2 am; room 6062, Hong Kong Disneyland hotel:
….some loose words from a tierd non Disney last day in Hong Kong… Today my real for life business didn’t even give me time to step in Hong Kong Disneyland!
My original plan was to arrive from Sydney on the Sunday morning (5 am) stay until the Monday evening and transfer to a business hotel right in the center of Hong Kong. I fell in love with Hong Kong Disneyland as soon as my eyes– tierd from the Sydney Hong Kong 9 hour night flight- opened on the taxi which at 0530 am brought me from the Airport to the Disneyland Hotel!
So I decided, after stepping into Hong Kong City and seeing how desperately chaotic the place is, to not change hotel and stay right in the Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel…..and my nervs, heart and soul are so happy for that decision that they sometimes tell my brain that they will buy me something before I leave 
Anyway here I am at nearly 2 am in the morning dashing at my keyboard, totaly unable to get some sleep as I still have to get me real for real bearing about this place; after all I had read about it, after all I had been told about it and seen in pictures, and most of all, after having seen and “studied” so in depth EuroDisneyland Resort (I’m using this name on purpose) and it’s debalce, I am amazed by how this place can work so well even if it is so different from anything ever done before.
Guys, I’ll miss this place; I have just strolled up to Disneyland’s front gates from the Disneyland hotel, a leasurily stroll throught lush gardens with incredible Disney tunes playing! I have seen 3 times the amazing water fountain and it’s spectacle of lights, music and water and was still unable, after 3 “private” showings to step away from it and walk back twords my hotel! I could have never felt the same way in any other Disney resort.
Each Disney resort, to me personally, gives a separate feeling. It might be Disneyland’s original charm and the idea of Walt having only stepped into that single great little themepark! It might be Walt Disney World’s surreal scale and totally being able to get my in a perfect vacation mood! It might be Paris feeling of being “home”. Or Tokyo’s “gosh I’m in TokyoDisney Resort” feeling… But well…. Hong Kong will get the most true Disney themepark rookie, junky, nerd, psychopath etc. to share a true smile in the heart!
Not one due to thrilling attractions,
Not one due to utter scale and proportion,
Not one due to surreal levels of Imagineering,
And not one due to originality and admiration for Walt!
Hong Kong will get you because you will realise that Disney finally, after 24 years (TokyoDisneyland’s opening) got that resort feeling to work under the same scale of Walt’s original Disneyland.
For sure my heart will be devoted to Paris and my feelings will be grand every time I step into every Disney resort, in each for the different feelings it gives me. But one thing is true; I’ll miss this place… I truly will …. (fortunately my plane leaves at 2030 pm: I should have time to be the first in the park and finish every attraction before noon … so to suck up the atmosphere that is
Anyway this last photo of a picture tucked and hidden in a remote corner of Honk Kong Disneyland does kind of close the circle … sitting on a bench, eating peanuts,thinging that there should be some place built…
February 25th, 2006 at 9:45 am
[...] Let’s get this straight: I am not trying to shoot down Hong Kong Disneyland. Heck, I was interested to go there before it opened and the recent stories posted by Andrea about his visit make me want to go their really, really soon… But it seems the local management just can’t get a positive handle on the press coverage. [...]