Hong Kong Disneyland

Overview

Hong Kong Disneyland is the smallest of Disney’s castle parks, built on reclaimed land at Penny’s Bay on the north-eastern tip of Lantau Island and open since September 2005. The public areas cover about 27.4 hectares and the daily capacity is 34,000, the lowest of any Disneyland, which is precisely why it suits families with young children and anyone who wants a Disney day rather than a Disney campaign. You come for a park you can cover in one day, a handful of attractions that exist nowhere else, and the easiest theme-park transfer in Asia (a dedicated MTR line, covered under Visiting).

There are eight themed lands. Main Street, U.S.A., Fantasyland, Adventureland and Tomorrowland date from opening day; Toy Story Land, Grizzly Gulch, Mystic Point and the newest, World of Frozen, were added later, and a Marvel land called Stark Expo is still on the drawing board. The exclusives are what separate this park from Tokyo or Shanghai. Mystic Manor in Mystic Point is a trackless dark ride with a Danny Elfman score that swaps the Haunted Mansion’s ghosts for an enchanted music box and a mischievous monkey, a deliberate decision given Chinese attitudes to the afterlife, and it won the Themed Entertainment Association’s award for outstanding achievement in 2013. Iron Man Experience in Tomorrowland was the first Marvel attraction in any Disney park when it opened in 2017, and Adventureland is the largest of its kind in any Disney park.

At the top of Main Street stands the Castle of Magical Dreams, which replaced the original Sleeping Beauty Castle in 2020, is double its height, and pays tribute to 12 Disney princesses and two Frozen queens rather than a single character. The park is a joint venture between the Hong Kong government and the Walt Disney Company, split 52 to 48 in the government’s favour, and it is the most visited theme park in Hong Kong, ahead of Ocean Park. Attendance hit a record 7.9 million in 2024, and the resort recorded its first profit that year after nine consecutive years of losses.

History

Penny’s Bay was an undeveloped inlet, apart from the Cheoy Lee Shipyard that had operated there since the 1960s, when Disney proposed a Hong Kong park in 1998 and the Legislative Council approved funding in 1999. Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa drove the deal. The joint venture, Hong Kong International Theme Parks Limited, gave the government 57 percent and Disney 43 percent for an investment of US$316 million; dredging began in July 2000, and fish around Ma Wan died as a result of the reclamation.

Construction was quick by Disney standards. Ground was broken on 12 January 2003 once the reclamation was finished, the SARS outbreak that year slowed the work but cut costs by about HK$1 billion, and the tallest turret of Sleeping Beauty Castle was topped out on 23 September 2004. Feng shui consultants shaped the site: a bend was put into a walkway near the resort entrance so that good qi would not flow out into the South China Sea, incense was burned when each building was completed, one hotel ballroom measures 888 square metres because eight signifies fortune, and the hotels skip the number four when numbering floors. Around 500 of the opening team trained at Walt Disney World while their own park was being built, and cast members work in Cantonese, Mandarin and English.

The park opened on 12 September 2005, with Zeng Qinghong, then vice president of China, officiating. The first year went badly.

The answer was expansion, all of it outside the railroad loop to the south. Toy Story Land opened on 18 November 2011; Grizzly Gulch, the park’s stand-in for Frontierland, an abandoned mining town supposedly founded on 8 August 1888 (the luckiest day of the luckiest month of the luckiest year), followed on 14 July 2012; Mystic Point opened on 17 May 2013. Disney’s HK$3.63 billion investment in that 2009 expansion plan diluted the government’s stake to the 52 percent it holds now, and the resort turned its first profit in 2012.

A second wave was announced on 22 November 2016: HK$10.9 billion over several years for a rebuilt castle, a Frozen land and a Marvel area carved out of Tomorrowland. Iron Man Experience opened on 11 January 2017 and Ant-Man and The Wasp: Nano Battle! replaced Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters on 31 March 2019. Work on the castle started after the final Disney in the Stars fireworks on 1 January 2018 and was done during opening hours, with the Central Plaza dressed as 13 princess stories while the cranes worked; the Castle of Magical Dreams was declared open in November 2020 for the 15th anniversary.

