Let's start the week with a great Hong Kong Disneyland update and today we'll have a look at Main Street and HKDL Tomorrowland with the first pictures of Iron Man Experience construction site!
Above and below, Main Street station, and yes, it looks exactly like the one at Disneyland Anaheim!
But if we turn our head on the east side of HKDL Town Square we can't miss the cranes currently in place for the works on the Iron Man Experience land located just behind.
When the pictures were shot the facades of all the east side of Main street were in renovation with printed canvas on all facades. It's probably over by now, but although we've seen before printed canvas on Main Street facades - DLP currently have one on the Boardwalk Candy Palace facade as well as on Main street transportation building as you've seen in my previous DLP updates - it's the first time that i see a Disney park doing this all at one time on an entire side of Main Street.
On our way to Central Plaza let's stop to have a look at the new shop "Victorian Collection" located on the west side, which opened a few months ago. Stuck between the Emporium and Curiosity shop, i'd like to say that it's okay but the truth is that it's an unbelievable mistake, so unbelievable that it's hard to think how HKDL Imagineers did such a mistake. And the sign over the entrance is terrible, too. Eventually it could have worked if it had been smaller, but the goal was to increase the merchandise space, and even smaller i'm not even sure that it would have fit nicely. It's a pity as HKDL Main Street is lovely and they really destroyed the harmony with this new shop coming out from nowhere, just like it had been parachuted and landed between Curiosity and Emporium.
You'll note too on the ceiling the very ugly ventilation pipes... impossible to don't notice them.
Recently they decided to use the shop for Frozen merchandise as you can see on the picture below found on This is Mr B Facebook page, and it's probably the best thing they have to do with this shop.
Okay, let's move to Central Plaza and Tomorrowland. As you can see the sky was blue when the picture was shot, but it won't last as a storm will come soon.
In Tomorrowland, the structures of Starliner Diner and Comet Cafe have been repainted recently and they both have now the same light mauve color. I't's not bad but i'm not totally sure that it was a good idea, personally i preferred when the two restaurants had two different colors.
Nearby, we can see one of Tomorrowland merchandise carts which have been moved to a different area from where they were before to make room for the Iron Marks works.
While we are in Tomorrowland let's have a quick look to the interactive and splash area "UFO Zone" that kids enjoy a lot.
Right behind, it's Autopia and the land for Iron Man Experience is located on the right of Autopia and behind the Buzz Lightyear ride show building. On our way to Autopia HKDL guests notice these themed fences hiding the works behind.
I like a lot HKDL Autopia not only because the cars are electrically powered and make some cool sounds but also because of the vegetation theming. I think they did a real good job to have part of the land where the cars are moving looking like another planet. As you'll see on the pics below the weather had changed in the afternoon and we experienced a storm which lasted two hours during which all rides in Adventureland and the new lands were closed, except Mystic Manor as it is the only one indoor.
Anyone arriving to Autopia boarding room can have a glimpse of what's going on on the right side, where they build Iron Man Experience. At that time they were preparing the ground, so no building yet to see and only cranes or building site machinery.
When you're moving up for the dispatch to Autopia cars they've placed canvases all along the west side to avoid the sight of the works. However, the storm that happened just before these pictures were shot was so powerful that the canvases had all fly all over allowing to enjoy a panoramic sight of the Iron Man construction land. Click on the panoramic picture below to see it in big size, it's three pics put together with photoshop and it's not perfect but what will amaze you is the size of the land, several hundred meters long.
I remind you that Iron Man Experience is supposed to be a simulator ride - like Star Tours but with a new generation of simulators - but i doubt that they need all this huge land for the Iron Man show building only. I can understand that they need also room for the backstage but seeing this huge space made me wondered if they are in fact preparing the ground not only for Iron Man Experience but eventually to have it also ready for others rides that could be added in the future... we'll see what the future will tell!
O-kay, that's all for today, in a next HKDL update we'll move to others lands to see what's new!
Pictures: copyright Disney and more
The Victorian Collection "shop" is older than a few months. I was there last octobre and by then it had already opened a few months ago, so it must be approx. 1,5 year now?
ReplyDeleteIt IS ugly from the outside and from the inside. On the outside you can see that it is too "long", when you exit the shop next to it, you "bump" onto this new expansion. On the inside it makes sense for buisines reasons as the whole left side of Main Street is one big shop now, people don't need to exit one shop and enter another. That said, it's also ugly on the inside, the "one big shop" feel is not nice and the thing itself looks ugly... And that in such small space. Has this been done by real Imagineers or by an Imagineering intern in Hong Kong? ;)
Thanks for the interesting Iron Man update and the nice pictures!!!