I took a trip to
Hong Kong Disneyland on 9 Jan 2017. The park was not too crowded, probably because it was a Monday. I managed to get tickets online for a discounted price of
HK$539 (U.P. HK$589), and it even came with a meal voucher, which I will talk about later. The opening hours on the day (10.30am - 7pm) were slightly shorter than usual, but given that Hong Kong Disneyland is not that big anyway, it was more than sufficient to cover all (major) attractions in the park. I arrived at the ticketing gates slightly earlier. Upon entry, Main Street USA was already open, but I ended up waiting alongside many other eager park-goers for them to open the other "lands" at 10.30am sharp. Specifically, Tomorrowland, Fantasyland and Adventureland were set to open but the other slightly newer ones like Grizzly Gulch had a staggered opening time of 11am.
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| Adventureland |
Iron Man Experience, a 3D motion simulator ride, had its official opening date set for 11 January, just two days after the time of my visit. When I heard that the ride already soft opened in mid-December, I was convinced that I could get the chance to take the ride. Very sadly, when I approached the ride entrance, I could see park attendants turning people away. I just missed the soft opening period by a day.
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| Iron Man Experience |
Bummed, I decided to head to
Hyperspace Mountain, which I was also pretty psyched for, like any other Star Wars fan would be. There was already a long queue, so I decided to grab a Fastpass before joining the line. In the end, I realised that the queue area wasn't that big and I was already near the loading station after about 10 minutes of waiting. I liked all the Star Wars music and special effects on the ride, but to be honest, I found the ride to be a bit bumpy and uneventful compared to what I had expected. It was fairly fast but didn't have any big drops or surprises. Nevertheless, I had my Fastpass, and since there were only 2 rides in the entire park with Fastpass available (the other being Winnie the Pooh) I decided to use it a few times while it was available, and ended up taking the ride 2 more times later in the day.
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| Fastpass |
By the time I finished my first ride it was almost 11am, and the other rides in Tomorrowland, Orbitron and Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, weren't that appealing to me so I headed over to the slightly newer areas of the park, Grizzly Gulch, Mystic Point and Toy Story Land. Once again, I arrived just before the sections opened, so I had to wait for a couple minutes before I joined the rest in making a mad dash for the rides there. (Well, I just brisk walked; there weren't that many people at that point). As I was entering via Adventureland, Grizzly Gulch was the nearest, so I decided to check out the
Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars first.
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| Big Grizzly Mountain |
It turned out to be my favourite ride in the park. While none of the rides in Disneyland are actually legitimately intense, this one was the most fun of the bunch. There are several distinct sections in the ride, beginning with a few mild drops and turns just after the first lift hill. The ride then ascends a second lift hill, which leads to the second part of the ride as the train rolls backwards into the next portion. Again, not very intense but still enjoyable. The train then pulls into a small enclosed section where we see the grizzly bears playing with some dynamite, and when they accidentally ignite it, the train is launched into the final section, which also happens to be the fastest part. I really liked it, and revisited this attraction many more times later that day.
Moving along, I checked out
Mystic Manor, which was supposedly one of the more technologically advanced rides in any Disney park around the world. It is a trackless ride in which ride vehicles move through various rooms in the mansion via Wi-Fi and radio-frequency identification technology in the floor. Certainly a cool ride with some interesting effects.
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| Mystic Manor |
Toy Story Land was just adjacent to Mystic Point, and there I tried a couple of rides.
Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop was like a kiddie version of Tower of Terror, with a series of fairly mild drops. This also happened to be the only ride with a Single Rider line, so I used that twice to save myself a fair amount of time, since the ride was actually quite popular.
RC Racer was the other major ride here, and probably my second favourite attraction in the park. It was a shuttle roller coaster that felt much like a Viking ship ride that had an incline of slightly over 90 degrees. It was a rather short ride though, with the vehicle reaching the maximum height only twice out of about 5 back and forth cycles.
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| RC Racer |
I then headed to Fantasyland, which consists of mainly kiddie rides. Since there was Fastpass, I decided to check out
The Many Adentures of Winnie the Pooh, which had a standby wait time that hovered around 30-40 minutes throughout the day. The other rides were just not for me, so I headed back to Mystic Point to grab lunch.
The Korean Ginseng chicken soup set meal that I had (for free with the meal voucher) usually costs a whopping $159. Obviously I chose the most expensive set to make the most of my money's worth. It tasted decent, but the chicken was difficult to eat with plastic cutlery. This particular restaurant also served other Asian sets.
After lunch, I then headed to Adventureland to check out the
Festival of the Lion King, which was like an abridged vesion of the Lion King musical, but of course with a less impressive cast. It lasted for about 30 minutes. I also checked out the
Jungle River Cruise and
Tarzan's Treehouse. The skipper on my cruise was quite funny but not many people really responded to the humour. It was fun nonetheless.
With that, I had covered all the major attractions, so I spent the rest of the day back at the Runaway Mine Cars and RC Racer (which had quite long waits in the mid-afternoon of about 20 minutes or more). The lines only let up early in the evening. I stayed almost until closing time, but skipped the fireworks because I had a dinner appointment back in the city. Overall, it was an enjoyable experience, fairly worth the price since I mostly avoided the crowds and managed to cover every major ride (and some multiple times) during my stay. That said, I think that given its small size I wouldn't be that keen to go there again until more new rides are added (aside from the Iron Man ride which I missed).
