Shanghai Disney – 11/4/2016
November 4, 2016 (Friday)
Had breakfast in the buffet and Michael left his hat on the windowsill. One of the other people in the tour saw it and made sure to get it to him. Such nice people. (Thank you Gloria and Dennis.) After breakfast we went down to the concierge and got our tickets for Disney. So excited. Was really weird because we didn’t get physical tickets. The tickets were tied in with our passports. So high tech here.
The van arrived right on time and off we went. Don and Toni were going to meet us at the park later (1 PM at the Cheesecake Factory) as they had made arrangements to ride on the high speed mag lev train. The driver didn’t speak much English so it was just Mike and Dawn, Michael and I in the van for almost an hour. When the driver dropped us off, he told us he would pick us up at the same spot. (The van with driver for the day was quite expensive for the six of us but we had been told if we took a taxi, it was easy to take one to Disney but to get one to return was almost impossible.)
We walked a little ways down to the park, stood in the security line, and then went inside.
Once inside Mike and Dawn went their own way and we went ours. We knew we would slow them down as Michael’s cyst behind his knee was bothering him and we had to take it slow in order to make it the whole day. We were all meeting up at 1 PM for lunch at the Cheesecake Factory.
We walked around and just marveled at the size and scope of this Disney. The castle is HUGE! So beautiful. We got to see a parade and then we walked over to Pirates of the Caribbean and waited in line (about one and a half hours). I had read that this Pirates ride is really good and totally different than the others. It started out the same and Michael wasn’t impressed but once it started doing its thing, he was totally impressed. It was pretty amazing. We wanted to go do Soaring but the wait was 3 hours long.
We decided to head to the Cheesecake Factory and got there about 1 PM. After about fifteen minutes, we ordered our lunch as we thought maybe everyone got caught up in rides or something.
Eventually everyone trickled in and we had a fun lunch together.
Don and Toni said they had a blast on the high speed mag train but weren’t feeling very well. They decided to take the train back to Shanghai instead of waiting for the van to take us back.
We went back into the park and walked to see about riding on Tron. The wait was horrible (over 3 hours). There are not many rides at this park and so the ones they do have, they have a horrible wait times. We went back to see about Soaring, still 3 hours, then over to Pirates and saw that it was closed down because it was broken.
By this time Michael’s leg was bothering him so we walked just a short distance from Pirates, into a little picnic area, and sat down for awhile. After about thirty minutes, Michael got up and saw Pirates was open so we went there (almost running) and were able to immediately get on. A Christmas miracle! It was great and even better the second time as we got to enjoy the experience more.
What was even better was a Chinese guy that arrived about the same time we did. At each corner we turned he would scream and laugh in delight that there was no line. Next corner, more screams and laughter. There are 1.5 billion Chinese. Lines are a way of life. It was so cute and funny. We loved it and could only imagine what it meant for someone who was so used to lines and crowds.
While we were walking around, Michael saw the same guy we had seen at the Oriental Pearl last night. He was staring at him again. I think he’s the police but….I guess we shouldn’t have used our Facebook in China.
We looked in stores, got ears for Lexi and me, got a little something to eat for dinner, and putzed until the fireworks started. By this time it was extremely crowded (like shoulder to shoulder bumping). The fireworks were amazing and I especially liked the light show on the castle. So lovely.
Michael left a little early because he didn’t want to stand around with his bad leg. He said he’d wait out by the pickup location. I left a little ways into the fireworks, and Dawn and Michael had to wait for the crowds to die down before they were able to get out and meet us.
The van arrived a few minutes after Michael made the call to him that we were ready. The ride back to the hotel seemed faster than the ride out. On the ride back, we learned that Michael had surprised Dawn with a beautiful Disney inspired necklace. He had snuck into a store to buy it by saying he needed to go to the bathroom. Later in the day, when it was getting cold, he told her to put her hands in his pocket to warm them. When she put her hand in, the box with the necklace was inside. How sweet. We also learned that they met at Disney, on their Senior Grad Night. I wonder if they got married at Disney?
We were tired and headed home tomorrow. We hit the bed as soon as we got to the hotel. That was our day. Hope yours was great!