Shanghai Disneyland - the final park!

[sky13]

Decided to start a PTR for this trip since I actually have a weekend off for once!

Background to this trip

So in the last few years I have been very lucky and have managed to make it to several Disney parks...

Hong Kong Disneyland in 2010

Disneyland in 2012

Disneyland Paris in 2012 and 2013 (I had an annual pass for a year so went several times during that year!)

Tokyo Disneyland in 2015

And WDW in 2014, 2015, 2016 and most recently last month during the amazingness that is the Flower and Garden festival

Which leaves me one last Disney park to go to... Shanghai!

Getting to Shanghai is easier than it sounds, as I live in Singapore, which is a 5.5 hour flight away from Shanghai. This makes Shanghai the second closest Disney park to me (closest is Hong Kong which is about a 4 hour flight).

I found out earlier this month that I could get a very short amount of annual leave for May - less than a week - which was perfect for a short trip away, so decided that Shanghai was a perfect place to go! Booking Shanghai got me out of my post-Disney trip blues very quickly...

Flights

Did my usual Kayak search and found a few airlines with good prices. I decided to pay a bit more for a direct flight with Singapore Airlines, which is so far still my favourite airline to fly with. (Lots of baggage allowance, free seat selection even before booking the flight, amazing IFE with huge screens, and on long haul flights they even provide socks and toothbrush and toothpaste...) So I'm quite happy with my flights!

One of the flights is on an A380 and the other on a 777!


Plus of course this is flying out of Changi airport, so I'm planning to get to the airport early just to have fun roaming around the airport and buying lots of stuff in the airport...

Hotels

Looked at Toy Story hotel and the Disneyland hotel. And read a few trip reports. Including one of someone who stayed Club level at Disneyland hotel who commented on how the food there was amazing - and before I knew it I had booked 3 nights Club level at Shanghai Disneyland hotel!

I also have a couple more nights booked at a hotel in downtown Shanghai though, which will be easier for seeing a bit more of Shanghai.

Plans so far

Don't have very much planned yet, actually!

What I have so far is:

Day 1:
Flight to Shanghai
Arrive early afternoon
Check in at Disneyland hotel (check in time opens at 3pm - I think we should reach there just around 3pm hopefully)
Maybe check out of the food in the Club lounge?
I don't think we'll have park tickets for this day as we're only going to reach Disneyland around 3pm, so probably may head into downtown Shanghai to walk around a little bit
May try to go to Disneytown too to check out the stores and restaurants!

Day 2:
Shanghai Disneyland
I haven't actually bought my tickets yet! But I think I've read that if you're staying in one of the on-site hotels that they guarantee you can get tickets for when you are there, so I'm not too worried... yet...

Day 3:
Shanghai Disneyland

Day 4:
Have breakfast
Check out of Disneyland hotel
Head to the downtown Shanghai hotel, probably using the metro
Explore Shanghai?

Day 5:
Shanghai
No real plans in Shanghai as yet.
There are a few places I definitely want to go to though - this includes the Bund, Yuyuan gardens, maybe the Oriental Pearl Tower, maybe a cruise on the Huangpu river...
Thinking I might want to check out the Disney store in downtown Shanghai too!

Day 6:
Shanghai
Leave Shanghai

And then back to work the next day!

There's a lot to fill in in the above! Not sure how much time I'll have to plan it - some of it may involve me winging things with my Lonely Planet Shanghai guidebook and my iPhone...

Eating

I have a few tentative plans, but no bookings!

But this includes

Royal Banquet Hall - this looks like the equivalent of CRT, but with Mickey Mouse and all instead of princesses? Still, it's eating inside the castle!

Xiaolongbao (pic from CNN)
These are amazing dumplings, that come with meat and soup inside!
And yes, I can easily get these in Singapore, but I still want to eat them! And there are some famous ones e.g. Nanxiang which is apparently a chain of restaurants in Shanghai?


And then also other things in Disneytown like Cheesecake Factory and Wolfgang Puck...

