Shanghai - June 2016

[peep]

Bit of background then, my friend that I've known since I was in Primary school moved out to China last year to teach English. Seeing as she lives not so far from Shanghai and with Disneyland opening in June I was like "this needs to happen". She agreed and I booked up a week of craziness in and around Shanghai.

My travels began on Friday 17th where I got on a swish new Virgin Atlantic plane from Heathrow.



I arrived in Shanghai on Saturday 18th in the morning. I could have got the metro but with my suitcase I just couldn't be bothered so got a taxi to the other side of town to check in to my first hotel. I had a couple of hours there to chill out before my friend Danielle arrived. We had a little catch up before going downstairs and catching a taxi to Jin Jiang Action Park.


The Disney presence was everywhere

We met up with one of Danielle's friends from work outside the park. We got our tickets and headed inside where I instantly was like "GIB GIB GIB"...







We joined what looked like quite a short queue but it took forever before we got on because operations were lousy. Once everyone was sat down they played the same safety spiel like 3 times (about 5 mins long) before slowly checking all the restraints. Urgh. Still, we finally got on and yes, I love me some Vekoma GIB action, they're utterly ridiculous and terrifying. I wish we could re-ride but the operations were just too bad that there was no way we were going to queue back up.











So it was over the street to the Motocoaster. This my first compact motorbike launched coaster and I really enjoyed it. The launch into that sharp turn was a bit ridiculous but after that it was really fun, floaty and twisty. Just a really fun ride.







We found these dodgy looking animal roaming things. I've encountered these before in Japan but these were special looking...





We then walked straight on to Roller Coaster which looked horrible. It was. There was something rather unnerving about it just going past a chain on the lift hill, slowly roll towards the end of a straight bit of track before randomly freefalling back down the lift hill track. Oh and there's a horrible little dip after the station causing much discomfort. That was a rather vile experience and the other two agreed.






You can just about see deadly dip lurking behind the bushes


Got to love safety instructions


I think I briefly walked into a horror film

We then found ourselves at Karst Cave Coaster which is a weird powered Zamperla. The theming was rather old and tatty looking (matching the rest of the park tbh) and it gained way too much speed for some unbanked corners, it was rather unpleasant at times.











We found an exciting looking ice cream stand, turned out to be a cheap knock-off of those Cornetto soft things. Was intrigued by the "riot of colour" flavour...





We were very disappointed that the Small World rip-off thing was closed, it looked utterly dreadful...





One last cred to go and it was a joyous Golden Horse spinning coaster. My first one! It was nothing special, meh.





We then decided to use our last ride token on the log flume because, and I don't know how I haven't mentioned this yet... it was absolutely boiling out, at least 30 degrees, so gross. The log flume proceeded to cool us down a bit with quite a splash.

We liked that the monorail was a fan of Halloween...


We also appreciated their gardening skills, just keeping plants in pots rather than actually planting anything...



So, that was my first park in China and it was random. Glad I got to ride my third GIB (the World needs more of these beasts). The park feels so run down and like it's dying but with some money thrown at it it could be a really nice city park. Never gonna happen though.

We decided to grab a cab and head into the city somewhere for food. It was so hot and we were already tired (we'd all barely had any sleep and travelled a lot) that we may have had naps on the way into town. I can't remember the area name but it was just a giant pedestrianised shopping street near the Bund (more on that in a mo). We went into a food court and ended up at a restaurant where I had a rather disappointing piece of duck.






So, I'm still not over the fact that China has Costa coffee, wtf?











We then went to a Hagen Daz restaurant where I got a random Paris-themed creation...



We then wandered for ages, stopping in a couple of shops before making our way to the Bund to take the stereotypical Shanghai photos.













The constant crowd moving to and from the Bund was actually insane. Like, if you've ever been to a large Stadium and that crowd rush after the gig/match/whatever finished was in every direction and at all times, that goes some way to explain what that area was like. Just organised chaos.

Anyway after that we hoped on the metro and got back to the hotel for some much needed rest. It had been a crazy long day but I gained +5 on my cred count and got to reunite with a good friend. I was excited for what else the week had in store.


Unfortunately I'm crazy busy at the moment so part 2 (Happy Valley) probably won't be until next week at some point. I hope you enjoyed reading this first part though.

 

[Pink Cadillac]

Great start
Eek! the Bund sounds frightening, yet 'not to be missed'. Can't wait for Happy Valley

 

[peep]

Sunday 19th

We got up at a decent time, walked the 5 minutes to our nearest Metro station at Shanghai West Railway Station and got a metro, changed over to Line 9 (light blue) and got off at Sheshan. We then crossed over a bridge to catch the free bus to Happy Valley.





The weather may look overcast in the photos but let me assure you it was another sweltering day, clearly around the 30 degrees mark again. The bus filled up pretty quickly and surprisingly with a lot of old people. This is a theme we noticed all day, it felt like the old peeps were about 70% of the clientele that day - and we found that to be rather amusing and odd. But don't be fooled, you need to keep an eye out for them grannies as they will literally throw you out of the way if it means getting a seat on the bus etc. I may have spent a lot of time nearly dying of laughter, I thought it was hilarious.

About 5-10 minutes later the bus dropped us off at the park and we grabbed our park tickets.







I'll admit I was surprised to see a Pizza Hut in the park, more on that in a bit...



The first ride we came across was the Soarin' rip-off, Soaring Dragon. It had a bit of a wait, the air was rather horrible and stuffy which made the wait a little unbearable. Danielle wasn't too happy about the over-eager old peeps glaring at us lol. I got used to it surprisingly quickly. Anyway, the ride was the same set up as it's Disney brother. The projection was really messed up though causing me to not feel too great due to the crazy blurriness going on all over. It was Danielle's first experience of this ride type though so she was still fairly impressed.







We hadn't actually had breakfast and it was fast approaching Chinese lunch time (11am) so we went back to the Pizza Hut for giggles. I will note now that Danielle lives pretty much in the Chinese countryside so she was desperate to have as much Western food as possible during this trip. I can be quite picky with Asian food so I wasn't too bothered by this. It was actually really good. Amusingly we were sat by the window which meant several groups came in and had a drink just so they could be near us... how weird!



Oh and this just casually strolled by several times...



After filling up on some food we headed to the left side of the park. The seaside area looked absolutely awesome...






Not seen one of these versions since Canada's Wonderland!


This made me lol

I'll admit we didn't see or hear the massive woodie running at all, held out hope for later on though...



So, apparently Chinese peeps don't really like walking about so we saw lots of different modes of transportation that peeps would hire to get around the park. I'll admit these ones looked really awesome...



Next up was the Western area that was hiding an Intamin mine train coaster. After walking for ages we finally got to the station and were let straight on.









So, I thought this coaster was great fun. We were chatting on the lift hill and sitting at the back so when we were flung over the top and down that first drop that was quite something. It's a really fun family coaster, a fair few near misses too which was nice.



We then entered the "happy ocean" section of the park which housed 3 family coasters. The first being the B&M version of a Vekoma SFC. Oh, what's that, the train is in pieces? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I was looking forward to an utterly smooth SFC. Sad face.







The spinning coaster next to it was open though, yay?



We were sat with a random guy, which was lucky because when we span Danielle's bag went flying and the guy caught it!



Then I rode the little kiddy coaster which didn't do much and had an ending that looked like someone was playing RCT and couldn't quite work out how to get the track back to the station properly.



We then headed towards some truly epic rock theming. Lurking behind the theming in a random field was a Mega-Lite. Yay! Danielle had no idea what was in store, safe to say it was amazing and she loved it.















There was then a fair walk to get to the next coaster, the B&M Dive machine. We actually had quite a wait for this one because one train ops. Burdenous. I don't really remember too much about Shreikra (this is a clone of it) but I loved this one, really forceful. If it wasn't for silly operations we totally would have re-ridden.















We were now pretty much at the wooden coaster Fireball, still heard nothing. I was getting ready to know I had been spited.




Not if I was to be spited!

However it turned out it was just really quiet and fairly slow operations! There was a massive queue for the ride which was gross. However there were benches throughout the whole queueline!!!! OMG YES!





We finally got on the ride and woah this thing was relentless. It's just constantly throwing you all over the place but in a fun way.




Spent quite a lot of time wondering how they got those coins to be like that

We then opted to walk into the haunted house. Jeez it was dark inside, I could barely see my hand in front of my face, we gained some friends too who were petrified. It was quite an amusing experience, mainly because they were absolutely bricking it, I couldn't see a damn thing and all the effects were dreadful. There was a moving floor at one point which was fun.





