The HKDL Source

Update for  August 6 to August 12 - News and Commentary

 

Skip To: Current Closures, Refurbishment and Construction |  Events & Important Dates | Current Discounts/Promotions | Park Hours/Schedule/Annual Pass Blockout Days

 

---

News This Week: Double Fix of WaterWorks | Chief Spy's Family Trip Report | News Bites | Care to comment?

 

Classic times, crazy days. Who needs introductions when we could just plough on ahead with rampant speculation and news that everybody knows already? After all, that's what sites that get 5 times our traffic do...However, this week marks the first time more than one opinion can be heard on this site. Now YOU can make your voice heard with our brand new comments section at the bottom of every single news article. HKDL Source: not just for our own speculations anymore. Read on to find out how you can Register and comment on the events of Hong Kong Disneyland.

 

 

Double Fix of WaterWorks

 

Disney's official calendar reveals that Mickey's WaterWorks parade, which was once sharing the stage with the traditional Disney on Parade, now seems to be flying solo. However, this doesn't seem to mean you only get one parade a day. Instead, Mickey's Waterworks is running twice daily at 1:00 PM and 3:30 PM all this week in Hong Kong Disneyland.

 

Given the seeming popularity of this parade, this makes perfect sense to us. Plus, from a logistical point of view, it is much easier to run the same parade twice a day than have to set up two different parades within two hours of each other. With temperatures still running in the high 20s°C to mid 30s°C, and the typical Hong Kong humidity right up there near the top, it seems like a perfect opportunity to keep running the parade until everyone cools down. From what we've heard, people are sure going to miss this parade at the end of the season.

 

 

Chief Spy's Family Trip Report - 4 August 2007

 

Our Chief Spy has been bringing us excellent news, photos and reports from the park for over a year. In all that time, indeed in all the time the park has been open, she has not managed to conquer one hurdle: getting her husband to visit Hong Kong Disneyland with her and their daughter. How did she manage it? We reprint her story here as not only a great trip report, but as an example of what a traditional 'non-fan' thinks of the park.

 

You do realize that it only took me a year and a half to get my husband to Disney? (WARNING: Convoluted story to give the background from a Hong Kong Chinese Man's perspective.) We did a trade off. I wanted to go to Macao this week but there really isn't anything for my daughter to do and being (wow) almost 6 now, the day would have been boring for her. Top that with around $600 in ferry cost and a hotel room, my husband suggested we go to Disney instead. I jumped at the idea! You know me, I love Disney. Ok, so he has a friend that works there and could get him in for free. If she used a freebie she would have to have 3 people enter at the same time. Now [my husband] couldn't get two more people to go because of the hot weather. However, he had already told our daughter he would go to Disney on Saturday so he was stuck.

 

At 11:00 we got to the gate and bought a one day pass. We got in the gates, and went straight to the Animation Academy. Drew Mickey, and the little one said Jungle River Cruise...so off to Pirate Land! We took the train over to Fantasyland which is still only a half a loop. (4 minutes for this, because of the construction) I got Fastpasses for the 2:00 show to Lion King, and we went on a boat ride. [My husband] thought he had been on something like that before, but wasn't sure. (Yes, we had been to Disney in Florida). He thought the English tour guide was terrible because he couldn't understand him, and to be honest, neither could I. The Hippos didn't come out and the Piranha's went by so fast we didn't see them. (The driver was very fast).

 

We next played the Rum Tumble game, and got stickers. [My husband] didn't understand the game of 3 in a row, but it didn't matter. It was just good fun. Lunch was at the restaurant near Potter's Trading Post. He thought it was a bit steep, but I put it in perspective for him. Where I work, the price of the same type of lunch is usually a bit higher. Where he works, he always gets a staff discount on his meals so he forgets how much the rest of us pay for food here.

 

Lion King time. Wow...all I could see were [my husband's] eyes and teeth. He was very impressed with Scar's singing, and he liked the lead Alto singer who tells the story. They have a new Nala and I thought she was amazing. Wonderful voice that carried fantastically. Better than any other I had heard yet. Anyway, back to [my husband]. He said he hadn't seen anything like it since a Cantonese "Opera" 'Snow, Lake, Wolf' that was playing about 8-10 years ago. When I mentioned the Nutcracker to him he agreed that it was on par. He also was impressed by the physique of the Fire dancers, and the "fun" everyone on stage was having. He said his heart ached when he saw the bird woman. It was so beautiful. (He kept saying that words failed him).

