Hong Kong & Shanghai construction

Disneyland Other
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[Couldn’t find a category for the international parks?]

Our 40th anniversary is this October. We were looking at a trip to DL Paris & Efteling in The Netherlands; for various reasons we decided against this plan for now.

So, now we’re looking into DL Hong Kong & Shanghai. I’m looking for information on what construction is likely to be going on in October; my Google fu is failing me. I did find that Shanghai is building more hotels, but that’s all the info I’ve found. I’m more interested in what’s happening in the park.

Thanks!

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I don’t have any resources for you, but wanted to at the very least bump/wish you happy planning.

Ooh! I do know for sure one liner that has done Shanghai (and I think maybe Hong Kong too??) @gingerSnaps543222 so maybe she has some sources on where she checked for international planning.

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Update to add: I know HK is going through a multi-year expansion. I’m wanting to find out how it’s currently affecting the park. Some construction is more disruptive than others.

My Disney TA didn’t used to handle to the Asian parks, but she recently started her own company and now has someone who is an expert in the area. Thank goodness because planning out this trip is going to be more complicated than we normally encounter. Reading the visa requirements alone made my eyes glaze over.

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We are going to Hong Kong in April. I’ll try to remember to circle back and let you know. I’ve been looking at videos and it doesn’t look like anything is closed. The new ride (which looks amazing - a Spiderman ride with the ToT ride vehicle!!!) is outside the current boundaries of the park, I believe.

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No visa is required for Hong Kong, but you will need one for Shanghai. You will most likely need to hire a service to courier your passports to the embassy for the visa. The embassy you need to use depends on where you live. It’s not hard, but a pain in the behind and costs $$. BUT it will be good for 10 years so you can go back!

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Yes I’ve done both but in 2018. I prefer Shanghai. Even Peter Pan is better there but culturally you’ll feel like you fit in more in Hong Kong. People there know how to queue and don’t let children use the restroom in public which can be shocking if you’re not prepared. Disney is very good at cleaning it up quickly but I wouldn’t step in puddles in line and in places where the queue isn’t enforced so well with very clear boundaries such as in the Snow White Castle, be prepared to be shoved out of the way in Shanghai. I just went with it and stood in the back. But the park is stunning and the rides incredible. Everything is so new and the people are incredibly kind and nice.

I did have to get the visa and yes it’s good for ten years. I did some kind of service so I didn’t have to drive to Houston. Just Google it. Yes that’s only for mainland China. At least until Hong Kong is fully pulled back in. I’m not sure when that will be. I think it was some kind of 20 year gradual thing.

When I went was before they redid the castle in Hong Kong and we got a club level room in the gorgeous Disneyland hotel so we could get the free fast passes that come with it. The vip tour was actually very cheap here as well compared to the states. It was a small park though, along the lines of Paris but only the one park. The most important ride to ride here is the monkey one. Their version of the haunted house. They don’t do ghosts in China so it’s a twist on that to avoid ghosts. It’s unique to this park and a fun trackless ride like Mickey and Minnie runaway railway style but even better. You don’t really need more than a day here imho.

Shanghai we did two days and they sold packages of fast passes so like all the thrill rides or all the family rides or a combo pack. They also sold individual passes so for example we bought two extra rides on Tron which was our fave ride in the park but you must also do pirates, go thru the castle cuz it’s the only Snow White one, ride Peter Pan too cuz it’s so modernized and gorgeous. The castle is incredible. Again we stayed in the Disneyland hotel here. You could prolly just do one day in this park with fastpasses but I enjoyed the more relaxed pace of two days.

I cannot help with construction since it’s been years but I booked everything all by myself. I found both these official Disney sites much easier to use than Tokyo Disney where I found they really cater to Japanese. Not so in China. It felt more like they wanted our business in China it was so easy to figure out.

But they same guy on YouTube in Japan does videos about Chinese Disney parks too. I actually booked my entire 21 day Chinese vacation myself. It was honestly not hard. I used day tour guides with packages I wanted that included the things we cared about like hiking the Great Wall. I just did a lot of googling and I buy frommers and other guidebooks but I honestly always start with looking at organized tour plans such as Adventures By Disney. Pick the things I like from those tours (and I honestly choose the same hotel me which you can book on your own for much cheaper and you know they are good if Disney uses them but I do compare to TripAdvisor too) and then add the things I find on my own that appeal like going out to the Panda Base two hours outside of Chengdu which was soooooo much better than the one in Chengdu that Disney includes on their trip cuz we did that one too.

Best trips I ever have are the ones I build myself like this because they are tailored to our interests. I used China Highlights for a lot of our day tours. They would pick us up, drive us around, take us to all our daily events like say a cooking class and hike up the birthplace of Doaism and inspiration for Kung Fu Panda, they spoke great English and I can vouch for them. They will take good care of you.

You cannot drive/rent a car in China unless you’re a citizen so you’ll have to hire drivers and/or use public transportation. In Shanghai I highly recommend the side car tour. It’s fun and they’ll take you to places off the tourist radar. Run by expats so you’ll hear it like it really is.

Any questions let me know for OP. I prolly can remember a lot of details since I did plan it all myself and it was one of the best trips I ever did. Honestly ruined Japan for me a bit.

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In a nutshell for the Disney parks themselves just use the official sites. They are very easy and come in an English version.