We were about to leave but I wanted to go back to the first area to check what was inside the big building. Glad I did because it was a big dark ride.









Storm Tour was meh (for me). I'd give them a B+ for effort. It was essentially a bunch of different storm sequences with some rather poor graphics.

Anyway, dying from the heat we did some tat shopping and waited for a bus while grannies were literally clawing their way on to a packed one. We were soon on another one anyway and back on the metro into town. We met up with Danielle's South Korean friend again by the Pearl Tower. The intention being that we'd go in and grab the cred. It was rather pricey though and both of them weren't too thrilled about paying that amount. It's a cool area though, I love some of the towers they have.








Random Finding Dory poster actually had water and bubbles





So we got back on to the metro and headed to a new shopping centre fairly near our hotel. The nearest metro stop is Jinshajiang Rd. Inside the giant shopping centre (for rich people, loads of Western shops) is a brand new Joypolis. You may remember I visited the amazing one in Tokyo so I was rather excited to be checking out another new one. First though I was gobsmacked at the scale and design of the shopping centre.





Oh and this felt weird...









Joypolis takes up quite a large space over two floors. We didn't enter straight away as yet again it's quite pricey but if we waited an hour there was a cheaper rate. If I can remember what each one on the price sheet is, tickets cost:
Weekends - 248 Yuan
Weekdays - 198 Yuan
After 6pm - 180 Yuan

You can also buy an admission ticket at 120 and then pay 60 per ride token. You may have an issue with trying to get the after 6pm one if you're not local though. Luckily our Korean friend spoke enough Chinese to get a senior member involved to make sure we got the cheaper rate.





We had an hour to waste before the 6pm cheaper rate though so we went to grab some food. We found a Tex-Mex place where we ordered lots of random bits to share. We got some smiley potato faces for the lolz.






It looks worse than it was because fajitas take up all the space



Hang on, wtf does this London bus say????



It was then time to enter Joypolis, so cool...




More on these in a bit





Essentially it's a large arcade with several games that are more like simulators/rides. For example, the above car thing was just ridiculous, the whole thing moves about and in sync with the game. There's loads of random things to do like screens that overlay random stuff to a live camera feed of you.








I am the walrus

Oh and yeah, they casually have a spinning cred in a box...









We had to wait for some reason so Arya and I took a chance with the spinning gyro ball of doom...









It was ridiculous. Essentially it's a bobsled game and during certain moments you both have to trigger a special effect. That special effect usually results in you being thrown in every direction. I kinda loved it. It was then time for the spinning coaster featuring the Sega virtual pop star. We were put into a "pre-show" room where the character appeared, said something in Chinese and then vanished.



So for some reason the cars have these stupid metal cage like things on them which makes getting in and out interesting. The ride has lots of screens of the character doing some dance routine and the song is blaring and there are awesome lights everywhere. So we did the natural thing and joined in with the dance, resulting in a rather amusing moment where the couple in the other car span around and just saw us three doing these random dance moves. The coaster doesn't really do too much but it's fun.







We then headed downstairs to see what they had. There were loads of brain training type things. Obviously all in Chinese so we skipped those.





We did head into Fortune Forest though which does have an English translation for things.



You essentially put in a bunch of details, answer a few questions and then you go through the 'forest' to answer more questions before it spits some paper out to tell you your fortune. Yeah, it's a little lame.







Danielle and Arya then did the horror maze which was apparently terrible.






Danielle and Arya enjoying the laser maze

We then did two of the Jungle simulators. The jeep one and the river one. Essentially they're the same thing. You sit in a vehicle, it moves into a room where there's a 270 degree screen with some PS1 graphics of a perilous journey. The imagery was utterly dreadful, the sync with the simulator vehicle was pretty good though.





We then did the Sonic themed dodgems. They had a game where each car was a different character and you had to "collect" the same colour stars on the floor which were projected. They'd change etc to keep you moving about the small space. However we noticed during the previous batch of players that the game actually wasn't working and every character was just being given random points. How did we know? The car with no one in came second! Burdenous. On our go I managed to get stuck with a burden in a corner too which was lame. Oh well, nice idea.





We then ended the night with a go on the Transformers gyro ball of doom. Similar set up as the other one but you have to aim and shoot at the bad guys. It was pretty good actually. I do have a short clip of the things in action but I haven't uploaded them yet.

So while pricey we had a good time in Joypolis and it was cool to hang out with Danielle's friend again. Excitement levels were building though and it was starting to sink in that we were heading to DISNEYLAND in the morning!


Thanks for reading!

 

[peep]

Before I begin with day 3 I finally uploaded the video of the Transformers ball of awesome at Joypolis...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVTwDgIl5z4[/youtube]


Monday 20th

The day had finally arrived, I was going to Shanghai Disneyland! I was like a little kid. Still, the day had to start with a fairly burdenous metro train journey. About 50 minutes on one metro line. It was crazy rammed though due to the morning commute. We then had to switch trains at one point which left basically a train load of people going to Disney rather confused. Still, we got to Shanghai Disneyland's metro station about 8:50 for a 9am opening. The metro station is nice and bright with some colourful silhouettes of the "Fab 5". I've seen some comments saying it's not Disney enough which is stupid, have they seen the Marne La Vallee and Tokyo Disneyland stations?









Out of the station and there's a good 5-10 minute walk to the park. The path was split up into about 5 lanes with some temporary metal railings. This actually ended up working quite well. Then walking around a corner and seeing the entrance made me all happy. Yay. There was a little wait at security, we managed joining the one that moved slower than other lanes though which was a little frustrating. And then we were in and I took loads of photos of Mickey Avenue....





















Mickey Avenue feels weird, more because of how short it is rather than the character-inspired store fronts. The sheer amount of details everywhere was insane, lots of references to a lot of the earlier cartoons too. I'll spend more time exploring this area on the second day though. Just take a look at the crazy size of their castle!



As no one was going up to him, I grabbed a quick pic with Duffy. I wonder if the Chinese audience will love him as much as they do in Tokyo. Also, there was this weird feeling of "where do I go next?". Being a Disney goon I usually know where the crowds will be, what fastpasses to grab etc but this was all unknown territory. So I ended up choosing the "Go right and work around the park".



So first we headed into Adventure Isle which I instantly fell in love with. Not really surprising seeing as my favourite land is Adventureland in Paris. The scale of everything was amazing, I couldn't wait to just go and explore everything. We did pass the fastpass booth which I'll quickly mention. Instead of having a fastpass machine near each attraction, each land has it's own dedicated booth with many touchscreen machines. These machines let you choose a fastpass for the attractions in that land. So for example, the Adventure Isle one is for the rapids and Soaring. There was a queue for this and I just wanted to get on something. With the rapids and Soaring already posting a long wait we headed round to Treasure Cove for Pirates.






Single rider queue closed. A common feature over our visit




Sex noises









So, that 20 minute wait time is actually referring to how long it took us just to walk to the station. For some reason the whole queueline was open which was just a lot of back and forth. A little frustrating but at least it meant pretty much no wait once inside. Oh man, I was getting so excited, the queue is amazing, the details everywhere were awesome.




Clearly some sort of hidden reference, the imagineers that worked on it?

















Right, so.... It is mind-blowing and jaw-dropping. It easily takes the place of the best dark ride out there. On board soundtrack <3 Excellent animatronics <3 Projections that blend with real scenery seamlessly <3 Argh, my brain literally couldn't handle it. The way the boats move around feels really magical and at one point...

Spoiler

feels like it's rising up along with the footage

and well, my expectations were blown out of the water.

We were both people of few words after riding it, we were just struggling to process what just happened. Then at the exit we got certificates! Yay.



We then moved on to Fantasyland. We were about to queue up for fastpasses when the Seven Dwarves Mine train literally opened after being down and we just jumped into the queue for a 5 minute wait!















Unfortunately as I was prepping my stuff in my bag before we boarded I realised I lost my phone! We hadn't been too far so decided to backtrack once we got off the ride. The ride itself was ok, it's very short and we didn't really experience much "swinging". It's a fun family ride though and the scenery is amazing.





So we backtracked back to pirates assuming I must have been stupid and left it in my pocket (there is a drop so I don't recommend doing this!). We notified staff who despite the language barrier managed to get the right idea of what I was on about after a while and it was decided that I just check guest services later in the day (my plan if I didn't find it straight away). Danielle wasn't too hopeful as guests would lap it up as apparently Sony phones aren't sold in China? I had a bit of a horrible sinking feeling (I just don't loose things like my phone) but I was in Disney and I wasn't going to let it spoil the day. So it was back to Fantasyland where we queued up for Winnie the Pooh.





