Shanghai Disneyland Park — Attraction in Shanghai

I arrived at the parking lot and walked about 20 minutes to the park entrance. There’s a Mickey fountain at the entrance. Security checks are similar to other Disney parks; selfie sticks and tripods are prohibited and must be left in lockers, while food and drinks are generally allowed.

Entering the park is unique here—you scan your passport, which also serves as your park ticket. You’ll receive a paper ticket with a QR code for reservations, like the Standby Pass for Mickey’s Storybook Adventure. I reserved the 11:40 a.m. show.

After entering, I visited Carefree Corner to confirm my Personalized Magical Photo Session, choosing the 4:00 p.m. slot. I then stopped by Avenue M Arcade to buy some Mickey ears for photos and queued up for Mickey’s Storybook Adventure at 10:40 a.m.

Shows

Mickey’s Storybook Adventure This indoor show takes you through Disney stories with 23 characters. Mickey and Goofy discover a magic book, encountering Olaf, Baloo, King Louie, Moana, Mulan, and others along the way, with live music mainly in Chinese and some English songs.

Golden Fairytale Fanfare An outdoor show in front of the Enchanted Storybook Castle featuring Snow White, Elsa, Anna, Jasmine, Aladdin, Ariel, Merida, and more, with English songs.

Mickey’s Storybook Express A 14-minute character parade with numerous Disney favorites.

ILLUMINATE! A Nighttime Celebration A projection mapping show at the Enchanted Storybook Castle with fireworks, fountains, lasers, and Disney and Marvel characters.

Dining

Mickey & Pals Market Café

• Ma La Tang Noodle Soup with Prawn and Beef (¥119) + Dumplings (¥30) - Spicy, tongue-tingling soup with beef slices and shrimp. • Roasted Spring Chicken with Vegetables (¥129) - Sweet, roasted chicken with a tomato-edamame side.

Barbossa’s Bounty

• Barbossa Feast for 2 (¥299) - Grilled squid, ribs, and chicken with two servings of rice; overall, it has a sweet flavor.

Zootopia Market

• Disney Zootopia Pawpsicle (¥45) - A sweet and tangy fruit popsicle, perfect for a warm day.

Rides

Pirates of the Caribbean Battle for the Sunken Treasure A boat ride through scenes from Pirates of the Caribbean, with forward, backward, and rotating movements. The visuals and sound effects are impressive, and there’s a small wave toward the end, but it’s not intense.

Seven Dwarfs Mine Train This ride has a single rider lane, but wait times are similar to the main queue (~1 hour). I bought Disney Premier Access for ¥180, which saved a lot of time. The train takes you through the dwarves’ mine, providing mild thrills.

Soaring Over the Horizon Similar to Disney World and DisneySea, this flight simulation ride takes you over global landmarks with scents like grass and ocean waves for an immersive experience.

TRON Lightcycle Power Run Experience riding a TRON motorcycle. You lean forward on the bike and hold onto handlebars, speeding along a thrilling track that’s still accessible for younger guests.

Zootopia: Hot Pursuit A trackless ride where you pursue runaway sheep from Zootopia. It’s fun, and the single rider line is very short, so I didn’t need to wait.

Photo Session

After the parade at 3:30 p.m., I headed to Carefree Corner for my photo session. The photographer spoke Chinese, so I used Google Translate to communicate. I requested locations like Gardens of Imagination, Castle Area, Castle Balcony, and Zootopia, and we took photos throughout. With 30 minutes left, I requested to visit Treasure Cove. We wrapped up the session with 100 photos, which were available for download that evening. Note: photos must be downloaded within 90 days, or they’re deleted...

What should have been exciteful day completely ruined before even entering the park.

I'm disabled and utilise a compact electric wheelchair which I confirmed with them prior to ordering tickets, there I asked if I was allowed to bring it to the park which was all fine according to the responses I gotten when I initially requested the information and booked my tickets.

We didn't even reach the entrance gate when I got surrounded by multiple security men starting to tell me off that I couldn't bring my compact electric wheelchair into the park as it looked too much like 'luggage' as it's an Airwheel SE3S, yet this is my valid registered electric wheelchair which allowed me to travel due it can retract and fits within the carry-on weight and size.

