Escapism at Shanghai Disney

Just when we thought we were getting used to being in China, it started to overwhelm us. We could tell because we started bickering; if you know us as a couple you know that we don't bicker. But, lucky for us, Disney went ahead and opened a theme park just outside of the city last year for us to escape to! And what an escape it was.

We started the day at nine o'clock sharp, right when the park opened. We weren't the first ones in line, but we may have been the most eager and definitely some of the few attendees who knew most of the (English) words to every song being piped in through the speakers. As soon as we got in we were pumped! We downloaded the app (or A-P-P as they said over the speakers) and we were checking wait-times update in real-time and trying to maximize our ability to get on every single ride as quickly and often as possible. We started in Tomorrowland, on Tron, then did the Buzz Lightyear space shooting extravaganza (I forgot the name) and waited for a parachute ride which was largely disappointing. After those three it was only ten o'clock and there was still so much to do!

We quickly moved about the park, going on other rides, stopping for an awesome pretzel and using the Fast-Pass system to minimize our time spent in lines and not on rides. By noon we had gone on almost every ride we had to including: the Seven Dwarfs Mine Cart, Peter Pan, the Soaring Experience and many others. It was nice how many other couples about our age were there, also without kids. It kind of validated how excited we were and reminded us that we weren't acting childish - or at least that it was normal how excited we were to be there. I knew it would be an awesome experience before we went, but I didn't expect to get so giddy and silly over re-living many of our childhood's best memories. 

One ride that definitely exceeded our expectations was the Pirates of the Caribbean cruise. Both of us had been on the ride as kids (separately of course) and that was before the movies had come out. Now that there is a movie franchise, characters and a lot more technology, the ride is even more entertaining than we remembered. Featuring multiple realistic Jack Sparrows, crazy IMAX-size video screens, and many other neat tricks. Next we wandered through the Alice in Wonderland maze, which was way more 2010 Johnnie Depp than 1951 animation. There were definitely mushrooms scattered about the garden and some pretty mad hats.

By around two in the afternoon, we had spent over five hours in the park and done pretty much everything we had hoped to before closing time. It was amazing to have been there on a chilly weekday in late winter because lines were short and we got to experience so much. We stepped just outside of the park to Mickey Avenue and had a very American lunch at Wolfgang Puck's. We talked about what else we might want to do in the next five or six hours before the park closed and our escapist adventure would have to come to an end. We had originally planned on staying the whole day but we were tiring and had already done so much. 

Thankfully lunch rejuvenated us and we were ready to ride the Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, get dizzy in the Hunny pots, check out the Princess's castle (all princesses, not just Cinderella's), and take a boat trip through the Crystal Grotto.  Then, after some initial hesitation, we attended the Frozen Sing-Along, which of course was in Mandarin. We sat in the back and expected to duck out if it felt too weird, but the music was the same and we were enchanted watching young children possessed by the Princess Elsa. We sang along in English to each other and enjoyed the short show tremendously. At the very end of the show the actor playing Princess Anna said "Bye-Bye Shway-Bao!", which we have searched for but cannot figure out the meaning of. We are pretty sure it is a reference to the goofy snowman Olaf, but if anyone reading this knows what this means please write us. We've been saying "Bye-Bye Shway-Bao!" to each other ever since we left the park and expect it will be in our repertoire for years to come.

With only a few hours left and both the light and our energy quickly fading, we decided to head back to Tomorrowland, where we re-fought aliens on Buzz Lightyear and then rode Tron twice more. We decided to wait so we could sit in front and Disney even snapped the above picture of our last ride of the day. We were absolutely, gloriously, exhausted by seven o'clock but had spent a magical ten hours playing childishly, telling each other about our childhoods, and watching people of all ages behave like (mostly good) children; we were sure we were being people-watched back in kind. 

While we went to escape Shanghai, we didn't leave the city boundary but it didn't matter. Of the many observations on culture we had this day we decided that Disney is for every person, of all ages and races. You can't spell the words 'child' or 'children' without an 'i', and we were thankful that Walt Disney's creations had made it to this far-side of the world, so we could revel in the magic of it all.