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

[TestingH2O]

That Mulan float is amazing!

 

[Grumpy's Wife]

I can't even imagine walking into a counter service restaurant in Disney World and having it all to myself. It would be nice but it would never happen.

So sorry you didn't like your meal but the carrot sure is cute!

 

[coloredimage]

This looks like the tile in my parents' kitchen! lol, but it does give an awesome texture to Tomorrowland I bet!

I mean, I would probably get this for the Mickey carrot too. Even though the name "gluten" is dubious at best.

Aaaah! Gorgeous!

 

[rndmr2]

Nice update!

Sorry you weren't thrilled with your dinner, weird name, That would have turned me off anyway because I do not like mushrooms, but I would have asked if I could get the carrot on something else, LOL.

Great pics of the parade! I love the different parades but we rarely think to watch them, if we happen to pass through we will stop but that's about it. Looked like a fun parade, though.

This one is Dale, Chip is the one with a black nose (like a chocolate chip!). I used to never know who was who nd then someone told me that and I have remembered it ever since.

 

[jesterrific]

Nice update!

Sorry you weren't thrilled with your dinner, weird name, That would have turned me off anyway because I do not like mushrooms, but I would have asked if I could get the carrot on something else, LOL.

Great pics of the parade! I love the different parades but we rarely think to watch them, if we happen to pass through we will stop but that's about it. Looked like a fun parade, though.

This one is Dale, Chip is the one with a black nose (like a chocolate chip!). I used to never know who was who nd then someone told me that and I have remembered it ever since.

Hahaha I only went with the dish because it was just lunch.

Bahahaha I just remember that Dale has the red nose, and this one looked brown, so I assumed it was Chip. But now I also know that Dale's teeth are separated which I now see that this one has separated teeth haha, thank you!

We used to always spend our time watching day time parades but then fell out of the habit recently, so it was nice that we caught this one!

 

[franandaj]

The parade looked really cute.

I wouldn't want to eat dubious tofu or whatever, even for the Mickey carrot! Do they grow them like that like they do in Epcot or just have a Mickey cutter?

I would have much preferred the pork belly or beef noodle soup.

 

[jesterrific]

I can't even imagine walking into a counter service restaurant in Disney World and having it all to myself. It would be nice but it would never happen.

So sorry you didn't like your meal but the carrot sure is cute!

I know!! I don't know how many times we've waited forever in line for the food, only to wander over and over to try and find somewhere to sit

Hahahaha it was okay, not the best but I was still happy because I needed the stupid carrot

 

[jesterrific]

!!! Mulan Float and she's in her warrior gear?! What a dream! Wish they would do this for meet and greets; I like "Princess Mulan" but her warrior outfits are awesome too.

I agree! I think princess Mulan is beautiful, but warrior Mulan is just so much more exciting!

What a fun report! It's interesting that the dish is actually called "gluten." I can't imagine actually ordering a dish called gluten over on this side of the pond, even though I don't avoid food with gluten in it. Just goes to show that cultural differences can pop up anywhere.

Can't wait to read more! I would love to go there someday.

I know! I actually think they use the English word "Gluten" to describe tofu. I've seen it on a lot of menus at very traditional places before and usually the dish came out as tofu haha

 

[jesterrific]

The parade looked really cute.

I wouldn't want to eat dubious tofu or whatever, even for the Mickey carrot! Do they grow them like that like they do in Epcot or just have a Mickey cutter?

I would have much preferred the pork belly or beef noodle soup.

I honestly have no idea how they grow anything haha. I think if I could have chosen again I would have also chosen one of the other two. That's okay, lesson learned!

 

[jesterrific]

Day 3 [part 6]: All the treasures of Treasure Cove!​

SO! After the parade, we decided to take some time doing some exploring. Since we were right by the walkway at Wandering Moon Teahouse (the same one we took early first thing in the morning running to NOT get Soaring fast passes…) we decided to walk that way and took a quick look around Adventure Isle. We were secretly hoping they would decide to open up Roaring Rapids.

