Tips for Traveling to Hong Kong Disneyland with Kids

Two weeks after visiting the great grandparents in Shanghai and finally experiencing the magic at Shanghai Disneyland, we packed up our suitcases and 3 little ones, and flew to Hong Kong to visit my in-laws and more Disney magic at Hong Kong Disneyland!

This was my first time in Hong Kong, and boy was I surprised at just how densely populated but also really beautiful this island is! A little bit of history about Hong Kong – it is part of China but is governed separately, and it has its own economic system. Hong Kong was colonized by the British Empire for 100 years before it was returned to China in 1997. Because of that, a lot of people in Hong Kong speak English and Mandarin, while Cantonese is spoken by everyone.

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TIPS for traveling with kids to Hong Kong Disneyland –

1. If you fly to and from Shanghai Pudong Airport, the planes you get are Disney themed! I’m attaching picture of our airplane below. They keep the Disney magic going between Shanghai and Hong Kong with these special Disney planes, how cute!
2. As long as you speak one of the three languages (Cantonese, English, Mandarin), you will be fine getting around in Hong Kong and especially inside the park no problem. You are advised against speaking Mandarin if you know one of the other languages. We were treated better as an English speaking family as opposed to Mandarin, a tip some of my friends from Hong Kong told me.
3. Just like our experience in Shanghai, visitors to Hong Kong Disneyland don’t dress up nearly as much as visitors to Disney parks in the states, but some do and I definitely didn’t shy away from putting my kids in Disney outfits daily when we were there!
4. Kids (or adults!) get a Disney sticker at every attraction inside the Hong Kong Disneyland park! My kids got a nice collection of all the stickers at the end of the trip. See picture below!
5. Hong Kong Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty Castle was refurbished in 2019, we missed it by just a little bit, which means we will come back in the future! The new castle is supposed to be nice!
6. It is the smallest Disneyland we have visited, and has the least amount of crowds, at least when we went in the summer of 2019. The waits were not too bad at any of the rides and attractions. The most crowded would still just be 30 minutes wait, and I think I saw a character meet and greet with Iron Man to be 50 minutes but nothing longer than that. Being the smallest Disney park with the least crowds, you really can enjoy everything and not be exhausted afterwards!

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I won’t lie, I was disappointed the Sleeping Beauty castle I thought we’d get a picture with wasn’t there. Instead we got a covered up castle that was under construction. Imagine our disappointment and a little bit of magic taken away from our kids! But it is completed and beautiful now, so if you go visit you will be fine.

Parts of Hong Kong Disneyland that are similar to Disneyland in Anaheim –

1. Main Street USA
2. Fantasyland (My kids can never get enough of the Small World ride though! Dumbo and Winnie the Pooh rides are also super kid friendly where all 3 kids were able to ride.)
3. Grizzly Gulch (similar to Frontierland, has a super fun Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars ride, but only my oldest was tall enough to ride)
4. Tomorrowland (Similar to ones in other Disney parks, but it does have unique attractions like the Ironman experience)
5. The evening parade was very similar to what we saw in Disneyland. They do have unique water parades but it was a bit rainy when we went so we didn’t see it.

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Attractions that are unique to Hong Kong Disneyland and my kids enjoyed –

1. Adventureland – We did a Jungle Cruise in English (3 lines for 3 languages), all the kids loved it, and there were surprise fires in water toward the end of the ride, very dramatic and cool! You can visit Tarzan’s Tree house right after.
2. Adventureland – We loved meeting Moana. If you find out the time she will be there, there is NO wait time! We were first in line by getting there 3 minutes before Moana was supposed to come.
3. Adventureland – Festival of the Lion King Show, loved it! Only a few times was Cantonese spoken, most of the show was done in English.
4. Toy Story Land – Always one of my kids’ favorite places, even though they just visited a somewhat similar one in Shanghai. We did a parachute ride that all 3 kids were able to get on, the little one was a bit tense with the free fall, but overall everyone had fun!
5. Toy Story Land – Meeting the toy soldiers and Jessie/Woody. The Slinky Dog Spin and Rex’s Racer were exactly the same as the ones in Shanghai.
6. Mystic Point – I don’t think I have seen this anywhere else! The Mystic Manor ride was really cool. Again, no height or age restriction so all my kids could ride with us. The rides used trackless cars and was quite a magical adventurous ride. I covered the baby’s eyes from time to time to make sure he didn’t see something that would give him nightmares. The older two were fine.
7. The Fairytale Forest was really fun for my girls! They loved going from one princess’s story to the next, definitely worth visiting.

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We also heard rumors of the new attractions like Arendelle: World of Frozen and Stark Expo Hong Kong are expected to be done by 2021 and 2023, which means, we’re likely to come back toward the end of 2023! And then we can finally have our castle picture in front of the Sleeping Beauty Castle in Hong Kong Disneyland. Hopefully my kids will still love and appreciate Disney magic by then (they will be 10, 8 and 6!)

Overall we had a lot of fun, and did the park in 1 and half days. I felt that was the perfect amount of time for Hong Kong Disneyland. We stayed close by at the Hong Kong Disneyland Resort, where they had a shuttle taking us back and forth. If you stay a bit farther away there should be Disney trains picking you up. That’s all for now, dm me if you have any questions!

<3

Rachel