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Other things I’m recollecting are you’ll need WeChat as that’s how people will get in contact with you like drivers and guides and for cash I believe the bank of China accepts American debit cards. Make sure you Google which bank/atms will work with American cards and bring different credit/debit cards just in case. In Hong Kong we didn’t have problems but neither my hubbys USAA nor my Mother in laws bank cards worked where mine did in the mainland even tho we all did the travel notices. So I had to get all the cash.

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Thanks for the info. WeChat or WhatsApp? My husband found something online about needing to use WhatsApp for payments, etc.

We’re in the very early planning stages, so things like cell phones, payments, drivers, etc. are added to the list of details to tackle later.

When planning a trip I usually grab a bunch of books from the library – Fodor’s, Frommer’s, Rick Steves, etc. And look at a few tourism sites.

It’s the visas that have me kerfuffled. One list says Texas is on the list for the short form; other lists say it’s not. My husband found something about trip planning for DL HK & S that said you don’t need a visa for Shanghai if you go to HK first (which, frankly, doesn’t make sense to me) and that HK doesn’t need a visa for visits under six days.

Definitely lots more to look into for this trip than going to Europe. My husband used to do a ton of international travel for work, but never went to China.

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I got my visa from Houston. It was supposed to be the 6 month travel visa but they just gave us ten years prolly cuz we’re not government workers or journalists. We absolutely had to have a visa for mainland but we did Guilin, chengdu and Beijing too. But I thought that was just period for mainland.

WeChat is like their texting app so that’s the one we used the most. The other for payments, yes like Apple Pay.

Another thing I was worried about was would I be able to access Gmail/google. And yes I was. It’s the phones themselves that China blocks American apps it doesn’t like. But if you have an American phone you can access all your stuff. But if you’re really worried about Chinese big brother, you can use a vpn. I wasn’t worried as outside of my two expat guides (hong Kong and Shanghai) we never heard or spoke negatively about Chinese government. I read you have to get a following for them to really pay attention to you and I certainly wasn’t gonna do that or call Xi, Pooh. lol.

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My husband’s phone is a company phone, so he plans to get a burner for the trip so it only accesses personal stuff. I’d mainly be concerned with Maps, Translate, etc. We can live without email or Facebook for a week.

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That all works.

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Just my opinion, but if I was taking a big trip to Asia, I’d do USJ and TDL

But if you’re set on China, I’d drop HKDL in favor of Chimelong Ocean Kingdom

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There is also a Universal Studios in Beijing now. It wasn’t there when I was there or I would have done that. But I’m gonna disagree. I have done both China and Japan and to me they each warrant their own trip unless you can take a month off. But I do highly recommend doing other things in China. For me the most memorable, was the Panda Base in the mountains 2 hours outside of Chengdu and walking the Great Wall (and I mean hiking the un-redone part). I’d vote do that over Japan and do Japan another trip. But to each their own. :wink:

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Tokyo will be a separate Japan trip later. I’ve seen videos for Chimelong, but we’re not interested in that one. Collecting the international Disney parks.

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Update: it seems all the park construction is on the periphery, so it shouldn’t interfere with visiting the rest of the park.

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This was my former goal. I completed the collection with Paris this past summer…..until there is a new park anyway. Lol

when you finish curious to know your favorite.

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Update:

I’m working with our Disney Travel Agent. They also do the international parks. Booked for October this year: DL Hong Kong and DL Shanghai.

After much deliberation we’ve decided to splurge and go business class because that’s a WHOLE lot of hours on an airplane. That kills any more big trips for a while.

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Nice!

What are your dates? I recently discovered that there’s a 5hr direct flight from Islamabad (where I currently live) to Guangzhou, which is only a 50 min bullet train ride away from Hong Kong! My kids have a school break in October, so I started browsing around a bit of DHK websites/vlogs and ended up booking two nights at Disney’s Explorer’s Lodge from 11-13 October! I’m hoping to take advantage of low weekday crowds (and a lull after the “Golden Week” holidays), and spend 10 days split between DHK, Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Guilin/Li River area. I visited all of these places while backpacking through Asia 25 years ago, and can’t wait to go back with my family. The funny thing is that the only reason I visited Guilin/Li River back then (or at least the only reason that I was aware it existed) is that I had seen the landscapes in Epcot’s Reflections of China 360 video and was just blown away by how beautiful they were.

If it’s in your budget, you will not regret it. Between the long flight and the time difference, you’ll be grateful for any comfort you get. Do you know yet which airline you’ll be using? I usually end up in economy (especially when traveling as a family), but recently found a great deal for a business class upgrade to Qatar Aiways ‘Q Suite’ style seats on a flight from Miami to Doha (14 hrs) and it was worth every penny. I hate flying, but when I got home I told my husband I’d be happy to do that trip every month if I could travel like that every time!

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We’ll be at DLHK (Explorer’s Lodge) Oct 24 & 25 and DLS (Toy Story Hotel) Oct 27 & 28. Our anniversary is the 25th and I was happy to see it landed right after Golden Week so I’m guessing the crowds won’t be too bad. Two days at HKDL allows us to take it easy while adjusting to the time zone.

As for upgrading to Business… the issue became: we have the money, but do we want to spend it? I still have the Northern Lights on my bucket list and we’ll have to postpone it a bit longer. During and right after covid we didn’t eat out much or travel more than a night or two, so we had a bit of money saved up. DH has already warned me not to get spoiled. :laughing:

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