Shanghai Disney Mar. 25-28 A magical experience

March 25, 2019

Disney Hotel

Today we checked out of the Radisson and going to be transferred to Shanghai Disney.
Our guide and driver picked us up from the Hotel for the 40 minute drive.

I had booked  a Concierge level room  at the Disney Hotel  because of all the extra perks provided.

Once we were dropped off we were met by a cast member who escorted us to a separate room to register. We bypassed having to wait in line at the registration desk.
We were offered a cold drink and then checked in. We received our pass to the park and were told of the amenities we would be entitled to during our stay.

Since our room was not ready we headed to the Park. We were able to use the hotel guest entrance and bypassed long lines.

Another perk of the Club room level was early entry into the park at a separate entrance. Our hotel was a short walk to the entrance and we bypassed the large lines of people waiting to buy tickets and get entrance into the park.

We expected the park to be spread out  and it was. It spite of the expanded size of this Disneyland there were not that many rides.  I think Anaheim Disney had so many more rides in a smaller area.

After our day in the park we returned to the hotel. The room was amazing. Beautifully decorated in Disney Theme decor and it had a great view of Disney Land.

Our room was on the same level and the Magic Kingdom Club. During the day snacks and drinks were available and from 3-5 pm there was a cocktail hour where we ended up having desserts or appetizers and drinks.
We would have breakfast here every morning.

Ken the manager was very welcoming and hospitable. Before we checked out he helped arrange the shipment of our souvenirs of the park home.

Ken

One night we had dinner at the restaurant at the Aurora Restaurant at the  top floor of the hotel. During dinner we saw the fireworks display over Disneyland.

view from restaurant

The next night we had dinner at Club 33.

 Again the club overlooked the park and we saw the fireworks display. Dinner was very nice and the service great.

The last night we had dinner at the Blue Frog restaurant in Disneytown.

Lunch at the Blue Frog

The menu featured Western style food and cocktails. We ordered ribs and steak and the meal was great.

We ate lunch at the different restaurants in the park every day.

One thing that surprised us was the emphasis on Easter. There were  character decorated eggs all throughout the park, the daily parade had the characters dressed in Easter themed clothing and the food was served in Easter themed cups or plates.

Quiet place in the park

The only frustration was the lack of signage to find different rides. When we asked cast members for directions we had to use sign language and point to our map to find how to get to the rides. Most of the time we succeeded.

On our first day we went on Pirates of the Caribbean which is a new version of the rides in the US. The difference being when we entered the large cavern where the pirates ships are we saw video projections of the ships having a sea battle.
It was a great ride but we did not go back again because of the long lines.

We went on the Soarin' ride and  Peter Pan. The Honey Pot spin was closed and the seven dwarfs ride had lines with a two  hour wait. Went on some more rides but cannot remember which ones.
We explored Toy story town but some of the rides were closed.
We did have short wait to go to Mickey's house where we got individual photos with Mickey.

Writing this now I see that we really did not go on many attractions in Shanghai Disney- lines were very long, not that many E ticket rides and some were closed.
We saw one parade and watched a show at the castle. We explored the castle which was gigantic.

Everyday we would go to Disney town where we had a coffee at the Starbucks and then walk around.

Later after the park we would walk to Disney Town to buy souvenirs or window shop.

There were a lot of Disney characters spread out throughout the park and available for photo ops.

Checkout was a breeze - we went to the special room on the lobby level where we settled our bill and our luggage was loaded and taken to the front entrance ready for the van to take us back to the Radisson in Shanghai.

In summary, our hotel experience was GREAT. The room was very nice with lots of amenities, easy walking distance to the park and Disneytown. Having access to the Magic Kingdom Club was the best experience- the cast members were super, the assistant managers spoke English and provided help when we needed it.
Some of the hotel amenities  included ta bakery, restaurant, mini market, free wifi, and much more.
The weather was always overcast due to smog and it rained sporadically day and night. The rain obviously stopped many of the rides from operating.

As a Californian I still really like Anaheim Disney for various reasons. I have not visited Paris Disney nor Hong Kong but Anaheim is better than Florida and Shanghai.

NOTE- We visited Tokyo Disney at the end of our trip and we both thought Tokyo Disney was superior (except for the hotels both were great) in all ways compared to Shanghai- ease of getting around, getting help from cast members, food plus the Tokyo Sea park which was really cool.