all the people for viewing castle shows!

Yes, there is definitely a show on right now

We didn’t try that hard to watch the show… we didn’t really feel like dealing with crowds once the show ended, and it definitely sounded like it was nearing the show anyways​

Look how Disney this is, haha… Mickey balloons, castle, princesses in their ballgowns for a castle show…

Only thing we caught about this show.. they’re ALL in golden outfits

We decided we should probably start to make our way slowly back towards Tomorrowland so that we would be closer by when we decide to use our Tron fast passes. We had the app open to check what was on the way, and noticed that Meeting Mickey only had a ten minute wait! We thought this would have been a great way to spend some time waiting!

And umm, how CUTE is this entrance sign!

But the real surprise… is this room where the line up is in.

All four of us instantly fell in love, being in this room! It’s so whimsical yet so charming. You can see that it’s adorned with lots of electronic picture frames, all with either scenes from some Mickey shorts, or some artist paintings! Every now and then, some of the pictures move, or some will show the actual video clip from the short it was from… and every now and then they’ll change over to something brand new!

Plus the ceiling has a giant Mickey that changes colours

Here are a couple of the close up photos I took while we waited in line:

And finally, we got let through in a small group to see Mickey! We were SO excited when we got in to see that he was still in his Grand Opening attire!! Yay!!! It’s almost like we DID make it for actual Grand Opening haha.

When we got out, we got this beautiful view of the castle!

I loved how golden the castle looked! (I later realized this is what smog does to your photos haha. In additional to the sun, you get this really interesting golden filter. I indeed dubbed this effect the smog filter)​

And surprise! Look what we stumbled upon!

Tai Chi with Donald, and Chip and Dale!!!

We sort of heard about the random Tai Chi that happens, but I didn't realize it was almost a whole show! It was just so silly and so cute. Plus I love that we get to see so much of Chip and Dale!


Finally, we are headed to use our Tron fast pass. And this time, instead of entering Tomorrowland from the back end, we entered from the main entrance!

Up next…. Finally our first ride on TRON!

 

[TestingH2O]

We sort of heard about the random Tai Chi that happens, but I didn't realize it was almost a whole show! It was just so silly and so cute. Plus I love that we get to see so much of Chip and Dale!

How fun! This trip report is really great. Keep it up!

 

[CyndiLouWho]

Love Mickey and Chip & Dale Tai chi! Can't wait for Tron!

 

[jesterrific]

How fun! This trip report is really great. Keep it up!

Thank you for following along! Glad to hear you are enjoying haha

 

[PrincessInOz]

Love seeing the park from your perspective. I missed so many of the outside details because of the rain. Glad to see it through your pics.

 

[franandaj]

It's very interesting comparing your perspective to PIOs. Funny how the scoring on Buzz Lightyear is so different. Were the Guns detachable?

You did get a lot of stuff done with minimal waits that morning.

Such a fun meet with Mickey!

 

[RachelleBeaney]

Ohh I'm excited to join in especially as we just did this trip in January (my trip report is here) and I would love hearing the thoughts of someone else who experienced all three Asian parks in one go

 

[RachelleBeaney]

Ok I have to ask, did you experience the adorable green alien men taking over your elevator every time you went in it? We loved them, we were no the 5th floor and they'd exclaim "ohhh - level 5" every time we got to it! So adorable!

 

[jesterrific]

Ohh I'm excited to join in especially as we just did this trip in January (my trip report is here) and I would love hearing the thoughts of someone else who experienced all three Asian parks in one go

Haha I'm that one that mentioned at one point in your report that I did the same trip too and was excited to hear from your perspective compared to mine! Haha

Ok I have to ask, did you experience the adorable green alien men taking over your elevator every time you went in it? We loved them, we were no the 5th floor and they'd exclaim "ohhh - level 5" every time we got to it! So adorable!

Yep! It was lots of fun!! "The loooooobbbbbyyyyy" "Foooooooood" and "Oooh Level 7" Hahaha

 

[jesterrific]

It's very interesting comparing your perspective to PIOs. Funny how the scoring on Buzz Lightyear is so different. Were the Guns detachable?