 

 

Next we went to the water parade...and again with the visible teeth and eyes. One of the Cast Members came over to say hi to [my daughter], we introduced daddy, and she asked if I would get wet again. Of course! So she squirted me in the face and chest with her water gun. When the parade came around, I saw her go up to a few of the dancers and with hand signals point at us. 3 or 4 of them stopped in front of us and I was soaked again. The crowd loved the parade, and to be honest I did too. I was thrilled to be cooled off. The downside, an idiot poked me in the face with an umbrella. I screamed and she put it away (I had laser surgery on my eyes last year and am terribly afraid of damaging them.) [My husband] loved the perfumed water. He thought it was a great extra touch.

 

Back to Pirateland for Tarzan's tree house. I swear the leopard is motion sensored. It didn't roar until my husband put my daughter right in front of it. Scared the living daylights out of her. We then went back to Main Street to see his friend, my daughter got a sheet of 30 stickers. He talked for a while and we went for ice cream. His friend told him Lion King sucked and Golden Mickey's was better. While I was getting ice cream, he saw the Barbershop Quartet singing. He loved it.

 

PhilharMagic was next. Again, all teeth. Lol! That was all I saw for the whole day. He loved the cinnamon smell and the water. When I asked about the other smells he didn't register that there were more, but he said he'd check next time. Next time! Did my ears deceive me? Next up was a walk through the garden. No pictures though, the lines were huge! We did take a look at the plants though and he was intrigued by how they get them to grow in our climate without any visible irrigation. Luckily I took that tour on Earth Day and had a few of the answers. Golden Mickey's was next, and he was too funny. He thought Bebe was one of the most irritating women he had ever seen. Her voice...too squeaky! I think those were his words, and he said if she had cheek implants she needed them taken out because her face was to plastic looking. If not, she needed to see a plastic surgeon. Tarzan had chicken legs, and lousy pecs. (He's just started body building after watching me do it for the past 10 years so he has suddenly become aware of just how good a well proportioned body looks. On men, not on me!) He enjoyed the singing and thought it was worth one trip, but not two and he wasn't sure how I had managed to see it so many times with Katherine. He thought that would have driven him nuts. He said Bebe's Cantonese wasn't quite right, but understandable. He was sure she wasn't a local. (That must explain why I can understand her).

 

On to Tomorrowland and Buzz "Bang Bang" as we call it. Good fun, he said. I got 999,999 points! Woo Hoo! That's as high as the numbers go just for anyone who wants to know. Next up, we went to the pass update building!!! I can't believe he paid the extra $300 to upgrade!!! (He's so tight with his money, he squeaks when he walks.) Afterwards, it was a night time Jungle Cruise in Cantonese which lasted longer than the English ride, and dinner at the River View Cafe, which by the way, was very good. Fireworks at 9:00 and we passed the water show outside the front gate before heading home. We spent 11 hours, and didn't do everything. All day long he was enjoying the flora and kept looking at the small details. He commented that people kept saying HKDL was small, but they must not have been. He thought the price was worth the day and was sorry he didn't listen to me earlier. (Isn't that always the way it is with men?)

 

His final comment before going to bed. Ocean Park can't hold a candle to HKDL!

 

So there you have it folks! A relative Disney 'virgin' experiencing the park for the first time and looking forward to going again. It also proves that there is at least a full day's worth of experiences in the park if you just let yourself go with it and enjoy all there is to offer. As the park continues to expand and grow, we can only imagine that we are going to see and hear more stories like this one. Thanks again to our Chief Spy - and her husband and daughter - for sharing their experiences with us!

 

Look for the photos from this report to be up shortly!

 

News Bites

 

Asia Times Online reports some pushes for looser travel restrictions so that the citizens of Shenzen can help flock to the tourist attractions of Hong Kong Disneyland and Ocean Park...

 

...Maria Donna, Gold award winner at the Shanghai Music Festival in China has won a role at Hong Kong Disneyland...

 

...and sailors and soldiers from the USS Stennis enjoyed time at Hong Kong Disneyland after docking in Hong Kong for the week.

 

 

HKDL Source Website Upgrades

 

As you may have already noticed by glancing down at the very bottom of any news article on this site, you can now Comment on our news stories. Don't like what we've said? Agree heartily? Have something to add? You can make your opinion heard for all the world to see on our brand spanking new comments section.

 

To fully use the facilty, you need to Register with the site. This is free, and doesn't take very long to do so.  Simply visit the Register link  in the sidebar on the left hand side of the screen. Once you have logged in, you will be able to comment on any news story or gallery item on the site. For those of you that are existing members, and have been having trouble with the Log in to the site, this problem has been fixed. Likewise, any of the problems associated with registering as a new member have been fixed as well.

 

Be sure to register not just to comment on the site, but to be able to Enter the Zone. The Zone is coming VERY SOON, and will host our Competition; profile management; exclusive content and anything else we can come up with between now and then.

