HK Day 3: Disneyland

I been meaning to post this but never got round to finishing it till just! Oops. Our Disneyland excursion was probably the highlight of our HK trip, both for Noey and for me, so I think it is only appropriate that I post this as a round up of the whole holiday, even if it was quite a while ago!

Before I move on to say anything about Disneyland, I should probably disclose that I love theme parks, and Disneyland is just about my favourite.

When my colleagues and I got the chance to go to Orlando on a firm-sponsored retreat some years back, my colleagues (being the adults that they are) by and large planned their trips around stopping over in New York, but not me. I instead decided that since we were going to be in Orlando, DD and I (he tagged along on that trip) would be going to Disney World for that whole week I had before the conference kicked off. And on the day that we arrived in Orlando from Singapore after flying, I don’t know, 20 hours? I made poor DD immediately get ready to go to Epcot after we checked in. This after we had touched down at 6am.

So yes, I can be quite a theme park Nazi (though not as bad as some others I know, and yes, I’m referring to you, Drey).

And the whole Disneyland being the “happiest place on earth” thing? I completely buy it. Haha.

We knew that Noey was a bit too young to enjoy Disneyland on this trip, but we thought we’d give him a taste of it anyway. They were actually offering a very good deal where, if you stayed at the Disney hotel and purchased admission to the Disneyland park, you would get complimentary admission the following day as well. 2 days for the price of 1. With that, you could explore the park slowly and have a hotel at hand for those afternoon naps. Very useful. However, in the end we decided against staying on site as we wanted to do some shopping and not be stuck in Disneyland the entire time, and changing hotels would be too much of a hassle given how short our holiday was.

Still, we made the most of our day!

Noey’s 1st trip on the MTR. His 1st trip ever in a train actually, since I haven’t brought him on the MRT here yet. You think locals are terrible when it comes to giving up their seats? Well, the HK-ers are most assuredly worse. We were struggling with holding a squirmy Noey at one point when we changed train and didn’t get a seat, nor any offers. In the end, we had to strap him in a baby carrier. Thankfully for the longer initial part of our ride, we managed to get a couple of empty seats, and Noey entertained himself staring at the tunnel and the people moving in and out at the stations.

The handgrips on the Disney train! At the Sunny Bay, you change from the regular MTR to the Disney train and you know that the fun has started. The train comes fitted with these cute touches, booth-like seating for families and is decorated with bronze figurines of Disney characters.

The Mickey Mouse-shaped windows on the Disney train. Noey just can’t wait till the photo taking is over and we get to go have some fun.

We’ve arrived! It was a truly sunny day, which we had banked on when planning our trip (and religiously checking weather reports). It was 21C that day if I remember correctly, and the sky was a brilliant blue for the first time on this trip.

Noey’s favourite ride was not really a ride at all. The opportunity to be a bus driver and grab that huge steering wheel brought out the first delighted smiles.

The said bus. Not quite so much fun for Noey from this angle.

Spinning tea cups! This is the first time that I’ve taken all the tame rides at the theme park. Huh huh.

Somehow Noey seemed to have more fun with the static displays. Good thing his admission was free if not I would have really felt that it was a waste paying for him!

Like I said, he loved the random displays they had around! At least they make for good photo opportunities.

Another of Noey’s favourites, the steam engine that circles the park. Nothing much really happens but that’s okay with Noey.

Just barely hanging in there in the queue for the Jungle River Cruise. Incidentally, DD and I remembered this ride as the “bad joke” ride in Orlando, and it was the same here, except that bad jokes told in HK-accented-not-very-good English were, eh, even more painful.

Out like a light. (He missed the whole ride, and all the bad jokes, which might not have been a bad thing.)

One key feature of the HK Park is that you can find the characters everywhere. They are easy to spot too — just look out for the queue of people waiting to snap pics with them. We didn’t want to spend time queuing just for pics so we only got photos with Pluto and Goofy cos we’d spotted a short queue for this one and thought it might make a nice memento.

“Oh, is that a car I see? Come back!”
Noey spent quite a bit of time chasing this remote controlled car, much to the entertainment of the lady holding the remote, who would shift the car just out of his grasp everytime he got near. It was like a scene out of those “Just for Laughs” clips.

Noey decides to forsake the car for some toys that would, at least, stay put.

Bubbles!
(Like I said, he really enjoyed the free stuff!)

We didn’t stay for the fireworks, and instead called it a day around 6 pm. Partly because I thought it’d be a bit late for Noey if we stayed till the end, partly because we wanted to get a GOOD HK Chinese meal for dinner (rather than have average overpriced theme park food), but also because I had to make it back to Tsim Sha Sui to pick up my Loewe wallet, which they had transferred from another store. I think my shopping trumps fireworks! So we left, even as folks started streaming in for the evening programme.

Still, we enjoyed our best laughs as we were walking out, with Noey deciding to play his own peekaboo games with us.

We can see you Noey!

Having fun with his hood, which he would otherwise not be that keen to wear!

I think we will make a trip back to HK Disney sometime, maybe in this year or next, Universal Studios at Resorts World notwithstanding. We could stay at the Disneyland Hotel and OD on Disney characters at the character breakfasts, plus we won’t miss the fireworks. Well, that’s the plan at least!