Disney Shanghai - Advice Desperately Sought

pgamike

Earning My Ears
Joined
Dec 22, 2016
My DW & I are visiting Shanghai on either October 23 or 24.

1) Tickets in advance?
2) Park Strategies? Order of attractions?
3) Food ideas

To give you a little more insight on our normal plan of attack, we attack most parks as a thrill/charm-per-minute enterprise. We knock out the big rides and shows first and then clean up what is left in the afternoon.

Oh, wise DISBOARD. What shall we do in Shanghai?
 
So, you have one day in the park? Are you arriving before opening? And staying until the park closes? Or will you be spending only part of the day there?

I would buy tickets in advance, but it doesn't really help as most locals seem to buy their tickets online so it takes a LONG time for them to process their tickets at the gates.

It will ultimately depend upon when you go, what other Disney parks you have been to, what is most attractive to you as guests, etc, but I would roughly prioritise a visit as follows: run (and I do mean run) for Fast Passes for Soaring. If you don't get a FP, then be prepared for a LONG wait in the Standby line. Then hop into the standby line for Roaring Rapids (don't forget to bring your rain ponchos). Then head around to Pirates of the Caribbean. It will probably then be time to grab another Fast Pass, so head to Tomorrowland and grab a FP for Tron and ride Buzz Lightyear while you're there.

That will cover the biggest / best attractions (in my view). You could then consider doing Crystal Grotto, Peter Pan, Seven Dwarves Mine Ride, etc if they appeal to you (and if the lines are short enough). I would try to do Pirates and Tron at least twice. In particular, I would try to ride Tron again once it is dark.

I found Camp Discovery to be a lot of fun, but the line was long and it was easy to get caught in bottle-necks as some of the guests seemed to have trouble navigating the harness attachments and the course options.

Tarzan was really good. I would skip the Frozen and Captain Jack Sparrow shows as I thought they were both pretty average.

As for food, we only really enjoyed the Tangled Tree Tavern. The food everywhere else we ate, including Tribal Table, Wandering Moon Teahouse and Barbossa's Bounty, was very average - entirely flavourless and often the meat came on the bone. Eating in Barbossa's Bounty is nice for the atmosphere since it's set up like Blue Bayou, but doesn't charge Blue Bayou prices. There are a number of good food options in Downtown Disney, although the lines for the restaurants can be VERY long around lunch and dinner times as it seems a number of guests leave the park to eat. If you want to make the most out of your time, you probably don't want to leave the park for food.

Have fun!
 
Are you a WDW regular? Are you ok skipping any rides? If so, I would skip soaring and start in tomorrowland. We did this in October and rode Tron twice, and got a fastpass in the first hour. Arrive at least an hour before opening. Security and entry take a long time. Ride roaring rapids at night and the wait will be much shorter.

For food, we ate at the pizza place in fantasyland (not very good) and barbosas bounty. We really liked barbosas. Also loved the egg roll at the cart in tomorrowland.

Do not cross the park. It takes forever. Limit crossing as much as possible.

For shows, we saw the pirate show and really disliked it. Unless you speak mandarin, you won’t underdtand what’s going on.
 
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As for food, we only really enjoyed the Tangled Tree Tavern. The food everywhere else we ate, including Tribal Table, Wandering Moon Teahouse and Barbossa's Bounty, was very average - entirely flavourless and often the meat came on the bone. Eating in Barbossa's Bounty is nice for the atmosphere since it's set up like Blue Bayou, but doesn't charge Blue Bayou prices. There are a number of good food options in Downtown Disney, although the lines for the restaurants can be VERY long around lunch and dinner times as it seems a number of guests leave the park to eat. If you want to make the most out of your time, you probably don't want to leave the park for food.

Have fun!

I agree with this - didn't love the food inside the park. I really enjoyed the 2 Japanese restaurants in Downtown Disney. Depending on when you go, there may or may not be crowds at lunch time - I was there during an off time, and was able be immediately seated both days.

(Note that this thread was posted in the Walt Disney World area of the disboards. There's another area where there are a number of tips and reviews about Shanghai Disney Resort.)
 


