Trip Report: “Disney Parks Around The World – A Private Jet Adventure” Days 12 and 13 – Hong Kong Disneyland

We’re officially at the halfway point of Disney Parks Around The World – A Private Jet Adventure, and we’ve now seen 4 of the 6 Disney castles around the world. Adventures by Disney has taken excellent care of us as we travel from place to place, and the transfer from Shanghai to Hong Kong was certainly an adventure. Today’s trip report covers the Hong Kong Disneyland portion of the itinerary.

Day 12

Our luggage had to be ready for pick up by 6:30 am at the Shanghai Disneyland Hotel, which is also when breakfast began for us at Lumiere’s Kitchen. This buffet-style restaurant is themed to Beauty and the Beast, with the candelabra serving as master of ceremonies.

Lumiere’s Kitchen is a character breakfast, and everyone received a photo opportunity with Mickey and Minnie Mouse in their summer fun attire.

It was a rainy morning as we boarded coaches to Pudong Airport. For our travel visas, we had to get back into the same alphabetical groups as when we arrived. Security was very judicious with our carry-on bags, with some Guests having their power bricks confiscated. Once we were on board the private jet, the Assistant Adventure Leader in charge of luggage, Patricio, announced that some checked bags had to be searched through as well (Adventures by Disney gave each Guest locks for their checked bags, which have the same code so Patricio can unlock them for customs officials when requested). We were lucky to take off on time, as the airport stopped allowing departures shortly after we were wheels up due to the weather.

Landing in Hong Kong was significantly easier, arriving at a Fixed Base Operation (FBO) terminal instead of the main one for commercial flights, which is how the trip has gone so far. With a tiny terminal and a small parking lot, we disembarked in groups based on our destinations. Maximizing our park time, we chose to head directly to the Hong Kong Disneyland Resort and were the last bus to leave. Our fellow adventurers disembarked for a Hong Kong city tour or a Walled City of Kowloon Tour with a food adventure. The Iceland Air flight attendants took excellent care of us, distributing drinks and snacks while we waited. Customs officials met us and collected passports, reviewing them while we waited in the lounge with refreshments. The bus ride to the Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel was about 30 minutes and an area was set up in the lobby for us to relax with drinks and treats. But since our bus to dinner would be leaving in just a few hours, we went straight to the park.

Created in Disneyland’s image, Hong Kong Disneyland felt familiar yet new all at once. The weather was hot and the park was busy. We were given 3 Premiere Access passes good for five attractions (Ant-Man and the Wasp: Nano Battle!, Big Grizzly Mountain Railway Mine Cars, Iron Man Experience, it’s a small world, and Mystic Manor), but we chose instead to explore, snack on a Lina Bell ice cream bar, shop, and watch the Pixar Water Play Street Party, which helped us cool down.

Our bus to Kowloon Public Pier departed at 5:15, just outside of the park’s main entrance (Guests who relaxed at the hotel could take a different shuttle from the hotel). Once there, our local guide gave us a short tour of the pier, from which we could see the precursor to dinner, a Junk Boat Cruise.

Our 45-minute cruise took us around the harbor, with beer, wine, cocktails, and beverages to toast our arrival in Hong Kong.

Dinner was steps away from the dock, the Vista Ristorante, with windows overlooking the bay. The four-course meal began with burrata and mezzo maniche pasta before a main course option of chicken, sea bass, or rib-eye (pre-selected), and finishing with a strawberry tart. Hong Kong puts on a nightly light show, which we got to enjoy over a nice meal and fine wine.

Our pin of the day commemorated our Junk Boat voyage, with Donald Duck’s nephews Huey, Duey, and Louie setting sail in the Hong Kong harbor.

Arriving back at the Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel, we got to enjoy our room. We upgraded to a Magic Kingdom Club suite, which featured a sitting room, a king-size bed, plus a master bathroom with a walk-in shower and a jacuzzi tub.

The Adventures by Disney team arranged a unique gift for each Guest – a traditional bottle hand-painted from the inside with our names etched in the glass, plus an elegant base to display it on. Mine had a typo in my name, which I didn’t even notice. But the Adventures by Disney team went the extra mile, including a card with mine that informed of a corrected version that is being created and will be shipped to my home.

One of my favorite details of the room was the bathroom amenities, themed to the seven dwarfs.

Similarly, our bed had been turned down with this adorable Snow White card wishing us sweet dreams. We definitely felt like we had earned our sleep.

Day 13

An area of the Hong Kong Disneyland lobby was set up with coffee and pastries at 6:40 am, including iced coffee since the temperature was already hot and humid. At 7:00 am, we walked as a group to the esplanade of Hong Kong Disneyland, where we were split into two groups and assigned an Imagineer. We got Jo, a creative director at the park, who started by talking about the fountain in front of the park, which features Mickey and his pals enjoying water activities, symbolizing their journey from Anaheim to Hong Kong.

Just like at Disneyland, Hong Kong Disneyland allows Guests to “leave today and enter the land of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy,” among other things.