The weather was getting a bit wet but that didn't matter because the majority of their queues are under large covered walkways. Fans line the whole path too which kept us cool in the warm air, Disney have made very comfortable queuelines in this park, maybe a little too wide at times though. Anyways, the ride was great, pretty much a slightly upgraded version to the Cali ride. I really like it, the Tigger room is fab.













I was amused by the rather pricey Tigger tails in the shop...



The dark ride is actually joined by Hunny Pot Spin which is a new version of the teacups. I quite liked the design of this and fits the area nicely.







We liked the look of the Tangled Tree Tavern so decided to head back here a bit later.





We walked straight past the huge theatre for Frozen singalong.





We then used a fastpass for Peter Pan which was handy as it had like a 40 minute wait. I really liked the design of this queue area, it was like waiting outside the Darling household. Occasionally you could spot Tinkerbell whizz past. The ride system has been revised from previous versions but generally the ride is pretty much the same as elsewhere but heavily upgraded. It's a smoother ride experience and projection mapping really adds some great moments making it a really great ride.













Outside there was a small queue to meet Captain Hook so, obviously I joined the end of it!



We then joined the queue for the Voyage to the Crystal Grotto. An original boat ride for Shanghai that I was quite looking forward to. The boats seat up to 60 people which meant the long queue moved really quickly. It was fun playing the "spot the goon" game while in the queue, tbh this was a common theme across both days. Best spot of the trip was too girls from Tokyo with Shellie May (Duffys friend) bags.








Story seems to be a boy follows a magical bug that takes him the cave with the magic crystal.






Detail in the boat's ceiling

The boat essentially goes past several fountains based around some Disney characters. It then ends in the magical cave of projection mapping. I think the boat design for this type of ride experience was poor, it meant your view was blocked at some point, whether it was due to people sitting in your way or the roof was a bit too low. I enjoyed it at the time but the more I think about it the more I wasn't that impressed by it.























It was then time for food at the Tangled Tree Tavern. It looks amazing and the food was really tasty! I got mongolian beef and rice as well as a Rapunzel ice drink.




Poor Flynn, they can't quite get his nose right












Oh yeah, Shanghai is a Pepsi park, sorry Coca-Cola fans! - And no, I didn't get one of these cans









We then headed to Tron. Oh, what's that? The parade is starting soon? Good timing for us. Oh and look at what gift the imagineers gave management...



I think it's hilarious when they do this. It's like a "You WILL build this other land". For reference, they did this in Paris with a toilet block for Tower of Terror and a street for Ratatouille. This is clearly for a Toy Story Land. Oh and there was this weird food outlet which was so incredibly out of place and I hope it's just a temporary place holder for Toy Story...



Anyway, the parade began and it was really enjoyable. The new music for it was really lively and they mixed in various songs and music from the films the floats are based on. I liked the style of a lot of the floats and I loved the puppet for the big Ice guy from Frozen (I forget his name). Enjoy yet another photo dump...








Ah, the bird from the Pixar short!


















Must be a fun job



































We then went on the move before the rest of the parade crowd and we dived into Tomorrowland. The stage is pretty big and we saw it used a bit later on. We grabbed some fastpasses for Tron and joined a 10 minute queue for Buzz Lightyear Planet Rescue.

















So the new Buzz Lightyear ride, any better than the previous versions? Hell yeah! I kinda fell in love with this ride. It felt like I was in that FPS game from Wreck it Ralph but with a BUzz Lightyear theme. Instead of the traditional little lights to shoot at, this time you have little screen-based targets which react a lot better when you hit them and they are everywhere. There's also a varied point system which means you get more points the smaller and further away they are etc. You can also "earn" badges for better aim and hitting the harder targets. There were also several effects which I really liked. I filmed the Buzz Lightyear hologram near the beginning which I thought worked really well...

Spoiler

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvXpOclW_U0[/youtube]

For our first goes we totally aced it (look at all those badges!)...





We then went to check out the Star Wars Launch Bay.
















Another cool hologram effect



We got to meet Vader and Kylo Ren. Outside again and the Baymax Super Exercise Expo show was on that big stage. It was essentially "exercise" moves themed around each member of Big Hero 6 with Baymax and Hiro teaching a group of terrified kids on the stage. It was a bit random tbh.





We then went for a bit of a wander around the castle area. The weather had turned a little miserable again which was a shame.























The castle is extremely impressive. You don't really get a feel for it's scale until you're right next to it, it's just massive. I actually really like it, which surprised me because I wasn't really sold on it before going. It does house quite a bit though, the finale of the Crystal Grotto ride, the Snow White walkthrough, character dining restaurant and a Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique. There was also a princess meet and greet at the back.

The large garden at the back of the castle contains the Tim Burton inspired version of Alice in Wonderland maze. I actually went through this on the second day so I'll post more about this then.



We then headed back to Treasure Cove for more Pirate action. This time we walked straight on and more effects were working! Oh and we discovered there was an alternative ending! Essentially there's a Jack Sparrow animatronic but there's two different versions of what will happen. If I could just sit on this ride all day long that would make me a happy man. It's not 100% perfect but it's the best we'll ever get in a theme park environment. I'll talk more about the minor things I picked up on in my second day.


The canoes are very popular!





The weather really was turning sour so we headed into the next performance of Tarzan. I'll point out that each show, like the rides, has massive queuelines under shelter and with fans to keep you cool. Makes waiting for the shows a nice experience (despite the rain it was still crazy hot). The theatre for Tarzan was simply ginormous. It started off with a really cool projected back story of how Tarzan was left alone in the jungle via animated sketches. The show is basically an acrobatic performance that works around the Tarzan story and it works extremely well. I was concerned it might be a bit cirque du-Soleil and that I might get bored but I was entertained throughout. I actually gasped at several of their insane acts - as did everyone else. If you ever get out to this park - DO NOT MISS THIS SHOW!



We then left the theatre and then immediately joined the queue for the Pirates themed stunt show - Eye of the Storm. The theming for this theatre is ridiculous. It's themed to a massive Spanish theatre in a Pirate town and, yet again, the details were everywhere.









We all ended up in this massive hall which still had barriers. I was curious, was this just a waiting room before we all get let into the main theatre? Shortly after thinking that actors started appearing on the balcony. The show had begun and unfortunately (or at least, not to my knowledge) there wasn't any English translation. Still understood what was roughly happening and got a few of the slapstick comedy. It also went on for some time, to the point I thought this might be the whole thing! That wasn't the case though and we soon entered the main theatre.

















The main show started off a little slow and Jack Sparrow's arrival was amusing purely for the audience reaction. There's some nice effects and stunt work and then the most creative use of a wind tunnel came into play and it took the show to a whole new level. Some really awesome stuff going on.

The rain had got worse so we decided to do a bit of browsing around the Mickey Avenue shops. And that is where I'll leave this trip report for the time being.


Thank you for reading and hopefully it won't be tooo long before I get to continue writing this up!

 

[Pink Cadillac]

Yeah the Intamin mine train has a surprisingly big drop

Looks fab

I remember these :mrgreen:

Poor Duffy!
What was the queue line like for Pirates compared to the Parisian version.
I'm sorry to hear about you phone. Hope it didn't affect the holiday too much.
I'm really happy they've gone for two Winnie the Pooh rides as I really love that IP
I've not seen the queue line for Peter Pan. Is it similar to the new one at Magic Kingdom then?
Great report. Can't wait for the next part

 

[PeskyTrimBrake]

Awesome trip report so far, Peep! Sorry to hear about your phone but glad you were able to enjoy the rest of the visit. I'm surprised by the short queues. How long was Tron's?

 

[GuyWithAStick]

Nice report! Disneyland looks like it has some fantastic dark rides, especially Pirates. If only I could go there! Sorry to hear that you lost your phone.

I'm not 100% sure how Tomorrowland works- is it a bunch of building entrances near/under the Tron dome, or is there another main plaza?

 

[SimonSays99]

Great TR! Looks like Shanghai would be a great place to do coasters and combining it with Hong-Kong as one is in the area.

As you are from the UK what were the visa / immigration regulations concerning - still :roll: - EU citizens?

And is it just me or does the Main Street look very European compared to other Disney parks?

 

[peep]

Oh blimey, actual questions to respond to!

What was the queue line like for Pirates compared to the Parisian version.
I'm sorry to hear about you phone. Hope it didn't affect the holiday too much.
I'm really happy they've gone for two Winnie the Pooh rides as I really love that IP
I've not seen the queue line for Peter Pan. Is it similar to the new one at Magic Kingdom then?
Great report. Can't wait for the next part

The queue for Pirates is on a similar scale of awesome to the Paris version. In a way it's similar in that you're exploring a fort, but this one has a Spanish feel to it. I think I prefer the Paris queueline just a little bit more.