Unfortunately, we had no such luck. They didn’t even have the water running on the tracks. Sad day. Roaring Rapids was definitely something we were really interested in seeing!! We had heard that the creature in Roaring Rapids, the Q’aráq, is actually quite scary. That’s too bad we didn’t get to see it! And Soaring was hovering at a good 180+ minutes consistently, so we decided the rides in Adventure Isle were not in our cards this day.

There are lots of fun animal rock statues around Adventure Isle!

We DID like the look like the ropes course at Camp Discovery, though, so we made a note to definitely check it out the next day. We decided to wander and check out the stores!

Some Explorers stuff

Carrot Farmer Judy Hopps

Explorer Mickey

View of the castle, and a canoe!

After walking through Adventure Isle, we ended up in Treasure Cove again. Since earlier this morning we basically ran past everything to get onto Pirates, we decided we should take a look around some more! Turns out, we really love the theming in Treasure Cove. So many little details that make you giggle haha.

First stop: Siren’s Revenge!

A pirate ship walkthrough!!!

I don’t know about anyone else, but I really enjoy walkthrough attractions. You can either zip through them, or take your time and look at all the little things. To me, walkthrough attractions are kind of like a scavenger hunt, where you have to look for all of the stuff the designers put in for you to find.

I wish I knew how to find my Chinese pirate name!!

View of the land from the ship

Love that the Pirates ride show building looks like a pirate fortress from this view haha. Or that might be the pirates stunt show building. I can’t remember…​

This is the Tarzan show building

View of the mountain from Roaring Rapids

Another view of the Tarzan show building… because if you can see, they built buildings on top of the mountain area back there and it looks like a faraway town!

(As soon as we noticed the buildings on the mountain, it immediately became a favourite random thing. Not really sure why we latched onto this, but we were really into it hahahaha)​

Mountain view again… and a canoe!

There was a surprisingly long line for the canoes. But I guess when we really thought about it, as Canadians, rowing a canoe at a theme park isn’t a huge deal… Especially for us 4, anyways. We live close to the Rockies and lots of lakes, so all 4 of us have definitely been on canoes before. But I guess for a lot of people, they don’t have the privilege of having easy access to canoes!

More castle over water views

Castle view, and a shipwrecked boat!

(The shipwrecked boat is actually a neat little kids play area!)


Omg. Glendon caught me being awkward.

I was waiting for my photo with the steering wheel, and I didn’t want to be in another person’s photo! But I also didn’t want to get cut in line… so I was trying to stand close but still not in the photo. I didn’t realize Glendon was going to take a photoooooo

I was not built tall enough to steer a pirate ship, apparently

Also, from this last photo I discovered that it was fruitless to have tried not to have invaded that other lady’s photo. You would always get people in the background of your photo anyways from that other room behind hahaha.

A Jenna and Jessica selfie… pulling the ropes that move the flags above us back and forth

These flags!

Peg-leg Glendon

This mermaid looks soooo unimpressed with Jenna

We decided we wanted to go look at Barbossa’s Bounty! It’s a quick service restaurant that has seating right where the Pirates ride starts. This is the most popular of the counter service restaurants in the park, I think!

The silly statue in front of the entrance

Some of the quirky stuff around the outside of Barbossa’s Bounty were some of our favourites!

Including… Hock yer Booty! (And a cute hidden Mickey)

Haha, there’s Glendon off to the right looking up at things

Inside Barbossa’s Bounty

The eating area that is visible from the pirates ride

And just outside, there is a snacking station called Driftwood Derwin’s Snackin’ Kraken!

But the only thing they serve is Seafood Churros

I was definitely…. curious as to what seafood churros are. From the picture, they don’t really look like traditional churros. Because from the name they sound like traditional churros but seafood flavour… would that be enjoyable??? But the photo doesn’t look like churros, so I have no idea what that means. SO in the end, since no one else was curious to try with me, I didn’t take the plunge and spend the 40yuan on seafood churros. (Maybe it’s kind of like calamari…???)




Next up… Alice in Wonderland Maze!

 

[missangelalexis]

Sounds like a fun time exploring!

 

[bcwife76]

Ack I'm behind again!

Those floats are gorgeous - amazingly detailed!!!

