Asia 01/16 – Hong Kong Disneyland

At long last it was time to go to Disneyland. I had saved the supposed best ’til the end mainly because it was geographically closest to the airport and furthest from everything else.

The resort has a dedicated metro, decorated with Mickey windows and other artifacts within and though it departs from Sunny Bay, the weather couldn’t have been further from it.

Hong Kong Disneyland

In fact it was downright miserable the whole day. But that wasn’t much of an issue, aside from some physical discomfort.

It may have been affecting the performance of Big Grizzly Mountain, which wasn’t operating for several extended periods. Everything else was running well and, more importantly, mostly empty. Walk on queues are very unusual to see for a Disney park.

So we started with Mystic Manor and what a place to start. This gorgeous piece of architecture houses one of the greatest dark rides in the world.

After an endearing preshow that sets the scene, introduces you to the characters and contains some magical animatronic action, the most friendly people in Hong Kong, dressed in traditional maid outfits lead you to your trackless vehicles.

These vehicles are mesmerising to watch. Entirely automated, going about their business like robots, this is what we need for those driverless cars.

The advantage of trackless rides is the way they make the movement and interaction with the scenery feel a lot more fluid and less fixed to a single path. Cars dance around each other and head off in different directions to navigate around certain rooms so you can get a slightly different experience each time.

Each room in Mystic Manor is a work of art. The detail, the effects, the story and the music all add up to a magnificent attraction and by the time you reach the climax, with the room spinning and the walls being ripped away I had completely fallen for the ride. It demands many laps and it got them.

This demands 1 lap, for the cred, and it barely deserves it. It’s a poor excuse for a ride, especially in a Disney park and it’s even more annoying to see them cloned into multiple Toy Story lands in a lazy fashion.

The walkthrough attraction full of miniature sets was a quaint experience with not many people around. Having time to watch the smaller details was nice without having to jostle around with the crowds I imagine are usually filling these areas.

As my shoes slowly filled with water, I stopped taking pictures for a while. Space Mountain offered an opportuniy for shelter and it’s a stunningly good rollercoaster. The train climbs and climbs in the dark with the onboard soundtrack blaring, taking you up into the centre of the dome where it suddenly gets all lit up and spacey.

The layout is an intense sequence of drops and tight hairpin turns, winding it’s way down through the structure and scenery. The momentum builds and builds and it all becomes more of a blur as you struggle to see. I started second guessing the turns and it led to some fantastic moments when I thought left and it goes right, chucking me violently to one side. It’s the sensory overload that truly makes it special though.

Eventually we stumbled across the Vekoma mine train when it was back up and running. This ride shows a fantastic leap in innovation from the Big Thunder predecessors, using shuttle track sequences and a launch to break the layout up into three distinct sections.

Each section leads off with some mischievous grizzly bears, up to no good. They pull levers and you go the wrong way, they make your chain lift snap and they explode dynamite behind you, sending the train shooting out of a cave. They’re the stars of the show.

The entire land that houses the ride is a pure spectacle, with all manner of decoration turning it into a village in its own right. The geysers and hot springs bubble away and shoot jets of water all over the place, some directly interacting with the ride and others just dotted around for showing off.

My only let down with the ride was that it’s a tiny bit too much on the safe side. Throughout each part I found myself willing it to go just that little bit harder and faster, sitting like a complete rag doll and hoping to be chucked about in my seat a little bit more. It lacks any true out of control feeling like the Paris mine train.

It’s still exhilarating, particularly the launch sequence out over numerous small hills and through the aforementioned geyser jets, but selfish me wants it to be even more thrilling. Never mind the children.
The way the area lights up at night is even more enticing and it’s just a masterpiece. I really don’t want to mark it down.

Somehow the day still managed to fly by and we soon found ourselves rushing to nab an attraction we had managed to miss before it closed. It was completely dark by the time we made it onto Jungle Cruise, but that was probably a good thing. For a boat exploring the jungle, it made for an eerie atmosphere and our staff skipper performed some great commentary and entertainment. The ride itself also has a few surprises up its sleeve, with water effects, fire and explosions creating yet another of the parks wondrous spectacles. Very glad we made it in time.

With all the rides now closed it was time for the closing show, projected onto the tiny castle. It was par for the course for a Disney castle end of night display – so that means emotional and amazing. All the tunes, all the characters, all the joy. I defy anyone to not enjoy this aspect of a Disneyland park.

This report seems to make the park seem really small and lacking in attractions. While it is relatively tiny, there was easily enough to keep me happy over the course of a very long operating day, even with almost no queueing. My only gripe with the park was having to stumble over a million pushchairs (where did these even come from?) to get to the fastrack machine for Space Mountain (I didn’t even need to, just feel obliged to abuse the system when it’s free). Other than that, a pure world class park, easily one of the best and a fantastic way to end Hong Kong on a high.
Of course.

