Day 11 (19 Sep 2018) – Shanghai, Adventures by Disney Enchanted China Adults Only Tour

Our last full day in China – what Ralph and Daisy referred to as our “Finale Day”. Breakfast was as early as 6 am in The Lobby and Ralph mentioned several times the waffles were amazing so I ordered those. We had been warned that any cooked to order breakfast items off the menu would take some time to prepare – 15 – 20 minutes was what the wait staff let us know. I also had some fruit from the “continental buffet” and tasted yet another fruit that I’d never tried before and had to ask the waitress what it was. It looked like a small paper lantern – she called them golden berries which I had to google and look up. They were good – consistency like a cherry but no pit in the middle.

The waffle was yeast based and tasted just like a crispy donut and came with syrup, real whipped cream, raspberry sauce, and some fruit. I’m no waffle connoisseur but they were really good.

We had allowed ourselves some extra time this morning for cooked to order breakfast and still had some time to walk over to the Bund for some daytime pictures. It was a little cloudy today and going to be pretty hot.

We met everyone in the lobby one last time at 8:30 am and our motor coach took us out to “Old Shanghai” and the Yu garden about 20 minutes away. It was pretty hot and humid today and we would be outdoors for at least several hours. We were given “Quiet Vox” units on the bus again and Flo narrated our Old Shanghai and garden tour.

The architecture was absolutely amazing – a mix of old and new everywhere. It was close to their Mid-Autumn festival and everything was decorated highlighting the year of rabbit. Even though it was so hot and humid (I actually had to get out a tissue to repeatedly wipe the sweat off of my face), I really enjoyed the Yu Garden tour.

Following our tour, we were given about an hour to do some shopping. After a bathroom stop, Seth bought a Shanghai t-shirt for 80 RMB. We also picked up an abacus for Rhys and I found an black Asian style top to wear with my skirt for the farewell dinner tonight. Seth also picked up some souvenirs for his office staff.

Slippers with rocks to walk on and "massage" your feet

We met up at about 11:30 in the center square and walked back to our motor coach for our last and final stop: Shanghai Disneyland with the largest castle in any Disney theme park). On the coach, Ralph told us that we would be given tickets that had 3 fastpasses incorporated in them for Tron, Seven Dwarves Mine Train, and Roarin’ Rapids. He highly recommended 3 rides: Tron, Voyage to the Crystal Grotto (which is the only Disney ride to go through a Disney castle), and Pirates (no fastpass for this ride).

Maybe it was the day of the week along with the fact that it was pretty hot/humid that really worked to our favor as the ride wait times were minimal – most were 5-10 minutes. We had the option to eat lunch in Old Shanghai or at the Disneyland park and we decided to get something to eat at Disneyland.

Our coach didn’t just take us to the bus stop at Disneyland (Ralph said it was a 20 minute walk without any shade from the bus parking lot to the park) – it took us, instead to the VIP entrance where we walked up the steps and were in Disney Town (Shanghai’s version of Disney Springs).

Our first order of business was taking a group picture in front of the castle – our final group picture of the trip. We then made our way to Club 33 where we dropped off our bags with our change of clothing at their valet and had the opportunity to use the bathroom upstairs. Disney’s Club 33 is an exclusive club with a 10 year waiting list and costs about $30,000 to join with an annual fee of $15,000 to be a member. Getting access to the Club all day and then having our farewell dinner here was very very cool. We were also given the opportunity to buy Club 33 items. Unfortunately, the polo shirt embroidered with “33” only went up to a US size of medium.

We headed out and stopped at the Mickey & Pals Market Cafe for lunch. When we entered the cafe, we were met immediately by a cast member named Darlene who welcomed us and asked if we needed any help with ordering. Darlene inquired about our lanyards and asked where we were from so we explained that we were on our last stop of an Adventure by Disney. Soon, she was joined by another cast member manager and then introduced us to the chef. It turns out that Darlene was the director of food and beverage operations at Shanghai Disneyland. We were given her business card and invited to enjoy some complimentary ice cream from Il Paperino after lunch. That was really cool.

We ordered some braised pork ribs with rice which apparently came with drinks. Even the hard boiled eggs and carrots were cut to the shape of a Mickey head. It was actually an enormous amount of food and, in retrospect, we should have just shared one order instead of getting two. We were too full to get ice cream afterwards but the cafe manager took our picture to send to the manager at Il Paperino so we could stop by later to get our complimentary ice cream.

We found our way to Treasure Cove planning to ride Pirates first. I had read on other blogs and we had been told by Ralph how the Pirates ride at Shanghai Disneyland was completely different than any other Pirates ride we may have been on and he was so right. We basically walked right on to the ride which started off looking just like the same boat you board at Pirates in Disneyworld. The storyline was completely different, of course, and was in Chinese but you got the general idea that it was based on the movies highlighting Davy Jones and Jack Sparrow. What was particularly cool about this Pirates ride was the fact that the boat turned in circles (much like the Mystic Manor ride in Hong Kong and at one point, we went sliding down backwards in the water and there were at least 3 different Imax type giant screens that we went by that simulated being in the ocean. We even got sprayed with water at one point.

We then backtracked to Adventure Isle to ride Soarin’. This was the longest wait that we had at the park all afternoon – it was supposed to be 40 minutes for standby but actually took us over 45 minutes to get through the queue and a total of an hour to actually get on the ride itself. The experience was pretty close to the other Soarin’ rides we’ve been on with a few different destinations thrown in. The smells were more intense than on the other Soarin’ rides that we’ve been on.