Agreed that Winnie the Pooh is a great IP. It's just so happy and colourful.

The Peter Pan queue is very different to the other ones (I think, not seen the updated Florida and Paris ones yet). It starts off like a lot of the other Shanghai queues under these long winding outdoor queues with a roof (Pan has several great statues) before going inside where it imitates the street the house is on at night, works really well.

I'm surprised by the short queues. How long was Tron's?

Tron had quite a long queue but it wasn't running all trains (I think about 3?), I think the queue averaged around 90 minutes.

I'm not 100% sure how Tomorrowland works- is it a bunch of building entrances near/under the Tron dome, or is there another main plaza?

It's pretty much one plaza with a higher walkway along one side of it. Tron and the jetpack ride are accessed via the higher walkway and Star Wars, Buzz and Stitch Encounter were all on ground level. It works quite well and manages to feel quite futuristic.

As you are from the UK what were the visa / immigration regulations concerning - still :roll: - EU citizens?

Visa was really simple. There's an official website that allows you to fill everything in via the site before you print off and send off/hand in. Some parts of the visa can be a bit of a faff to fill in but it's quite straight forward. Just make sure you give yourself enough time before your trip and provide them with proof of travel (flight confirmation email) and hotel stays for the entire duration of your trip. I got my passport back in about 3 working days but I visited the London centre to do it all in person.


Thanks for the concern about the phone, more on that in my next post...

 

[peep]

....

So rain was being a bit burdenous but it meant we got to peruse the shops. I also took the opportunity to head into Guest Services which is just to the right of the main entrance. There was a rather cheerful chap who tried his best to help me out. We filled out the form for lost property. Like Danielle he wasn't too optimistic about my phone. As I was finishing off the form he pops back to the lost property area. He then comes in with this look of "I'm not sure I believe what is happening". My phone had only been handed in by a cast member!!!!!! All three of us were in shock and full of joy. He delightfully got to fill in another form to say it had been handed back and I immediately asked if there was a compliment slip to thank the cast member who handed the phone in. Probably the first person to fill one of those forms in! Smiles all round and the weather started to brighten up too!

It was then time to head back to Tomorrowland for our Tron fastpasses.




Random piece of land in between Tomorrowland and DisneyTown


















There's a neat lighting effect on the O to make it look like a power disc

There are free lockers for bags etc. Loose articles aren't allowed to be taken into the queue. However there are small boxes in the front of the seats where you can place things like your phone. So unfortunately all my interior pictures were taken on my phone. The fastpass queue was ok but took ages, once we were in the loading area I realised it was due to them only running a few trains, it's clearly capable of running loads (duel station). A shame and clearly the reason for the long wait throughout our day.





Throughout the queue are these instruction videos with a rather sinister lady. However they're like a dual-layered screen meaning it creates a hologram effect and it's awesome.











The trains are pretty awesome and one of them has normal seats in the back row for disabled guests and those that would prefer that position. These are so heavily customised to what we're used to seeing on these Vekoma motorbike coasters. For example the riding position is a lot closer to the flying coaster position, it's really odd sensation. There's also a speaker and the previously mentioned loose item pocket in each bike.

Being a fan of the Tron films and dreaming of a lightcycle coaster since I saw Legacy on the big screen I will say that nothing Disney did was going to come close to what I would have wanted to see. We also sat in the front row and after reading several other reactions to the ride I feel this might have been a bad thing. Overall it was a fun ride and also rather forceful (that launch is great). I do however have some gripes about it which I'll place in a spoiler tag...

Spoiler

The whole idea is that you're racing against one of 3 teams and I never got that impression while on the ride. There was a moment or two towards the end where you see another train on a screen beside you but it's brief and being in the front it didn't make too much of an impression on me. I was expecting to feel like I was within the grid but I felt like there was barely any grid like features, mainly relies on a few "checkpoints" which light up once you pass through. So in terms of ride-based theming I felt like there was a massive lack of it. It's still a really fun ride though!

You can see the normal seats at the back there


You can see the cool lighting sequence in this image for when a train zooms through


Purchased the ORP because we're both clearly loving the launch

We decided to grab a quick burger at the fast food place in Tomorrowland. It was ok, rather average.


Cool signposts





Then took loads of photos of Tomorrowland at night because it's amazing.















The "Pepsi E-Stage" also hosts a nightclub in the evenings. They actually played good music and the lighting was amazing. However it just feels like a weird thing to have in this park and it never had a big crowd.

















It was then time to grab a spot for Ignite the Dream! We found a nice spot behind one of the ponds in Gardens of Imagination. In front of us was a girl from Columbia and we had a nice chat about the park etc while we waited for the show to begin. She thought the park felt smaller than Magic Kingdom in WDW whereas I feel the opposite (pretty sure Shanghai is huge in comparison?). Interestingly she saw the Frozen singalong show with her Chinese friend and apparently the Princesses were played by Americans and while they were making the right mouth movements their Chinese wasn't very good.



Anyway the wait was finally over and it was time for the show to begin. It turns out they just copied Dreams from Paris and threw in some World of Color: Celebrate scenes and some additional Frozen sequences. Oh and they replaced Peter Pan with a fairly silent Mickey Mouse. It was weird, some of it just didn't gel at all whereas some of it looked amazing on the giant castle. The projection mapping was very clear and really awesome. The Frozen segment did seem to go on a bit too long really, it features like 3 of the main songs from the film. Overall it was still a great show that is entertaining and ends the day with a great atmosphere.









































The masses then left the park and mainly headed to the metro station. However due to the way the park is designed and all the crowd control gates in place it felt rather civilised and calm(ish).










What a fantastic day. It was exhausting and eventful and the park totally blew me away. Couldn't wait to return in the morning!

As always, thanks for reading! Will hopefully write up the next part tomorrow.

 

[Hixee]

Jesus Christ. I need that Tron canopy in my life... <3

 

[spicy]

Great trip report. Shanghai Disney just looks incredible.

Oh and great news about the phone very lucky!!

 

[PeskyTrimBrake]

Tron and the whole Tomorrowland is literal eye candy. It looks so sleek and minimal. The Tron ride op uniforms look absolutely badass. I honestly wouldn't mind Ellen's Energy Adventure at Epcot being demolished if the replacement were to be a Tron light cycle ride. (I love EEA but it would be a sweet trade off) :lol:

 

[peep]

Tuesday 21st

So Danielle was rather exhausted after a day at Disney (her first time in a Disneyland btw!) so needed some of this day to catch up on some sleep. I took the opportunity to be a bit more of a Disney park goon and just explore the park. I arrived slightly earlier than on the Monday and got through the security and ticket check really quickly. I have no idea how long before the official time they open the gates but it felt like people were well spread out before I entered the park at like 8:50.



I started with a roam around the Mickey Avenue area which is just so full of little details.






Feels weird there's nothing in the middle





















I decided to get a little breakfast snack in the Ratatouille themed bakery. I loved all the themed items. I got a Tigger tail in the end and it was pretty nice. Basically a brioche with some chocolate wrapped around it.











Back to the exploring then...










Kinda loved this one

I'll point it out now but all of the restaurants were huge. One of the biggest is the one on the end of Mickey Avenue. I'll post about the food later but it's essentially made up of several areas with different themes and it works really well. However it does mean if you're looking for an Italian restaurant themed to Tonys from Lady and the Tramp like in Magic Kingdom in Orlando you will be sad to find out it's merely a front.






This shop's theming is fab, more on the interior later!



I decided to enter Adventure Isle first again. The rapids were closed and it wasn't looking good. I did manage to nab a fastpass for Soaring for later in the day though.




This park <3


The station area for the canoes


The rapids has amazing theming, obviously


This area really reminded me of the Cali rapids though

Adventure Isle's most unique element is probably their INSANE high ropes course. I'll go into more detail later but here's a teaser...



The camp discovery has several areas to it including a Mayan area more for the little ones (sand pits and stuff).



The area has loads of rock formations that look like animals which I thought was nice.





The queue for Soaring was already GROTESQUE.



The theatre for Tarzan...



It was then on into Treasure Cove where I had a wander around the two (not sure how to describe them)... walkthroughs? The first I explored was Siren's Revenge which is a full on pirate ship. It's rather awesome.