 

Standard Sign Out Section

 

Remember, as always, if you have any news, photos, trip reports or just a question, feel free to contact us. Another way you can help out the site is by voting for us on The Disney Portal. They rank all of the Disney sites on the web according to popularity and numbers of hits, and we are slowly making our way up the ranks. If you want to help us move up even higher, please use the link below to vote for us.

 

 

Also, don't forget that you can now subscribe to The HKDL Source Newsfeed via the links below:

 

	Subscribe to RSS Feed

 

If you have any trouble using the feed, or have spotted some pesky bugs, please feel free to Contact Us and we'll try and sort it out.

 

 

Current and Forthcoming Closures, Refurbishments and Construction

 

• Disneyland Railroad: Still running, but in "shuttle" rather than "loop" mode due to the construction for the forthcoming it’s a small world attraction (Coming April 2008).
• Fantasyland: No closures in Fantasyland, but there is constant construction going on ‘beyond the berm’ for the forthcoming it’s a small world attraction (Coming April 2008).
• Land appears to be cleared and built upon behind Adventureland and the Promenade for as-yet-undisclosed project. While some contend that this land has always been in this state, we have reports that some construction was seen to be going on in this area. Others still say that this is prep-work for a Downtown Disney style area and the Pirates extension to Adventureland. The HK Building Department reports this as a 'Dangerous Goods Storage Area'. We now have an indication that a hotel will be going up in the area. Time will tell.
• Construction work is being carried out near the main gates, allegedly for some new toilets and Cast Member break room.
• Mickey's WaterWorks (Closes 31 August 2007 through Summer 2008?)

 

Events & Important Dates

 

If you know of any events that should be listed here, please let us know. 

 

On Now

• Mickey's Summer Blast: Mickey's WaterWorks and Animation Academy (July 14 - August 31): Officially launching for Summer on July 14, Annual Passholders have been told to expect to see these events from July 7. Now incorporating...
• ...Pirates Overlay (May 4 to August): Disney has announced that they will be celebrating the release of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End in grand style, with pirates taking over Adventureland and the hotels. See here for more details. Now extended throughout summer.

• First Anniversary of HKDL Source (July 17 onwards): We turned One on July 17, and you know we aren’t going to let it slide. There will be street parades; fireworks…well, ok, maybe not. The budget won’t cover that. However, stayed tuned for competitions; more member interactivity and a whole makeover for the site!

September

• Hong Kong Disneyland’s Birthday (September 12): Hong Kong Disneyland turns two. No official word on any celebrations, but given that the First Anniversary was relatively low-key, we can’t imagine any huge events on the horizon. Don’t quote us though. Merchandise, including pins, T-shirts and biscuits, is already out in the shops.

 

October

• Halloween: Grim grinning ghosts come out to socialise all through October, as Hong Kong Disneyland celebrates its second official Halloween. Look for the decorations to go up early October, and then segue into the Christmas/New Year celebrations in November. Rumour has it that this year will see a haunted house walk-through attraction temporarily erected.

 

November/December

• Christmas: From mid-November until New Year's Eve (December 31), Hong Kong Disneyland's Main Street will become a Winter Wonderland, with a tree lighting ceremony; musical events; special meals and the big man himself, Santa.
• Magical New Year and Countdown: Concluding the Christmas festivities, this big event will be a dance party for some; some old-school shindigging for others and an excuse to have fun for all. Count down to midnight in the park, and then go back and drain the hotels of all alcohol.

 

April 2008

• it’s a small world (April 2008): RTHK News reports that the attraction is set to open in April 2008, which is consistent with Disney’s official line of ‘early 2008’.

 

Current Discounts/Promotions

• Annual Passholders: From July 1 to August 31, Passholders will receive an exclusive deals. Full details can be found here.
• Interest Free Installment when Purchasing Annual Passes: Purchase Annual Pass now with a Standard Chartered VISA Card or MANHATTAN VISA Card to enjoy a 12-month interest free installment. Offer Period: 1 December, 2006 – 31 December, 2007. See here for details. 
• Stay and Play for 2 Days: Book a hotel stay and enjoy an extra day at Hong Kong Disneyland when you purchase a one-day ticket! The offer has been extended until September 2008!
• Dining Deal: Book breakfast in advance and receive 30% off. Conditions apply.

 

Park Hours/Schedule/Annual Pass Block-out Days

 

Park hours will stay at the extended time of 10:00 AM to 9:00 PM all week until the end of summer (August 31). Every day from now until the end of August is classed as a “Peak Ticket Day” and the ticket prices will be reflected accordingly.

 

Value Annual Passholders will have all weekends blocked to them during July and August. Deluxe and Premium Annual Passholders get to go crazy, as no dates are blocked to them.

Comments

Leave a Comment

You Must Be Logged In to Post a Comment