We headed to ride the Voyage to the Crystal Grotto ride but got blocked by the parade going by. The Voyage was very cute and did take us underneath the castle for a part of the ride.

Next, we headed to Tron Lightcycle Power run and had just a little difficulty finding the entrance to the ride. This was possibly the only complaint we had about Shanghai Disneyland (besides the heat/humidity) – the directions and queues weren’t always very well marked. We had to stop and ask a cast member how to get to the ride entrance. There are lockers outside of Tron to store bags in. Seth opted not to ride this one. We basically walked right on this ride too but, again, there was a little bit of confusion when the line split into several different chutes. The people in front of me mostly went off to the right but some chose to go down the 2^nd “chute”. I stopped to decide which chute to go down – the right one that the first group went down didn’t seem right as there was a garbage can partially blocking that chute which didn’t seem very Disney to me so I chose the 2^nd chute from the right. We eventually formed 2 lines next to each other when we reached the next checkpoint but the Cast Member there, instead of just merging the guests in the right sided line in with the guests in the left line, he made them walk all the way back to where they had chosen the wrong chute and made them get in line behind us. This caused confusion in our line as I heard saw some guests start to turn around and go back as well saying that we were in the wrong line too but then realized that we were in the right line.

At any rate, we finally reached the boarding area for the ride and guests were directed to put their bags and other larger items into a basket before getting on the Tron cycles. I had my lanyard/pins on and a small crossbody wallet so just took those with me onto the ride. You had to position yourself with your shins on 2 pedals that moved you down and forward so you basically had to slide your rear end down the bench and allow 2 small metal bars glide up over your calves to sit behind your knees. There was a large back bar that basically sandwiched you in. I was leaning forward pretty hard on my chest and after the ride was over, was pretty sure I had imprints of the backs of my lanyard pins on my chest.

The ride was so cool. It took off like the Rockin’ Roller Coaster at Disneyworld and took you outside immediately and then back in. It was kind of like Space Mountain but there seemed to be more turns and accelerations.

After this, we rode Buzz Lightyear which was better than the one in Disneyworld - the targets were easier to aim at and shoot - I narrowly beat Seth's score - we both scored over 1,000,000 points.

We decided to stop by and get our ice cream from Il Paperino. It was peach flavored and really hit the spot as we were pretty hot at this point. I ran back into Club 33, which was right around the corner, to get some Lactaid out of my backpack for the ice cream. It was only 5:30 so we still had a bit of time before Club 33 would be open for us. Dinner was at 7 and we were told to come by as early as 6:30 to change and get ready for our Farewell Dinner.

We walked through the shops on Main Street looking for a t-shirt for Seth and a magnet for our collection. The shops were amazingly few in number and we didn’t find anything we were looking for. We decided to exit the park and go to Disney Town to the World of Disney store that we had seen on our way in.

The World of Disney store was still pretty tiny compared to the one at Disney Springs. We found a stuffed Mickey and Minnie each dressed in Asian costumes that I just loved. Unfortunately, we didn’t find any t-shirts that Seth liked. We also picked up a Shanghai Disneyland magnet to add to our collection.

We went back into the park and headed to Club 33 where we both changed into clean clothes. I’m glad I had brought an extra pair of (dry) underwear to change into after being so sweaty today. We stopped to place our order for Club 33 pins and then were seated in the restaurant with Charlie and Wade.

It was a fixed menu for dinner tonight with a choice of entrees. I opted for the cod. Our pin of the day was on our plate under the menu. Daisy came by our table and had on really cute Minnie ears so we took a photo op with her for one of the last times. During dinner, they delivered our Club 33 pins to us.

We were then invited out to the Club 33 private balcony to watch the fireworks show at 8:30 pm – when the park closed. The show was amazing and included projections onto the castle, lasers, colored water fountains, and fireworks. We had the perfect view of the show from our balcony and, for the second time on this trip, this experience brought tears to my eyes.

But, we weren’t done yet. After the fireworks show, we shared with each other our most memorable moment from the trip. For me, this was our first adult only ABD and, for the most part, this was one of the friendliest, polite and punctual groups we’ve ever traveled with. The “feel” of the group, without kids, was different to me than any other Adventure we’ve been on. There were also kudos to some of the older Adventurers who did a significant amount of walking, climbing, and hiking during our almost 2 week trip.

Daisy shared with us that she took the time to write all of our names in Chinese calligraphy – something she didn’t do for every group. This was a really touching thing to me as Daisy handled so much. It was such a travel intensive trip and she, being the one who took care of our luggage for every flight we took, was constantly busy yet took the time to translate everyone’s name into Chinese and writing them out on special paper.

We were treated to a slide show of picture highlights which was shared with us via email later after we concluded our trip. Ralph had also collected everyone’s email address and shared that with us via a group email later. Final pins were handed out to everyone – it was the Chinese saying for “so long”. Our pin collection was now complete from the trip.

We reluctantly left Club 33 after 10 pm and exited via the special Club 33 door from the now completely deserted park although the lights were still all on and the music was still playing. I had written some personal notes to Ralph and Daisy on Peninsula Shanghai stationary and put their respective tips in the envelopes – we went ahead and gave them their envelopes as we boarded the bus. It had been a magical day and a really awesome trip overall. During dinner, Daisy had shared departure cards with everyone (yay for Air Drop) that let us know what time bag pull was (5:15 am for us) and what time to meet in the lobby for our ride to the airport (5:30 am for our 9:40 am flight).

Next post:  Day 12-13 (20-21 Sep 2018) - Shanghai to OKC, Adventures by Disney Enchanted China Adults Only Tour