Hard to get a good photo of the stunt show theatre




















I failed at playing the song, but I love that it's a thing


Sounds delicious













I should point out the weather was well over 30 degrees and I was just dying in the heat. So I was very happy to discover the next area, Shipwreck Shore was a water play area. It's designed for the little ones (including a tiny slide) but there's some awesome water cannons which get you soaked (totally needed though).






Boat may contain slide






The pump creates an explosion of water to go off

I went fishing and caught myself some pirate treasure... complete with pirate!





That kid in yellow wasn't giving anyone on my side a chance to even get near a cannon, very wet and highly amused peeps all round.





I then moved on to explore the Gardens of Imagination. There's a really nice looking Chinese teahouse.







I then came across the "Garden of the Twelve Friends" which had been hyped up a fair bit. However it's essentially a wall with mosaics representing each animal on the Chinese zodiac. Each animal is represented by a similar animal from a Disney property. It's nice and everything but I feel like Disney is relying on it way too much for the whole "we're in China" thing. Oh and there's so much merch for it and I don't think anyone was interested in it. A bit of a fail if you ask me. Still it is nice and peeps do like taking a selfie with them.













I then see some colourful movement on the other side of the gardens. Is that... a show? I move over there to discover a little show, Tai Chi with characters. It's a really cute idea, and it was quite entertaining for kids (characters mis-behave while tai chi is all serious).











The Dumbo area is quite nice but so bright and different to the rest of the gardens. I think it would have worked better if they'd had another subtle family attraction like the Fantasia carousel. I'm also surprised they went for the smaller model.





I decided to pop into the Marvel Universe tent. It's similar to the Star Wars Launch Bay in that it's several meet and greets and a shop. There's also the Iron Man experience which is just a kinect controlled game where you play as Iron Man. Looked cool but I didn't have time to wait in the small queue for it.




Captain America was rather popular







It was nearly time for the castle stage show, Golden Fairytale Fanfare. When I arrived for the queue to get into the viewing area cast members were warning that the show might be cancelled due to technical difficulties. Hmm, I decided to wait it out. It ended up being delayed by about 20 minutes which in the heat of the Sun felt like an eternity. Those with UV umbrellas were looking rather smug about their instant shade device while the rest of us in the queue melted.

The show was actually quite good. There was like a presenter guy but I have no idea what he was saying or trying to get across. There's then a huge cluster of dancers and different segments with a highlighted songs from each Prince/Princess represented. There's some cool costumes in there, however I'm not entirely keen on the gold ones for the main characters. The use of fountains was a nice touch.



The castle feels massive when stood down the front...





































The Merida stole the show by being on a giant puppet of her horse...



[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFn-GAe3-3Q[/youtube]





So yeah, I enjoyed it. Some really nice moments in there, I've also never seen such a huge cast for a castle stage show.

I decided it was time to explore the castle. Realised there was a random princess meet and greet area at the back which had a huge queue (probably biggest character queue I saw over both days).



I joined the 20-30 min queue for the walkthrough and totally glad I did. Part of me thinks it is a little odd that the castle is meant to belong to all the princesses and then to have a Snow White walkthrough. It's cool though, lots of great Pepper's ghost effects and projections used throughout. It also starts with the awesome effect they created for Enchanted Tales with Belle in WDW, pretty awesome effect. I actually liked how it's a 'group' tour with cast members telling you when to move on to the next part etc. This also turned out to be rather helpful in one room where we were all informed that the woodland creatures staring at us would react to certain actions! Yeah that was cool. I can imagine little kids would just loose it in this walkthrough as it's proper "magical".









A massive staircase from the first room (the book) to the next has loads of cool statues of the other princesses.












I think the squirrel expects you to wave, the deer expects you to jump up and down




Stirring the magic potion!





I needed something to help cool me down so I headed back to the Tangled counter service for another one of Rapunzel's ice drinks. While I was waiting this old American couple made me laugh out loud...
"Oh look, they have cheesecake, there's always time for cheesecake!"
"Unless you're at the cheesecake factory"





Oh, btw the park has several rather awesome popcorn buckets. There's an epic Tron one (annoyingly no photo) and there's a Cinderella one...



I could then hear live music. I'm instantly drawn in by live music so I checked it out. It was a rather cool little show. They got kids from the audience to turn the page of this book which showed what the next song would be. There were also several professional photographers around and several important looking peeps so I'm guessing it was one of the first performances?







They ended with the classic...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYzh3kvD1yo[/youtube]

I then headed back towards the castle for the Alice in Wonderland maze. I got distracted when I saw a cool statue of Neverland..




Part of the Peter Pan queue


Love how massive the paths are

So I forgot to mention that I purchased a "passport" and there's loads of stamps to collect around the park. There's also a few games inside. I managed to get all bar 3 of the stamps. Some are really tricky to find as they're hidden in the corner of shops. This one is just outside the castle...



The maze had a queue but I decided to join it anyway. It turns out there was a queue as they batch you into groups and then one of three doors magically open. It's absolutely massive and there's loads of cool effects littered around. It's also split into different areas which is really cool.







[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qFYckH9JfI[/youtube]







The Queen of Hearts area was really popular so I chose the route that mainly skipped it.




The maze was huge

The maze exits into the mad hatter's tea party area which was also really popular...





I got another stamp at the exit!

I then got to ride Peter Pan again via a fastpass gained a bit earlier in the day. But, didn't I already have a fastpass for Soaring later in the day? Yes, but a couple of hours after you obtain your first fastpass you can get another one (if that isn't a handy tip to maximise your day I don't know what is).





Like before, Peter Pan is great. I really love this updated version of the classic.

Spoiler

The fake splashdown is fab

I picked up a Mickey Mouse ice cream "Grand Opening" edition which was tasty. I continued down into Tomorrowland, hoping Tron didn't have much of a queue. Well it didn't have a queue and that was because it was closed all day. MEGA SAD FACE. I could tell they were having issues the day before so I wasn't overly surprised. I should point out that Seven Dwarves kept going down for technical issues, Crystal Grotto was down all day and the rapids didn't open until about 5pm and then continued to keep breaking down. So, basically on the first day I got stupidly lucky to get on as much as I did. This heavily impacted the queues for several attractions but I'm glad that both days I went on had a smaller ticket cap compared to the day after (I read it was limited to 20,000 compared to who knows what the day after). So this also might mean that although I got lucky with a lot of queues on this trip that might not be the real story in the months to come.



Umm. Right, back on track and I did get to randomly catch the Baymax exercise show again.



I joined a rather short 20 minute queue for Buzz Lightyear because it's freaking awesome.





As I came out the parade was passing by. There was a float that wasn't in it the day before! Mulan's float was epic and really cool. Glad I got to see it.

















I then continued round the park, trying to beat the crowds so I could get on Pirates without much of a wait. Noticed more cool things on the way.





Somewhere in the below photo is the entrance to the super secret "Club 33" bar.









Remember that cool looking shop I pointed out earlier? One that almost looked like a train? Well the inside was train mad too. Even has a little toy railway around the top named after Walt Disney's train...







Oh I also got a fab stamp and badge in here...



So the rapids were open by the point I walked past it but it had clearly only just re-opened and there was a crazy crowd trying to get into the queue and single rider was closed. Urgh. Can't be dealing with that.







So I met Timon and Rafiki instead...





You may have noticed my face was starting to match the colour of my red t-shirt. This was because the weather was rather sunny (pictures weirdly make it look cloudy) and I left my sun cream at the hotel like an idiot.

As I approached Pirates Cove I noticed a queue and was curious as to what it was for. Any guesses?




If you said Turkey Legs you'd be correct! Turkey isn't a meat sold in China and they were going mental for them. This was a queue that had formed 20 minutes before the kiosk opened and guests can only buy 2 at a time. The queue was pretty much this length every time we walked past.



The restaurant attached to Pirates (also has some seating inside the ride area like in Paris and Cali) looked amazing but the food on the menu didn't appeal to me.







I then joined a short queue for Pirates. Notice the Disney connection in the below photos?





This time I got to experience even more effects than before and one of them was a water effect (nice and cooling, lovely). I still can't get over how good this ride is. I did previously mention I had a few small issues with it, I'll place them in a spoiler box...

Spoiler

It has a lot of screens. That's not actually the problem though, it's the fact that between two scenes is a massive black void (on a screen) and a lot of the visuals look quite "game"-esque. This is most notable in a sword fight sequence between Sparrow and Davy Jones where it looks like they used the same assets and graphics engine as the Playstation 3 game made for the sequels. There's a moment where they spin around and it just took me out of the moment every time. However I should point out it is my job to spot bad CGI so I was always at risk of a little bit of rushed CG ruining things for me. It is generally really epic though, the screen effect to make it look like they are really on a ship etc is super effective - and in 2D!