I love that you ordered a dish JUST BECAUSE it had a mickey head carrot

How cool is that pirate ship?! You're very sad in your WANTED poster Guess you won't be steering any pirate ships for a new career

 

[franandaj]

Sometimes you have the most fun when you're just exploring and not trying to go anywhere in particular....looks like you had fun doing that.

You would always get people in the background of your photo anyways from that other room behind hahaha.

That's what photoshop is for!

But the only thing they serve is Seafood Churros

That just sounds blech! I couldn't really make out what the picture looked like, but I'm going to say "no thanks".

 

[Texans_loyal]

Parade goals!!

 

[theseacallsme]

I am LOVING your trip report! My goal is to visit every park in the world...I was in Tokyo earlier this year and visited Disneyland & DisneySea, but I'd love to do a similar itinerary and hit up the rest of the Asian parks!

 

[jesterrific]

HIATUS UPDATE!

First off, I want to say I’m sorry I’ve been a little MIA since my last post and that I went into a bit of a hiatus. To be honest, summer has hit and it’s been lovely outside and I haven’t wanted to get on the computer. Plus I started binge watching Gilmore Girls because it’s available on Netflix. And next thing I knew… a whole month went by and I forgot I was in the middle of writing up my trip report on Asia and I haven’t even finished Day 1 yet!! So, SORRY and thanks so much for still following along, everyone! Alright… Here we go again!

 

[jesterrific]

Day 3 [part 7]: Alice in Wonderland Maze​

Seemed like our afternoon was made for exploring. We finally decided it was time to check out the Alice in Wonderland Maze! We had seen pictures of it and wasn’t sure exactly how much fun it would be, but definitely wanted to check it out. So, on our way!

But first, here are some pictures when we walked through the gift shop after the Pirates ride…

Who DOESNT want a stuffed Captain Jack Sparrow?

Super cute wrapped candies. I think they’re kind of like Hi-Chew but I’m not sure we didn’t buy any to try haha

One last look at shop fronts

Leaving Treasure Cove!

View of the mountain from Roaring Rapids

And we are here!

When you enter the maze, you get to this area where there are 3 doors. It looks really cute, but basically all three doors get you through to the other side with slightly different entrance paths. You don’t really get a choice of doors, we could only go through the one that was already open.

Little bit of maze walking

From this one side, you have a view of the castle!

Most of this side of the maze is kind of boring, but your classic hedge wall maze. THEN you cross over to the other side. You walk through these little tunnels, which are really cute because there are projections of the Cheshire Cat, and you follow his footprints over to the other side!

THEN this side is where all fun and whimsical stuff are. Very Queen of Hearts…

You emerge from the tunnels to this entrance to the Queen of Hearts’ courtyard

There are a couple of these guys guarding the entrance

Flamingoes shaped in hearts walls

View of the castle from the maze!

Better view of these heart flamingoes

View of the hedge maze on this side!!

There was a fairly large line up to take a picture with the giant Queen of Hearts figure in the courtyard (it’s the one from the Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland with the very very large heart-shaped head) so we decided to bypass the Queen and continue on with the maze to make it to the end. We were hoping to come back to the maze to see it during the evening when it’s darker, and hopefully get our Queen picture then!

Map of the maze after the tunnel!

We were pretty sure this map was a pretty accurate in terms of the actual pathways. From here you can see that the end is the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, and there are REALLY short paths that can take you there, or you could also take many turns and loops and get there a much longer way! We decided to split up and just wander and meet at the end! (None of us wanted to take as short a path as possible, so naturally we ran into each other at every turn haha)

Starting to see the tea party!

SO MUCH FUN AT THE TEA PARTY!!! No wonder tons of the locals were skipping the long paths haha. They just wanted to get to the photo spots! It was a fun set up with a giant table set out with big giant cakes and teacups! And giant hats attached to poles for silly photo ops aha.

Do I look like a mad hatter?

Madder? (Or I guess... more mad?!)

Would you like some tea, then?

I think I would like some tea!

This teapot made steaming noises at you!

The BEST photo op is for you to sit at that green chair at the end, and you get someone to take a photo from the long end of the table!

At this time, it was impossible for us to try and get a photo in the seat. People were lined up, and then there were people leaning all over the table (this included us as well as we wanted to spin all the cakes and touch all the tea cups and teapots!)

