Hong Kong Disneyland itinerary

Hong Kong Disneyland holiday planning group member Phoua Vang shares her itinerary experience

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Hello! First time visit to HK and decided to make it a Disneyland trip, so I wanted to share my experience in case it’s helpful for others. FYI – long post with details.

Arrival into HK/pre-disneyland:

We arrived in HK on March 17th around 7:30pm, so we booked a night at the Regala Skycity Hotel by the airport with breakfast the next morning. It was under $150 USD, so cheaper than an extra night at a Disney resort, plus easier to get to after a late evening flight in. They had a free shuttle from the airport, along with a free shuttle to Tung Chung station, so it worked really well for us.

Disney Explorers Lodge Hotel

Park ticket booking, check in, and arrival

Booked 2 nights at Disney Explorers Lodge 3 1/2 weeks before our check in date. Missed out on the cheaper hotel rooms, so had to pay for a premium room. Got breakfast at Dragon Wind for March 20th, the day the park is closed. Also purchased 2 day park tickets for March 18 & 19. I decided on getting tickets later, plus I saw the room prices had dropped a bit, so I contacted customer service for a price adjustment and ticket add-ons.

I had no problem with the initial hotel booking purchase going through, but after adding tickets, I needed to pay a bit more, so I was sent a link after my chat with customer service to make that payment. I ran into issues with the website and ended up having to chat with customer service again, where we were able to arrange for payment at check-in instead.

The 18th was a “take it slow” kind of day for us, so we didn’t get to the park until 1pm, and checked in at the hotel around 1:30pm. What I found interesting here, and my husband found annoying, was that they gave us 1 room key when we were checking in, but wouldn’t tell us our room number, hence not allowing us into a room until the appointed check in time: 3:00pm. We were told we would get an email with our room number after 3pm.

We happened to be waiting around in the lobby after check-in at the perfect time, though. Mickey showed up dressed in his explorer outfit, so we got to line up and meet him. Wonderful surprise!

We also had to do luggage storage at a separate area from the front desk, which was located out the front door and to the side. So all this took a bit of time to get done before we could finally make our way to the park itself. It was a nice day and my baby needed a nap, so we walked to the park entrance, which took a little more than 20 min. We arrived at the “Hong Kong Disneyland Resort” sign at 2pm.

At the entrance there is baggage check and then ticketing. It really wasn’t that busy at that time, so even though we missed the hotel bag check entrance (we weren’t paying attention), there wasn’t much of a line. Ticketing was even quicker with the hotel line plus baby and stroller.

If you stay at the hotel, bring the key and you can go through the kind of express lane for hotel guests. There is one for both bag check and ticketing. They were on the furthest left side, which you would notice when arriving through the hotel park entrance path.

Day 1 Park activities: March 18th, Monday

First ride: Hyperspace Mountain.

10 min wait. Of course, my 1yo couldn’t ride it, so we did rider switch. My husband went first while I waited by the ride, then we switched when he got off. It was easy and quick.

Next ride: Ant-man and the Wasp

5 min wait. All 3 of us were able to go on and sit in one car. It’s a fun shooting game ride! Hard to do well while holding a baby, but I def like it better than other shooting game rides!

Early Dinner: Tahitian Terrace

4:30pm. 2 lanes to order – Indian or laksa. Ordered the Beef Rendang with Coconut Rice, Seafood Laksa, and the Kids Meal (grilled chicken steak with gravy). All combo meals and got the specialty drink, which was a grape/lemony sparkling juice. These were good, but we would prob not order either the Rendang or Seafood laksa again, rather opting for some of the other options. The laksa was good, but don’t think the seafood was good enough for the extra cost.

Other rides:

– Jungle River Cruise: 10 min wait. We could all ride together.

– The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: 20 min wait. It had been temporarily closed earlier in the afternoon, but we noticed a line up and got on before it got too busy. We could all ride together.

– Mystic Manor: 5 min wait, but felt more like 10 minutes. We could all ride together.

– Frozen Ever After: 30 min wait, but it seemed our actual wait time was shorter than that. We could all ride together, but then we were surprised there was a drop! It was short, but pretty steep! Would not bring a baby on this ride again.

But, Elsa showed up while we were walking through, so that was a fun way to meet her! There wasn’t much time to really stop and get a good photo though. The cast members hurry you along. My baby was very happy having met Elsa, even without knowing who Elsa is!

– Dumbo: 15 min wait. It was getting a bit dark out, so was fun to be on the ride and see the lights! Only 2 people max per car, so I rode with my baby and the husband had his own car.

Ended our night heading over to the front of the castle for Momentous around 7:30. Baby had fallen asleep, so we slowly made our way back to Main Street to see where we could rest and wait for the show. It seemed people were everywhere, especially sitting on the curbs, any benches, and the sidewalks. Lucky for us, the garden space/path in front of Plaza Inn hadn’t filled up yet, and it had a clear view of the castle, so we parked ourselves in that area and waited.

I wanted something to snack on and found Midtown Delights’ special Linabell soft serve ice cream – Hokkaido milk and peach.

Momentous was pretty fun. As others have shared, the castle is big and has a lot of space, so if you can see most of the castle, you can see most of the show. The only annoyance was that almost everyone was also trying to film the whole show with their phones/cameras, so when the show started, practically everyone’s arms were raised to film. When the show ended we walked back to the hotel. It was a nice walk without too much of a crowd. Also was really good for our 1 year old who woke up for the show, but didn’t really wake up until we were leaving, so the walk and little crowd gave baby space and time to expend some energy.

Day 2 Park Activities: March 19th, Tuesday

Invited grandparents to join us and got tickets for them at the front desk during check-in. Really good price for elderly over 65 of HK$100. Also rented a wheelchair from the hotel.

