A Disney Parks Around the World Journey: Day 11 – Hong Kong Disneyland

“A whole new world.”

So despite the melatonin, we were all up at 2:00AM. Yep, we were pretty jet lagged to say the least. We were all WIDE awake, and despite our best efforts to fall asleep, we just couldn’t get back to bed. We knew this would totally come back to bite us in the middle of our park day, as our bodies will assuredly want to nap at some point. This is where the changes in our itinerary due to Air France’s complete stupidity are going to start becoming a problem.

Initially, our original itinerary had us spend 4 nights in Shanghai, in which the first day was scheduled to be a complete and total rest day. We had absolutely nothing planned other than to try and reset our clocks a little bit and rest from all the travel. Unfortunately, since we lost 4 nights of our itinerary due to Air France, we now only had 7 nights in Asia, split between 3 nights in Hong Kong and 4 nights in Tokyo, instead of the original 11 nights. This will cause us to use a a good chunk of our time in the Asia parks trying to adjust to jet lag.

Eventually 7:00AM finally comes around and Lucy has Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique appointment at 9:00AM so we needed to start moving. It’s a beautiful day. Definitely the best weather we’ve had this whole vacation.

We shower, get dressed and then head to the Kingdom Club Lounge. They have Western and Asian options for breakfast which was nice.

Despite having grown up primarily on American food, being Asian I still have an Asian taste. I really enjoyed the Asian options for breakfast, especially the dim sum and teriyaki chicken. Lucy enjoyed it as well.

Kendall went with a traditional Western breakfast and a Mickey Waffle.

There was some other pastry type thing in a Mickey shape that I was not entirely sure what it was.

We still have some time to burn till her appointment today so we go and take a pic in front of the hotel.

One of the things we wanted to do was a Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique somewhere along our trip. Lucy had not done a Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique since 2019, and she is fast approaching an age where she likely wouldn’t want to do it anymore or due to age would not be allowed.

Hong Kong was our slowest paced stop because Hong Kong Disneyland is not that big and by all accounts it really only takes a day to do all the rides and attractions. It also had the most favorable weather, as Lucy was not enthused about potentially walking around in a dress in the 40 degree weather that was present in Shanghai, Paris or Tokyo. For that reason we chose Hong Kong to do Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique.

We head to Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique which is located on the 1st floor of the hotel. It was very quiet and Lucy was the only one there.

They had a beautiful selection of dresses.

Lucy debated which one to pick for quite a while.

She eventually picked one and she was allowed to try it on prior to them taking the tag off. The dresses were super high quality and is definitely the nicest Disney princess dress we’ve ever bought. Thankfully, her fairy godmother knew enough English to get by so we didn’t have to break out any Google translate. She picked her hairstyle and makeup, and they proceeded with her transformation.

The appointment lasted an hour of which they spent 25 minutes doing a photoshoot.

We didn’t realize this was gonna be a full blown photoshoot in which they posed her in multiple locations and backdrops. Our package only included one complimentary photo and they tried to upsell us more photos, but I like to do my own photography and didn’t really want to spend the extra money on the photos as I was not impressed to be honest.

The experience was also missing the magic mirror with the Fairy Godmother that the ones in the states have. In general, it wasn’t quite as nice as the US version. We were done right at 10:00AM, and we stopped by the room real quick and then headed to the park. We had a 2:00PM Disney Friends Dim Sum reservation so we had a good 4 hours of time that we could use to knock out a couple rides before returning to the hotel for our reservation.

We decide to take the shuttle rather than walk to the park. The shuttle picked us up 10:21AM and we arrived at park a short 7 minutes later. It’s a short walk from the shuttle stop to the entrance of the park.

We enter the park with no issues. Of note, at the entrance of the park they have these MASSIVE power pack stations.

I’d never seen so many charging packs in one space. We then stop for the traditional castle pic. We’d normally head to the wheelchair rental, but Kendall said she wanted to give the park a go as it is smaller than most of the other parks so we’ll see if Kendall can keep knocking down those walls.

Lucy started feeling really jet lagged, but she was a trooper and we headed to Grizzly Gulch to go on the Hong Kong version of Big Thunder Mountain.

Grizzly Gulch is the equivalent of Frontierland in the other parks.

We go on Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars AKA Big Thunder Mountain.

