Unfortunately it started quite early as we had to check out of our Kowloon hotel and head out to our Hong Kong airport hotel. Of course the first thing was to sort out the packing of all the shopping. Most of it was Liz’s (not true says Liz!!!) but Chris got his new work shoes that needed to be packed too. Most fitted in the one bag, though many of the souvenirs fitted in Chris’s new trolley bag. Thank heavens we have been disposing of old underwear as we have been travelling!
View of Hong Kong Harbour from our roomCheckout was quick and we got to ride the express glass elevator down to our taxi that whisked us away to the train station. The streets were very quiet on this Sunday morning and of course the taxi driver took the most direct route (we think). It cost $25 HKD plus $5 HKD for the luggage – hmm. Oh well we could afford the extra 72 cents Australian. The MTR airport express train is really good, with lots of luggage space and comfortable seats.
From the airport it was a short stroll to the Regal airport hotel to check in. Smoking or non-smoking, twin or king bed sir? This hotel counts the 24 hours of your stay from the time you check in, so we were covered until 8:30am tomorrow morning. Up on the eighth floor it was a bit of a walk along a long curving corridor, but our bags that we had left on Friday soon arrived and we were able to get ready to go to the mini mouse house – the name we have given Hong Kong Disneyland for reasons that will become clearer later in this story.
We had used our MTR pass extensively over the last two days and needed to use it once more today to get to Hong Kong Disneyland. First a cheap bus ride to Tung Chung station – no Liz, no time to go into the shopping outlet – then a trip to Sunny Bay to catch the Disneyland Line train. The carriages are very cute with Mickey Mouse-head windows and passenger hang-on straps – reminded Chris of the monorail at Tokyo Disneyland. There were even statues and photos in the train.
We left the air conditioned train and walked through the humid warm air to the park entrance. Chris was amazed at how easy it was to get our park tickets. We went to the Automagic booth, inserted the credit card with which the tickets had been purchased and hey presto out they popped – brilliant. Pity we couldn’t have done this yesterday in Hong Kong and saved the blood pressure.
First impressions. The park is laid out like all the other Disneylands, with a Mickey flower bed and railway station at the entrance. The Chinese love their umbrellas to keep the sun off, but wield them like the French wield their strollers – Chris nearly had his eye poked out in the first five minutes. We expected the park to be smaller, and it was – fewer rides, smaller Sleeping Beauty’s castle, but also much shorter walking distances between lands. This is why we call it the mini mouse house.
There were very few people about, which was a real bonus because we had been led to believe that it would be a crush of people on a Sunday, and we never had to wait long for rides or shows.We were also lucky with the weather because it was overcast with no rain but high humidity and so hot.
There are also lots of opportunities for photos and autographs with Disney characters. There is even a formal garden that contains several gazebos that you can line up and have your photo taken with Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Pluto.
We did all the mandatory rides – Space Mountain twice (Liz reckons the best one in the world), Winnie the Pooh ride, Buzz Lightyear’s Astroblasters, (memo to Sarah… mum still sux at astroblasters) the Disneyland Railway steam train, and of course It’s a Small World (no, anything but that!). Other rides we gave a miss, like the Jungle Cruise, Mad Hatter’s Teacups, Autopia and the Carousel.
We also sat through excellent shows – Phil-a-Magic, Lion King (different from Orlando with Rikki narrating in English and two Chinese monkey men retelling the narration in Chinese, and less crowd interaction), Stitch’s interactive show (an English language session where there were three Anglo families in the audience: Stitch chose each to talk to group, and when he talked to us, he said he was more handsome than Chris, was going to name a new planet after us because we were such a lovely couple but typed in Liz and Chrys and when Chris told Stitch that he had spelt Chris’s name wrong, Stitch told the computer to delete and the computer blew up the planet!), and the Golden Mickeys, where the main Disney characters danced with performers – great show. The Chinese are not as well versed in when to applaud and show appreciation as western audiences.
We also saw three parades – two short parades and the main parade at 1pm which involved water guns and getting wet which was rather pleasant in the heat of the day! There was no evening parade.The short parades gets the crowd involved, some dancing, some entertainment, songs and dance.
Meals are good value and we chose to eat in air conditioned restaurants at lunch and dinner to get away from the warmth. Chris was very pleased that his visit to his fifth and final Mouse house of the collection did not disappoint. It was a case of good things come in small packages.The Chinese have the heat worked out. They stroll around the park and then rush over to a spot when something is happening – different from our approach.
By the end of the day we were exhausted so did not wait for the fireworks but headed back to Tung Chung and the – you guessed it – shopping outlets. (Editorial note at this point… Chris directed us back to the bus VIA the shopping outlet and he was the one who suggested shopping!!!! Liz) With all the things we had bought over the last 4 weeks, 3 suitcases were just not enough to make sure each one kept under the weight limit. We found a nice red one to go with our other red ones, and caught the bus back to the airport. Considering there is an express train service all the way into Hong Kong, we were surprised by the number of people travelling with luggage on the bus, and the long queue at the airport waiting to catch the bus back to Tung Chung to catch the local train with multiple stops into the city.We made short work of distributing our load across the bags, deciding what would not be coming back to Sydney (goodbye, loyal and trusted and somewhat worn out backpack!) then settled into a well deserved sleep. Tomorrow, home.
“ Now it’s time to say good bye to all our company..
M ..I.. C.. .... see you real soon
K ..E.. Y.. .… why? Because we like you…
M.. O.. U.. S.. E..” (if you don’t know the song, you’re too young)
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