Asia 01/16 – Ocean Park

The first day back in Hong Kong was another dedicated to sightseeing – they really don’t have enough parks here to keep me busy, but we’ll get to them eventually.

The most significant part of the agenda was the famous peak tram. A huge funicular railway that takes you up the mountains on the southern Hong Kong island.

At the top is this observation deck and the usual tourist faff.

More importantly there’s the spectacular views over the city.

And the contrasting untouched regions at the other side.

At night, there was supposed to be a grand light show across the harbour, synchronised with epic music. It turned out to be just awful and a waste of time. The event started by reading off a list of sponsors – basically the owners of the buildings that take part in the show. Some very timid and unenthusiastic tunes were played, while a few searchlights waved backwards and forwards from a couple of skyscrapers. A world class experience it was not.

Damn tourism, let’s go ride something instead.

Hong Kong was beginning to wear me down by the following morning. I had always heard great things about the place from whoever had been (bold claims like better than Singapore), but I really wasn’t feeling it myself. I’m a big fan of this part of the world and though it wasn’t bad to the point of never returning, if I had to choose three words to describe it in direct comparison to those claims, they would be dirty, inefficient and rude – way below my expectations.
The main transport link to Ocean Park involved taking an inconspicuous bus from a side street somewhere. Wanting to be sure of what we were doing, we asked the first driver of said bus where he was going and the response was in essence to shout us back off of the bus. The second bus that pulled up behind it managed no more than a low grunt, which we took as good enough.

After much more of an ordeal than it should have been, crossing huge roads, avoiding shady characters and having to find some back entrance with grubby escalators, we were ready to enter.

Ocean Park

Luckily it’s a place filled with awe and wonder, so the troubles were soon far behind us.

We began by taking the fabled cable car from the bottom end of the park to the top, beyond another mountain.

It really is quite the journey, looking out below at where you’ve just come from, the ocean off to the side and the B&M coaster approaching you from behind.

And the B&M was where the day really started. This floorless coaster has a prime location with wonderful views that really add to the experience.

After some faff in the station, where the ‘on-ride photos’ are, for some reason, made by a man with a posh camera wasting time and intricately taking everyone’s picture in the seat before it despatches, the train climbs up towards the crest of a mountain. The first portion of the layout is dug rather unceremoniously into the side of the hill, but you don’t see it for long.

A curved drop takes it into a vertical loop where I immediately began to notice that this rides like no other B&M I’ve encountered – it’s rough, really shaking and rattling all over the place. Not to the point of ruining the experience, but certainly very jarring and unexpected. I later decided it gives it character, so consider it a good thing.

The pace and flow of the rest of the layout is excellent, bouncing from one side to the other through a great sequence of inversions and airtime hills. Hair Raiser has a completely unique style and I enjoyed it very much.

Due to the terrain, this area of the park is on multiple levels with lots of stair and escalator access, making it quite the adventure to explore.

On the same level is a Mack powered coaster which surrounds the entrance to the polar animal exhibits (this place is at least half zoo, too) and the ride itself is rather uninspired.

Further down the mountain is this brightly coloured Arrow looper. I didn’t get on very well with this one, with angry staff forcing me to remove my glasses but hold onto them (and the restraint at the same time) during the ride rather than put them anywhere safe – clearly more likely to lose them than if I had just worn them.

To make matters worse, it was rough. The sidewinder element – half loop, half corkscrew had a nasty jolt that caused the shoulder restraint to punch me in the head, just for good measure.

It ends with a dumb second lift hill with no other purpose than to take it back up to the station. I could have enjoyed it for the setting, but it wasn’t to be.

Further down still is a far superior ride. This Zamperla mine train has one of the most amazing views you could ever hope to find on a rollercoaster and it’s a pretty fun piece of hardware too.

The brake run at the end sways rather unnervingly at such a height, only adding to the exhilaration. Can’t think of a better use for this terrain.

Aside from the coasters, there wasn’t much else in the ride department that interested me. The rapids ride was down, so we jumped on the observation tower to appreciate it all from a greater height.

A considerable amount of time was spent with the vast quantities of animal exhibits at both the top and bottom of the park. As well as the cablecar, there is a train that runs completely underground, insanely, through the middle of the mountain. It has a bit of a theme, with lighting and projections on the ceiling of the cars to keep you entertained on the journey.

With such a packed schedule, darkness soon descended and I took a glorious night lap on Hair Raiser before taking one of the last cablecars back down in the dark – equally magical.

There was a light and fountain show to enjoy near the entrance before departing for the night and it was in these last couple of hours that I finally started to develop a real appreciation for Ocean Park. It has a few flaws, but it’s pretty damn special.

Part 6