Day 2 [part 1]: Checking in to Toy Story Hotel. First views of our room!
[Here, we begin the photo heavy posts!]
Alright!!! The arrival at our hotel! We made it! It’s officially day 2 even though it still felt like the first day… and it’s already early evening the next! Haha. China Time Zone is 14 hours ahead of our home Mountain Standard Time!! (We all set to have our Apple watches show what time it is at home so we would know if it was appropriate or not to send messages back, etc.)
Plans for this night was to get checked in, take a look around the hotel a little bit, then head over to Disney Town (Shanghai’s version of Downtown Disney) to get some dinner! Maybe a little bit of shopping, then head back to our room to sleep to get ready for our very first day of parks the next morning.
So here we are! Reservations under Glendon’s name so here he is, checking in haha
Looooooove all the very cheesy cutesy theming. Toy Story Hotel is Shanghai
Disneyland’s value resort. Based on Glendon’s standards, he thinks in comparison to the American resorts, probably closer to a Moderate than a Value. It’s definitely not as HUGE as the values in the states. Theming wise, yeah it’s pretty good! Anyways checking in was very easy, and ALL the cast members were so excited to help us. A lot of them were really happy to be able to practice their English. It was all pretty cute.
The Reception sign above the desk
View of the puzzle pieces wall behind the desk
And I LOVED the vests the cast members wear so of course I had to take a photo of this CM
it’s got all the toy story characters on it! I just thought it was so cute!
I forgot to take a photo, but the female cast member was very kind and she made sure each of us got to get a different character on our room keys so we had a selection for our collection! She was so cute and told us we get to keep them after haha. I THINK our card characters were… green aliens, Bulls-Eye, and… maybe Woody and Buzz? Maybe someone had Jessie? I only remember the first two because I let Jenna choose first and she chose green aliens (which was the one I wanted hahaha) and so I chose Bulls-Eye after. Anyways! On to our room!
I honestly have no idea what our wing was called. But basically there are two themed wings. One side is the Western side and the other is the Buzz lightyear space ranger side. I’m really glad we got the (I’m going to call it Galactic) Galactic side, because it was all bright and blue and green. In that photo you can see the green lights. On the Western side, it’s all Woody and Jessie cowboy themed… and with red lights. Yuck! I would much rather have green lights than red!!! But I guess it doesn’t really matter, it’s just a hallway hahaha.
And here we go…. photos of our room!!! We were really rushing to get photos, because honestly we were exhausted and hungry and really really wanted to get everything done here as fast as possible to go and get dinner.
First off the bathroom sink
Little bit of toiletries, some paper cups, and water bottles!
YAY! Little amenities kit
Oh, inside is just travel sized tooth brushes and mini toothpaste
A view of our beds
In Asia, almost all the hotel rooms only have double sized beds haha.
Here is a slightly different angle view of the beds.
Yep, definitely not a queen sized bed. But I like that the night stand is a Rubik’s Cube. And the carpet is cute. And the bed spread decorative thingy. I’m having a brain fart and can’t remember what it’s called.
My favourite detail of the room:
You can just imagine what went through my head every time I looked up at this hahahaha “OoooooooOooOoOooooooOOooooh” “THE CLAAAAAW”
And I love this photo on the wall because it’s one of my favourite scenes from the Toy Story Movies aha
Also the wallpaper behind the bed!
THE SHOWER CURTAIN!
Notepad!
Even in Shanghai it’s H20+
Paper, envelope, and post card!
Our first impressions of the hotel room? Size of the room itself wasn’t bad. We weren’t expecting anything grand, and we were already expecting the smaller beds, so it wasn’t a problem. The little “toy” details around the room were definitely super cute. For example (I can’t find a picture at the moment but I’m SURE I took one…) the table in the corner by the window, the pedestal leg underneath is a giant Sorry! piece! I do like that with Disney, even though it’s a Value resort, you still get the theming throughout. However, if you looked around some more, you can definitely tell that this hotel was put tother and built up very very quickly. Like, you can definitely tell that this was a rush job. Also, I wonder if bathroom ventilation in hotels is like… not a thing?! Anyways, there was no ventilation in the washroom, so if you make a poop poop I’m sure there is no where for the smell to go. When you shower, it definitely gets very very steamy. To a point that even though this hotel is almost brand new… there was already mold in the ceiling of the shower. This bothered me a little bit… but you know… if you don’t look up then it’s out of sight right?
Anyways, other than being a little weirded out that the bathroom had no ventilation, we weren’t unhappy with our room. (I wonder if this also played in to factor that when we first walked into the room, it smelled a little bit… wet? humid? hmm.) We’re just glad to have a place to stay. Plus you’re at Disney. So really, something really bad has to happen to dampen our moods.
SO! Dropped off our bags, made sure we had adequate clothes on for the chilly evening (It was 2 degrees C! 36 degrees F!) and we were off to go catch a shuttle to Disney Town!
When we got downstairs to the lobby, though, we just saw a bus leave. So we asked the CM at the stop how long of a wait it would be until the next bus. He said 15 minutes, so we decided to check out the hotel shop until the next bus came! The hotel shop is right next to the hotel entrance, and the bus stop is basically just out the doors of the shop.
LOTS of giant silly hats in Asia! So Jenna and I definitely had to put on a couple of them.
Glad it wasn't an issue once you got to Vancouver but like you said, since we have such a large asian population here in the Lower Mainland, this 144 hour transit Visa must be way more common.
