Shanghai Disney review inside

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We were in Shanghai for a long weekend and visited Disney on Sunday so I thought I'd give this board a full report. The tl;dr version is that we loved it and thought it was the best of all the asian disneys but I wish we had gone during the week.

Times/Days/Cost
I'm glad I read trip advisor reviews first b/c otherwise I would have relied on the rope drop time listed on Disney's website. TA reviews said the park opened at least a half hour early, sometimes 1 hour, and they were right. It officially opened the day we went at 9am. We tried to get there at 8:30 but ran late so we didn't get there til about 8:40 and they were already letting everyone in. We should’ve gotten there closer to 8am. The security line took about 15 minutes and getting into the park took another 15. I bought tickets online so we skipped the ticket line (which was non-existent anyway). We ended up getting into the park just after 9am and the lines for the best rides were already long. Kind of blew my strategy of getting there early enough to see Soaring & Pirates before the lines formed, so we could save our FPs for something else, but that's what we ended up doing anyway.

We went on a Sunday because I had read the crowds are less that day than on Saturdays. I don’t know if it was less crowded. It sure felt crowded getting into the park. Compared to Orlando the wait times were small, but compared to HK & Tokyo the lines felt long. I wish we had been able to go on a weekday b/c I think the wait times would be minimal then. We paid ~$260 for 4 (includes a child discount) to go on a Sunday. It would have been ~$193 to go on a weekday. Also, the park is open until 8pm on Saturdays but closes at 7pm on Sundays and during the week. So we paid the higher weekend rate and still got docked the last hour, which we needed to do everything on our list. We ended up having to skip dinner at the park in order to get our last rides in.

App/Wifi
The shanghai app looks similar to the Orlando one but the Orlando one is way better. On the shanghai app you basically can only see wait times and the map. The worst part was that I couldn't figure out how to get on disney's wifi. My phone roams in other countries so I wasn't about to use my data, but you had to do that in order to get an access code for their wifi. Also, the wifi access page was only in mandarin and even with DH turning his phone on for an access code, we couldn't get it to work. So we just turned the app (with cell data) on a few times to check a few wait times, and used a paper map the rest of the time. Local numbers I’m sure would have no problem.

Fastpasses
Each "land" has a fast past station. You can't get them in advance or on the app. We passed a FP station on the way to Soaring and the line was HUUUUUUGE. Trip Advisor reviews said they move quickly but the line was so long there was no way one of us was going to stand in it and miss Soaring, which was where we were headed. In hindsight we could’ve had one person wait in line for a Soaring FP while the rest of us went to Pirates and had the FP person cut in line to catch up, since cutting is totally acceptable there. I think their rule is 1 FP pp every 2 hours (maybe 3hrs?). We ended up only getting 1 FP the whole day and it was fine for us but we skipped some of the big line rides.

Cultural issues
I read over and over about how annoying it would be to wait in a line there, so I knew to expect cutting and pushing. Plus I live in Asia, so I consider myself used to annoying line behavior, but honestly I didn't last 2 minutes in the very first line of the day (Soaring) before my patience was hanging on by a thread. You can't zone out in these lines. The second you zone out, you'll be passed. DH & I had to box out to stop people from trying to cut. People tried to push my kids to the side. I had a backpack on and people pushed against it the ENTIRE wait - which was an hour. I was in such a bad mood by the time we got to the ride. BUT thankfully that hour wait was by far the worst line of the day and everything after that seemed so much better that we got over it.

The other thing we had to get used to was the staring. It’s not considered rude there, but it’s still unnerving. There were very few foreigners there so everyone stared at us, especially in the lines. No one asked to take our photo though, which was a pleasant surprise!

I was happy to see there are western toilets and toilet paper there. There also squatty potties but it’s like half and half. Not 99/1 like other bathrooms.

I didn’t notice or see any other issues that people on TA or disboards noted. No kids peed on the sidewalk. The park is really clean. The employees were really friendly, etc.

Language
Disney used some of the english songs but nearly everything else was in mandarin. The video instructions have english subtitles, or the worker would summarize in a brief sentance. Like the worker for Pirates said after a lengthy intro in chinese: “Don’t stand up.” Lol. I don’t think most workers would be able to carry on a conversation in English but if you’re familiar with how disney works then you can get by fine. Except for the wifi.

