Christopher is a faithful Disney and more reader and he's coming back from Shanghaî Disneyland! He sent me his comments about the park with interesting infos and here is the translation - you also have the original text in french below:
I just returned from Shanghai Disneyland! The park is fantastic, I stayed 3 days and i was never bored.
I just wanted to give you my feelings and provide information that is not often given.
First: the attendance: not terrible, on weekdays the park barely had more than 15,000 guests. Yes, it is little. Result: reasonable queues for us. What is especially interesting is to see how the Chinese do not have the same expectations than us.
Where in other parks we just look for the "classics" Peter Pan’s Flight, etc ... I waited 5 mins for this attraction! Same for Pirates of Caribbean. The longest wait was for Soaring over the Horizon and Roaring Rapids.
The Chinese come for the attractions but could not care less for the characters. I saw Baloo or the poor Duffy wait for guests who did not come to see them!
Culture also is very different: no applause at the end of shows ( at Ignite the magic, for example ).
The lack of savoir vivre is stunning: Queues turned into trash, urine everywhere ... They do not seem to appreciate the quality at fair value.
The scams are also huge: ponchos sold by "guests" in the queue - yes, you read correctly, a parallel business WITHIN the park - others were selling fake fastpass to enter through the attraction exit...
State police is present to prevent riots in the event of 101 ( when a ride has a technical problem )… Which is something very very common, breakdown and rides re-start never stopped during 3 days.
Then, in terms of buying merchandise we saw very few guests with bags... And the restaurants are not full. It is expensive for a Chinese as it is our European prices!
Other information: hotels are only accessible with a reservation. They are closed to outsiders. We must give our reservation number to enter. But it is not so bad because people go everywhere and take care of nothing.
The cast members already seem exasperated except with us caucasians with whom they are adorable.
Otherwise again this park is amazing, neat, detailed, far to have been done on the cheap. Any place in the park is superb.
I wish you a good visit of this park soon. Sad that you stop your site, you've always done a great job.
Christopher's Original French version:
Je rentre de Shanghaï Disneyland ! Je n'aurai pas grand choses à t'apporter par rapport à tout ce qui a été dit sur ce parc. Il est fantastique, je suis resté 3 jours et je ne me suis jamais ennuyé.
Je voulais simplement te donner mon ressenti et apporter des infos qui ne sont pas souvent données.
Tout d'abord la fréquentation : pas terrible, en semaine le parc à à peine 15000 guests. Oui c'est peu. Résultat des files d'attentes raisonnables pour nous. Ce qui est surtout intéressant c'est de voir à quel point les Chinois n'ont pas les meme attentes que nous.
Là où dans les autres parcs on vient chercher les "classiques" Peter Pan etc... La j'ai attendu 5 mins pour cette attraction ! Pareil pour Pirate. La plus longue attente est Soarin et Roaring.
Les Chinois viennent pour les attractions mais se foutent complètement des personnages. J'ai vu Baloo ou encore le pauvre Duffy attendre seul des guests qui ne venaient pas les voir !
La culture aussi très différente : pas d'applaudissements à la fin dès show ( ingnite par exemple.
Le manque de savoir vivre est flagrant : files d'attentes transformée en poubelles, on urine partout... Ils ne semblent pas apprécier la qualité à sa juste valeur.
Les arnaques sont énormes aussi : vente de ponchos par des "guests" dans la file d'attente. Oui tu as bien lu, un business parallèle au sein même du parc.
Vente de faux fastpass pour passer par la sortie.
Police d'état présente pour éviter les émeutes en cas de 101... Chose très très courante. Ca n'a fait que ca pendant 3 jours des pannes et des réouvertures d'attractions.
Ensuite en terme d'achat on a vu très peu de guests avec des sacs... Et les restaurants ne font pas le plein. C'est hors de prix pour un Chinois ce sont nos prix européens !
Autre infos: les hôtels ne sont accessibles qu'avec une réservation. Ils sont fermés aux gens extérieurs. On doit donner notre numéro de réservation pour rentrer. Mais ca c'est pas plus mal car ils iraient partout et ils ne prennent soins de rien.
Les cast member semblent déjà excédés sauf avec nous caucasien avec qui ils sont adorables.
Voilà des petites infos intéressantes je pense.
Sinon encore une fois ce parc est incroyable, soigné, détaillé et loin d'avoir été fait au rabais. Le moindre lieu est superbe.
Je te souhaite une bonne visite de ce parc bientôt.
Triste que tu arrêtes ton site, tu as toujours fait un travail formidable.
