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I was fortunate enough to visit Shanghai for a couple of days while I was on my way to visit another part of China, which gave me the opportunity to visit Shanghai Disneyland (my second Disney park, Paris being the other one I've done). This is the first of two trip reports (the other one is for another park elsewhere in China that you probably haven't heard of before). It was an insanely busy day (welcome to China...), so even though I didn't get everything I wanted to done, I'll run through my opinion on everything I did manage to do. It's hard to believe this park only opened a few years ago, it's a huge park and is certainly a complete Disney experience (not quite the same as the experience you'd get at other Disney parks though - more on that later). I'll run through every area of the park and the rides I managed to do in each area (in the order I did them). Mickey Avenue/Gardens of Imagination/Storybook Castle I've grouped these three areas together because they're the first three things you see when you walk in. Interesting to note Main Street USA is actually called Mickey Avenue because China doesn't want any references to America :P ). Mickey Avenue itself is a little underwhelming, but the Gardens of Imagination is an enormous open area, with the giant Storybook Castle in the middle. It's hard to describe the scale of this area of the park. Certainly makes Paris' castle look tiny, even if this one doesn't have a dragon underneath it (it does have a boat ride though!). Treasure Cove This area of the park is Shanghai's replacement for Frontierland (remember - no American-related theming allowed). As the name implies, it's a pirate themed area, and even though it's pretty small, the theming and attractions in this part of the park are incredible. Pirates of the Caribbean - Battle for the Sunken Treasure I had very high expectations for this ride, and they were exceeded. This ride is strides ahead of the Paris version (the other version I have done) in almost every possible measure. If you haven’t already seen one, I highly recommend watching a POV (even though they don’t fully-capture the full on-ride experience you get). Keeping in mind that I haven’t been to a huge amount of Disney parks, I reckon this ride is definitely a contender for the best Disney ride ever, words cannot describe how impressive this is. Pros The boat movement (the structure of these boats allow for spinning and some sudden changes in acceleration that tie in really well with the rest of the ride) The animatronics - the skeleton that turns into Jack Sparrow is breathtaking (even though I’ve watched the POV many times before.) The Davy Jones animatronic was probably my favourite though, it’s so lifelike The screens - In particular, the scene where all the ships surface feels like you’re actually there The storyline is fantastic (even though the audio is in Chinese), something that other Pirates rides are lacking Cons Not at every Disney park in the world Only in Chinese so wasn’t sure what the audio was saying (not really much of a complaint as this was to be expected in China) I’m pretty sure I rated the DLP version of the ride a 10/10… and this is at least 10 times better than that, so I give this ride an overall score of 100/10 Fantasyland Like every other Fantasyland, this is probably the most "magical" area of the park. A quaintly-themed area that I didn't get to see in full due to it being so huge. Many things here that I would have loved to do, but just didn't get time for, such as Voyage to the Crystal Grotto. Seven Dwarves Mine Train I took the single rider queue for this ride, so didn't get to see the full extent of this ride's theming. The actual ride was good fun. Obviously not the best coaster I’ve done, but some really fun moments. The biggest problem on this ride was definitely the pacing. Pros Some sudden drops that provide decent airtime Lots of twistyness The swinging of the carts was a lot smoother than I was expecting Cons Not a long ride Just as the ride started getting some good speed it ended Below average operations Overall rating - 7/10 Alice in Wonderland Maze Stopped here on the way to the next ride. Not exactly a maze since I could see over some of the hedges and there were very few dead ends… clearly catered more to younger audiences. Peter Pan's Flight Honestly a little underwhelming - had heard a lot of great stories about this ride but didn't find it too amazing. Don't get me wrong - it's a fun ride - just nothing I'd rave about. Pros The “take-off” scene and flight over the city is pretty cool Really captures the flight sensation Cons Not completely immersive (if it was a bit darker inside it may have been harder to see some of the doors and backstage areas that were partially visible) Some technical problems (the audio kept cutting in and out) Overall rating - 6/10 Toy Story Land Only walked through this area, so didn't spend long here. No different to other Toy Story Lands. Tomorrowland I've heard from many people that Tomorrowland at many Disney parks envisions what the future was thought to be like 20 or 30 years ago - certainly not what we think of when we hear the word "future" today. Disneyland Paris' Jules Verne theme, while very unique and full of detail, certainly isn't what we think of when we think of the future. Shanghai's Tomorrowland does not have this problem, its space-age theming makes me feel like I've been thrust right into the far future. Tron's structure is certainly the highlight of this area, especially at night. This might even be my favourite area of the park. Buzz Lightyear Planet Rescue Another ride I wouldn't rave about, but still found it fun. Would’ve skipped it if we didn’t have a fastpass for it. Overall rating - 6/10 TRON Lightcycle Power Run Despite a three hour queue, this ride was certainly worth the wait. The queue for the ride starts outdoors, and isn’t incredibly immersive. However, once you get inside the experience really begins. Near-complete darkness with only bright (mainly blue) lights to lead the way. It does feel like another world. With the only motorbike coaster I’ve done in the past being Motocoaster (unless you count Jet Rescue), I didn’t have too high expectations for this ride. But after riding this I can say that Motocoaster is put to even more shame by this ride. Unlike Motocoaster, the restraints are really