You are going on a weekday, outside Chinese holidays, not sure about school breaks. Crowds could be good, and massive if the schools are out.

I second most of the commentaar already given

I would buy tickets in advance, but it doesn't really help as most locals seem to buy their tickets online so it takes a LONG time for them to process their tickets at the gates.
Maybe not... when we were there we stood in line after the first gates for a long time, while the people coming from the ticket counters had their own entrance (next to ours) with no lines. They weren't directed back into the normal queue

Then hop into the standby line for Roaring Rapids (don't forget to bring your rain ponchos).
When we were there they sold ponchos in line.

You could then consider doing Crystal Grotto, Peter Pan, Seven Dwarves Mine Ride, etc if they appeal to you (and if the lines are short enough).
You could also skip the fireworks if crowds are massive. The last two hours are good for doing a lot of the kiddie rides.

For food we enjoyed the Celebration Cafe near the new Toy Story Land.

Furthermore, read the trip reports on the Dis and all the previous threads below yours. There is a thread with links to all Asian trip reports, including the Shanghai parks.
 
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When we were there they sold ponchos in line.

Same, but I was recommending that the OP save their money and plan to bring their own. The ponchos they were selling in the line were terrible quality - I saw a large number of people tear their ponchos just trying to get them on before the ride (although, to be fair, people did seem to be handling them pretty roughly).

Also, I hated the crass commercialisation of Disney selling inferior products in the line. I guess others would argue that it was "convenient" and a way to mitigate the risk of guest complaints if they got drenched, but it was almost as bad as the vendors selling their crap in the lines outside while waiting to enter the gates.
 
Same, but I was recommending that the OP save their money and plan to bring their own. The ponchos they were selling in the line were terrible quality - I saw a large number of people tear their ponchos just trying to get them on before the ride (although, to be fair, people did seem to be handling them pretty roughly).

Also, I hated the crass commercialisation of Disney selling inferior products in the line. I guess others would argue that it was "convenient" and a way to mitigate the risk of guest complaints if they got drenched, but it was almost as bad as the vendors selling their crap in the lines outside while waiting to enter the gates.

So I generally agree. But I remember the price being the equivalent of about 1 U.S. Dollar. It was worth it to have a cheap thing to put on and then just throw away.

By the way, that ride was awesome! That, Voyage to the Crystal Grotto, Tron, and Pirates of the Caribbean were so cool! I also agree that the Tarzan show is one not to miss!
 


By the way, that ride was awesome!

Roaring Rapids was malfunctioning both times we rode it - very disappointing. We also found the theming to be quite poor and we didn't like repeatedly seeing the (supposedly) "hidden" controllers in their booths along the way (it takes away from the "magic" of the ride).

We did like that it was far rougher and more tumultuous than most similar raft / tyre rides.
 
Thank you all! We are going next Tuesday. We are really looking forward to it.

As far as our history:
WDW dozens of times.
DL a couple of times.
Tokyo Once.
DW has also been to HK.

I am the same guy as PGA. Just rediscovered my old login.
 
I have a few questions too. What is the better way to pay in Shanghai Disneyland and in Shanghai in general? Exchange a bunch of cash in advance or use my Visa card? I read they are into paying by smart phone there with QR code scan. But since we don't have a local Chinese bank account, we can't sign up for that. Should we exchange cash in advance, or use Visa card would be OK in most places?
 
It will ultimately depend upon when you go, what other Disney parks you have been to, what is most attractive to you as guests, etc, but I would roughly prioritise a visit as follows: run (and I do mean run) for Fast Passes for Soaring.
I read they have started using FP booking on their app. I wonder how it will change the tour plan. Can you pull out your phone and book FP as soon as your park tickets got scanned at the gate? Or how does it work exactly?
 
I have a few questions too. What is the better way to pay in Shanghai Disneyland and in Shanghai in general? Exchange a bunch of cash in advance or use my Visa card? I read they are into paying by smart phone there with QR code scan. But since we don't have a local Chinese bank account, we can't sign up for that. Should we exchange cash in advance, or use Visa card would be OK in most places?
For 'larger' purchases (meals, buying Fast Passes, souvenirs - basically everywhere we could), I used my Visa that has no foreign transaction fees - it's a Chase Sapphire card. For small stuff like drinks (the carts did not take credit cards), I used Chinese RMB.

