Aussie Wendy
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2008
For those who have followed me from PrincessinOz to see some pics of Beijing welcome. For others a quick intro to this story.
I am a 50 something Disney fan from way back who lives in Brisbane Australia and usually travels with my hubby and often my DD who is now 25. I have, not by deliberate planning, visited every park but newly opened Shanghai in the past seven years. Around early November I received a message from the Melbourne Disgirls that they had discovered an unbelievably cheap airfare to Shanghai and was I interested in joining them in exploring Shanghai Disneyland? Was I! Over the course of a couple of nights messages flew faster than the speed of light between us as we coordinated 5 sets of people to be in Shanghai at the same time. In the event I had work commitments that meant I had to be back a bit earlier than the rest but I could get away a week earlier. DD jumped on board and proposed we headed to Beijing first and DH decided he would be overwhelmed by all the girls (no, he had to work) so stayed home to feed the budgy and keep an eye on things.
Who I am: in Tokyo DisneySea in 2012
And DD ditto
Turns out the airfare was open jaw though with days of the week constraints so DD and I headed out on the Monday to Beijing for 4 nights, caught the bullet train to Shanghai on Friday where we rendezvoused with PrincessinOz (hereafter shortened to PIO) and her DM who had managed a flight out a day earlier and then Sunday am rendezvoused in the park with the rest of the gang who had arrived late on Saturday. As we had an early flight out Wednesday morning when the others were flying to Hong Kong Disneyland for 3 nights, we transferred to an airport hotel for Tuesday night and then flew home via Hong Kong on the Wednesday.
Obtaining our visas was a piece of cake with a Visa Processing Office in Brisbane city and we took the forms in personally. The forms were quite lengthy and while I took duplicates of everything they only wanted to see one set of hotel reservations once they had ascertained DD’s name was on the airfare itinerary as well as mine and she was my travelling companion in all the hotels where only my name + 1 was listed.
Visa photos were taken care of at the local Post Office who have a machine that prints the pic automatically to suit the country requirements – I wouldn’t go anywhere else now to get them taken as you can be pretty sure they will be right. We also had PIO’s useful experience to guide us on not wearing earrings etc. and just in case, made sure we wore conservative clothing (not that it says anything about that in the visa guide).
Disneyland hotel bookings (we did a split stay) were made online through the Shanghai Disneyland website after we created an account with them (using our email address not a mobile phone) and tickets were purchased separately later from the same site not as part of the hotel package. For these we were sent a confirmation form to print out and bring to the turnstyles with our passport. At this time only two day and one day tix were available.
Other hotel bookings were made using a combination of advice from TripAdvisor and either direct booking or via a third party co. Train tix were researched (e.g. times and types) using Seat61 and bought using China DIY Travel who I can highly recommend if you are happy to go and collect them yourselves. They sent comprehensive instructions including in Chinese to show to people, videos of how to collect the tix from any railway station and how to catch the train, favourite eating spots and all sorts of other useful info and only charged $10 per ticket for the service. Other companies will also arrange delivery to your hotel if you want.
We purchased a one month subscription for $17 of ExpressVPN and downloaded it onto our phone and made sure it was working before we left (having missed a free one week trial offer). This was to get around the Great Firewall. We also planned on using What's App to keep in contact with DH at home. We had a Vodofone and planned on using the $5/day roaming option (only for days you activate it) if we needed it (and ended up activating it on three days).
Happy to answer any other questions. Onto the show. Links to each day or site below.
Day 1 Arrival
Nihao Beijing
First explorations
Dinner
Day 2 Forbidden City, Jingshang and Houhai Lakes
Always start the day with a good breakfast
Ti'ananmen Square is off limits
In the Forbidden City
Everything is symbolic
Palace Overload
The Imperial Garden
Jingshang Park
Exiting the park and Dongcheng
Late afternoon at the Houhai Lakes
Sunset
Being adventurous
Day 3 Off to the Wall at Mutianyu
Sights en route
Mutianyu village and cable car
Walking the wall
Exploring the watchtowers
A steep climb
DD goes over the wall
The explorer returned
Dinner in
Day 4 The Temple of Heaven and Summer Palace
The Temple of Heaven
The Imperial Vault of the Heavens
The Circular Mound Altar and Pearl Market
Getting confused but we reach the Summer Palace in the end
Heading round the lake
By the lakeshore
Sitting on an island watching all the crowds go by
We close the park
I am a 50 something Disney fan from way back who lives in Brisbane Australia and usually travels with my hubby and often my DD who is now 25. I have, not by deliberate planning, visited every park but newly opened Shanghai in the past seven years. Around early November I received a message from the Melbourne Disgirls that they had discovered an unbelievably cheap airfare to Shanghai and was I interested in joining them in exploring Shanghai Disneyland? Was I! Over the course of a couple of nights messages flew faster than the speed of light between us as we coordinated 5 sets of people to be in Shanghai at the same time. In the event I had work commitments that meant I had to be back a bit earlier than the rest but I could get away a week earlier. DD jumped on board and proposed we headed to Beijing first and DH decided he would be overwhelmed by all the girls (no, he had to work) so stayed home to feed the budgy and keep an eye on things.
