After counting down for a few months, the year-end holidays had finally arrived! My family of 5, including 3 rambunctious boys ages 5 to 10, visited Shanghai Disneyland and had an absolutely wonderful time! We would like to share with you our experience, along with some tips and our favourites, and hopefully, you’d be able to create sweet memories there too.
Shanghai Disneyland: A Magical Family Experience
My husband and I had been planning our maiden trip to China and we decided to start in Shanghai Disneyland for a few reasons.
Firstly, we have never been to China as a family. What better way to start our November trip than to transition in this special theme park, especially for bilingual but not-so-fluent mandarin speakers like my boys and me.
CARNIVAL OF CHRISTMAS CHEER: Celebrate and Win at Plantation Plaza and Northshore Plaza!
SNOW MUCH TO CELEBRATE: Christmas Fun at The Centrepoint
To help us transition better, we had been watching Disney movies for the past few months, mostly in Mandarin.
Another reason to head to the ‘Happiest Place on Earth’ first was because, should we not be able to complete our China travels, at least we could say we did the most important and fun thing (parenting tip 101).
Toy Story Hotel – Family-friendly Stay, Delightfully Close to Disneyland
Upon landing in Shanghai in the evening, we immediately checked into Toy Story Hotel, which is one of the two Disney hotels beside Shanghai Disneyland.
We chose this hotel and not Shanghai Disneyland Resort, as it is closer in distance, both by walking and shuttle bus to the theme park.
Both hotels have a one-hour early access for all registered guests, which is the most useful perk of staying there. It might be pricier than other hotels nearby, but the early access bought us time, which is a very valuable commodity in Disneyland.
Toy Story movie characters like Woody and Buzz Lightyear made regular appearances at the hotel lobby too, which guarantees you at least a photo with one of them.
Pre-trip Download – Shanghai Disney Resort App
You would understand how precious time is once you download the ‘Shanghai Disney Resort’ app on your phone. This app is also the same one you would use to book your park tickets and strollers (more on that later).
Park ride timings are quite accurately reflected live on the Shanghai Disney Resort App.
As theme park-goers, we all have different objectives and you need to be clear what yours are.
There are many in this particular theme park that love Duffy and Friends, thus their obsession with queuing up for meet and greets with associated characters like LinaBell (the wait time for her was consistently the highest peaking at 360 minutes amongst all other Disney meet and greets). We joked that with her great popularity, we would have less competition for the rides.
My family loves rides, especially the thrilling ones. Needless to say, we made a beeline for them with our one-hour early access for two days straight.
The live wait timings in the app helped us prioritise rides to fit our schedule. Yet, with young children, we set the limit as 60 minutes to wait for a ride. I will provide a list of rides we did for both days and another list ranking our top five favourites at the end of the article.
Entering Shanghai Disneyland
Early Access with Double Stroller
After a good night’s rest from flying the day prior, we woke up bright and early at 6.30 am to catch the 7.30 am early access opening time.
We chose to walk to the park on both mornings as it was a short 900-metre walk and helped us avoid the long shuttle bus queue. We booked a double stroller in advance from the Disney app and it turned out to be the best decision of the adventure.
With a double stroller, the boys took turns to rest their tired feet and it helped us zoom through the park to catch rides that were far apart in distance.
There was even a function on the app to map your route and through GPS, help you navigate through the park to your exact destination (very useful when in a rush to catch rides when the park is about to close).
Due to our early access, we did the popular rides like Pirates of the Caribbean – Search for the Sunken Treasure, Soaring over the Horizon, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train and Tron, spread across the two early mornings.
Zootopia Land
Zootopia: Hot Pursuit was too popular even at opening time, so we did it at night instead.
Queue-cutting happened to us twice, but so long as we were firm and moving along with the queue, park goers were mostly as civilised as us. Staff also reiterated the importance of queuing in line through the sound system.
Regardless of whether you get to ride the ride, Zootopia land is worth a visit as you will be fully immersed in the movie with lemmings sliding down tubes popped out from colourful buildings.
You can cross a traffic crossing like you’re one of the animals and spot funny sights like a life-sized giraffe on a gym treadmill and varied-sized doors and furniture that accommodate differently-sized animals.
We had to get the hawthorn-flavoured ‘pawpsicle’, famously featured in Zootopia the movie. It was fun eating an ice pop in the cool weather.
Shows We Watched
In terms of shows, we watched ‘Frozen: a sing along celebration’ and ‘Eye of the storm: Captain Jack Sparrow’s stunt spectacular’.
