Preface: Always check the Shanghai Disneyland website for up-to-date information, especially on COVID-19 restrictions and policies. Advance reservations are currently required for all guests (including infants and toddlers). Last I checked (Oct. 2020), the park was moving from 30% capacity to 50%.

When to Visit Shanghai Disneyland:

We visited Shanghai Disneyland back in 2017, during its One Year Anniversary celebration. The park opened in June 2016. It was very fascinating to see a theme park function so (relatively) soon after its opening! There were clearly some kinks still being worked out– more on that later. Luckily the process sounds like it’s become a lot smoother in recent years.

We visited Shanghai in mid-August. It was HOT and HUMID! If at all possible, avoid visiting Shanghai Disneyland in the wet, humid summer months. March-May & Sept-November look much more temperate and pleasant.

Disney = a lot of time outdoors… walking across the park & standing in lines, parades, outdoor entertainment, etc. Weather makes a huge difference in your overall trip experience. We were trying to squeeze in the China trip before Paul started work at the end of August, so we settled for the hot summer months.

If you have flexibility, I’d check crowd calendars and plan your trip around peak crowds, avoiding Chinese public holidays such as Chinese New Year.

Getting to Shanghai Disneyland:

The Shanghai Disneyland Resort official website lays out the different transportation options thoroughly, but to summarize:

Shanghai Metro: Line 11, Terminal Station Disney Resort stop (7 days a week; arriving @ Disney starting at 7 am, last trains departing 10 pm-midnight, depending on location… check the Shanghai Metro website for latest)

Taxi: This is the closest option to what we did. We were staying with my wonderful expat cousins while visiting Shanghai, and their driver took us to the park in the morning & picked us up again in the evening (Thanks again!). It worked great, and I’m sure a taxi would function very similarly.

Bus: Pudong 50, Pudong 51, and Pudong 52 are the local bus routes that stop at Shanghai Disneyland Resort. Watch for & get out at the Shanghai International Tourism and Resorts Zone West Transport Hub stop.

Car: Parking fee is 100 RMB ($15 USD) if you enter the park by 11 am. If you come 11 am-8 pm, the price decreases by half to 50 RMB ($7.50 USD). Guests that park after 8 pm only pay 10 RMB ($1.50 USD). Look for the Disney Car & Coach Park.

Note: there are NOT in & out privileges; you have to pay the price of parking each time you leave and come back.

If you have a young child, a rental car (with your personal carseat brought into the country and installed properly) would be the only guaranteed carseat option available to you. However, it’s less common in Shanghai for international tourists to be renting cars. For what it’s worth, we rode buses and metros with my young boys for years in Asia and felt very comfortable.

Initial Impressions of Shanghai Disneyland:

• FIRST, we realized very quickly that this was an extremely crowded park. The various lines JUST TO GET INTO THE PARK took us 3 hours total. One was a security line, one was waiting to scan tickets, etc. Plan accordingly! Despite arriving very early, we weren’t into the park until 9 am. Our toddler was a champ to sit in the stroller for most of that.

• SECOND, this theme park is BIG. Everything is scaled to be massive. The streets are very wide. I’ve heard there are plans to add onto the park significantly in coming years, so Disney is allowing space for that growth. Last but not least, you can’t help but notice the Castle. As Disney’s largest ever, it is clearly the centerpiece of the theme park. You can find a photo comparison of all the Disney Castles in this blog post.

Cut Your Line Time: FastPass and Disney Premier Access

Each of the different Disney resorts have various systems in place to help guests cut down their wait time: FastPass, FastPass+, MaxPass, Super and Ultimate FastPass, etc. They vary a lot in price point and effectiveness. Here is the breakdown for Shanghai Disney:

Option 1: FastPass

At no additional cost, you can manage your FastPass attractions through the Shanghai Disney Resort app. Shanghai Disneyland is a paperless FastPass system.

Pro: FREE!

Con: You can only have one FastPass in your queue at a time, which significantly decreases the total number of rides you’ll “skip the line” for that day.

Option 2: Disney Premier Access

Within Disney Premier Access, you can either buy FastPasses a la carte for one attraction at a time, or purchase a collection of FastPasses that has been predetermined: a set set. 😉

Here are the rides that participate in this service. When we went, only 7 of the rides below were included with the set; I’d double-check which it includes currently before you purchase! It seems like any of the below would be available for purchase a-la-carte, though.

• Soaring Over the Horizon in Adventure Isle
• Roaring Rapids in Adventure Isle
• TRON Lightcycle Power Run in Tomorrowland
• Peter Pan’s Flight in Fantasyland
• Buzz Lightyear Planet Rescue in Tomorrowland
• Seven Dwarfs Mine Train in Fantasyland
• The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh in Fantasyland
• Pirates of the Caribbean Battle for the Sunken Treasure in Treasure Cove
• Rex’s Racer in Disney·Pixar Toy Story Land
• Woody’s Roundup in Disney·Pixar Toy Story Land
• Challenge Trails at Camp Discovery in Adventure Isle
• Voyage to the Crystal Grotto in Fantasyland

If you buy each FastPass individually, it’s 120 RMB ($18 USD). The current cost for a set of FastPasses is 660 RMB ($98 USD). [This is a recent change– the price used to fluctuate based on low/peak seasons– both of the older prices were lower than the current]

Source: traveltothemagic.net

So…that seems like a lot of money to spend on top of a park ticket. Especially when there’s also a free FastPass system in place. What’s the deal? We did a lot of research before arriving. Here was the thought process:

1. We only planned to devote one day of our trip to Shanghai Disneyland, but we also wanted to ride all of the unique, new attractions that are only found at Shanghai Disneyland (Pirates, TRON, and Soarin’ in particular).

