Hong Kong Adventures: Hong Kong Day 6 -- DISNEYLAND!

Today we went to Hong Kong Disneyland!!

We woke up, checked out of the hotel, and went back to our apartment (the gate was now unlocked) to change and let our phones charge. We ate breakfast at a noodle place near our apartments. After eating we went back to our apartments and got ready to head to Disneyland. The MTR goes right to Disneyland and there is even a special line for the resort. We took it from our apartment to Hong Kong station and then got off at Sunny Bay where we got on the line for Disney. The MTR train for Disneyland has Mickey-shaped windows and the handles in the middle of the train are shaped like his head and are mickey colors instead of the silver and red handles on the on the regular lines.

We got off the MTR around 12:15 and started walking towards the main gate, stopping to take a picture in front of the Hong Kong Disneyland sign. There was a really neat fountain between the gate and the entrance that we took a few pictures of. We then bought our tickets and entered the park. The entrance is nearly the same as "regular" Disneyland (Anaheim), and probably like every other Disneyland, with the train station above the Mickey made of flowers. We walked inside and went down Main Street towards the Sleeping Beauty Castle. It looks similar to Anaheim's, except it is much smaller. The lines here are also much shorter (the longest posted wait time that we saw was around 25 minutes) and they even have "single rider" lines on some of the rides. We took advantage of these many times during the day because we didn't mind being split up on the ride, and there was almost no line for those. The rides here seem to be a bit more tame than at theme parks at home. They aren't as fast and crazy, but by some of the reactions we heard from people next to us on the rides, you would have thought they were.

Our first stop was Grizzly Gulch. We walked through Adventureland to get there. In Grizzly Gulch we rode the Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars. We went in the single rider line for this, the regular line was probably around 15 minutes, but by going as single riders we were on the ride within 5 minutes. After Grizzly Gulch we walked into Mystic Point.

Mystic Point is exclusive to HK Disneyland, and has their version of a haunted mansion type of ride, Mystic Manor. It has the same concept of entering through a house and sitting in chairs going through the ride. It was a really neat ride, shows what happens when Lord Henry Mystic's Monkey opens a magic music box.

Our next stop was Toy Story Land. It was a really neat area, everything in it are toys that you would see in Toy Story. There are tinkertoys standing up everywhere too. We went on all of the rides in here, the Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop, RC Racer, and Slinky Dog Spin. The Parachute Drop and RC Racer were really fun. Parachute Drop lifted us up really high and then dropped us down at various speeds before going back up again. It was somewhere between 5 and 10 drops. The top of the ride gave a really good view of the park, especially of Toy Story Land. The RC Racer looks like a Hot Wheels car/race track set up. It is a big U, and the car goes from one side of the U to the other, getting closer and closer to the top with each set. On the last couple of passes, it was starting to tip over, and all that you could see in front was the track that we were about to go down.

We went to Tomorrowland after Toy Story Land. We went on Space Mountain a couple of times, using the single rider line to get in quickly. This line is why it was so easy to go on it twice. We also picked up a FastPass for the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters while we were in Tomorrowland. After we got our FastPasses, we walked over to Main Street to watch the "Flights of Fantasy Parade." It was a neat parade but it also was very warm standing there watching. We saw many different characters and they had people who were doing a lot of dancing and performing. After the parade was over we went back into Tomorrowland to go on Astro Blasters. We didn't have to use the FastPass because the line was really short since everyone was out watching the parade. We went on Astro Blasters and then walked over to Adventureland.

In Adventureland we went on the Jungle River Cruise. This ride did not have a single rider line, but they do have separate lines that you get in that depend on what language you want to hear during the ride. We had about a 20 minute wait to get on, and took the cruise around the island. It was neat, and they had similar things to LA, but also some sections that were different.

After Adventureland we walked over to Fantasyland and Ciara and I went over to Small World. It has been a long time since I've been to Disneyland and on Small World, so I don't remember exactly what the LA Small World looks like, but it seemed like HK had some different things. They had Hong Kong in the Asia section of the ride, and we got to see some of the buildings we saw from Victoria Peak. The America's section also had the Golden Gate Bridge that we went under, so it felt like we were back at home!!

After Small World we did some shopping and then headed back to the MTR station to get back to our apartments. Disneyland was really fun, a lot of people had been telling us that it isn't worth the time and we shouldn't bother going, but we felt that it was worth it. We did A LOT of walking during the day, and since there were no lines we didn't spend very much time just standing around. We didn't eat while we were in the park, so we also did not sit much besides when we were on the rides. It was really nice to not have to spend time in line, and we were able to see everything that we wanted in just a few hours. We left the park around 6:15.

We can now check HK Disneyland off our list of things we want to see. I have quite a few pictures posted here, but it isn't nearly all of the pictures I took, just chose a few of them. I will upload more to Flickr or something and add the link here.