Who I am: in Tokyo DisneySea in 2012
And DD ditto
Turns out the airfare was open jaw though with days of the week constraints so DD and I headed out on the Monday to Beijing for 4 nights, caught the bullet train to Shanghai on Friday where we rendezvoused with PrincessinOz (hereafter shortened to PIO) and her DM who had managed a flight out a day earlier and then Sunday am rendezvoused in the park with the rest of the gang who had arrived late on Saturday. As we had an early flight out Wednesday morning when the others were flying to Hong Kong Disneyland for 3 nights, we transferred to an airport hotel for Tuesday night and then flew home via Hong Kong on the Wednesday.
Obtaining our visas was a piece of cake with a Visa Processing Office in Brisbane city and we took the forms in personally. The forms were quite lengthy and while I took duplicates of everything they only wanted to see one set of hotel reservations once they had ascertained DD’s name was on the airfare itinerary as well as mine and she was my travelling companion in all the hotels where only my name + 1 was listed.
Visa photos were taken care of at the local Post Office who have a machine that prints the pic automatically to suit the country requirements – I wouldn’t go anywhere else now to get them taken as you can be pretty sure they will be right. We also had PIO’s useful experience to guide us on not wearing earrings etc. and just in case, made sure we wore conservative clothing (not that it says anything about that in the visa guide).
Disneyland hotel bookings (we did a split stay) were made online through the Shanghai Disneyland website after we created an account with them (using our email address not a mobile phone) and tickets were purchased separately later from the same site not as part of the hotel package. For these we were sent a confirmation form to print out and bring to the turnstyles with our passport. At this time only two day and one day tix were available.
Other hotel bookings were made using a combination of advice from TripAdvisor and either direct booking or via a third party co. Train tix were researched (e.g. times and types) using Seat61 and bought using China DIY Travel who I can highly recommend if you are happy to go and collect them yourselves. They sent comprehensive instructions including in Chinese to show to people, videos of how to collect the tix from any railway station and how to catch the train, favourite eating spots and all sorts of other useful info and only charged $10 per ticket for the service. Other companies will also arrange delivery to your hotel if you want.
We purchased a one month subscription for $17 of ExpressVPN and downloaded it onto our phone and made sure it was working before we left (having missed a free one week trial offer). This was to get around the Great Firewall. We also planned on using What's App to keep in contact with DH at home. We had a Vodofone and planned on using the $5/day roaming option (only for days you activate it) if we needed it (and ended up activating it on three days).
Happy to answer any other questions. Onto the show. Links to each day or site below.
Day 1 Arrival
Nihao Beijing
First explorations
Dinner
Day 2 Forbidden City, Jingshang and Houhai Lakes
Always start the day with a good breakfast
Ti'ananmen Square is off limits
In the Forbidden City
Everything is symbolic
Palace Overload
The Imperial Garden
Jingshang Park
Exiting the park and Dongcheng
Late afternoon at the Houhai Lakes
Sunset
Being adventurous
Day 3 Off to the Wall at Mutianyu
Sights en route
Mutianyu village and cable car
Walking the wall
Exploring the watchtowers
A steep climb
DD goes over the wall
The explorer returned
Dinner in
Day 4 The Temple of Heaven and Summer Palace
The Temple of Heaven
The Imperial Vault of the Heavens
The Circular Mound Altar and Pearl Market
Getting confused but we reach the Summer Palace in the end
Heading round the lake
By the lakeshore
Sitting on an island watching all the crowds go by
We close the park
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