To get the Yuan, I opened a no transaction fee ATM account through Fidelity. I loaded that up with US funds, then used ATMs in China to withdraw RMB. At hotels, I was able to exchange the larger RMB for small bills.

It sounds more complicated than it was.
 
Is it true guests staying at their offical hotels can enter the park at the DisneyTown gate in the morning? I read all those horrible experiences people had at the main gate in the morning. If we can aviod that by staying in property I would rather do that. Any info?
 
I read they have started using FP booking on their app. I wonder how it will change the tour plan. Can you pull out your phone and book FP as soon as your park tickets got scanned at the gate? Or how does it work exactly?

No idea sorry. I've never visited a Disney theme park which has online Fast Passes. I *think* Disneyland LA has this, so maybe check for threads in the Disneyland LA forums?
 
Is it true guests staying at their offical hotels can enter the park at the DisneyTown gate in the morning? I read all those horrible experiences people had at the main gate in the morning. If we can aviod that by staying in property I would rather do that. Any info?

IF that's true, then they apparently don't tell the guests that! We stayed at the Toy Story Hotel and they didn't mention anything about a special entrance for official hotel guests. It could be true, although the DisneyTown gate was over near Tomorrowland from memory, which would make it a potentially poor choice of gate for running for Soaring FastPasses.
 
Is it true guests staying at their offical hotels can enter the park at the DisneyTown gate in the morning? I read all those horrible experiences people had at the main gate in the morning. If we can aviod that by staying in property I would rather do that. Any info?

Yes, we stayed at the Disneyland Hotel and they mentioned we can use the DisneyTown gate in the morning. We walked past all of the people at the main entrance and there were just a handful of guests at the DisneyTown gate. The park opened at 9am and we got to the gate at around 8:40am and the park was already open. We weren't sure how early the park opened (we missed the first ferry) but the park is definitely open earlier than posted times.

Yes, you can use the app to book FastPass, just like using MaxPass at Disneyland or the MyDisney app at WDW. We were able to ride TRON four times in one day using this. But it's just like the digital FP system at home, for example, if you have a TRON FP, you can't book the same ride again until after you have cleared the second FP scan inside the queue.
 
Sounds like a perk worth considering. Read enough horror experiences at the front gate at rope drop!

Yes, we stayed at the Disneyland Hotel and they mentioned we can use the DisneyTown gate in the morning. We walked past all of the people at the main entrance and there were just a handful of guests at the DisneyTown gate. The park opened at 9am and we got to the gate at around 8:40am and the park was already open. We weren't sure how early the park opened (we missed the first ferry) but the park is definitely open earlier than posted times.

Yes, you can use the app to book FastPass, just like using MaxPass at Disneyland or the MyDisney app at WDW. We were able to ride TRON four times in one day using this. But it's just like the digital FP system at home, for example, if you have a TRON FP, you can't book the same ride again until after you have cleared the second FP scan inside the queue.
 
Yes, we stayed at the Disneyland Hotel and they mentioned we can use the DisneyTown gate in the morning. We walked past all of the people at the main entrance and there were just a handful of guests at the DisneyTown gate. The park opened at 9am and we got to the gate at around 8:40am and the park was already open. We weren't sure how early the park opened (we missed the first ferry) but the park is definitely open earlier than posted times.

Yes, you can use the app to book FastPass, just like using MaxPass at Disneyland or the MyDisney app at WDW. We were able to ride TRON four times in one day using this. But it's just like the digital FP system at home, for example, if you have a TRON FP, you can't book the same ride again until after you have cleared the second FP scan inside the queue.

I really, really wish that the DL Hotel would have let me know about this perk when we were there a couple of weeks ago. The single most unpleasant part of every day was the security line, with the rampant line-cutting and people trying to force their way through to sell merchandise.
 
We heard about the other gate for hotel guests but it had signs that scared us away. It appears that we could have gotten in this way. Oh well.

We stood in the main line with the throngs. It was quite intense and a little uncomfortable, but we took it as an adventure and experience.
 

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