This ride didn’t even have a 5 minute wait. It was a great ride and we all really enjoyed it. It was not as fast as either the US or European versions, but it definitely had some unexpected moments with some great misdirection. I don’t want to spoil it, but it definitely does some things no other Big Thunder Mountain does. It was a ton of fun and very smooth. Since it was basically a walk-on we just got back in line to ride it again. We started the very short walk to Mystic Manor as it is very close to Big Grizzly Mountain. On the way we see a sign that says “Lucky Nugget”. Lucy’s nickname in our family is “Nugget” so we have to get a pic.

After we went to Mystic Manor which is the Hong Kong Haunted Mansion which was right next to it.

Unlike the Haunted Mansion, Mystic Manor has an adventurers club theme rather than that of a creepy mansion. The line wasn’t even ten minutes long. Instead of Dune Buggies on a track, you board these carriages. This is a trackless ride akin to Rise of the Resistance and Remy. There was a nice preshow with some effects and then you board the carriage.

The ride was a great length and had some impressive effects. The plot was such that there was a music box that contained some mystical properties, and Albert the monkey releases the magic, causing havoc throughout the manor.

It was much more kid friendly and cartoony than a traditional haunted mansion.

It was a very impressive ride, and I was impressed that Disney made something this original and of this magnitude for Hong Kong Disneyland. We then started to walk toward the Jungle Cruise. To get there we pass through Toy Story Land.

We haven’t done any of the Toy Story Land rides in Paris or Hong Kong. They are typically just reskinned versions of things you’d see at any amusement park, and they strangely typically have pretty long lines, so we choose to save our time for the more unique attractions. It is a nicely themed land though.

We get to the Jungle Cruise. The wait for this was about 10 minutes and one of the longer lines we were in today. It was notably different from the US version. It was primarily either Cantonese or Mandarin, with some English sprinkled in on occasion. Since we didn’t understand the vast majority of the ride, it was kind of hard to know just how good the dad jokes were, if there even were any. This Jungle Cruise definitely had some surprises up its sleeve. At times there was even live fire.

Also in a brand new touch, there was some raging water.

Afterwards we started to walk over to the Iron Man Experience over in Tomorrowland. Of note, Lucy’s hair from the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique was just not holding up very well throughout the course of the day and it had only been a couple hours. When we did it in Magic Kingdom, her hair pretty much stayed put the WHOLE day. Here after just 4 hours it was starting to fall apart. For that reason, we take a couple pics of Lucy in front of the castle before we lose the hair.

The park is super small so it doesn’t really take any time to get to Tomorrowland.

I hadn’t really heard much about it so this was a bit of a mystery to me.

The queue was nicely themed and had a small miniature city mockup of Hong Kong with a new Stark Tower built in it.

They also had some miniature mockups of what I assumed to be the ride vehicle.

As we see the safety briefing I realize the attraction is basically Star Tours except with an Iron-Man theme. The general plot is that there is an expo going on and Iron-Man is doing a meet and greet in the building next door and then things go awry. What’s cool is that Iron-Man IS actually doing a meet and greet in the building next door, so the ride does a really good job of integrating what is going on in the land to enhance the illusion.

It was pretty enjoyable for a simulator type ride and had some updated effects. Next up was The Antman and the Wasp Nano Battle. We had heard very little about this ride in our lead up to our trip. After going on it, it was obvious why.

The queue has some video and references to various Marvel characters, but there was no line, so we had zero chance to look at all the details littered throughout.

The ride is basically an updated Buzz Space Ranger Spin. It’s a complete walk on with lots of cars passing by without anyone in them. Maybe 1 out of every 5 cars actually has someone in it.

It’s nothing special. The gun unlike Space Ranger in Disney World and Midway Mania is not attached which allows for improved mobility. The tech is impressive though and very accurate. There are tons of targets to shoot at with lots of interactivity when you hit the targets. It’s extremely well themed and it obviously took a decent amount of money to make this ride. It’s odd as it’s not as fun as Space Ranger’s spin despite all the advances in technology. This is one of those cases where the ride is definitely worse than the sum of its parts, as it’s a significant step up from Toy Story Midway Mania and Space Ranger spin, yet significantly less fun.

It’s getting pretty close to our reservation time, but given how short the lines are we figure we can squeeze in Hyperspace Mountain, AKA Space Mountain. Much like most parks outside the US, Hyperspace Mountain here is Star Wars themed.

Much like the Paris version, this one had screens as well that enhances the experience. It was very smooth unlike Disney World’s version that can feel pretty rough at times. It was now time for us to head back to the resort for our Disney Dim Sum Lunch.

We decide to walk instead of take the shuttle as based on the map it’s really not any faster to take the shuttle. It’s a beautiful day and the walk from the park has lots of greenery and some shade.

To be continued here.

Read about the previous day here.