OH I think it might have been during this ride that this American guy had a stupid light on his phone for ages - probably filming the ride? It was super annoying, some of the local guests actually had a right go at him! Sooo, yeah, that was a thing that happened. What was it about the locals ruining things?

I then headed back over to Buzz to use a fastpass I gained a bit earlier.



THIS. This photo was stupidly hard to get. Because I didn't want to pose with the statue people just walk into shot continuously. Urgh. Finally got it though...



I finally met up with Danielle and we grabbed some food in the big Market Cafe that I briefly mentioned earlier. I got some tasty BBQ pork buns and a nice cool lemonade. We also bumped into our new Columbian friend again. I also walked around a couple of the areas to take pics because the place was amazing.












Casually projecting Saludos Amigos in this room













We then went back for another go on Buzz which was walk on! And then we caught the parade again, which was cool, meant Danielle got to see the awesome Mulan float. We then ended back up on Pirates because it's just too good.



We then headed to Camp Discovery to go exploring. Ah ok, so this is like the Paris Adventureland on steroids. The previously mentioned ropes course is insane, far too much effort on such a hot day but I could appreciate it via the Vista Trail which meanders through caves etc under it. The ropes course has three levels of difficulty and from what I hear you can switch throughout and they've made several areas to allow people to get around slower explorers etc. Disney really went all out on making this unique experience. I think this might be the first course I've seen that's themed? Especially to this level of detail. My jaw dropped when I saw a rather amazingly themed section themed to a broken rope bridge. The whole area is beautifully designed and yeah, I love it.















<3









We found a little performance area too which still had some unusual instruments scattered about.



I checked out the interior for one of the other restaurants...







We then decided to check out the DisneyTown area. It's located outside the park gates but there's a small entrance/exit at the end of Mickey Avenue. This is essentially the Resort's version of Downtown Disney/Springs/Village and it feels really modern and Western. All the shops are expensive Western brands and a World of Disney. There's also a large theatre which hosts a full Lion King stage show. I'd be interested to know if people are actually going to see this. There's also a bunch of expensive table service restaurants including a Cheesecake Factory.















ERRRRRR....






Love this poster

I really liked DisneyTown and it seemed to have a flow of non park guests which was interesting. Going round the World of Disney store it struck me how little original merchandise this Resort has. Most of the original stuff can only be found in area specific stores around the park and there's not that much of it. I find this a little sad as there's so many cool designs within the park and they're just not utilising them. It also doesn't surprise me to see the reports coming out saying no one is really buying the merch. When most of it can be found in Disney stores (and knock off ones) why bother paying out for it on top of a very expensive park ticket?

Anywho. It was finally time for my Soaring fastpass so I headed over to that while Danielle went off to do her own thing. Now, if I have a fastpass for something I would expect to wait, what, maybe 20-30 minutes max to get on the ride? I waited 90 minutes. URGH. I don't even like the Soaring ride concept. Burdenous silly ride. One thing I don't get is how it's only got two theatres in Shanghai, now consider that everything in the park has been designed for stupidly large crowds and that Epcot has just built a third theatre to deal with the wait times for Soarin. Don't get it. I do think the extra wait time was due to one of them being down and then the one I finally got into only 2 of the 3 arms were working.

I've seen a lot of people praise the queueline. Now, it might be because I was in the fastpass line instead of the main one but it just seemed like a lot of rockwork and a fake starry night sky. Which is nice but, well, the theme for this attraction is totally different to the actual ride experience? To me, it just didn't gel, everything was at night and with a native American tribe feel and then the ride is just standard flying over landmarks during the day?





Some positives to note. It felt like they'd tweaked the ride system a bit which felt better and more in sync with the images. The images were really clear (just don't look to the bottom right). Oh and the Chinese totally lose it on this ride type and I find that far more entertaining than anything happening on screen. So it's generally better than the original.







More negatives? Sure! The Taj Mahal scene. At first I was like "wow, how did they find a day to film it when there was no one around". Then I thought maybe they just CG'd them out. Then I looked up and noticed the actual building. I laughed. I actually laughed. They shouldn't have wasted their money, should have just cut it or filmed another real location.



You might not be able to tell but I hate Soaring.

The fake backdrops to hide the building were rather cool...



I then met back up with Danielle as the sun was setting. Wanting to get a few more rides in before we have to leave and to get a few more bits of merch from shops all around the park (because not even the big store on Mickey Avenue sells ride specific merch) oh and I wanted a few more stamps in my passport. We started with a ride on Buzz.

















It was then over to Pirates for one last ride! We were the only ones on the boat which was fab. What a way to end our day! As we were leaving the area the last fireworks of Ignite the Dream were going off. What a day.












Sad I had to leave the park, it's just so good. A shame I didn't get to ride the rapids but ya know, #ReasonsToGoBack

I love that everything had been designed with crowds in mind, it just felt really easy to get about despite large crowds. The entertainment was superb, the ride selection is fantastic and the food was tasty. I feel I got super lucky with a lot of the queues despite several major rides down and with issues. I look forward to returning at some point (probably after another attraction or two has been built, which might not be too far down the line). I found the staff to be really friendly and despite clearly terrifying those with little English knowledge they would still go in search of someone who might understand me.

On this day we also noticed a weird change which I haven't mentioned yet. Security. Lots and lots of obvious security guards. Everywhere. This was not a thing on the Monday and then the Tuesday. Bam, everywhere you look. Really interesting change as it's so not the usual Disney way.


Anyway, thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed my ramblings. Next part is Dinosaur park!

 

[peep]

Wednesday 22nd

After a couple of rather tiring days in Disney it was time for an early start to go outside of Shanghai. We met another one of Danielle’s new Chinese friends, Dawn (she’s fab), over at Shanghai railway station. It’s all rather poorly signposted so we actually started off on the other side of the train station to where we wanted to be, which meant we were going to miss out train. Luckily we now had a Chinese translator and she was able to get our tickets swapped for the next train for free. Some time later and we managed to place our large suitcases in a left luggage place just outside the station.

Shanghai railway station is quite old and not that great but we managed to get on the next train to Changzhou ok. The train was quite nice, lots of space around the seats. The weather was really wet though which was a little worrying - there were creds to get!

At Changzhou we met up with one of Dawn’s friends (also fab but doesn’t know much English). We joined a crazy long queue for a taxi. Eww…



The taxi driver seemed really friendly and got us over to the park efficiently. On the way we saw many flooded streets which wasn’t filling me with confidence. Before you enter the park there’s a large themed area full of shops, fast food restaurants, a cinema and a giant hotel.









So the park actually seems to have a crisis and doesn’t seem to know what it’s called. I saw it called Dinosaurland, Universal Dinosaur Park, China Dinosaur park etc. I think the latest name they’ve gone for is the Universal one though - maybe trying to rebrand to a wider audience?



The park entrance had some rather colourful dino characters out front…





Once inside the park we milled around the entrance plaza and had a look at the map to take a guess as to what would be open during wet weather. Near the entrance is an indoor coaster so we headed round to that. The theming in the section to the left of the entrance is insane. The scale is huge but it’s also really random.











The queue didn’t seem too long but operations were slightly faffy causing us to wait for quite a long time. Felt like the sort of ride that should actually be operating on like 2-3 trains but here it was only on one and everyone was just really slow?







Anyway I was quite surprised to discover that the ride is a moto-coaster from Zamperla themed to dinos. The theme amused me. I really enjoyed it, it was huge and it looked cool with a lot of lighting effects.







The weather felt like it was going to get better but nothing else was really open. The massive top spin (sorry, I know it’s a different ride type, can’t think of what they’re called) in an open cave was running but none of us really fancied it.
















It was awfully quiet over by Dinoconda

As it was oddly open we decided to join the queue for the log flume. Operations on this were diabolical. It was like they were batching three boats and then waiting for all 3 to get back before re-loading the boats - and the ride is huge! Everyone was all prepped in their ponchos but the wait was so long and the weather was so humid and horrible everyone pretty much had to take them off and re-faff closer to the station.

The ride itself was terrifying/hilarious. The ponchos didn’t stand too much of a chance against all the water that just came in from all directions on the first drop. It then has a giant and painfully slow indoor section in the attic of the dino museum before going down the large drop outside.



We then proceeded to walk around trying to find other rides that were actually open. Have some photos…




massive museum


Large kids area


Nicely themed disko-coaster






Entrance to the water park





I think we decided to grab some food as we were back by the main entrance. We got a group meal deal thing but it was rather lame. Fun fact: You can’t leave the park to all the awesome restaurants and then come back into the park.


