Made it to Shanghai!

Ha! I immediately thought the same thing....would go bonkers waiting that long. Looks like you are filling the time with lots of other wonderful things though.

Yes, thanks. I do so much that when I wake up, my legs are still tired. But that's OK. I'll rest on the flight home/back in LA. It's fun to study the DLS map when I return in the evenings. I'm saving the park for desert ;-).
 
I understand that! I vacation the same way and now bring epsom salts for my tired feet and achy legs. :rolleyes:
Disney will be a great finish to your trip Im sure and worth the wait. Sometimes the anticipation is all part of the fun. I've enjoyed your journey thus far. Its highly unlikely I'll ever make it Shanghai so its fun to live vicariously through trip reports like these. Great pics!
 
I understand that! I vacation the same way and now bring epsom salts for my tired feet and achy legs. :rolleyes:
Disney will be a great finish to your trip Im sure and worth the wait. Sometimes the anticipation is all part of the fun. I've enjoyed your journey thus far. Its highly unlikely I'll ever make it Shanghai so its fun to live vicariously through trip reports like these. Great pics!

Epsom salts are a great idea! Next time! :-).

I've ended three overseas trips with Disney: Tokyo, Paris and HK. It's always great. Again, I think of it as my desert; a reward at the end of my trip; something to look forward to :-).
 


Some pics from the road today. The third one is of super-long French fries. The last one is a mesh bag full of live frogs (meant as food, not as pets).

The cat in the pic below had one blue eye and one green. I thought it looked awesome.

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Disney (finally) on Weds!
 
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Good to note the difference experiences. We saw no-one get more than a few drops of water on them that day when we were at the ride and exit - I just assumed it had been designed differently. I'd gone all out with a change of clothes on, flip flops and a poncho and afterwards thought 'that turned out to be unnecessary'.
I sat on a bench near the exit there for quite a long time afterwards too people-watching whilst waiting for my son to come back from an attraction he had gone off too.
Good for people to note that it may not be the case for them. They were selling poncho's in the line - 10Yuan I think they were.
The lockers at the Rapids were around to the left from the entry. It was only a very small bank of them and I must have seen a sign to head that way otherwise I wouldn't have known they were there (you do actually walk past them when you exit the ride)

Perhaps there were some free lockers at Tron but we didn't see them. There are banks and banks of lockers there. The one I looked at definitely wasn't 1 Yuan because I wouldn't have baulked at that. I can't remember the amount it wanted now but it was a fair bit and I didn't want to pay that just to go on the ride. Mind you, paying whatever it was would be less hassle than possibly losing all your cash and passports : )

Only three of us got off the ride soaked. My wife was next to me and she didn't get a drop. Very hit or miss. It was probably 100 degrees or more, so I was totally fine with getting wet.

We totally missed the lockers at the Rapids ride. Our stuff, other than what was in my pockets, didn't get wet, so no big deal.

All of the lockers we saw for Tron were free - at least while you rode. Again, just like Universal. Maybe this has changed, though.

The way it worked when we were there was: The line was funnels through the locker area. There were a lot of locker bays in the center of the area (maybe 8 rows (banks) of them), then lockers lining the walls. The ones on the walls took the 1 Yuan coins and had no time limits.

The ones in the center used the touch screens to 'rent'. Each bank had 1 touchscreen. You go to the screen and select that you need a locker. You scanned your finger, then it told you which locker # was open. The hard part was that you didn't necessarily get a locker in the bank you were standing in. You had to go search for your locker number and the numbering was odd.

It would have been easy if all lockers in a bank started with the same # "Oh, we got 805, let's go to the 8th bank" Nope, they were just numbered in order.

Once you found your locker, load in your stuff. When you are done, you go back to a screen, scan your finger and open your locker. If you were under the time limit you set, it was free.

One thing that wasn't like Universal, when you took your stuff out of the locker, you were supposed to press a Reset button on the locker to free it up. I didn't notice that and didn't press. When we went back to Tron later in the day, all the screen-reserved lockers showed they were full. My guess was that they weren't full, they just weren't Reset.

We walked over to the coin lockers and dropped in a coin - figuring we wouldn't get it back. When we returned the key, it gave us the coin back.

There was no bag drop area like you explained when we were there, so it's clear something has changed.

The one other attraction where you needed a locker was the Challenge Trails. I believe they were also free, but my wife didn't want to try it, so she held the stuff while I went on the trails. You can't take ANYTHING with you on the trails.

I stood in a very long line that was moving extremely slowly. Eventually, we turned a corner and it appeared I was in the locker line. I asked several CMs that walked past if I needed to be in that line if I didn't need a locker, and they all said I needed to stay there.

Eventually, I asked one CM who said I needed to stay there to put my phone in a locker. I said I didn't have a phone on me. He looked at me like he'd never heard of someone who didn't have a phone lol. I tried explaining that my wife was holding it, but the language barrier was too much. Eventually, he just shrugged and said, "No phone? Okay." and let me out of that line into the actual line for the attraction. From there, the line went much faster.

ETA: I checked SDL's site and it only shows an "All Day" price for the lockers at Tron, so that has definitely changed.
 


Went to the ERA Shanghai circus last night. It was a complete blast. I had the cheap seats, which were around $24. But easily worth it. I had so much fun.

