What should we not miss?

[lisaann1170]

We've been to WDW a number of times and will likely be able to squeeze Hong Kong Disney in our Asia itinerary in a few weeks. I have an 8-year-old son. What's unique or fabulous about HKDL that we should be sure to include in our visit?

Thanks!

 

[zanzibar138]

If you're a WDW regular, you may be underwhelmed by HK. I enjoyed it, but you need to go in expecting a small park with some serious cultural differences, and just enjoy it for what it is.

The most unique, exciting attraction would undoubtedly be Grizzly Gulch. I plan to head straight there on my next trip!

There are other relatively unique aspects. I think Stitch Live is unique to HK, and the Golden Mickeys, unless you've been on DCL. The Jungle Cruise has cool fire/water effects at the end, and was enjoyable, and I thought our English speaking skipper did a great job! But I have heard of people who have problems with the language barrier. Tarzan's Treehouse is a fun place to explore, pretty much the same as the Californian one but being on an island in the middle of the Jungle Cruise adds a bit of extra atmosphere. Our raft on the way back over the river got taken over by pirates, which was an unexpected bit of extra magic! We didn't get to see The Lion King, but I hear it's a bit different from WDW.

We also enjoyed Buzz Lightyear, Space Mountain, Winnie the Pooh and Philharmagic, but they were pretty much the same as the other parks. Dumbo was the same too of course.

Although they're not 'attractions' as such (and your DS may not find it exciting), the scenery and castle were different and beautiful with the hills in the background. The shops also had some different things to look at - there was a very cool doll house fully furnished with Disney touches.

 

[BillyBuff]

Awesome! I can't wait to go in December!

I may forego the English version of the Jungle Cruise as I had checked out the youtube videos and I don;t think I'll understand their English.

 

[AmanduhAnn]

Stitch Live was awesome!
And I LOVED their Toy Story Land!

 

[cgncga]

We've just spent 2 of the last 3 days at HKD and my girls (almost 9 and 11 1/2) had a great time. Yes, it's smaller than WDW which we've been to several times, but we spent 2 full days there and could have spent longer. Of course, we are people who like to ride most of the rides and see the shows more than once a trip, too.

Grizzly Gulch and Toy Story Land were interesting to see because there is nothing like that in Florida. We also loved the Lion King show which was very different than the one at Animal Kingdom. We saw the Stitch Encounter twice and Stitch interacted with 3 of the 4 of us. The Golden Mickey's was good, but my youngest got frustrated at times since she couldn't understand the dialogue and couldn't read the English captions on the screen fast enough to keep up. We took the English version of the Jungle Cruise several times and really had very few problems following the skippers' English.

One interesting activity that we did was the Animation Academy. My eldest loves that at Hollywood Studios so wanted to do it here, too. The difference here was that the instructions were all in Cantonese and so we just had to follow what was being drawn on the screen. Surprisingly it worked quite well, and our pictures turned out well. Another difference with this, is that you know what character you'll be drawing before you go in. Today there were 4 different characters that you could draw and each one had a 1-2 hour time slot where every 20 minutes that character was beiing drawn.

One thing to watch out for, though, is the park hours. While we've been here, the park has been open from 10:30 - 7:30 each day. I think it's open until 9:00 on Sundays, but every other day it closes at 7:30. I don't know if the hours are different at other times of the year, but these times were much shorter than what we've been used to in Florida.

Have a great trip. We've enjoyed our time here and are sorry to be heading home.

Catherine

 

[ky71]

On nights that they have fireworks please expect that Fantasyland will almost close down. Attractions will not operate unless there is a capacity crowd waiting. One CM told my kids at the Tea cups that he couldn't run it out of respect for the show but when heaps of guests showed up he started it going again despite the fireworks still showing!

The HKDL castle is the only one with a mountain in the background! Something about positive energy...

Golden Mickeys is a show from the DCL that is unique to HKDL and lots of fun with fantastic photo opportunities.

If you want to be chosen to be the opening park family be prepared to arrive HOURS early! We arrived 2.5 hrs before scheduled opening only to be greeted with at least 100 other guests with the same idea! No food/drink options until opening time...