Shanghai DL at capacity (late June '17)

By the time we got in, all of the fast passes were gone and rides already had waits up to 2 hours! It's a shame that the hotels didn't have any early entry like they do in Orlando. The hotel was pretty empty. Loved the hidden bed, pool was really nice, food was so-so. Couldn't believe that they had just about nothing in the shops for Shanghai Disney (not even anything for the inaugural year)...not even postcards!

I thought the same thing about the hotels. I really expected at least one or two days that they would have early entry. Or a separate line would have been nice too. We were able to get one fastpass...they were all gone by 11am. We only ended up riding a handful of rides and saw the Tarzan show, mostly walked around and people watched. I don't think I would go again...I travel to China for work a couple of times a year.

I was expecting more unique to Shanghai DL souvenirs. I bought a mug, a couple of pins and a vinylmation. Their loss... I would have bought more ;)
 
I will write a full trip report, but a few comments about Shanghai DL on a sold out day:

We were there 6/29 and 6/30, both days sold out. We were told the reason was that as of July 1st (or 2nd) the entry ticket prices were raised by nearly 50%. So, people wanted to get in while it was still cheaper.

Both days the park opened at 8am.

6/29 we arrived at PVG at 7 am in the morning, got a cab to the Toy Story Hotel, gave them our bags, changed clothes and went off to the park. We got there a little after 9am. It took as one hour to get in (30 minutes at security, 30 minutes to get to the turnstile). By the time we got in, all the FP distribution centers had incredibly long lines, so we dropped the idea of FP. We did Pooh (30 inutes wait), the Alice maze, Pirates (70 minutes wait), lunch and the parade and then went back to the hotel to get our room and shower. We got back to the park at around 6pm. And then we were able to hit quite a few attractions. We did not watch the night times show (we had seen its cousin in Paris), but instead used that time to walk onto Peter Pan. Just at park closing at 9.45pm we walked on Roaring Rapids which had been a 240 minute wait most of the day. Those night time hours were absolutely crucial for us! As was the single rider line at Pirates which was a walk on for single riders in the evening. We also noticed that the wait times in the evening were all a bit exaggerated (RR showed a 45 minute wait, but we waited 5 minutes).

6/30 we got onto the bus at Toy Story Hotel at 7:15 am. Because of crowd control they make you walk through a maze and it took us until 7:45am to get to the start of the security line. That day it took us 1 hour 15 minutes to get into the park. We immediately went over to Tron to get that FP. At 9am the line was fairly short, about a 5 minute wait, to get the FP. We repeated the pattern from the previous day with a mid-afternoon break at the hotel and then heavy touring in the evening. We did see two of the shows (Pirates and Tarzan) that morning. We got in line for Soarin at 9:30pm when it advertised a 90 minute wait (the shortest of all day). It turned out to be 45 minutes.

All in all, the only thing we wanted to do that we missed was the Challenge Trails as they closed at 6pm. We also did not get on the Mine Train, but since it is the same as WDW it was not a priority for us. We would have liked a repeat ride on Tron, but otherwise I feel like we did everything we wanted to do and got in multiple rides on those that we really liked (Pirates, Pan).

The tips I would give anyone going in the summer on a sold out day would be:

- arrive early, I think getting to the park at 7:30am would be the sweet spot as otherwise you will be waiting before the park opens.

- pick a line in the entrance plaza at the very end (so that it does not have other lines on both sides) as you will get some air flow while being packed in with masses of people (not a lot of personal space is left open in China). We did this on the second day by chance and it did make such a difference!

- take an afternoon break (this is where staying at one of the official hotels comes in really handy as it is so easy to get back there)

- prepare to do the headliners in the evening. The park starts to empty out around 6pm and by 9pm feels nearly deserted.

- pick your priorities. One thing that definitely fell behind for us was trying any of the special food. We ate when it was convenient (both evenings very late at Remy's Patisserie in Mickey's Avenue as this was the only place open late for food, but food there was very good).

- consider eating on the go. All the Chinese do it. You will see people eating in all the lines (and then drop their packaging wherever they are...).

- be prepared to do a lot of walking as you will have to do some backtracking!!

- make use of the app for waittimes

- and have fun!! It is great to explore a totally new and different park!! There are plenty of walk through attractions that don't have long waits at all and that make this park unique!
 
We got off the Metro at 7:15 and were in the park at 8:02. That included the walk from the station, getting through security, and getting our tickets. It 'felt' like much longer than it really was. I didn't check times, but security wasn't open when we got in line. We probably waited 5-10 minutes before the line started moving.

Maybe we got lucky with the lines we were in, but we felt we would have waited the same amount of time at WDW if we had to go to the ticket counter and through security.
 
We got off the Metro at 7:15 and were in the park at 8:02. That included the walk from the station, getting through security, and getting our tickets. It 'felt' like much longer than it really was. I didn't check times, but security wasn't open when we got in line. We probably waited 5-10 minutes before the line started moving.

Maybe we got lucky with the lines we were in, but we felt we would have waited the same amount of time at WDW if we had to go to the ticket counter and through security.

At Shanghai, you're actually better off if you have to go via the ticket counter. The lines there are much more civilised. The lines at the turnstiles move painfully slow!
 


Hmm. So we are planning our trip next year and I was looking at early June. That now sounds like a pretty good time. :)
 
Hmm. So we are planning our trip next year and I was looking at early June. That now sounds like a pretty good time. :)
Early June should be good. Late June gets very busy... pricing goes up on July 1st, so people were trying to get there before the price change.
 



GET A DISNEY VACATION QUOTE

Dreams Unlimited Travel is committed to providing you with the very best vacation planning experience possible. Our Vacation Planners are experts and will share their honest advice to help you have a magical vacation.

Let us help you with your next Disney Vacation!










Top