Disney Announces Opening Date for Shanghai Disneyland

January 12, 2016 at 4:30 PM · I'm waiting for the "If Universal was in charge of building it" comments

January 12, 2016 at 4:39 PM · On the TWDC page it reads, "Shanghai Disney Resort will host a multi-day, grand opening celebration, culminating in a spectacular welcoming ceremony for the resort's first official guests on June 16, 2016." To me that suggests the events for media and invited guests will happen in the days leading up to June 16, and paying guests will first be admitted on that date. But that's just a guess.

I wonder how Shanghai Disneyland will be priced compared to other Disney theme parks around the world.

January 12, 2016 at 7:47 PM · Welcoming ceremony? Will the entire park be ready to go on that date? Or will they open it in a piecemeal fashion? There's a couple of recent construction pictures on WDW Magic Spirit perfect 10 thread. This will be interesting to watch.

January 12, 2016 at 5:49 PM · If Universal was building it, they could house it all in one 3D theatre.

January 12, 2016 at 6:13 PM · Robert, if you won't be able to use your media pass, I believe I would be willing to go in your stead (provided my wife could tag along). Have your people contact my people and we'll make the arrangements!

January 12, 2016 at 6:55 PM · Do we know how much the price of a ticket is? Not that it's gonna matter to me...

January 12, 2016 at 7:02 PM · Media pass... to a Disney event? Heh, you make me laugh.

January 12, 2016 at 7:28 PM · Finally! So looking forward to this!

January 12, 2016 at 8:22 PM · Great! Planning my honeymoon for October! Going to Tokyo Disney, Hong Kong Disney, and Shanghai! I was worried that they were going to delay it more.

January 12, 2016 at 9:21 PM · The red/pink part of the castle's base looks fantastic! Otherwise, I tend to think this castle is quite bulky. It doesn't look adorable like the original at Disneyland, it doesn't look majestic like the Orlando/Tokyo version, and it isn't as gosh darned beautiful as Paris. It'd take a huge misstep to be worse than Hong Kong's sad little wannabe castle, but this one simply looks like it's competing in a steroid-filled bodybuilding contest for castles.

Glad to have some more definitive information on the actual opening date, by the way. But I couldn't help but comment on the photo of that monstrosity of a castle. And not in a good way.

January 12, 2016 at 11:20 PM · This park looks like it could be the best Magic Kingdom park, so I'm really curious to hear how it is once it opens. It's definitely a bucket list park for me, but given that China isn't somewhere I particularly want to visit I have no idea how long it will be before I get a chance.

January 13, 2016 at 6:25 AM · Haha, love the comment from 158.120.0.1. Will definitely be checking this out, but want to wait until the kinks get worked out. According to Dr. Ian Malcolm, when the Pirates of the Caribbean malfunctioned at it's opening at Disneyland the pirates started killing people, or something to that effect.

January 13, 2016 at 6:58 AM · Each Disney castle has its strengths and shortcomings. But saying that DL's castle is adorable and HKDL's castle is a a sad little wannabe is not fair because they are basically identical. Just like MK's and TDL's are basically identical.

But I agree that SDL's castle looks bulky. Right now, it almost looks like a massive fortress that was dressed up as a pink château. But let's wait for the final result.

I think they opted for a wider castle in order to have more projection space for their nighttime spectaculars, which makes sense. Anyway, I'm excited to see the finished castle.

January 13, 2016 at 8:19 AM · One of the reasons the castle is bulky is because when you look at it from different sides its going to look like it belongs to a different Disney princess.

January 13, 2016 at 8:29 AM · I don't want this comment to be a Universal vs. Disney thing but for me Disney has never appealed to me. Universal in my mind as always been better for adults. Had I gone to a Disney park when I was a kid I might have a different opinion but I never experienced Disney as a child. So to me my first time in Orlando I found every ride rather tame.

That said this Disneyland looks AMAZING. The newer take on the classic Disney rides seem like what Orlando should be doing. The theming looks top notch and I'm sure this will become one of the best Disneyland. It definitely has a huge advantage being built today compared to Orlando but this Universal fan boy is actually super excited about going to this Disneyland. Make me wonder if they will re-do the classic rides in other Disney parks to match these new ones.

January 13, 2016 at 8:39 AM · The castle is ugly. Must belong to the ugly step sisters of Cinderella.

January 13, 2016 at 9:10 AM · It will be interesting to see how the construction turns out. Few articles about this Shanghai park get into the corruption and other problems in Chinese construction projects. I am curious to see if this park will have trouble with concrete cracking and other building problems and if the rides will operate without much problems. What i think is going to happen is that the rides here will have to be taken down a lot for maintenance and ultimately replaced because Disney might not have been able to watch the construction crews closely enough to ensure that corners were not cut. It seems pretty common in Chinese construction projects for corners to get cut, like if there are supposed to be 8 bolts holding something together, the construction manager will skimp and only put on 6 thinking that is good enough. This leads to structural failure. But it is part of the culture there to do this and pocket the money that the 2 missing bolts would have cost.

January 13, 2016 at 1:13 PM · Anon - hahaahahahaa...

I am wondering about all the pollution in China.

Not sure how far away this is from all the Smog....
Beijing has so much smog, you take a picture standing in front of a picture of the landscape because you can't the actual landscape in the background..

January 13, 2016 at 2:19 PM · Re-Francis

I really don't want this thread to devolve into another Disney vs Universal verbal war either, but I will just say that changing the castle at any of the other Disney parks (except for Hong Kong, that thing is really unattractive) would be blasphemy.

On another note, this park looks interesting. I can't wait to read the reviews once it opens!

January 13, 2016 at 4:26 PM · The castle looks like two separate structures as if an elaborate mansion had a castle sitting behind it.

January 13, 2016 at 4:29 PM · Brandon, the line goes like this (I copied it from IMDB)

John Hammond: All major theme parks have delays. When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked!
Dr. Ian Malcolm: Yeah, but, John, if The Pirates of the Caribbean breaks down, the pirates don't eat the tourists.

The moral of Jarassic Park, and its sequels is this. Don't go to any theme park that has living man eating Dinasours. Also, don't trust a movie made by Universal for trivia about Disney.

January 15, 2016 at 5:45 AM · Well, certainly good news, as Shanghai is only about 4-5 hours flight from my home.

January 15, 2016 at 5:14 PM · Replying to 98.206.145.153 comments let's hope that corners were not cut as no one wants people's safety to be at risk and if corners were cut it would certainly hurt Disney and there reputation so I am sure they were all over the construction elements.

Shame that the UK has really bad travel arrangements to the Hong Kong Disney, just hope Shanghai is perhaps a little easier to book travel arrangements for families as I would love to go to both, been to all the others so would be great to do them both to say I have done them all.