Whimsical lanterns

Another view of the castle, now from the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party

One more view of the table!

And that concluded our walkthrough of the Alice in Wonderland Maze! It didn’t seem like a lot, but it broke up our day kind of nicely in a very whimsical way. You can’t help but constantly think “whimsy” when you’re walking through the maze, and it’s actually kind of fun just doing mindless wandering! Plus the soundtrack they played on the speakers in the maze was PERFECT. Surprisingly a fun walkthrough! (Apparently in Asia, they LOVE the Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland and prefer it over the original!)





Next up… more shops! Star Wars Launch Bay!

 

[jesterrific]

Day 3 [part 8]: More and more wandering! Feat. Winnie the Pooh gift shop, Star Wars Launch Bay​

After leaving the maze, we walked by a snack stand called “Merlin’s Magic Recipe,” and I got SUPER exited!!! On the menu, they had these super cute buns shaped in Mickey and Minnie!

I walked up to order the Mickey Pork Bun, and had my heart broken as they proceeded to tell me they were sold out. They had the Minnie bun… but that one’s not pork it’s red bean. I wasn’t really in the mood for something not a pork bun… and I was kind of feeling the Magician Pork Puff… but I wanted the Mickey shaped bun. SO, sadly, I walked away with nothing but the though of a Mickey Pork Bun in the back of my mind.

But I guess that was alright… because shortly after the snack stand we were in the Winnie the Pooh area. (Winnie is one of my FAVOURITE characters, and everyone in the party knew this as well haha.) We weren’t planning on riding Hunny Pot Spin, which is basically like the tea cups but you’re in hunny pots haha. BUT THE SURPRISE was that WINNIE THE POOH WAS MEETING AND THERE WAS NO LINE UP. Needless to say… a certain someone was extremely excited!!!!

Brian snapped this photo of me running up to Winnie

(Oops, poor Jenna got caught in the frame)


Couldn’t be a happier girl

I wonder if Winnie thinks I’m as cute and loveable as I think he is!

I was in a good mood again and managed to sort of forget about the Mickey Pork Buns. We decided to see if they had any cute Winnie the Pooh merchandise in the store! We were not disappointed!

I think the American parks/stores have this one, but I can’t help it. SO CUTE

WINKING WINNIE THERMOS!!!

Random Thumper march, but SO DARNED CUTE

Teeniest, but cutest little coin pouch

Then, we found out that Shanghai Disneyland sells a park “passport” and there are machines all throughout the entire park that will stamp it for you. Each page in your passport will take you to a different land, and when you are in that land, you flip to the land specific page and you put it into the machine and it will emboss stamp a unique image into your passport! So neat and such a cute souvenir to have!

LOOK HOW CUTE THE STAMP IS!!!

Yes, Brian decided to get the Chinese version of the passport instead of the English one because he thought it was a better souvenir! After, we decided it was probably a better idea to get the English just so we could actually read the info on each page. But that’s okay, a Chinese passport just shows that it was definitely from Shanghai! We also made it a mission to make sure we got all the pages stamped (and noticed that there was one for the Alice in Wonderland maze!!! And it’s located at the very end at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party! Just means for SURE we’d have to go back!)

After consulting a map to see what we wanted to do next, we decided to head back to Tomorrowland to see the Star Wars Launch Bay, and do some character meet and greets!

On our way, we ran into the Snuggly Duckling from Tangled. Except they didn’t call it the Snuggly Duckling!

“Tangled Tree Tavern”


It’s another quick service restaurant

Decor is pretty cute!

We didn’t want to have a full meal at the moment, so we just walked in to take a look and then continued on to Tomorrowland!

We got some caramel popcorn!

And here we are!!! Star Wars Launch Bay!!!

Location in the park, it’s kind of tucked away. It’s at the very very end of Tomorrowland, and if you were super excited and ran straight to Tron, you wouldn’t even know they had a Star Wars Launch Bay! Basically there’s a walkway to the left before you enter the beautiful land of Tron haha. I mean, if you look at the photo, it doesn’t look that noticeable unless you knew it was there. Which ended up being kind of a good thing for us, since it meant basically an empty launch bay =O!!