The park had not yet opened, so we got to take rare photos of an empty Main Street. The park is currently celebrating the arrival of Duffy’s newest friend, Lina Bell, who has taken up residency in the Main Street Cinema. The park also has a new walkthrough attraction, the Duffy and Friends Play House, which features AR functionality through the park’s official app and ends with a meet and greet with one of two visiting friends (it was Cookie Ann and Gelatoni when we visited).

One of the few deviations from Disneyland’s Main Street is the Victorian Collection, a greenhouse space that connects the shops along the Adventureland side of the street. Speaking of the street, in Hong Kong, it’s made of brick, and there aren’t any trolly tracks.

The Corner Café became our private breakfast buffet at 8:00 am. There was a pleasant assortment of Mickey-shaped pastries and waffles, plus traditional Western breakfast fare. Servers kept our cups of hot tea or coffee full throughout the meal.

The 75 Guests on the trip took turns experiencing a 20-minute Tai Cheri Class with a Disney Master and a special guest. Mickey Mouse joined in the fun as we learned the basics of this traditional exercise. Hong Kong Disneyland Ambassador Lily was on hand to host the event, which was held in a shady spot off to the side of the Castle of Magical Dreams.

After both groups had their Tai Chi class, we took a group photo in front of the Castle of Magical Dreams before reuniting with our Imagineer guides, who led us through the first expansion areas of the park – Grizzly Gulch, Mystic Point, and Toy Story Land.

We were the first Guests of the day to ride Mystic Manor, with our Imagineer guides pointing out some special details. Hidden Mickeys are well-known, but this attraction has a hidden Walt and Roy! In a ribbon-cutting photo outside of the manor, the Disney Brothers can be seen on the right-hand side of the group.

The manor’s founder, Lord Henry Mystic, is a member of the Society of Explorers and Adventurers (S.E.A.) and can be seen alongside other members, including Harrison Hightower from Tokyo DisneySea’s Tower of Terror, who bears a striking resemblance to Imagineer Joe Rohde. Another member of the group was designed to look like composer Danny Elfman, who wrote the music for Mystic Manor.

As the park opened, we arrived in Fantasyland and sat in the seating area for one of the quick-service restaurants, the Royal Banquet Hall. We were given a walking tour around the Castle of Magical Dreams by Amanda Chu, who served as the creative producer for the castle’s enhancement. 15 pieces were created off-site and shipped downriver to Hong Kong Disneyland. Construction only took 2 months, minimizing any impact on the park’s operation.

A construction wall between the castle and Cinderella Carousel hides work being done to install Hong Kong Disneyland’s own version of Dreamer’s Point, which places Walt on a park bench next to Mickey Mouse, watching the carousel spin.

Those who know their Disneyland history will recall that Walt first had the idea for his own theme park while watching his daughters ride a merry-go-round in Griffith’s Park, with his anecdotal quote on the construction walls in both English and Chinese.

On the theme of Walt Disney, who asked Richard and Robert Sherman to play “Feed the Birds” before he left the office on Friday afternoons, the park asks that guests let our fine feathered friends stick to their natural diet.

During our tour of the Castle of Magical Dreams, we were told that the gate in front, which separates the stage from the walking path, is a Hong Kong tradition.

Housing the dreams of all Disney royal characters, story elements from every Disney Princess film can be found in the castle’s details.

Above that tiled floor is a floral dome that comes alive for magical moments.

The top of the columns include friends that helped each character achieve their dream.

The three fairies from Sleeping Beauty have a place of honor on a trio of chandeliers on the walkway through the center of the castle, which began as a copy of Disneyland’s castle, also attributed to Aurora.

On the back of the castle is a stained glass mural featuring icons for each princess. Snow White’s apple is the center, and heading clockwise from the top, each icon goes in chronological order from Cinderella to Moana.

Interior spaces of the castle include a royal meet and greet and a gift shop called Enchanted Treasures. The entrance to the shop features tiled mosaics, a nod to Dorothea Redmond’s artwork inside Cinderella Castle.

A pure gold Castle of Magical Dreams is for sale inside, which took two years to sculpt and retails for $1 million U.S. dollars.

We were given an hour and 45 minutes for lunch on our own, with the Royal Banquet Hall having a limited number of reserved spaces for members of the group who wanted to eat there. We chose to explore the park some more, starting with the Duffy and Friends Play House. This beachside scene became a musical stage for ‘Olu Mel through the app’s AR feature.

The park has several gardens, including one called Fairy Tale Forest, which is like an interactive walkthrough version of Storybook Land. Miniatures of castles for Snow White, Cinderella, Ariel, Belle, and Rapunzel are featured in the garden, with a wooden frame to capture the perfect photo. Each castle has an activated magic moment by playing with the storybook in front. For example, Beast’s Castle featured a rotating wall that revealed Belle and Beast dancing in the ballroom. There were also diorama boxes that came alive when a crank was spun.

When the break was over, we returned to the Castle of Magical Dreams to meet our VIP Tour Guide, branded the "Momentous" Guided Park Tour. Our guide was Denis, who handed out stickers of Winnie the Pooh as an apple to wear (each group had a sticker of a character dressed as a fruit or vegetable). Denis ensured that we got to do everything we wanted, efficiently circling the park in a clockwise motion to reduce the amount of walking and selecting show times to give us breaks from the heat.

