First Time Visit to HKDL - How Long To Plan For?

GNRMatt

Earning My Ears
Joined
Jan 27, 2014
I'm planning a first time visit to HKDL for me and my girlfriend for this coming October. We've been to Disney World, Disneyland and Disneyland Paris and have plenty of Disney experience. I'm trying to figure out how many days to stay in Hong Kong total, and part of that decision will be effected by how many days we need in Hong Kong Disneyland to truly experience it. I'd love people's inputs on how many days people think should be needed to experience Disney here. Is 1 day enough? Should it be 2 days? 3 days? I'd love everyone's insight into this.

Also, some other questions that may be helpful:
  • Is it worth it to get a Disney hotel for the days we're in the park? Or is commuting from the Central part of Hong Kong easy enough?
  • If we end up doing this our last days in Hong Kong and stay in a Disney hotel, will the Disney hotels hold luggage for us so that we can go straight to the airport after a full day in Disney?
Thanks in advance!
-Matt
 
It's a good idea to stay in a Disney hotel on your last night in HK because it's close to the airport. While it's small enough to do in 1 day, 2 days is recommended to truly appreciate it (at least 1.5 days if you're flying out that night). The hotel can hold your bag.
 
The hotels hold luggage. Going from Central is not too bad and gives you the advantage of more food options for breakfast or late night dinner. If you stay in Central, you'll be paying 130 HKD for luggage storage in front of the park so factor that in.

October is a month that could warrant an extra day. Assuming they do the same thing as last year, there will be a Halloween walkthrough attraction that can get wait times over 1 hour and Halloween arts + crafts. If those are interesting to you, 1.5 to 2 days would be recommended. You could do one day but will probably have to skip a couple things. Not a big deal for most people though because about 1/2 the attractions are copies or highly similar to attractions in other parks (Winnie the Pooh, Dumbo, Orbitron, Mad Hatter Tea Cups, Jedi Training Academy, etc). I don't think you'll need 3 days unless you plan to do a lot of things multiple times or want to meet a lot of characters. A reasonable metric could be the amount of time you feel like you need at California Adventure.
 


The park is really small, so technically you can do everything in one day. However, I would highly recommend doing it in two days. Staying at a Disney resort will make this even better because once you've done everything, you can go back to the resort and explore the area. The second day is really for you to do all your favorite rides again, take more pictures, and do last minute rides you didn't do the day before.

Please remember that the park is now under construction. So some things are blocked off. You might finish a lot sooner than normal because of this.

Commuting from the Central part of Hong Kong is NOT EASY! This area is no where near the parks. I think it is about an hour or more from the park. You should definitely stay around the park area if possible.
 
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Commuting from the Central part of Hong Kong is NOT EASY! This area is no where near the parks. I think it is about an hour or more from the park. You should definitely stay around the park area if possible.

Just wanted to point out that even though Central is not CLOSE to Disney, does not mean it isn’t an EASY trip. From Hong Kong station, it is a straight shot on the Tung Chung line MTR to Sunny Bay, and then one stop to Disney. The MTR system is very easy and efficient.

Is it the most comfortable ride? Definelty not, especially during rush hour, but there’s no reason to be scared of that commute!

That being said, I would recommend to stay on property just for the convienince to both the park and the airport.
 
From Central, expect it to take 45ish minutes with one transfer vs 15ish minutes direct if you stay on property. 40 minutes each way seems like a lot but given HKDL's short operating hours, even if you stayed in Central, your day would likely still be shorter than if you stayed on property for basically any other park. Lately a lot of Japanese visitors to the park have been staying in Mong Kok which in my opinion is more difficult than Central (no guaranteed seating and more transfers).

If the main reason you're booking on property is to save on the commute, you'll have to decide if 60 to 80 minutes on the subway is worth the price difference. If you have other reasons for wanting to be on property such as the hotel guest fastpasses or a themed room, it's a different discussion.
 


Other people have given really good advice, that may have made it irrelevant, but the park does hold luggage. I believe there may be a small fee for it, if you're not staying on property. I used it myself! It's been a few years, though, so I can't remember many details. I know Shanghai charges 80RMB. It's before the gate to the park, at a counter. The place has a sign, but there's not necessarily signs directing you to it. You also may have to bring it through security (I did at Shanghai) so keep that in mind when you're packing--no dirty underwear on top!

ETA: Ah, I thought I read it all, but Gelatoni Fan answered about the fee already.
 
We felt Disney hotel was way to go (September 2018), but spent two days on property. The room was ready upon arrival around noon.

Staying in Tsim Sha Tsui, would be easy commute (same to Central). We enjoyed rope dropping as the park was very open for a couple hours.
 
We did the whole thing in one day, but it wasn't too crowded and we don't really care about characters/parades/shows and we are all adults. We cared about rides and merchandise and ambiance.

I'd say give yourself 2 days to allow breathing room.

Unlike every other Disney resort around the world Hong Kong Disney is next to NOTHING. There's not even a Disney Springs/Downtown Disney area to eat dinner in after the park. We didn't stay on property and felt like we missed nothing. The Metro ride from Mongkok was easy and the train to the resort itself had cute themed Metro cars with Mickey-shaped windows.

That being said, as others have noted, it is near the airport, so going directly from one to the other is good advice.
 
We did 2 days at the park, with one morning spent outside of Disney visiting the Big Buddha. This was more than enough time to experience all the shows, parades and rides. We didn't meet characters though. I would suggest staying in a Disney hotel as t is close to the airport and the commute to central Hong Kong can take a while. Also staying at a Disney hotel means you get an extra fastpass per night of stay.
 
I was just there in early April of this year. We ended up buying two day tickets because it was only about $20 USD more, but we didn't get a chance to go back for the second day. I wish we had because I feel like two days would have been just right. One day was fine if that's all you have, but if you have two days I would just do two days.

I feel like this park has a bad reputation because of its beginnings and I didn't go there for years because I didn't feel there was enough yet to make it worth visiting, but I have to say I really, really enjoyed it there. I am a southern CA local who grew up with Disneyland in Anaheim and I've been to the Tokyo parks and Disneyland Paris as well and I felt there was something special about HKDL. I definitely want to go back once they're done with more of their expansions.

As for getting there, public transit from other areas was pretty easy and straight forward. The transit system in HK as a whole was quite impressive. It was much easier to get there from a distance (we stayed in Kowloon) than it was getting to Tokyo Disneyland when I was there. Because my mother has difficulties with walking, we took a taxi back and compared to other cities I've been in taxis in, that was even a pretty affordable option.
 

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