Traveling to Tokyo, Hong King, and Shanghai

[mjandreasen]

This summer I am traveling to Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Shangahi Disney and was wondering how their English was there? If I don't know Japanese or Chinese will I be okay getting around Disney?

 

[katt789]

You'll be MORE than okay in Disney. A lot of CM's speak English, or at least enough to understand, you can always point & gesture to figure things out. Funnily enough, we found better English in Shanghai Disney than Tokyo, but that MAY have been since we went so clsoe to opening and people were more excited/working harder for that.

In the cities themselves, still relatively easy, there's lots of English signage and such.

Most shows/parades in all the parks are half English half Japanese/Cantonese/Mandarin.

 

[shelemm]

You should always expect some language barrier when traveling abroad to a place where English is not an official language. My guess is that a Disney veteran won't have that much in the way of complicated questions to ask. But if you do, expect that question to elicitt some confused stares. For example, at TDS there is a readly available map of the Fortress Exploration in Japanese, but if you want one in English (makes a great souvenit, BTW), then that might take some time. Also, the activities are not really explained in English, so good luck in figuring those out. The staff was of little help, I'm afraid.

Imagine, for example, how confusing FP is at WDW or DL. Even for an English speaker. A newbie to either place could easily become confused.

You should pick up some language skills. Nothing complicated. Just peruse a P\pocket translation guide on the plane ride over. Figure out how to say excuse me (very helpful in crowded places) please, thank you, where are the bathrooms... figure out how to say "I'd like the front row please" in Japanese before riding Journey to the Center fo the Earth. Makes a difference! You could learn all that in just a few minutes on the plane ride in Japanese.

Chinese is harder because of the pronunciation. Even then, a few simple phrases will go a long way.

 

[sky13]

You'll be absolutely fine with just English in Hong Kong. Almost everything has an English translation. Disneyland there is trilingual with a lot of things in English, Mandarin and Cantonese. And in the city there are English signs everywhere!

Tokyo... I don't speak any Japanese besides a few very common phrases like arigatou. But generally got along fairly easily. Within Disneyland, most CMs were very friendly and we managed to get by, although it's always a bit frustrating when you don't get the context in places like Tower of Terror where the preshow is entirely in Japanese. Some of the shows have English audio translation devices which helps. But there are translation issues, e.g. I only realised on my fourth day there that they actually had a Times Guide in English - the few times I'd tried asking for it at the shops none of the CMs knew what I wanted.

Within the city it was a little bit harder not knowing any Japanese. This is when Google Maps was incredibly useful as it told me exactly which train to take. I also found that Google translate does a semi-decent job of translating... enough to get the message across at least!