With our guide, we experienced the following attractions, shows, and meet & greets:

While it’s true that a lot of the attractions can be found elsewhere, for the most part, Hong Kong Disneyland strives to make its versions unique. Hyperspace Mountain felt more permanent than at other parks that have kept what started as a temporary overlay. Mickey and the Wonderous Book had a few different characters and songs to set it apart from the Shanghai Disneyland version. And this version of it’s a small world started the tradition of incorporating Disney characters into the attraction. It also has a more diverse section devoted to the United States, with the Golden Gate Bridge, Statue of Liberty, Woody and Jessie from Toy Story, and Pocahontas and Meeko from Pocahontas.

There’s also a section devoted to Hong Kong, with a vista of the skyline and a junk boat in the bay.

The two Marvel attractions are essentially overlays of Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin and Star Tours, but they’re still a lot of fun. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Nano Battle! features Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly via video screens, but the world is entirely three-dimensional. You even get shrunk to the size of a bug, a moment that feels evocative of Adventure Thru Inner Space.

Our guide pointed out a fun detail outside on the safety sign. The base includes a bug-sized version of the same information.

Iron Man Experience invites Guests to the Stark Expo to demonstrate a new flying vehicle powered by an arc reactor. The experience completely acknowledges the park and has been updated to include the Castle of Magical Dreams and the upcoming World of Frozen expansion. The ride takes you to Hong Kong’s Stark Tower, where Hydra is trying to steal the arc reactor, calling everyone aboard into action to become heroes and stop the bad guys. After the attraction, our guide took us for a meet and greet with Iron Man, whose silhouette flies in and lands behind a frosted glass door that then parts to reveal the character.

As a special treat, Denis took us to a shady spot where we could try a dish unique to Hong Kong with a Disney twist – a Mickey Bubble Egg Puff. It was similar in taste to a bubble waffle but with a dense pudding-type filling instead of ice cream.

I was expecting Festival of the Lion King to be identical to the version at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, but it was refreshingly different. A singing host acts as the narrator and steps into the story to play Rafiki, with other actors recruited to play Simba, Nala, and Scar. Almost all of the songs have been rearranged. The floats get a lot more movement, entering the center of the theater for key story moments and joining together in a rotating carousel for the finale. There are dueling fire dancers, a more impressive “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” aerial act, and the stage is able to rise up, collapse, and spin. The only thing missing was tumble monkeys.

On our way back to Mystic Point, where dinner would be held, our guide took a moment to show us what is considered the luckiest hidden Mickey at any Disney Park. The gold mine of Big Grizzly Mountain may be full of misfortune, but if those miners were truly lucky, they would’ve spotted this Mickey-shaped golden nugget exposed on the side of the rock work.

Dinner was held in the Explorers Club adjacent to Mystic Manor. As a special gift, our VIP guides gave us a jumbo boxed pin wishing us all a bon voyage. The restaurant has rooms themed to the manor’s collection of antiquities, and we dined in the India room, which is our next stop on this adventure.

Hong Kong Disneyland Ambassador Tony Dick served as the master of ceremonies. We heard from the park’s Managing Director, Michael Moriarty, and Manager of Operations, Tim Sypko. They both shared stories that hit close to home for anyone who has ever been a Cast Member. Michael’s parents met by working at Disneyland and were relocated to help open Walt Disney World, which is where Michael had his first job and met his wife. He’s been at Hong Kong Disneyland since 2006 and expressed his love for how the park changed over the past 15 years. Tim began his Disney career almost 30 years ago at Walt Disney World, where he met his wife. In a full circle moment, she was a manager at Kilimanjaro Safari when Disney’s Animal Kingdom opened in 1998. She was there while pregnant with their daughter, who became a safari driver in 2019. Tim came to Hong Kong Disneyland shortly before the pandemic started and talked about how the park pivoted to cater directly to Hong Kong locals during that time, building up a local fanbase that celebrates their Disney fandom every time they visit through character-themed headbands and magnetic shoulder characters (primarily of the Duffy and Friends variety).

Tim had the honor of bestowing upon us our pin of the day, featuring Goofy and Pluto in their Chinese outfits in front of the Castle of Magical Dreams. Two more special guests joined the dinner, Goofy and Donald in their Mystic Point outfits.

After dinner, we were escorted to a prime viewing location for Momentous, a nighttime spectacular that was designed to make the most of the silhouette of the Castle of Magical Dreams. Leading up to the spectacular, the castle would tell visual stories of the princess characters through projection mapping.

Momentous is an emotional show that tells the story of the circle of life through Disney characters. It begins with the storks delivering babies from Dumbo and follows characters as they grow up, find love, start their own families, and grieve the loss of loved ones through the song “Remember Me” from Coco. Bring your own tissues. It’s been a whirlwind week tackling all three Disney Resorts in Asia. Next, we’re going to see three sights from Soarin’ Around the World in a row, starting with the Taj Mahal.

Disney fans will soon be able to travel the globe from the comfort of their homes with Disney Around the World from Ravensburger. We brought along an early review copy of the game and look forward to playing it during downtime on this adventure.

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