Shanghai Disneyland Things You Need to Know

7 min readNov 1, 2019

Hello! I just got back from Shanghai Disneyland and the park was HUGE. Here are some tips and tricks to making your trip a good one!

ENTERING THE PARK

I arrived at the entrance of the park at 8.40am and that’s probably too late already. There are two check points, the first is a security clearance and this takes the longest because there are hundreds or probably thousands of people entering during park open.

We only managed to get into the park at 9.30am, even though the park officially opened at 9am. So clearing the security and getting through the gate took 1 hour. So I would advise arrive EARLIER.

TICKETS

I booked the tickets through klook with a 12% discount code they released during their klook travel festival. Hence I got my ticket cheaper than normal! When you enter the gate you can show the confirmation ticket on your phone/printed. (I printed mine) then they will scan any identification card/passport (for foreigners). They will also take a picture of you (this will be a sneak attack so your photo will be super unglam). They will then issue you actual tickets right there at the gates. And you can go straight in.

FASTPASSES

When you enter the park scan your ticket to the Shanghai Disneyland app, then you can immediately start booking fastpasses. Unlike the other parks you can only book one fast pass at a time. Except for your second and third, more on that later. So when you scan it you will fill in the name of each person that is linked to the ticket (first name would do). You would see the unglam photo now. Then next you click ‘continue’ and you can choose the ride you want to ride at the earliest available timing (you cannot choose the timings for the ride it’s whatever is the earliest).

Hence to optimize it I would suggest booking the earliest one you can get on, from the suggested list below, so that after which you can book the next two, the earliest you can book the third the better, because by 2pm all the fast passes were booked out for the evening and it was a Tuesday. When you want to redeem the fastpass, click ‘redeem’ and then the QR codes for everyone in your party will appear, you will insert your phone with the QR code into the machine and scan each individual one when it’s your time to take the ride.

WHICH FASTPASSES TO BOOK

Don’t get the fast pass for Tron and Winnie the Pooh ride — wait times can be as low as 15–30mins. It’s better to wait for it in the standby lines. I major regret this because I wish I had known this earlier and booked a fast pass for the more popular rides.

The most useless fastpass to get is the Buzz light-year ride. (It’s usually a walk on.)

Try to get a fast pass for seven dwarf mine trains (wait time 60–90mins) and Soaring over the Horizon (wait time 60–120mins). For some reason the soaring ride here is incredibly popular so there has to be a reason (I wouldnt know cause I didn’t queue for it, I’m still salty about it haha)

ATTRACTIONS TO CATCH (OTHERS)

Pirates of the Caribbean stunt spectacular -check show time daily. Indoor show, good stuff right here. Duration: 30mins.

Pirates of the Caribbean battle for the sunken treasure — this is a good walk on ride. And it’s like the pirates of the Caribbean ride in Disneyland but on steroids, you will see why when you get on. So good, I have no idea why the lines are this short.

Tron Ride (wait time 15–30min), super cool ride I’ve been waiting all year to try and aside from the total duration of the ride (very short), the overall experience did not disappoint. Really cool and futuristic.

Challenge trails at Camp Discovery — this is a high elements walk and it’s a must do if you have the chance. Unfortunately it was temporarily closed due to weather issues, and it would close early depending on daylight.

Roaring rapids — You WILL GET WET. Don’t test your luck. Bring a raincoat or buy one there for 10 yuan at the entrance of the ride. This ride is a wet ride that’s similar to the jurassic park ride in Universal Studios Singapore. It’s a pretty good ride but I got soaked and had to change to a completely new set of clothes. So if you don’t want that you can avoid this ride.

DAYLIGHT/TEMPERATURE

Depending on when you go to the park the daylight might vary. There isn’t much information on entertainment and character meet and greets anywhere online. But based on what I saw, many attractions/meet and greet ends around 30/45mins before daylight ends. So to gauge how long you need for rides, just make sure you take the best rides in the day and save the rest of the evening for all day rides- Seven dwarf mine train, Tron, Rex Racer, Slinky Dog Spin, Woody’s Round Up, Mickey’s Theatre Meet and Greet, Buzz Light year plant rescue, Peter Pan’s Flight, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Roaring Rapids.

TIME SENSITIVE ATTRACTIONS

Adventure Isle, Happy Circle (Lion King — Rafiki Meet and Greet)
Camp Discovery (Attraction)
Explorer Canoes (Attraction)
Storybook Court (Princess Meet and Greet)
**Essentially all meet and greets are time sensitive except for the Mickey Meet and Greet in the Mickey Tent.
The characters from the Fab 5 only appear near the entrance of the park, during daylight. The characters only wear seasonal outfits in the special designated areas near the entrance. This include seasonal characters like villains and seasonal costumes on characters.

But Mickey also meets at the Mickey Tent at the Gardens of Imagination (from park open to close) he does not wear special costumes here. Still my ex-boss Mickey is still a mega cutey so I don’t regret going to meet him costumes aside. The visitors unfortunately don’t really interact with the characters very much and they only treat them as good photo ops asking for different poses and grabbing them weird. Makes my ex-character attendant self very sad so I did have a pretty great convo with Mickey and he loved it! Always good to catch up!!

Unfortunately, there are no time sheets for character meet and greets available to the public and no detailed information is provided in app (except for the Mickey Tent). Ask a cast member for more information.

MERCHANDISE

SEASONAL

Special seasonal merch is found in the candy shop right by the entrance. This doesn’t make much sense at all but it’s the only place you can get seasonal merchandise and it’s NOT from the main store. Why is the seasonal merch in the CANDY SHOP, major confusion and it’s not linked the the biggest store there WHERE IS LOGIC.

PIN MERCH

The variety of pins in the main Street stores are terrible. Instead, the largest pin collection being sold can be found at the Tron gift shop. AGAIN I don’t understand the logic of this arrangement. Because the Tron land is all the way to the left and a good 10 minute walk from the entrance. So if you want to buy pin merch don’t wait till the end of the day like I did, INSTEAD buy it immediately after you take the Tron ride, because the main street stores don’t have anything which really annoyed me. It’s like excuse me I’m trying to hand you my life savings here and you’re really not making it easy! Several staff didn’t even know what was “Halloween”, I DIDNT KNOW WHAT IT WAS CALLED IN CHINESE SO I SAID HALLOWEEN PINS and they didn’t understand me at all. Help me. (Turns out it was sold out but no one in merchandise knew that except for those in the CANDY SHOP)

ONE DAY/TWO DAY

The size of the park is HUGE you would easily take 10mins to walk from one land to another. Therefore alot of time is spent walking and not taking rides/watching shows. Furthermore, given I went in autumn, day light ended at 5pm and that meant many photo ops and attractions begin to close. Hence it’s very hard to optimize your time effectively to hit all attractions, like Japan and Hong Kong Disney Parks. So do take day light into consideration because it can really make or break your trip in the park. Especially if you had planned to see characters/rides/shows later in the day. Always hit those important time sensitive attractions FIRST before all else.