2. We knew it was forecasted to be a very crowded day with very long wait times. Bloggers (thx!) clued us in that with the standard FastPass system you’d be lucky to get on 2, maybe 3 attractions using FP in the entire day.

A Tough Call

Being a pretty big cheapskate, I was torn. I didn’t want to pay out a price that felt a little ridiculous…but with a toddler in tow, we are slow-moving through the parks. Standing in a zillion hot, sweaty lines (60-180 min. long each) with our 1-year old was going to be very difficult, perhaps even technically impossible logistics-wise.

We’d come all the way to China and had no plans to return anytime soon. Guaranteeing the experience to ride seven of the best attractions in Shanghai was too tempting. We took the plunge & bought it.

SO, the first thing we did (after the 87 conversations, 32 toddler games, and 62 cheerios distributed while waiting to enter the park) was get in line to purchase the Disney Premier Access FastPass.

You can do this at City Hall, on your left after you’ve entered the park OR VIA THE SHANGHAI DISNEY RESORT APP NOW! Hallelujah for one less line to stand in!

Was it worth it?

Knowing what we know now– probably not. At least not for our specific situation. We purchased the pass with the assumption that we could combine our FastPass line experience with the “baby swap” feature (wait in the FP line once together, then wait at the exit with the babe and take turns riding alone). However, this wasn’t the case.

According to cast members (and the customer service office too) we had to stand in the FastPass lines individually, not together. I REPEAT, RIDER SWITCH CANNOT BE COMBINED WITH THE DISNEY PREMIER ACCESS. This doubled the time spent on each queue, some of which were 45-minute long FastPass lines! That’s 90 minutes + ride time + exiting and toddler hand-off time JUST for one attraction. Yikes.

We were pretty disappointed with this development, and left in the afternoon (for our son’s nap) feeling pretty negative about the whole experience. We’d stood in sweaty lines all morning with very little to show for it.

It got better once we knew what to expect. We came back in the late afternoon/early evening with fresh excitement and energy. I’m sure we rode several more attractions than we would’ve without the pass, and we got to ride the 3 unique attractions on our list (Pirates, TRON, Soarin’). It wasn’t all bad.

Moral of the story: if you are visiting with a baby or toddler, clarify with customer service early on what your best options will be to maximize your efficiency!

Some Cultural Differences:

Main Street U.S.A. vs. Mickey Avenue

Main Street U.S.A. doesn’t exist in Shanghai! For most tourists visiting the park, the whole ambience of turn-of-the-century small town America is … confusing at best. Instead, you’ll find street fronts and theming devoted to classic and modern Disney characters (the Three Little Pigs, Clarabelle, Minnie Mouse, etc.)

While Main Street USA is a perfect representation of Victorian architecture and interior design, Mickey Avenue is a melting pot of architectural styles. It’s what you get when you combine Main Street USA and Mickey’s Toontown, add a splash of Buena Vista Street and sprinkle the result with (not so) Hidden Mickeys and references to Disney’s corporate identity.

–Designing Disney

I loved this blogger’s take on it, and found the Toontown mash-up reference very accurate. I really enjoyed Mickey Avenue!

Waste Management

Although the Shanghai Disneyland theme park itself is immaculately kept, I was very surprised at the large amounts of trash thrown on the ground immediately outside the park. While waiting in line, apparently people eat all kinds of foods and then leave the trash & extra food… wherever. My guess would be that this has improved significantly in the past few years.

Line Etiquette

The way that tourists queue up at Shanghai Disneyland is quite different than any other Disney park I’ve been to (including Hong Kong). The orderly, somewhat-spaced-out, one-at-a-time lines that I’ve grown accustomed to were nowhere to be found at Shanghai Disneyland.

A typical ride line at Shanghai = no personal space, no hesitation in pushing, shoving, and even jumping ahead if the person in front of you isn’t blazing through at light-speed.

It’s a little jarring at first, and my manners-conscious, organized husband wasn’t thrilled. It’s just something to be aware of and mentally prepare for. We adapted and found that spreading our arms out wide to take up space ensured no one succeeded in sneaking ahead of us. It didn’t stop many tourists from trying, though!

Notable Attractions & Things to See:

Mosaic Art

I was blown away by these pieces of art inside the park. Tiny pieces of tile are put together to create mosaic masterpieces that depict various Disney characters & movie scenes. There’s a bunch surrounding the castle. Don’t miss seeing these up close!

THE CASTLE!