Poe’s X-Wing

BB-8!!!

Another view of Poe’s X-Wing

Millennium Falcon Cockpit

We thought it was interesting that the meet and greets listed for Launch Bay included both Darth Vader AND Kylo Ren. Time lines … not a thing here I guess haha. They also had R2-D2, C-3PO, and BB-8 listed as a meet and greet!! I was really excited to see a full sized moving BB-8! And we were curious to see how our meet and greets with Kylo Ren would be like in Shanghai. Glendon and I had both a very good encounter with Kylo in Florida, as well as a nothing-to-write-home-about encounter with Kylo in Florida. Oh Kylo… He's a bit of an awkward character, so that's probably why we had such vastly different meets before.

Mandarin Kylo was just as awkward!

And Darth Vader was very Darth Vader! Just in Mandarin haha

Both of these meet and greets were pretty similar. Except Darth Vader was more straight forward, your typical Darth Vader experience (just in Chinese.) And the Kylo meet... probably would have been pretty interested but it was also in Mandarin, and Kylo kind of went into a bit of a mandarin monologue!! It was kind of funny to us though haha.

Now onto R2-D2 and C-3PO! A little bit disappointed that R2-D2 didn’t move, but I guess for a safety standpoint that kind of makes sense…

But they let you touch him!

Awkward posing with C-3PO photo hahaha

We couldn’t figure out where on earth they had the BB-8 meet and greet, and we looked everywhere! (Launch Bay isn't actually all that large, so we should have found him!) We just couldn’t seem to figure out which room had the meet and greet with BB-8. But then we took a closer look at the BB-8 figure we saw in the middle of the room when we walked in and he had a sign next to him just like the signs for the other meet and greets. NOOOOOOOO!!! It wasn’t a real meet and greet… it’s just a stationary BB-8. We were soooo sad. But I guess… that’s okay… because he’s pretty cute still. (But still kind of really disappointing haha. I would have loved to have watched a BB-8 rolling around, even if you can't get close to it)

A closer look at BB-8, then.

Then we went and took silly photos in the Millennium Falcon cockpit!

After we finished up taking more photos, we decided to head down and take a closer look at Mickey Avenue!





Next... Mickey Avenue!

 

[jesterrific]

Day 3 [part 9]: Mickey Avenue!​

When we got to Mickey Avenue, we decided to hop in and out of the shops that were there, and we wanted to see the shop fronts as well. (We had already heard a lot of them were pretty silly!)

AHH SUPER CUTE OSWALD CUP!

And the other side!

(Oops, sorry it’s a blurry photo)​

Glendon and I LOVE Oswald. He is our shared favourite character! SO we always get super excited to see stuff we haven't seen before. It hasn’t been that common to see a lot of merchandise for Oswald in the American parks, as he's only just started becoming popular again. But he’s very popular in Asia. Yay!

View of the castle from the beginning of Mickey Avenue!

The parade that we had watched earlier in the day was on again, and it drew quite a crowd at the end of Mickey Avenue. We were glad we got to see the parade earlier in the day, as now we could wander! (And since the parade is on, that means the catchy parade song got stuck in our heads again)

Some silly store fronts… Three Little Pigs Construction, “Practical Pig Hardware”

And right next door, B.B. Wolfe&G Demolition. “We’ll Blow Your House Down”


Manhole cover!!

Community of Mickey Ave.


Sweet Treats store… with “Painless Dentist” upstairs

Doctor Ruth Kanal​

We ended up in this next quick service restaurant, but I can’t remember what it’s called.

I like the plate and popcorn buckets you can buy

Then we went into Remy’s Patisserie!

Baked Goods!!!

I decided to get the one called “Pluto’s Bone”

It’s a bun with a sausage in it


I think it looks kind of silly haha

I think I must have still been in Mickey Pork Bun brain, because this Pluto’s Bone didn’t taste like anything special. Literally a bun. With a sausage in it. But by this point I was getting a little hungry, so a bun with sausage is enough to tide me over until dinner!





To come… Tron Fast Pass time!!! More meet and greets!

 

[TestingH2O]

Great pics! How do you pick souvenirs? They are all so cute!