[sky13]

@princess_chazy
I just realised that I've done the first part of this in a similar format to your PTR! I think your PTR must have stuck in my mind as I wrote this - apologies!

[dee slack]

we ate in the Royal Banquet Hall and thought it was lovely. Minnie is downstairs before you go up to eat )with a photo pass photographer) and then Mickey, Donald and Daisy are upstairs, coming round to the tables.

[Ourdaybydesign]

Sounds an amazing trip. We are off to HK Disneyland soon and excited to see the differences. We last did WDW in 2015 and DLP just in March.

[Guest]

Just to mention, I've covered all 3 parks - Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo Disneyland on the recent DIBBcast #168 and also some brief information on the cities.

Listen here: dibbcast

[sky13]

Originally Posted by dee slack

we ate in the Royal Banquet Hall and thought it was lovely. Minnie is downstairs before you go up to eat )with a photo pass photographer) and then Mickey, Donald and Daisy are upstairs, coming round to the tables.

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Oh that sounds great! I think I actually haven't done a character buffet with the Fab 5 before (have done Crystal Palace with Winnie the Pooh and friends and Cinderella's Royal Table but not other character buffets) so it will be nice to meet Minnie/Mickey and Donald/Daisy all at the same time! The food looks really good from what I've seen so far...

Originally Posted by Ourdaybydesign

Sounds an amazing trip. We are off to HK Disneyland soon and excited to see the differences. We last did WDW in 2015 and DLP just in March.

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Your countdown is incredibly exciting right now! Have lots of fun!

Originally Posted by geoffa

Just to mention, I've covered all 3 parks - Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo Disneyland on the recent DIBBcast #168 and also some brief information on the cities.

Listen here: dibbcast

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Thanks! I'll try to have a listen when I have a bit of time - working 100 hours a week isn't very conducive to any social life/free time at the moment

[sky13]

Okay so since my first post, almost nothing has happened with regard to further trip planning. Work has gone completely crazy and I actually managed to spend over 100 hours over the course of 7 days at work. Doesn't look like it's going to get much better until I actually leave for Shanghai, unfortunately!

Things I still need to do:
- Change money
- Sort out some form of data plan for when I'm there, either through roaming on my network or trying to get a SIM card. At this point I suspect I'm going to be roaming with a data plan, as this is the easiest option to sort out!
- Buy Shanghai Disneyland tickets! Though I think I may leave this until I get there. Not too worried as am staying on-site so apparently guaranteed tickets?

Planning to start packing maybe next week!

Then of course there's all the usual stuff to do before a trip:
- Tell my bank I'm going to be in China so I can use my card there if necessary!
- Print outs of everything including air tickets, hotel confirmations (including the fact that I've already fully paid for the stays), travel insurance...

Starting to get really excited about this trip though, can't wait to see what Shanghai Disneyland is like!

[sky13]

Wow, I completely missed my single digit day!

I feel like I should be trying to plan more for this trip but it's really difficult when I'm working my usual crazy hours, including working through the weekends! My only day off between now and going to Shanghai will be this Sunday, so I suspect that's going to be a crazy day of packing, changing money, and planning!

I'm just glad that hotels and flights are already sorted out, I apparently don't need a visa (I've double checked and triple checked this and apparently this is true), and I can speak and read Mandarin (slow reader though) so I can hopefully just wing it in Shanghai if I still don't have a plan by the time I leave!

[Guest]

Have an amazing time!

[sky13]

I fly in just over 3 days!

Work is still absolute madness though. I've had all of 2 days off from work this month, and both of those days have been spent sleeping! You know you're chronically sleep deprived when you can fall asleep anywhere, and can sleep for 18 hours at a go...

What this means is... I've not packed! Or changed any money! Or done anything I was supposed to do!

The next 3 days are going to be interesting given that they're likely going to be 12-14 hour days - can only hope that I get to leave work at a time which means I can still do some packing-type things.

I'm actually almost prepared to sacrifice my first day in Shanghai for sleep at the rate I'm going...

Originally Posted by princess_chazy

Have an amazing time!

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Thanks, hope you had a great holiday! Any trip report coming?