Falling in love again with (HK)Disneyland - Part 2
Part 2; “different” yet “home”
Passing the turnstiles one would believe to be in Anaheim! Only two small details give away the Hong Kong location of the park; the trademark Mickey Mouse face topiary smiles at you from under a perfect recreation of the Disneyland station but here the sign says “Hong Kong Disneyland” and “population “5 Million”, also the famous sign under the tunnels “here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy” here has a Chinese translation under it.
Crossing the tunnels and entering the park itself I found myself thinking “this is Disneyland as Walt built it in 1955”! The feeling of deja-vu and, most of all, the same charm and quaintness of Walt’s original Anaheim themepark are all there! Buildings , colours , scales and propositions are all perfectly matched to Disneyland’s and to the ones of those old photo’s which we have learnt to love from such books as the E-Ticket etc.
The mountains as the castle (and the parks) backdrop act like the final icing on the cake! As my good friend Dirk stated “it is like taking a perfectly animated character from a cell and placing it on a grandiose scenery!”. As much as the character might be fantastic already on it’s own it acquires a further level of life when you set it in a full drawn scene!
Even if the park is small and the trees have still to grow this mountain backdrop gives the place a fairy tale like setting and a level of life which is unbeatable as well as a level of seclusion which (especially when considering you are in Hong Kong) make the place “out of this world”. Friends working in the company also told me that the mountains are owned by Disney and that therefore they will stay untouched from any possible visual intrusion.
Tim Delaney’s new vision for Tomorrowland (where I headed immediately to ride Space Mountain) might not have all the eye candy of Paris, yet I feels the best executed “Tommorowland” I have ever seen.
This is certainly the “most finished land” of the park , with its three “opening soon attractions” (Autopia , the UFO zone and the Stitch encounter) the land will probably be “built out” and with no more place to go. As small as this land might be it represents at best the concept of the park for me; well executed rides, a good amount of detail where needed.
To give you an idea I found myself thinking that cues here are very bare bones when compared to our Paris ones – imagine Space Mountain having a rock n roller coaster type cue – not bad but yet , when you think that all park cues are similar to this one, it does mean that the money was spent “somewhere else” (and in this case I can say well spent on the streetmosphere, quality and resort overall).
Adventureland has always been my least favoured land in any Disney themepark, the place never really had much influence on me; even the Paris version, as expansive as it might be finds myself wondering to it only for th Blue Lagoon restaurant and the Pirates of the Caribbean….yet here with only 1 true ride (the jungle river cruise) , the Tarzan tree house and the lion king show I found myself for the first time a “fan of the land”. The place feels coherent with itself (something Paris does not have) and not cramped (like Disneyland’s) , you can really experience and feel the land whilst strolling through it!
In Fantasyland I found Mickey’s Philarmagic to acquire a whole new meaning housed in the “old Fantasyland concert hall”! the Winnie the Pooh dark ride is a carbon copy (in a slightly bigger building due to Hong Kong building regulations) of the Orlando version down to the painting of Toad passing the dead to owl (weird ha?) and the lack of any other dark ride, something which I find a staple of Disney themepark, kind of makes the place feel strange!
Yet the whole land, which is executed like the original in Disneyland with medieval like tournament tents, feels charming and quaint; looking towards the castle I found myself picturing Walt walking down the castle just like in that famous picture and looking happily at this little gem of a themepark!
Sure, there are really very little attractions in the park; all of them are of good quality but the attraction count is so low that I had finished all rides and shows (expect the fantasyland flat rides) by 3 pm!
This is when I started having a “involution” and realising that it is the most simple things in a Disney themepark experience which set it apart from the rest of the parks, as well as from the world.
Within 7 pm I had ridden 3 times the Carousel, twice the teacups and 4 (twice without getting of) Dumbo!
On one of the rounds of the carousel I simply embraced the horse and sang the song which was playing on the organ to myself, watching the world go round and enjoying myself like I hadn’t done for such a simply thing since probably my first Walt Disney world trip when I was small!.