You did get a lot of stuff done with minimal waits that morning.

Such a fun meet with Mickey!

I haven't gotten a chance to really get into hers yet so I'm excited to read it once I get a chance to get to it!!

Yes, you can take the guns out!

 

[jesterrific]

Day 3 [part 4]: THE GRID!​

Walking into Tomorrowland!!!!!!

We all agreed that we looooooooove the flooring in Tomorrowland!! There is a slight sparkle to the tiles so when you walk through the area, you just see some fun shimmering. Plus it’s just so fancy looking compared to plain cement haha.

I had to take a photo

Stargazer Grill

View of Tron and Tomorrowland

And ALRIGHT!!! Finally we walked up towards Tron!!! The entrance to the ride itself is right under the sign. They do ask you to remove your hats and scarves and any other loose articles. You are allowed to wear your glasses throughout the lineup, but they ask you when you’re loading to take them off and put it into the small articles compartment on the ride vehicle.

So here are some photos leading into the ride!!!

Tron Tron Tron Tron

Walking under the outside track

Getting closer!

Ride vehicles!

SIGN

Pre-ride selfie!

(They let Glendon wear his toque on in the lineup)


And heeeeere we go!

Lockers are just before you enter the line up (to the left of this area in the photo.) Thank goodness we had a fast pass, because the standby line up was at 60 minutes at this time, and basically most of the lineup is exactly what you see in that photo: outside with lots of switchbacks. And the fast pass line, you basically walk right in!

Line up group “selfie”! (Only Brian heard me when I said SELFIE!)

So they kind of load you in small groups so that you enter this smaller room first. There is a wall with a screen on it that has a sort of video on. Basically, leading into the next room (I won’t put my spoiler in here in case you guys don’t want to know of it yet, but I will upload a video of it later on…) literally everyone in the room made the same exclamation. “WHOA!” “WOW!!!!”

Onto the next room, with the pre-ride video with instructions, etc.

Video girl

Then… on to the loading area!!!!

Wow. Just wow!!!!! With all the music from Tron playing in the background, to the lighting, all the blue fluorescents… Oh. My. God. It is actually so unreal!!!!! I honestly think they did a fantastic job in making you feel like you are right in it.

There they gooooooo

All our excitement selfie

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Ride vehicles!

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The loading area is really cool. When the bikes pull up, the lights on the wheels are dark blue. When the restraints pull down and you are locked in, the lights turn to that light blue you see. So easy to see who has locked in and who hasn’t!

View back up onto the big screen

Tron ride selfie before we had to put all our stuff into the little compartment in front of us

After the ride, I discovered that the cover of the compartment doesn’t lock, so I pulled out my phone so that I could at least get a little bit of video, pulling back into the station haha

AHHHHHHHHHH IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!!!!! You get launched out to the outside track that you see when you walk up to the ride, then you go back inside and you enter the grid. There are projections/screens so it feels like you are racing the red and orange. So fun!!! It’s not the longest of rides, but since you are on your stomach it probably would have started to hurt if it were any longer. (Later on, after we rode it over and over, we definitely got sore haha) Just, YAY it was so much fun, we weren’t disappointed!!!

Glendon and I’s ride photo

(I definitely look like I’m having soooo much fun)


Super cute Mickey and Minnie in their Tron wear

Some other ride march

Ahhhhh we were very happy. After exiting the gift shop, the pathway takes you to Chevrolet room thing. But you get to see more of the outside track, so we thought we would watch a few of the vehicles go by!

Outside track

Here they come!

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Jessica’s stamp of approval

Then on to the Chevrolet Digital Challenge

Kind of similar to the exit room after Test Track in Epcot! Lots of futuristic stuff, some games you can play. More Tron themed than car themed haha. Still lots of fun.

Here are the fountains in Tomorrowland

I was in a very good mood

Now that we got our first ride on Tron under our belts, it was time for lunch!!! We had decided that we would want to try Wandering Moon Tea House for lunch, so that’s where we were headed!

Some green space, and a view of Disneytown in the background

I ran out of space on this post to include all the videos I took from my excitement of this ride. The extra three videos are on this next post!


Upcoming…. Our first official meal inside the park!