FYI – renting the wheelchair from the hotel is cheaper than at the park. It is HK$60, but for seniors it is HK$30. I believe it was over HK$100 at the park when I checked.

Got to the park after 10:30am using the hotel entrance path and the hotel lanes, which were quick and easy! Made our way to Main Street Bakery for a waffle and they only seemed to have Linabell ones. It was good, so I was satisfied.

Rides:

– Mystic Manor: 15 min wait. Everyone could ride.

– Slinky Dog Spin: 10 min wait. Everyone could ride.

– Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars: 30 min wait. Just my husband and I rode this one.

– The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: 30 min wait. Everyone could ride. We also chose to purchase our photo from here as our Disney souvenir.

– Ant-man and The Wasp: 10 min wait. My husband and the grandparents rode this while I nursed my baby at the baby center near Main Street.

– Ironman Experience: 10min wait. Baby couldn’t ride, so we did rider switch with grandparents going first, then my husband and I afterwards. The ride itself takes some time to start, as they need to make sure everyone and everything is secure, so I’d estimate a bit more time for this ride next time.

– Frozen Ever After: 30 min wait. Felt a bit longer, though. Did not want to take baby again because of the drop, so we did rider switch with grandparents going first.

Lunch: 12:30pm

– Royal Banquet Hall: super crowded. It was a bit difficult to find an open table. I made a round while husband and grandma lined up and luckily a space opened up in the outside dining area. I parked my sleeping baby and grandpa settled in a seat while we waited. There are multiple lanes, but we only had to go to 2 different lanes for what we wanted. One of them was a popular one, so that took time to wait through, plus we were ordering 4 meals, so that also took time to wait for. Food was good, but it felt too crazy. We beat the rush, as there was a long line out the door and off to the side by the time I found our table. And just people everywhere! I don’t think I would choose to eat here again because of the crowd. I would have preferred to go back to Tahitian Terrace, but there wasn’t as many food options.

We had dinner plans with family in the city, so left the park at 6pm.

Day 3 activities: March 20th, a Wednesday.

Park was closed. Check out day.

Dragon Wind Breakfast Buffet: 7:30-11:00am with last order at 10am.

– Got down to the restaurant around 9am and found that we had to wait for a table. They had an estimated wait time listed for different hours and we found that we were within the 30min wait time. Ended up getting in at 9:15am and found we had 1hr to eat, plus a character meet would happen at 9:30am.

Food was really good, actually. I was impressed with the variety, quantity, and quality. Would recommend based on that.

Disney Character Meet

Character Meet was not impressive. Pretty much only 1 character shows up and everyone has to line up for a chance to meet and take a photo. 1 character every hour, it seems, though also possibly just the same character, although I cannot be certain for all hours of breakfast. We had Goofy at 9:30am and I heard it would be Goofy again at 10:30am. They don’t tell you the end time, but they do cut off the line up at a certain point. I learned all of this only because we were told there were too many people, so we couldn’t line up anymore since Goofy was only there until 10am. Even though we had to finish eating at 10:15am, the cast member just apologized and said the next meet was at 10:30am.

But then I kept seeing them let others in line and sent my husband to ask questions. They then said we could wait for the 10:30am meet. But when they let a couple more families in line again, my husband went to question them about that and they said those families were checking out. When we told them we were also checking out, they finally let us line up. We were the last ones allowed to line up and were hurried through our photo. The experience wasn’t great. I would not do a character breakfast at Dragon Wind again.

Hotel Checkout:

– Easy. Waited at the front desk to check out and practically just handed over the key, which they then deactivate and return to you as a souvenir! Loved this.

Overall/other thoughts and comments:

– HK Disneyland is definitely less crowded with people than Tokyo Disney and Universal Studios Japan. It is also a lot smaller. We really liked these aspects of the park. BUT, even though it is less crowded with people, there seems to be a lot less order/more crowding of people who are there. Chaotic, in a sense.

– Monday ended up being way less crowded than Tuesday for us, which surprised me.

– staying on property was really nice. I would do that again, though I’d plan to check out on a day the park is open with the hope of a less crowded hotel space. Also would look at staying at the Disneyland Hotel for closer proximity to the park entrance and availability of hotel activities.

– really liked our room. The beds were comfy, wardrobe/closet was nice. They have cribs, but we ended up not using it, since our baby would most likely have fallen out of it as the rails were only up to her waist when she stood. Luckily we brought our travel crib in case of this situation. Also, the floors are carpeted, so lugging our 2 heavy suitcases down the hall wasn’t as pleasant an experience.

– HK Disneyland isn’t the most “Disney”-esk experience. The cast members are not that energetic/enthusiastic or “happy” at the parks. Compared to Tokyo, they fall very short in that category. But we really enjoyed that we could relax more at HK without feeling like we needed to rush, or having to wait so long for rides. We did skip the rides with longer than 30 min waits though.

– if you want to purchase anything at the hotel stores, don’t do it on your check out day, mostly when it’s a day the park is closed. The line was super long and took forever to get through. Wish I had just waited until after check out, since there was no longer a line by that time.

– look for clearance items at the hotel stores! Explorer’s lodge seemed to have more clearance items than Disneyland Hotel.

– there is a slight benefit to purchasing tickets and hotel directly with Disney. You get discount “packages” – one for the hotels if you stay at the hotel and one for the park if you buy park tickets. You do have to sign up for a My Disney account online to get this benefit. You also get a free gift for each one, although it was the same free gift for us: a Mickey luggage tag. Hotel stays also gets you 3 HK$10 off coupons for the hotel shop. Not a lot, but if you’re cheap like me and buy the least expensive thing that is also on sale for “buy 2 get 50% off” it seems worth it.

Written and photos supplied by Hong Kong Disneyland holiday planning group member Phoua Vang