He was having a good time

We decided to go on the King Kong ride. These things look awesome but as a ride experience they are so rubbish. They placed it in a really well themed area too.









We then entered a haunted house having no idea what it was. It went on for what felt like eternity and it wasn’t even good! It was truly terrible.





Oh well we walked around a corner and discovered the spinning coaster had opened - yay? +1




Stupid seatbelts






Hang on.. what?

Danielle decided to get a fried squid…





Which is when we were then surrounded by clowns, it was creepy…



The dinosaur in this sign is totally me…



We then did more walking around the same areas…



We came across this massive splash boat ride which had some cool theming dotted about.










Still silent

We then stumbled across the “5D interactive theatre”. It was one of those bland rooms with saddle seats and a gun. It was terrible and my gun didn’t work.





We then headed into the museum for ages. Lots to look at. You can also walk around a little bit of the log flume area.




Sorry for the blurriness, floor was slippery

Outside and these guys on dino skeletons whizzed by…





I decided it was time we actually went over to the spiteful 4D coaster to check out if it’ll ever open. The answer was no, down for general maintenance, could actually see a seat or two slightly dismantled. At least it wasn’t spiting due to the weather in the morning.















No idea what this was, looked like it might have been for Halloween?



We then walked around the MASSIVE lake and through that huge kids area. This park is massive but it just feels like there’s nothing in it.






Looked like a forest with dino models

The kids area is super colourful..











We then decided to head back to the train station via what is essentially an Uber. Some more pics of the village area…









Dawn’s friend headed home while the rest of us got the train to Wuxi which was a really nice modern city. Our hotel looked amazing and classy from the outside and the foyer but the room was rather average. We were super close to the centre.






Hagen Daz restaurant in the hotel?









We headed round to a shopping mall for a foodage.





Apparently it’s a South Korean chain but they do all sorts of food. It was tasty.



We then headed to a bar. We walked down the streets with their nightclubs, which were huge and ridiculous. We also had a lot of people trying to get us inside. Nope.





We ended up in “Helen’s” which is a chain of Western-style bars. It was nicely decorated and the staff were uber welcoming and friendly. There weren’t many peeps inside but it still had a nice atmosphere. It was “girls night” apart from Dawn and Danielle were the only female customers. They got free shots and alcohol. We also got free coke and orange juice. We played the dice game I’ve forgotten the name of. We had fun and we paid nothing for the privilege!








It was a bit of a mixed day really. We had fun but the park was a major let down (even everyone back where Danielle lives wanted to come along, it’s a big deal apparently). I just can’t believe it’s such a huge park but with barely anything in it. I also have no idea how we wasted most of a day there. Urgh.


Thanks for reading! Next up, Joyland.

 

[Gavin]

The haunted house is MILES better than most in China. That's how s**t they are.

 

[Pink Cadillac]

Getting spited at a park you didn't like must be the worst, as you have to go back Did you find getting around on this holiday a bit of a challenge?

 

[peep]

The haunted house is MILES better than most in China. That's how s**t they are.

Yeah, they're awful, why do they even bother?

Getting spited at a park you didn't like must be the worst, as you have to go back Did you find getting around on this holiday a bit of a challenge?

Haha, I doubt I'll be going back. I've had totally mixed reactions with 4D coasters. Love X2 at Magic Mountain, loathed Eejanaika at Fuji Q, so not entirely sure if I really missed out here or not.

Getting around was a bit of a mixed bag, as you'll see at the end of this part...

Thursday 23rd

Our day didn’t get off to the best of starts when the weather was even worse than the day before. The rain was ridiculous, I was dreading even more spite.



We grabbed some breakfast before getting a taxi all the way out to Joyland. This park is about a 30 min drive from Wuxi (about 40-60 min from Changzhou) and not all drivers want to travel that far out. Still the three of us got there ok and shortly after opening. The weather had slightly improved too, the views on the drive were amazing as it’s out by a massive lake. The park has a giant themed hotel too…







Some of the floor panels were sitting a lot lower than others which meant we ended up accidentally wading through giant pools of dirty rainwater… gross. Still the entrance was cool. Yet again the park has giant themed set pieces everywhere and it looks truly epic. I got an eerie feeling this was going to be a similar experience to the day before though.






Going nuts for baked bread



















So we had managed to get to the back of the park and so far… everything closed. FECK! In yet another round of irony after a wet start we started the day with, yep, the rapids!







Off ride they looked a bit meh but we get very wet! That is, after lots of station faff as they were insistent on filling the boat first. The ride was pretty fun though.

We then rode the mine train coaster which was opposite. It wasn’t very good and it had an awful vibration as it went over a joint in the track.







We faffed around a little bit looking at the epic theming and despairing at the closed things. Lots of things were also timed, so all simulators/3D shows etc and we seemed really bad at getting to these attractions on time.















One of the massive buildings we walked past housed a Spiderman-esque dark ride so I was really upset when it was closed for maintenance. However we did manage to time it well for a Soarin’ rip-off. It was in a rather ugly building considering the rest of the park…



The staff didn’t seem to really know what they were doing in terms of batching everyone but they sort of managed it in the end. Took us up a crazy amount of ramps to pretty much the top of the building and then split the group into a further three batches, managing to make a total mess of things. It was chaos and really unnecessary. This ride was designed slightly different to your usual Soarin’ rip-off though. Instead of their being a ride system taking you up into the air you kinda already were due to the previously mentioned slopes of forever. The whole thing looked really home made and cheap, the ride cars sort of shunted forward on this ropey looking system before going out into the big space where the screen was.

As you’d expect from this sort of ride, it was awful, the screen wasn’t in focus in many places. However I did approve of them trying something slightly different with the concept. You essentially fly through these fantasy realms where all the park theming comes from. There’s even battle sequences which worked quite nicely. So still not great but B- for trying something different.


Hang on. What? Again? So confused.

We then essentially faffed a little bit. Due to the lack of guests barely any eateries/stalls were open, making just getting a bottle of water (on a super hot day) really difficult. As we were chilling out in the shade for a bit I heard the roar that would make any goon very, very happy.



*fist pump*









The queue was actually rather flooded still so I do wonder if they were just waiting for the ride area to dry out before opening. We got very lucky and managed to nab a back row to begin with. Oh and yet again, loading was a faff-tastic experience. I found it was quite jolty at the back and was obscenely forceful in the loop, a generally good ride though. Dawn and I then ran around for seconds and we got on the front row. A totally different experience, it was more smooth and really enjoyable, the forces through the vertical loop were still insane though.

The 4D cinema thing was then letting guests in as we got off Starry Sky Ripper. We all enjoyed the massive fan-based effects, nice and cooling. The movement of the seats was really well synced with the footage - one of those lame animated “coaster” ones.





The Maurer Skyloop wasn’t playing ball though and the maintenance sign stayed outside all day. Boo. Still, glad it wasn’t a B&M.



This building looked like it housed one of those clever Pepper’s ghost shows, but there was no sign of it opening…





This huge themed building housed a really sparse gaming thing. Lots of XBox Kinects and several PC games set up. Really didn’t get the point but it was cooler than being outside.





The theming in this park is really fab.







We then stumbled upon a random Coca-cola themed room thing. Remember that ad from a couple years back with the fantasy World in the vending machine? It was a whole thing dedicated to that. Why? No idea.







We then headed back to near the B&M for the large dome projection show thing. However we all got inside and then horrible, horrible noises went off. Urgh, this thing was so broken and after about 5 minutes we gave up as it sounded like it was all about the explode.





We were pretty worn out (we pretty much kept pacing back and forth along the same paths and it was super hot) but there was yet another section to the park we hadn’t even touched yet. After some ridiculous walk we came across two giant buildings. One housed a whole bunch of kids rides and the other held a robot-arm dark ride. Yes!

Luckily Dawn realised what the theme was before we headed in and was able to fill me in on some back story before the ride. This helped my understanding of what was going on tremendously. I’m not going to recite things here but if you’re interested - clicky



There’s some great effort put into this, very ambitious and it’s huge! There were loads of problems, lots of things were barely lit, projections were sat below the seats which caused big leg shaped shadows on the side of screens and the audio would notably stop and start between scenes. However there were some huge impressive animatronics and some great movements along with the images. So overall it was good.



The indoor kids area seemed a bit random…









We didn’t walk all the way over as it didn’t look like it was worth the effort but a whole other bunch of things hid at the back of another field.



