Hong Kong Disneyland

The girls are great travelers and don't grump much as we (I) drag them on mega walks through random places while on holiday. So we decided to surprise them with a day at Disneyland. I was curious to see how it compared to Disney-world in Florida and watch the girls in their element. We took a taxi to Disney but realized when we got there that the subway/trains option to and from where we were staying was quite cheap and easy - so used it on return. Overall, it was much smaller than Disney-world - basically it was designed after the original part of Disney World, the Magic Kingdom, and did not have all the other parks such as Adventure Land and Epcot and such. So it was very doable in a day. We got there when the park opened and stayed for the fireworks/light-show in the evening, rode most of the rides and saw a few shows. The girls are getting more adventurous with the rides although Ada struggled with the "haunted house" and one of the roller coaster rides - a few tears and tight clutching. The crowds were solid but the workers do a good job of keeping the lines, actual lines and it did seem that the ride time was a bit shorter than at DW. One difference that I thought was a good idea - on certain rides you would be given a number card that corresponded to a particular unit on the ride so there was no mad dash to get to a particular unit and the associated disappointment if someone got to the unit first.

Going into the complex.

It was interesting to see how they dealt with the language situation. Most instructions and such were written in English first and then Cantonese and then Mandarin. We watched the Lion King show, which required some dialogue from the performers and some lines were in English and others in Cantonese - I think the idea was to do enough of both so that the audience knew what was going on, which was not too difficult considering the storyline of the Lion King!

Mickey surfing in the fountain.

Quite a few umbrella's out as the sun was shining bright and it did get a bit warm - mid 70's maybe.

Ada and Emmerson in front of the castle and girls (in the side/background) who came dressed to match and do Disney right - quite a common scene - girls dressed in similar Disney apparel taking pictures of each other - good times!

Emmerson in front of an all star school group of Chinese harp like string's orchestra This is just inside the actual park after giving your entry tickets (which we bought ahead of time at the Peak the day before - good advice - if Disney HK is on your agenda).

Ada with her number tag for the vehicle in the "Space Station".

Keeping things in control - thank you Hong Kong.

Girls on the first ride of the day - the Space Station - round and round and up and down.

Space Mountain! Ada was not a participant - one of two rides she did not go on - Space Mt. and the one where you sit in a "ship" and it rocks back and forth beyond vertical - here it was called the "Race Car". Nana opted to stay with Ada while we went on these rides. 

In the stall to board Space Mountain.

All the lights from people filming the fireworks and lightshow on their handphones.