Sooooo.....how is the park doing?

[Fctiger]

I haven't been coming to these boards often the last few months but I came to hear about the latest on SDL when I noticed this place is a total ghost town. THe park hasn't been open 3 months yet and no one is talking about it. Of course I know most people here don't live in China or have been themselves so its understandable but its funny how the park finally opened and there is no real discussion about it anywhere (outside of China I mean).

Does anyone know how is attendance? Is it reaching where they hoped the first year? Are people behaving more in the parks (I saw the opening week pics of people going to the bathroom in the bushes lol)? Is it succeeding or is it having HKDL growing pains and the park is a ghost town?

I really hope its working out for Disney though. All the doom and gloom over the park by people and how much it was going to affect the other parks, maybe that may not be the case after all if they are hitting attendance targets.

[Fctiger]

Daily attendance is 27,000 in June, with a daily grossing of 15 million RMB. However guests expenditure on food and merchandise is very low (less than 20 RMB excluding admission price).(Source: Apple Daily: http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/news/a...60807/19726638)

From what I've heard attendance in July and August did not reach their targets. So brace yourself. and expect more budget cuts coming. #ThanksShanghai

Thank you for the update. Its nice to hear SOMETHING lol. But I actually just read the new Mice Chat update and according to them attendance is actually doing quite well there AND that TDA is doing just the opposite and plan to make big plans for DCA in the next few years along with all the other recent announcements so it doesn't sound like any major budget cuts are happening, quite the opposite. If the article is true of course.

And it doesn't sound like SDL is where HDL was its few months of opening. I was there, believe me, it was depressing honestly. I think SDL is probably not breaking the gates down but at least a healthy attendance. But yeah the merchandise and food may be lower but I can see that because Shanghai is still a pretty cheap place for food even if the city is expensive to live in.

[jcruise86]

Don't the Chinese know that they're SUPPOSED to get ripped off for food & merchandise once they're inside theme parks?
(It's nice having Harbor Blvd. alongside Disneyland so I don't feel captive as I do at WDW, though I almost always eat in Dland or DCA.)

[Fizzy1]

Hi, new to this chat. Off to Shanghai Disney end of Oct . Hope the lines ard shorter then

[jjmaneja]

I was there near the middle/end of July, where I went on a Friday and Saturday. Going on a Friday felt like visiting Disneyland during a standard Sunday - waits were long, but they weren't miserable. But Saturday felt like going to Disneyland on New Year's Eve - it was a shocker how many people were there.

Behavior-wise, it is still as problematic as described during the first week. Line-cutters were everyone, especially with me travelling solo. In line, you would see me holding both handrails just to make it a challenge for the parents and grandparents to skip ahead of me, but still never stopped the little 10 year-olds from crawling under, then signalling to their family to follow them. Litter was extremely bad too. I was waiting in line to see Baloo, when a mom walked over to the guard rail blocking the grass area, and she threw (overhand and for distance) her empty water bottle right over the railing. Cast member tried to walk over to grab it, but saw it was out of reach, and looked very disappointed.

The park itself is so beautiful, and its interesting to see how the extra space wasn't utilized for merchandise or food (based on how difficult it was for me to find a place to grab water). However, there is already some massive wear and tear on the railings for some attractions that would normally be refurbishment-worthy at Disneyland. Perhaps they used a poor brand of paint, or perhaps they didn't foresee how many families will let their children play tightrope on those railings (or how many of those children will fall onto strangers without apology).

Food lines were relatively short, and you saw many people bring in food and eat it under the castle. I found it interesting that they had their version of a 7-eleven location in the Metro station, so many people will buy tons of food, snacks, and water there before going into the park. However, the turkey leg line by far was the most popular stall. It didn't open until 2pm, and a line of at least 50-100 people deep was arleady formed by 1pm. And it was SOOOOO WORTH IT. It is a turkey leg with Char Siu sauce on it. And they also served it with gloves, which was amazing.

So I am curious to see the changes they make and how focused they are on upkeep. They probably didn't anticipate so many kids to run around in cast-member areas (such as the performance area of queues), so I hope those find improvement. But bottom line, based on how fast passes emptied and the amount of times I got pushed, I'd say the numbers are really healthy.

[jcruise86]

. . . the turkey leg line by far was the most popular stall. It didn't open until 2pm, and a line of at least 50-100 people deep was arleady formed by 1pm. And it was SOOOOO WORTH IT. It is a turkey leg with Char Siu sauce on it. And they also served it with gloves, which was amazing. . .

Gloves with BBQ--works for me! The BBQ would instantly conquer any latex smell/taste, not that I'd eat the gloves.

[Frak_G]

Gloves with BBQ--works for me! The BBQ would instantly conquer any latex smell/taste, not that I'd eat the gloves.

The gloves were actually a thin plastic, so there was very little taste of it on the turkey leg!

For anyone else's information, the park seems to be least crowded on Sundays for some odd reason. I've been tracking the wait times for a while now and for some reason Sundays are (on average) the lowest. Happy Disneying!