The latter won my family’s votes hands down, perhaps because majority of us are boys. Yet, I myself was as impressed with the stunts performed, like Captain Jack Sparrow sliding down a long tarp sail and actors doing indoor skydiving (picture iFly stunts) to act out a fighting scene where the pirates kick and shove each other midair.
Shoutout to Our Favourite Shanghai Disneyland Ride: Pirates of the Caribbean – Search for the Sunken Treasure
Can I just give the ride ‘Pirates of the Caribbean – Search for the Sunken Treasure’ a shoutout here? Don’t look down on its low queue wait time. I deduced that the reason is because the ship carriages that we take are larger in capacity and can thus clear the queues fast.
The whole experience, from the time you sit in the ride till finish, is beyond any other experience I had. It is ultra immersive and when I say immersive, I also mean literally feeling like I am being submerged into the deep ocean.
I will not spoil the experience for you, but if you can afford it, sit at least two times. We went on it three times and found out why others who had gone before us recommend sitting at least twice.
Food Options at Disneytown
Due to our hotel’s close proximity to the theme park, we decided to head back for a short nap on both days to recharge after walking and queueing for the whole morning. Shuttle buses ply the short 5-minute route every 10 to 15 minutes.
It turned out to be a great decision as the boys (and my husband) could last till the park closing time at 9.30 pm.
Our meals were settled within the theme park and at Disneytown, the retail and dining area outside the park.
Meals at the latter are slightly cheaper, though expect restaurant prices. We had good food at The Cheesecake Factory (specialised in pastas and cheesecakes), IPPUDO (specialised in ramen noodles) and DONDONYA (specialised in Japanese rice bowls).
Light and Fireworks Show
On both days, we watched the light and fireworks show ‘ILLUMINATE! A Nighttime Celebration’ from different parts of the park (sometimes partially blocked), partly because we wanted to catch rides while others would head to strategic places at Gardens of Imagination to watch the show.
True enough, nearing the first show timing at 8 pm, the queue timings reduced significantly for some rides and allowed us to ride them without waiting as long as in the daytime.
We had a good spot to watch the fireworks at 9.15 pm near the entrance of the park along Mickey Avenue, such that we could exit faster to return our stroller before the droves of park-goers exited.
Recommendation: Two Days are Better than One
If we would repeat the experience of coming to Shanghai Disneyland, I would still choose two days over one, in order to take my time and not rush through the entire park which is filled with so much to see, hear and enjoy.
Though I did not capture most of the conversations and faces of delight during the rides and shows, the times we queued together, pushed one another on the stroller, shared the same foods and saw the same night sky illuminated by the single firework spark over the iconic Cinderella’s Castle would be etched on my family’s minds and hearts for quite a while to come.
Where We Went, Rides We Took and What We Recommend!
This is the exact order of how we navigated Shanghai Disneyland, not particularly based on the proximity of rides to each other, but also with consideration of tiredness levels, the varied waiting times for rides and timings of shows. Happy planning!
Day 1
- Pirates of the Caribbean – search for the sunken treasure
- Soaring over the horizon
- The many adventures of Winnie the Pooh
- Eye of the storm: Captain Jack Sparrow’s stunt spectacular (show)
- “Once upon a time” adventure
- Alice in wonderland maze
- Buzz Lightyear Planet Rescue
- Zootopia: Hot Pursuit
Day 2
- Seven dwarfs mine train
- Tron
- Voyage to the crystal grotto
- Slinky dog spin
- Frozen: a sing along celebration (show)
- Peter Pan’s flight
- Disney winter magic cavalcade (parade) – near Tomorrowland/Tron
- Roaring rapids x 2 (back to back)
- Pirates of the Caribbean – search for the sunken treasure x 2 (back to back)
Our Top 5 Favourite Shanghai Disneyland Rides
- Pirates of the Caribbean – Battle of the Sunken Treasure – Highly immersive experience. We suggest to ride it at least twice!
- Zootopia: Hot Pursuit – Loved the animatronics and immersive experience, including the whole town outside the ride.
- Tron – For the speed and roller coaster experience.
- Peter Pan’s Flight – This was surprisingly good. Go if the queue is short and the rest are longer.
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Train – The most popular ride in Disneyland, probably due to it being an accessible and fast-enough roller coaster ride. Do it first or Zootopia or both rides back-to-back. The queue builds up pretty fast.
We hope that you have a magical time at Shanghai Disneyland, just as we did!