comfortable and there is a lot of freedom to move around. Big bags are taken by the staff and given back to you on exit. Each seat has a small compartment to store any smaller items (eg. phones or glasses). The ride starts with a twist out of the dual-station and around onto the launch track. After a countdown (in Chinese) and a few flashing lights, you’re thrusted down the launch track. This is a very powerful launch - makes Motocoaster and JR seem very weak. You then fly through the outside portion of the ride (it’s a lot more intense than it looks) and come into the first MCBR back inside the building (which doesn’t actually kill the pacing too much). The indoor part of the ride is truly world-class - it’s fast, intense, and the lights and screens make it super immersive. Even a bit of airtime! My new #3 coaster (just behind Taron at Phantasialand). Pros An incredible coaster Much more forceful than it appears Some of the best on-ride theming I’ve seen, rivalling the likes of Taron Even more fun at night time, even though only a small portion of the ride is outdoors (passed up an opportunity to do a new ride so I could ride this at night) Cons Start of the queue and the exit path is a little underthemed The single rider queue wasn’t being used properly - even though the queue started at the start of the queue, they were forcing single riders to queue in a large portion of the main queue before switching queues. Once past the main queue the single rider queue was empty, which resulted in a lot of empty seats on the trains Overall rating - 10/10 (yes, this takes the cons into account, it’s just such a good ride. When the Florida version of this ride opens I’ll definitely try to head out and ride it there) Adventure Isle A really cool spin on Adventureland. Multiple rides here that I didn't get the time to do, like Soarin and Roaring Rapids. Camp Discovery, which is a smaller area inside Adventure Isle is possibly one of the most unique attractions Disney has done. Camp Discovery Challenge Trails These were really fun, and something you would not expect to see at a Disney park. There were two challenge trails operating, and the one I did was really fun with some tricky sections to get across. Definitely would give this one another try if I were to come back. Pros Very unique attraction Some great challenges Cons The lax Chinese safety laws made me question how safe my harness was at times Overall rating - 9/10 Sadly, that is all the rides I managed to do. Other rides I wanted to do, eg. Soarin and Roaring Rapids, were sitting at 3-4h waits all day. To finish up, I will run through a couple of problems I had with the park. Issue 1 - Cultural issues I was warned about this - seeing the park is located in China there are a few cultural differences. While I didn’t encounter any of the more disgusting habits (eg. spitting - in the park at least), I did encounter a few line jumpers (fortunately none of the ones I noticed managed to get past me). Issue 2 - Crowds Kinda also a cultural issue. This park was incredibly busy. I visited on a weekday and yet there were people everywhere. 2-3 hour queues for most rides, with upto 4h queues for some of the most popular rides at times). I did visit in summer though so if you are planning on visiting, I do heavily recommend visiting in a quieter season. Even the next day, which was very rainy had similar wait times on the app. Issue 3 - Operations For a Disney park, the operations here were pretty poor. Staff were slow and seats were running empty on multiple rides (including ones with a Single rider queue). This definitely would’ve been one of the contributing factors to the long queues too. Issue 4 - Sight lines Okay, I know this is picky. But I know Walt Disney cared a lot about this, and this is an issue I did notice in a few places. For example, as soon as you step off the metro the first thing you see is the exposed back of the Camp Discovery mountain. Additionally, the back of Tron (which basically looks like a giant blue shed) is very obvious in Toy Story land. My overall opinion of this park is mostly positive, despite the issues. If it was in another country, it could be up there in the top few Disney parks in the world. But the crowds, operations and cultural issues do bring this park down a bit. Definitely would still rate it above DLP, but the park isn't perfect. With the negativity aside, it is a superb park. Pirates and Tron alone make this park worth the price of admission, and there are some unique attractions that can’t be experienced in any other Disney park. Since it’s a relatively new park, it still has a lot of room to grow, and I look forward seeing where it goes over the years to come.

The park officially opens today

And another

Another teaser posted

Look, I actually support the fact that they need to undergo a DA process. Given the debacle that was hair-raiser, and the risk it could have been pulled down if the approvals didn't come through, not because of the complaints but simply because it didn't follow the process. Going through the DA \ BA (as appropriate) process is the same for anyone building \ developing something new - as we've seen with such mundane constructions as 'new food outlet' and 'new multipurpose shed' on the gold coast parks. Clearly, given the previous court rulings on noise, residents can't object to noise (they can, but they won't get very far). However the park has the protection it has because of the historic and heritage nature of the park. If they were to suddenly install something unsuited to the amenity of the park and the area, and unsuited to the heritage nature of the park - what or who would stop them? What's to stop Brookfield slowly replacing each attraction with something modern, completely different and worth a fortune in revenue? They built hair raiser without going through any process - what could they have done instead, and then had to pull it all down later? the developer is having a cry because they thought they had carte blanche, and they don't. they thought they'd been given the golden key to the city to bypass all those balances, and now they're finding out that they don't. I don't know about you, but I'm quite happy that such an icon will continue to have a few checks in place when it is completely controlled by a developer (who, I'm quite certain, once built some of the high rises that house their loudest opponents).