5 Reasons Why Hong Kong Disneyland is Our Favorite Disney Park
Hong Kong Disneyland was an add-on to our Tokyo Disneyland trip. Since we were using Alaska Air miles to fly to Asia, and Alaska Air allows a free stopover on the award bookings, we could fly from Boston-Tokyo-Hong Kong in business class for the same amount of miles as Boston-Tokyo flight. So adding a few days in Hong Kong Disneyland was an easy decision.
We were blown away by Tokyo Disneyland. However, Hong Kong Disneyland completely exceeded our expectations and quickly became our favorite Disney park. And here is why:
Table of Contents
Unique Rides
Most popular rides in Hong Kong Disneyland offer a new take on the classic rides found in other Disney parks:
- Star Tours -> Iron Man Experience
- Thunder Mountain -> Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars
- Buzz Lightyear Astroblasters -> Ant-Man and the Wasp: Nano Battle!
In addition to the rides above, Jungle Cruise has a surprise ending that you won’t see in any other park (our POV video is below).
Lastly, Mystic Manor, a trackless ride featuring mischievous monkey Albert, is a crown jewel of the park.
See videos of our favorite rides:
Short Wait Times
Our visit fell on the weekend, so I purchased the “Priority Special +” available to guests staying in Disney’s hotels. I wanted to make sure we get to ride all of the attractions we were interested in, and I was concerned that weekend lines would be too long.
We ended up using only 2 or 3 of the 8 fast passes included in the “Priority Special” pass. And it was only because I felt that “we paid money for it, so we must use them!”
The longest wait time we saw was 30 minutes for Winnie the Pooh in the middle of the day. Most of the rides had 5-15 minutes wait time both weekend days we were there.
At one point we rode Grizzly Mountain Mine Cars for an hour straight with zero wait time. We would literally get off the ride, briskly walk through the queue area, and get on the ride again.
Location
The resort is located in Penney’s Bay on Lantau Island. Even though it was cloudy the days we were in Hong Kong, we were constantly admiring our surroundings: islands in the far, sea, mountains, lush greenery. I found myself saying “wow” every five minutes the day we checked in to Disney’s Explorers Lodge.
While we could have taken the bus from the Lodge to the parks, we enjoyed walking along the promenade to the Disneyland Hotel and then to the parks.
Merchandise Discounts
My favorite word is “clearance”. I love a sale, and I love anything Disney. Sale AND Disney is a sure way to make me happy.
Hong Kong Disneyland is the only park offering significant discounts on prior seasons merchandise in the stores within the park. While you can find some discounts in other parks, the highest amount I’ve seen was 25% off during the last few weeks of Food & Wine Festival at Disney World. Several stores in Hong Kong Disneyland were offering a discount of 70% off!
Needless to say, we stocked up on t-shirts, sweaters, phone cases, jewelry, and bags, most of them featuring Gelatoni, Cookie Ann, and Shellie Mae.
See our other Disney posts:
Pin this:
