A Disney Parks Around the World Journey: Day 10 – Hong Kong

“I want adventure in the great wide somewhere. I want it more than I can tell.” – Belle

We woke up around 3:30 PM Hong Kong time and had about 3 hours left on our flight. We leapt forward 7 hours in time which made for a combined total time difference from home of 13 hours which will be a considerable amount of jet lag once we arrive in Hong Kong. At this point we’ve gone so far around the globe, we are starting to come back. I slept about 6 hours on the plane which is more than I normally sleep at home so I felt pretty good when I wake up. Kendall wakes up shortly after me, who in turn then wakes up Lucy in time for the breakfast service.

The breakfast consisted of a croissant, eggs, yogurt and fruit. I wasn’t super hungry just yet and just ate a little of the eggs and some fruit.

We land and I had hired meet and greets at the airport for the Asian part of our itinerary. I typically just go to the taxi stand or try and get an uber or the local equivalent, but I have found that meet and greets, especially in foreign countries just smooth the initial arrival. Having to deal with language barriers, Uber waits, long taxi cab lines, along with fake taxi operators that scam you can be highly stressful and can be an absolute nightmare. I’ve found while it adds some cost to the vacation, having prearranged transport that already knows exactly where you want to go to be worth the added expense as it just reduces stress in a moment when stress and fatigue tend to be the highest.

We had previously used whats app to text the guy prior to leaving France and he said to meet at Pret a Manger in the airport. We get there and he is not there. Well, this kind of defeats the purpose of the meet and greet. I text him and he eventually gets there about 10 minutes later. He speaks no English, but with Google Translate we are able to have a basic conversation. Despite the 10 minute delay, we go from landing, through customs and immigration and into our car to the hotel in exactly one hour. I felt it doesn’t really get much more efficient than that for an international flight.

On our way to Hong Kong Disneyland along the road they had some “not so hidden” Mickeys on the road signs and I thought that was cute touch.

We arrive at the Disneyland Hotel, our second Disneyland Hotel this vacation, and go to check in at main desk.

We are then directed to the club level check in on floor 7 in the Kingdom Club lounge where the club level rooms are. Another bucket list item on this trip was to do a club level room at a Disney and this was the most economical of all the hotels we stayed at to do so. On check in Lucy heard “club” and asked Kendall if it’s the “kind of club where mommy dances on a pole.” Me and Kendall just laughed as we just did not have a response for that.

At the time, there was a meet and greet with Minnie going on in the atrium area of the 7th floor exclusively for club guests. They were also finishing the free heavy
hors d’oeuvres in the lounge so it was pretty hectic as the guy checking us in was trying to also let us get a bite to eat before they shut down the warm food service and see Minnie before she left. Lucy is not a huge Minnie fan so we ended up skipping the Minnie meet and greet. They had hors d’oeuvres that you could just pick off a small buffet along with two items you could order that they would bring out to you. I honestly don’t remember what it was that they brought out but I didn’t mind it.

They even had little piggy shaped dim sum which was cute.

We managed to get some food prior to the lounge switching over to their late night snack options. This consisted of some caramel popcorn, Disney shaped cookies, and various gummy products.

The cookies taste similar to the Royal Dansk cookies in the blue tin I used to eat growing up. We are among the last to leave the lounge as it empties out and we finish our food,

We finished checking in, and then made our way to our room. It was a club level room on the 7th floor, where all the club level rooms are found. I had debated long and hard between staying here versus the Explorer Lodge, which is the newest hotel at Hong Kong Disneyland. A lot of people say the rooms at Hong Kong Disneyland hotel in general feel dated. The style of the rooms is definitely not as trendy as our last two Disney rooms we stayed at.

That being said, it was about what I expected from the pictures we had seen online, and was very clean and well maintained. I feel it could have used a refresh, as it definitely had more of a mid 2000s vibe with all the dark furniture and heavy drapes. It did come with the standard amenities you would expect from a flagship Disney hotel such as tea and coffee, complimentary minibar, robes, slippers, amenity kits, and something we discovered is very popular in Asia, free plastic souvenir cups or mugs.

We have a pretty view from the balcony of our room. The weather felt great in the 50s Fahrenheit and would have been a perfect night to sit out on the balcony.

I then go walk around taking some pics while Kendall and Lucy get to bed. The hotel is beautiful, and decked out for Christmas, which is kinda shocking given Christianity is not exactly a top religion in Hong Kong.

They have a reasonably good sized gift shop with a decent selection of items.

I head outside, and I must say the hotel does look gorgeous at night.

I head back to the room, and get ready for bed. We all take some melatonin to try and start resetting our biological clocks as it was just 2:00PM Paris time. It eventually knocks us out and we eventually fall asleep.

Day 10, December 28th, 2024 Step Count – 4,213 Steps

Total Step Count – 150,688

Continue to the next day here.

Read about the previous day here.