It’s obvious from pictures how GORGEOUS and ornate this Disney Castle is. Built in 2016 and measuring at 197 ft tall, it’s Disney’s largest and newest castle to date.

The official title, by the way, is The Enchanted Storybook Castle. Doesn’t that evoke a lovely image?

When you walk through the base of the castle the real magic begins. There’s a whole corridor of the incredible art mosaics (these are Princess-themed), and high vaulted ceilings that indeed feel royal.

This castle is unique in that it’s not dedicated to one Disney princess (such as Cinderella in Florida or Sleeping Beauty in California); it is a celebration of all Disney fairytales. 10/10!

Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for the Sunken Treasure

This is the ride we’d heard the most about before coming to the park. In other Disney theme parks, the Pirates rides tend to be nostalgic [cheesy] and some of the oldest attractions in the park. Not so in Shanghai, friends. This state-of-the-art wonder attraction is worth all of the hype.

A Jack Sparrow Audio-Animatronic is front and center in this new & improved version of the classic ride. It’s hard to describe just how realistic and smooth the movement of the boat is; you are going backwards at one point?? And green-screen technology is utilized to create large skies with huge, sweeping visual effects. I (clearly) don’t know how to describe it, but this ride is amazing.

I’m tempted to link the YouTube ride-through, but I really don’t want to spoil the experience for anyone that may visit someday & I doubt a small screen would even do it justice. Located in Treasure Cove. No height restrictions, but scary, loud & dark elements.

Our toddler rode it and did great. I think a preschooler with more awareness may get scared, though.

Tron

This ride was another brand-new Disney technological feat that we knew we had to check out. Of course with toddler in tow we had to take turns- but that worked out OK. My son and I watched the roller coaster zoom past (it’s partially outdoors) while we waited– he kept calling it a “choo choo” train, which I loved.

Part of what makes this ride different is the position you’re in; you are basically riding a motorcycle, but leaning way forward on it. It’s very cool. They have lockers available to put your belongings in for the duration of the ride since the typical backpack cargo space is missing because of the ride configuration. Located in Tomorrowland. Must be 122 cm or taller to ride.

Soaring over the Horizon

This Soaring ride was very unique back when we visited because it was the only version at the time that had you soaring over the world– not just California. Now several other resorts have this global version, too. The line was our longest of the day (tied with Pirates), but gratefully indoors. The ride itself was incredible! Located in Adventure Isle. Must be 102 cm or taller to ride.

Toddler Favorite: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

A Winnie-the-Pooh ride is pretty standard for Disney theme parks. Tokyo set the gold standard for its attraction featuring the Hundred Acre Gang. This version is great, too; it was definitely our son’s favorite ride of the park. I loved seeing the Chinese characters on the ‘book pages’ as you wait in this iconically-themed line.

Food at Shanghai Disneyland

As you’d expect, Shanghai Disneyland offers a mix of local and foreign cuisine options. In most areas of the park you won’t be too far from a Chinese, Asian (Thai/Japanese/Korean/Vietnamese), or Western quick-service stop or restaurant.

It’ll be clear from the outside (whether from the architecture or the menu posting) what type of food is offered inside.

We stuck to quick-service meals (as we always do at Disney with little ones) to save time & money.

How cute is this egg drop soup-ish/fried rice/Mickey boiled egg kid’s meal? Honestly, the yellow part of the hard-boiled egg tasted like plastic. It does make for quite the visual, though! Thankfully, toddler-friendly food is readily available in the park. It was easy to find food that wasn’t spicy.

Moment of Truth: Remy’s Patisserie on Mickey Avenue is the only eatery I vividly remembered from our trip before looking back through our pictures. I’m not sure if this says more about my deep love of pastries or the forgettable nature of other foods we ate that day.

Is Shanghai Disneyland a One-Day or Two-Day Park?

Unless you’re in peak shape and are only traveling with one or two other adults…I’d recommend spending two days at Shanghai Disneyland. There’s just so much to see and do and it’s SO SPREAD OUT. With meticulous planning and navigating you could see the highlights in one day– but it will feel pretty rushed.

If you have a baby or toddler, it’ll slow you down significantly. [You don’t need me to tell you that.] Between the diaper changes, time spent out of the stroller stretching legs and wandering in the wrong direction, line and ride logistics, feeding and snacks…whew. On second thought… maybe doing all of that two days in a row isn’t a great idea either. Ha!

Whenever and however you make your way to Shanghai Disneyland in the post-COVID world, I hope that you enjoy all of the magic of Shanghai Disneyland, and can avoid all of the smelly trash, muggy heat, pushing in lines, tricky baby swap regulations, and eager scalpers outside the park entrance. 😉

In all honesty, this park is incredible. Despite the kinks that come with being brand-spanking-new, it’s very well thought-out and state of the art.

Have you been to Shanghai Disneyland? I would love to hear others’ experiences! Let me know in the comments!

Next up:

You can also read our (slightly more hopeful review) of Hong Kong Disneyland: Pregnant and with a Toddler.

And other similar adventures with our toddler:

HOW TO TOUR THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA WITH A TODDLER

5 GREAT THINGS TO DO IN HONG KONG (WITH KIDS!)