We then faffed a little bit - maybe too long - before leaving the park. It’s a nice enough park, the theming is great but a bit random/sparse in some areas. The park layout is a bit all over the place too and it was annoying that so much was closed/barely operating. I think it looks better than it really is.

This is where our day turned rather sour. Dawn and Danielle were struggling to get a taxi/uber to pick us up and take us to Wuxi. As we left I thought I saw some taxi-type rank to the right but for some reason we walked straight on where there wasn’t anything. We went over to a bus stop but it was more local buses than the park ones to cities. We saw the last of those leave as we headed somewhere sensible.

Having to put my trust a little bit into Dawn’s translations we got on a bus which would apparently have options to get us to the train station. The bus took us to the middle of nowhere and took an hour for the privilege. I was tired and aware that we were totally missing our long train down to a different city so I was now in a right horrible mood. Once in who-knows where, we got on yet another bus which took us over an hour to get to Changzhou. URGH.



We had to change the plan a bit and we ended up on a train back into Shanghai for the night. The queue at the station for a taxi to the hotel was crazy long, to the point I was really amused by the situation. I also haven’t seen so many taxis before. They were loading 6 at a time and it was just a constant stream.

Our new hotel was super nice though.





Exhausted we just hoped the next two days wouldn’t be quite so problematic.


Thanks for reading! Next up is Oriental Heritage Ningbo.

 

[peep]

Friday 25th

After an eventful Thursday we got up fairly early and got on the free shuttle bus to the massive train station at Hongqiao airport. We got on the train down to Yuyao bei. We then managed to get into a taxi and he knew exactly where we wanted to go. It was about a 40 minute ride so I don't think he was particularly pleased about travelling so far away from the city/town.

Still, we had made it to Oriental Heritage park. It only opened about a month before our trip and I was really excited after reading Gavin's reports of the other parks in the chain. It was immediately obvious that Fantawild were going to turn this into a multi-park destination.



But we were here for...



It felt really empty but that could have been to do with our fairly late arrival. Either way, first impressions were that we were both blown away. The first area is like a traditional Chinese town and it just looks fantastic.












Needs more lanterns



Not entirely sure of what everything was (90% of the park is just GIANT themed buildings) we decided to just make our way around naturally. This meant our first ride of the day was Colourful Kingdom, the park's weird take on It's a Small World: Asia edition.





















A lot of the peeps were doing the same movement which amused me as it reminded me of this...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tDcQzFPz6s[/youtube]

I also filmed a tiny segment on ride...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULSOLi3V8_c[/youtube]


I've seen Gavin mention that in these parks a lot of the animatronics don't work, that was very evident here and it had barely opened! I found it all quite amusing.

Next was the Boomerang. We had to wait out in the sun for quite some time before the ride op needed a loo break. Thinking this would ride well as it had just opened was a mistake, it was already really rough/poorly made. So it makes the name even funnier as it's so on point - The Stress Express.













We then walked through this weird tree walkthrough. I'm guessing it had something to do with the characters related to this area of the park. It was nicely themed. As was everything in this park.






THIS is a block of toilets.

It was then time to ride Jungle Trailblazer. Getting up to the station was like some sort of crazy workout but my gawd it was worth it. Lots of great hills, super fast throughout and the inversion was gorgeous. It was fantastic. Looking back I'm annoyed we didn't go for seconds.









We then headed into "Roaring Rapids" stupidly thinking it was the rapids ride, nope. It was a huge splash boat ride. Urgh. Well we were at the station now and it was crazy hot so why not? BTW, super glad there wasn't a queue as it's faff-tastic. There's lockers for all the riders but it just takes so long to faff with the ponchos and throwing stuff in the lockers. Not helped that it's not themed, like at all. Some bits in this area of the park felt so different to the rest, odd. Inside the ponchos I felt like I was being boiled alive and it took forever to get to the lift hill too. So not worth the time and effort.



I continued to simply fall in love with the heavily themed buildings...








I bet the show in here was epic.

Oh look... actual rapids *sigh*





And then we came across Jinshan Temple Showdown.





I've wanted to experience this thing since Gavin first wrote about one of them. It was totally worth the wait! It starts with this massive walk through a village with projections and screens making the buildings look like they're lived in. Then a random actress appeared and was kinda interacting with those on a screen. That was cool.










You can just about see the actress in this photo

You then grab a space on a bench on this simply ludicrous "boat" - I don't know, barge might be more fitting. This then takes you around another part of the village. More screens and projections of villagers and actor interaction. There's some sort of thing going on with a dragon and other mystical things. It's simply cool.



You then leave the barge and enter a balcony-like area viewing this temple building. Actors and projections get all used in the "finale" before sh*t goes down and a lake of water starts appearing from everywhere. It's EPIC. The sheer effort gone into making this attraction is just amazing. Love it.

The next attraction was "Tale of Nuwa". This is a Spiderman-like 4D dark ride. I'll admit this sort of blew my mind a bit. It went on for ages and despite a few technical glitches (looked like the computer system couldn't quite handle it all) I was just amazed by a non Universal/Disney company pulling this off on such a scale. There were portions that simply left my jaw on the floor, the 3D was superb and I just can't deal with the scale of it. The story was easy to catch on to, even if it did get a bit repetitive towards the end.








Spite mountain holds Night rescue, an indoor coaster, but it was closed

From a couple of incredible indoor rides to another... "The Plummet" is a shot and drop tower housed in a giant pagoda (you can see it from miles outside the park). It's really cool and has several effects that go off during the ride - which was really long. I adored the bit where...

Spoiler

As you reach the top all the doors slam shut before you drop.

Then we may have made a little mistake. We ventured into "The history of China". It was a GIANT 3D film that tried to condense loads of bits of Chinese history into like a 30 minute film. However a lot of the CG was poor, it didn't make sense to us (I doubt it did to anyone as it jumped around the timeline a lot) and I had a fun time spotting amazing CG problems. Still, the quality for a park was actually pretty good and very ambitious.









More epically themed toilet blocks...



Then, in retrospect, we made another poor choice with "Eternal Love". This is one of those Pepper's ghost shows but with an audience surrounding all 4 sides of the stage. It was so dull. Danielle worked in a performing arts school and learnt about this show technique and she said it was pretty bad compared to others she had seen. I felt like it went on for forever and I nearly fell asleep on many occasions. Urgh, we could have ridden Jungle Trailblazer again!









We then just sort of followed most of the other guests straight into the building opposite which was "Love across the stars". Oh jeez, not more love! It started with a weird sort of planetarium room showing off some constellations in the stars before moving everyone into the main show room. OK, now, overall this was dull as dishwater but the concept is amazing. It's essentially a giant circular platform of seats with projections either side and a dome high above. However it then spins around and then raises up into the dome section before making its way back down. It's slow and pretty much the same love story you've seen before but I was fascinated by the concept of the theatre. Oh and all the spinning makes for quite a sickly experience.









As we were getting towards the exit we noticed no one was going outside. That was because an entire ocean decided it was going to drop on to the park. FECK. We stupidly decided to run across into another building to try and get on at least one more ride. It was another massive dark ride that shows off different types of Chinese opera. However we just missed out on a car load of peeps moving off and due to the weather the park was now shutting down. Noooo. We then waited about 10-15 minutes for the weather to calm down a bit before venturing out. There was so much rain it had literally flooded vast areas of the park, I was having to wade through puddles way above my ankle. This is not an exaggeration! I've never seen anything like it before in a park.







Trust the weather to be fine after that 20-30 minute downpour though. Unfortunately heavy rain tends to close the park because everyone just wants to leave (I doubt you'll see that at Disney though, too expensive!). Such a shame because I was absolutely loving this park. If I had a top 10 I think it would have a chance of breaking into it. We missed out on something like 6 attractions which isn't too bad considering most things were like a 20-30 minute experience. I was very, very tempted to cancel the next day for seconds but Danielle wouldn't let me - probably the sensible choice really. However going to a Oriental Heritage park again is very high on my list of park trips I want to do. I don't know if you've gathered this yet but I loved this park a lot.

We then caught a bus back to the Yuyao bei train station and we caught a train down to Ningbo. Our hotel wasn't great, a cheap JinJiang Inn. They're everywhere and are essentially the Etap/Ibis budgets of China. Oh well, it was a bed for the night and it had working wifi.

Next up is the last park of the trip, Romon U-World. Thanks for reading!

 

[Coaster Hipster]

Really nice report! I am really jealous, China has a lot of very exciting credits

Too bad you got spited on Dinoconda. I am also surprised that you find Sky Scrapper a little jerky. This is one of my most want coasters and I am always eager to read some reviews of it.