Disney is now only a day away! I can hardly wait! I feel like an eight-year-old on Christmas Eve.
 
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Just found ur thread/report. Following along!
THANKyou for posting and all these Amazing pix! Wow! R these pix with ur phone or a camera?
Pls don’t leave us hanging.. at some point u have to let us know about... a run in with police ??
Enjoy and Safe travels!!!
 
I'm headed to Shanghai in a couple weeks and my Disney day is on a Wednesday too - looking forward to your report, especially with how busy it seems, what you ate, and your overall impressions as we gear up for our own adventures there. Cheers!

Mark
 
Just got in from Shanghai DL about 45 minutes ago. I'll post a full report after I return to LA, but generally, I was disappointed. They say it's the biggest Disneyland in the world. If that's true, it's only because there's a lot of unused/wasted space. I didn't like how any of the lands were spaced either. You have to walk a lot, seemingly unnecessarily. Once you enter Tomorrowland, it's like two blocks till even the entrance of the first attraction.

The biggest problem, however, wasn't the park, per se. It was how the other guests behaved. Lots of pushing, bumping and line jumping at even the slightest opportunity. And the smoking: there are at least ten designated smoking areas at this park. But guests seem to take them simply as suggestions and smoke wherever and whenever they please. In fact, as we left the Eye of the Storm show (which was good), a guy simply lit up on his way out. After twelve hours, I'd had enough.

Again, I'll post a more complete report when I return.
 
Sorry to hear that your SDL experience wasn't great.. Looking forward to your review though, as I'll be there in two Wednesdays and looking to maximize my family's time there. Thank so much for your posting so far, it's been great to see!

Mark
 
:( sorry to read about ur quick update OP. I look forward to reading the rest when u have a chance to update us.
Safe travels!
 
Just got in from Shanghai DL about 45 minutes ago. I'll post a full report after I return to LA, but generally, I was disappointed. They say it's the biggest Disneyland in the world. If that's true, it's only because there's a lot of unused/wasted space. I didn't like how any of the lands were spaced either. You have to walk a lot, seemingly unnecessarily. Once you enter Tomorrowland, it's like two blocks till even the entrance of the first attraction.

The biggest problem, however, wasn't the park, per se. It was how the other guests behaved. Lots of pushing, bumping and line jumping at even the slightest opportunity. And the smoking: there are at least ten designated smoking areas at this park. But guests seem to take them simply as suggestions and smoke wherever and whenever they please. In fact, as we left the Eye of the Storm show (which was good), a guy simply lit up on his way out. After twelve hours, I'd had enough.

Again, I'll post a more complete report when I return.

Looking forward to reading your detailed report. It's a shame you found it a little disappointing : ( It seems from your photos and reports that you had a pretty good trip overall in Shanghai though - did you get to the wall, I don't remember seeing a post about it.
I agree, SDL is very spaced out. In some parts I found it ok but in others, like Tomorrowland, it seemed REALLY spaced out for no real apparent benefit. I wondered if it was to add more attractions at a later date perhaps? We were also there over what turned out to be a pretty quiet weekend so I wondered how all that space filled out when the park was busier or at capacity.
I didn't overly notice the smoking issue, maybe a couple of times. My son has a heart condition so I am very sensitive to the issue if anyone lights up near him but it wasn't overly a concern on our visit.
I would be interested on your thoughts about how the park compares to HKDL and particularly the parks in Japan. I'm thinking mainly in terms of the guests behaviour.
We have been to HKDL a few times (will be back for a day this July) so are familiar with the crowd behaviours there. I'm curious about the guest behaviour and whether it is similar in Japan.

Will look forward to reading your report - safe travels home : )
 
Home now -- just walked in the door about 90 minutes ago. I'll post a full report with pics sometime in the next few days. I'm not even sure what day this is. It feels like tomorrow but I think it may actually be yesterday ;-). Very tired and jet lagged now. Thanks to everyone that's liked/enjoyed my posts from Shanghai!
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Again, full report later, but here's something I noted that was very unusual; something I've seen at no other park: while in line for Buzz for the last time (did it three times), there was a guy inside -- a guest, not a CM -- trying to flog knockoff Disney pins. Very Strange.
 
Now this is surprising - OUTSIDE the park I can understand, but someone going around INSIDE the park selling non-kosher wares? Was he doing this in an obvious fashion, or was he asking people to look "under his trenchcoat", as it were?

I'd think the Mouse would take particular exception to this sort of thing... Were the CMs aware of it or ignoring it?

Mark
 
Now this is surprising - OUTSIDE the park I can understand, but someone going around INSIDE the park selling non-kosher wares? Was he doing this in an obvious fashion, or was he asking people to look "under his trenchcoat", as it were?

I'd think the Mouse would take particular exception to this sort of thing... Were the CMs aware of it or ignoring it?

Mark

This was in a part of the queue where there were no CMs -- sort of like a separate room. He was very obvious about it, holding them out for guests' inspection. Also, on the metro to the park ("Disney Resort" is the final/terminal stop on the 11 line), people were selling knockoff MM ears and the like. They were doing a brisk trade, too.

I think I saw a second person selling stuff inside the park as well. Also, I'm told that there's money to be made by selling/scalping FPs, since they run out of them by noon.
 

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