8 comments:
To say that the Pirates ride isn't popular because the Chinese aren't fond of Disney classics is ridiculous. First of all, it has absolutely nothing to do with the original Pirate's of the Caribbean ride; it's an entirely different attraction based on the films. Second, it has very short wait times (even on opening day, it never went above 30 minutes) because it is an extremely high-capacity ride. As we know from Pirates in other Disney parks, this is already a high-capacity ride but this version goes even beyond that thanks to the large capacity of the boats.
Interesting commentary for it discourages me from going. Having visited China before, I never encountered urine everywhere even in tourist sites. Nor did I get solicited outside of well established markets. Maybe Disney needs to have better monitors to keep the public behaved.
I would think that it would be expected that the crowds would die down some after the initial rush. Also the park is very big, so it would absorb the crowds. A bigger problem might be the high prices of the food. I also heard that the Chinese want more American style food, not the type of food that they can get much cheaper on the streets of Shanghai. We were in China once, and McDonald's was considered to be a date night for young couples. So Disney could easily cater to that segment of the population. The problem about cleanliness and etiquette is probably something that can be worked out in time with more communication and awareness.
I had a trip to china. A little boy did a wee between the seats on to one of hour party as we flew on an internal flight. Another took a dump on the great wall.
Apart from this the Chinese were very pleasant people who helped us navigate liked to interact with us, extremely polite and friendly. I cannot wait to go to Shanghai Disney
I thought it was a bad idea to make a second Disney Resort in China when the first is not yet completely successful.
I just hope that it doesn't become a big burden to the Walt Disney Co. and a second Disneyland Paris.
I'm sorry to contradict your kind readers comments but I literally just got off a plane from Shanghai Disneyland and I am afraid his observations are not at all indicative of most.
He is correct that Rapids and Soaring are the most popular. Fast passes sell out within the first few hours and then waits build to between 60 and 120 minutes. He is correct that Pirates maxes at 20 minute waits and usually much less (these are week days not week ends) and he is somewhat correct that the Chinese seem less interested in lining up to meet characters (apparently they are smart in that regard).
However he is incorrect about most else. Pirates is hugely popular but simply high capacity. There are ZERO police in the park other than one car parked outside the front gate exactly as they do at EVERY OTHER PARK. There are however park security guards who dress some what like police at some of the Fast Pass stations.
There was ZERO urin that I saw outside of the Bund in downtown Shanghai where I did see a small boy squat and go. Not once in the parks or on property.
The park is not as clean as Tokyo (notjing could be) but generally cleaner then DLP which is by far the least well kept of all the parks. It is similar to the US parks in that regard. The general public areas are extremely well maintained but you will see some cups and maps etc tossed in the queues. You also may smell smoke in bathrooms which is annoying.
Cast members are great. Very very friendly and trying very hard. Guests overall are very well behaved and got the lack of a better word "normal". There is one annoyance that is never seen in Tokyo, rarely seen in the US and I additionally seen in Paris and that is one person pushing past lines to catch up with party members up ahead. This happens a lot, virtually every ride. I watched and each time it was legit, they really did meet someone. Nevertheless as a westerner it is incredibly frustrating to have young and old push past you (often without even saying anything), it does not appear to bother the Chinese at all.
Hotels are meant to be off limits to non guests (as frankly they should be) but in practice that is easy to get around. All one would need to do is board the bus from the park to the hotel, they do not ask for ID if any type.
Bottom line is that it's a fantastic park with
More too end attractions then several established parks (HKDL, DLP, DHS and of course DSP). The guests are generally perfectly nice and the cast members are great. There are some logistical points to be worked out such as monitoring bathrooms better so people don't smoke. Culturally they may just have to allow the split up party thing as that seems very normal there. Also they allow filming on rides etc with no question, much more then in the US. Lastly I never saw any third party on how sales! They have a CM in line selling
Ponchos which is great, maybe that is what your reader saw.
Sorry for the typos in the above reply. Auto correct does crazy things but you get the idea.
It's a very good park with generally "normal" guests.
Hey. I'm french and I was at Shanghai Disneyland 2 weeks ago. I just wanted to say that Christopher said is completely wrong about the "Queues turned into trash, urine everywhere ...". Actually SD is way better than Disneyland Paris. The park was much more cleaner then DP !!! The Chinese are way better and way more polite than french people. By far. And there is NO "parallel business WITHIN the park". I think he didn't get what it was. For instance, at the end of Roaing rapids queue there is a cast member who sell some ponchos for 10 yuan (1.35 €) because we get wet (a lot) during the attraction. That's ALL !!! I think Christopher is one of those french guys who aren't able to enjoy anything in life (so they prefer to criticize and discouraged others to visit the place).
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