Yet even though I provided the proof of my disability card, the certification of the wheelchair that it is my primary use of transportation, I even showed them the inside mechanical equipment and signed documented by my doctor and government that this was my main use wheelchair and the information I was given when I originally asked if it could be used in the park.

But apparently they do not know how disabled people like myself can't do anything without our main wheelchair. The reason they gave was also just absurd due to that it's not a wheelchair (even though my provided certificates clearly stated this as I require the same documents for traveling on a plane so it is gets labeled as an electric wheelchair rather than a suitcase as I've had very unpleasant experiences prior to having this so they can tag it properly from missing the wheelchair to simply handling it as a typical luggage damaging it to even have had to replace the whole under mechanism as it got destroyed due uncaringly tossing it.

But it gets even worse... We were then forced to rent a regular push wheelchair from them, my companion then was require to push me in a really terrible wheelchair the whole time.

And the cherry on top they promised us that they would keep my electrical wheelchair safe and that I could pick it up at the same spot only to get there after a very painful day for both me and my companion pushing, as the staff didn't knew anything about it at all, even though I provided them pictures of my wheelchair and provided the on my requested a label and signature so they would recovered direct, yet we had to wait for hours for them to find it eventually as it was stored in a locked with our anyone's knowledge, and luckily they did find it, else I would have lost it completely.

This compact electric wheelchair (which does look like a luggage) yet it opened up so much more freedom to travel and enjoy things I could never done before only for the 'worst place on earth' to take that freedom away was just the worst Disneyland experience I've ever had, and I've been to plenty theme parks even Disneyland Paris where they even praised it on how useful it must be for other disabled people with my similar chronic conditions like myself.

So from even before entering Disneyland Shanghai to the end it was pure hell for both me and my companion, no respect for the disabled, not even bothering to read any of the documents I provided.

I can therefor never in my life recommend this Disneyland at all, as they are disrespectful and think they know everything better, this even might have had something to do with that I was a white foreign person but I have no proof of this but the kind of disrespect I received did made it feel that way.

So all by all I can't recommend it at all, if you want a great experience then go to the...

I was very impressed with the Shanghai Disneyland Park, and my family had a great time there. Highlights for me were the Tron, the Rapids, and Pirates of the Caribbean rides, which we all absolutely loved. The parades and fireworks at the end of the day were also fabulous. For our older kids, I felt there weren't as many big rides as the Paris resort, but there was plenty to see and do.

We visited on a Friday, and I had a lot of anxiety about our pre-purchased tickets and getting entry to the park. However, it turned out to be quite a smooth process, and I wouldn't have been concerned if the communication was better. Although I had the tickets on the park app, they only seemed to need my passport number to see our tickets. FYI you need to bring your physical passport with you.

You definitely need to have the app downloaded; as well as providing a map of the Park with your GPS location, it provides information on all the ride status's and times which is really useful. It also has a timetable of all the events, but the timings were definitely off, so we missed the start of the parade.

The park was busier than I expected for an off-peak week day in October, but queue times were acceptable. We queued for about an hour for big rides like Tron, but got very lucky with some of the other rides, queuing for maybe 30 minutes or less. A couple of rides had queue times exceeding 2 hours for the entire day, so we chose not to queue for them.

The food at the park is expensive, and you'll need WeChat or Ali Pay to purchase them in most cases. I think I only used cash for smaller purchases like drinks and ice creams.

The toilets are well maintained and clean, but as a warning, they use a lot of the "squat toilets" on the ground, which was interesting...

When we visited, there were a lot of "influencers" there. They are dressed in costumes, normally a Disney princess, and have photographers following them around. They are literally everywhere, but they do highlight some good photo opportunities. They also don't seem to go on the rides!

Leaving the park, you may be wise to leave at least 30-60 minutes before the park closes. Everyone will suddenly leave at once, and the volume of people is staggering. We decided to get a taxi back to the hotel because it was so busy, and it was surprisingly efficient and fast to do so. Google translate and a card for your hotel address is advisable, as none of them spoke English.

I would definitely...