Rides (I will just mention what I think might be different from the US)
-We road Soaring first thing, just after 9am and the wait was already an hour (it was 2 hours later that day). But it was awesome. I have no memory of what the one in Orlando is like so I can't compare, but this one had huge screens and we all loved it. The final shot is fireworks over the Shanghai skyline.
-The ride for Pirates was about a half hour and later in the day had almost no wait. It was also fantastic. They definitely stepped this ride up to a new level. The screens are HUGE and really crisp. The FP line had a 20min wait when we went, so there wasn't a point to using a FP here. I think everyone had the same strategy I did of doing Soaring and Pirates first thing.
-Alice in Wonderland Maze: easy but cute. Lots of photo ops. Kids liked it. There is one entry one exit so you can't lose kids.
-There are no teacups, just spinning hunny pots.
-Star Wars: it's all character greeting and gift shops. There was a video area, which I think was telling the story of Star Wars but we didn't see that b/c we already know the story and figured this thing was in Mandarin. I could have skipped this whole thing but DH & my kids were in heaven meeting the characters.
-Marvel Universe: Has a real American for captain america! He asked DS1 who his favorite Marvel character was and he said Iron Man. *tear* Spiderman is also there, and Iron man statues. you can do this sort of virtual reality game where your hands look like Iron Man's hands on a tv screen. There is also a "learn to draw" class in there but we skipped it since it was in Mandarin.
-We aren't normally parade watchers, but we couldn't cross parade route to get where we wanted to go, so we watched the end of parade. It had a big Mulan float, which I don't remember being elsewhere, but maybe it is. Elsa blew my DS1 a kiss and he practically fainted over it. It was so funny and was one of those moments that make all the stress of disney worth it.
-Canoes: I don't remember this being at other parks... Around the Pirates Cove "lake" they have canoes that people actually paddle. the workers just steered. They even have child-size paddles.
-Camp discovery: This area had a ropes course, which was cool. It had hard and easy paths plus an area that is accessible for disabled people, so there was something for everyone.
-Tron - During the day the wait was ~30min, so not bad at all. But it looks so much cooler at night so we waited til the very end. It was a 25min wait near the park’s closing but they have a single rider line which was quick. I loved it even though I'm scared of rollercoasters. It was so fast. The youtube video of the ride is exactly how it is. In the same building is a Tron version of Mario Kart (drive the cars on the screen) and some other digital exhibits. It's also right by the Jet Packs ride, which looked cool at night b/c it’s all lit up, but the line was really long (longer than Tron) for some reason. That ride is too short.
-Wait times for characters and kiddie rides like Winnie the Pooh, Buzz & Dumbo were really short. We did a FP for peter pan but I think standby was only 20min.

-The only show we got to was Tarzan. It was incredible. On par with the Lion King show in AK. Tarzan’s show was mostly acrobatic stuff. The songs were in Chinese. Really, really well done. I'm sad we didn't have time to see the other shows, if they were all at that level.

Food
We ate at a place that had pizza + chinese food. So DH & I had Shanghai noodles and pork ramen. It was very so-so, as was the pizza. Besides assorted asian foods and pizza they had hamburgers and randomly a Turkey leg stand had a huge line. Turkey isn't really available in Seoul and I'm guessing it's not in shanghai much either. It was funny to see people so excited about turkey legs, of all things.

Stores
Didn’t have time to go through DisneyTown so we just hit a few stores on the “main street” area. Finally saw some Chinese-attired Mickeys! I saw one years ago at a random airport in BFE china but didn’t buy them b/c I incorrectly assumed every foreign Disney had Mickeys in native clothing. aaaaand they don’t. But this one does!

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^That line of blue is the rollercoaster. My phone couldn't even get a pic of it.

^The area I thought of as Tron's Mario Kart


The castle show at closing. 

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^ Hard to see but this is the ropes course 


^ Mandarin Winnie

^ Mulan in the parade

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^ canoes


Mickey & minnie go local

[ssmjlm]

Thank you for sharing! Very interesting about the different culture with the line cutting/pushing.

[jeaniebueller]

Really interesting! Thanks for the review!

[kittycatlove]

Thanks for sharing, so interesting!

[ilikedonuts]

how cool!!!

[wesleycrusher]

Wow! thanks for the review. I doubt I'll ever get there, but this was a fun read. Glad you had a good time.

[curbsideprophet]

Very cool, thanks!

[egishere]

Thanks for the review! Very interesting!!

[Deleted]

That sounds really cool, thanks for sharing! (I'm glad no children peed on the sidewalk!)