COVID-19 closed the park four times between January 2020 and April 2022, the first closure alone lasting nearly five months. World of Frozen, originally due in 2020, opened on 20 November 2023 between It’s a Small World and Toy Story Land. The Marvel land is still unfinished: the planned Avengers Quinjet ride was cancelled at D23 in August 2024 in favour of an unnamed Spider-Man attraction, and a Pixar Entertainment Experience between Toy Story Land and World of Frozen was announced for the 20th anniversary in February 2025. The empty 60-hectare plot opposite the entrance, reserved for a second park, will stay empty for now: the government let Disney’s purchase option lapse in September 2020.

Visiting

Getting there

Take the Tung Chung line to Sunny Bay (from Hong Kong station in Central, or change from the Tsuen Wan line at Lai King if you start in Tsim Sha Tsui), cross to the platform opposite and board the Disneyland Resort line, a 3.5 km driverless shuttle that takes about six minutes. The trains have Mickey-shaped windows, couch seating and bronze statues of Mickey and Donald in the carriages; the first departs Sunny Bay at 06:15 and the last at 00:45. From Tsim Sha Tsui allow roughly an hour by public transport. On the way back you cross a footbridge at Sunny Bay to reach platform 2 for city-bound trains. By bus, R8 runs all day between the park and the Lantau Link toll plaza interchange, which every A- and E-prefixed airport bus serves as its first stop after the Tsing Ma Bridge; R33 to Tuen Mun and R42 to Tai Wai run on weekends and public holidays only, with one trip in each morning and one back about 20 minutes after the fireworks.

Tickets and hours

One-day tickets are priced by date. At the last check they ran from HK$669 on the cheapest tier to HK$939 on the top tier, and a two-day ticket cost HK$100 more than a one-day ticket, valid on consecutive days. Hours vary by date: 10:00 to 21:00 is the usual pattern, but confirm your day on the park calendar at hongkongdisneyland.com before you commit to an early train.

Inside the park

Main Street, U.S.A. (built mostly of wood, unlike its stone counterparts elsewhere, and with no horse-drawn streetcars) leads to the castle hub, where the forecourt stage hosts Disney Friends Live: Party at the Castle! several times a day. The rides that build the longest lines are Frozen Ever After, Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars, Hyperspace Mountain, RC Racer, Toy Soldier Parachute Drop, Jungle River Cruise and Mystic Manor, so go to those first and leave Tomorrowland’s Iron Man Experience and Ant-Man ride, which rarely queue long, for the afternoon. Live wait times are in the Hong Kong Disneyland app.

• World of Frozen (behind Fantasyland): Frozen Ever After boat ride, the Wandering Oaken’s Sliding Sleighs family coaster, and the Playhouse in the Woods interactive show; Golden Crocus Inn and Northern Delights for food.
• Fantasyland: Mickey’s PhilharMagic, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, It’s a Small World, character meets at Fantasy Gardens and the Mickey and the Wondrous Book stage show.
• Adventureland: Tarzan’s Treehouse on an island circled by the Jungle River Cruise, Festival of the Lion King in Theater in the Wild, and Moana: A Homecoming Celebration at Jungle Junction. Attractions are narrated in English and Cantonese; the cruise lives or dies on the guide’s patter.
• Toy Story Land: Slinky Dog Spin, Toy Soldier Parachute Drop and RC Racer among bamboo planted to read as giant blades of grass.
• Tomorrowland: Hyperspace Mountain (Space Mountain rethemed to Star Wars for the 10th anniversary), Iron Man Experience and Ant-Man and The Wasp: Nano Battle!.

The Friendtastic! parade, the largest in the park’s history with more than 100 performers and 11 floats, ran along Main Street at 13:00 and 17:15 at the last check. The day ends with Momentous: Party in the Night Sky, close to 30 minutes of projection across the whole castle and Main Street with fountains, flames, lasers and fireworks. Everyone heads for the exit the moment it finishes; the last train from Disneyland Resort station left at 00:40 at the last check, so there is no need to join the crush.

Tips

• Buy the Early Park Entry Pass rather than Premier Access. It admits you up to an hour before official opening to Frozen Ever After, Wandering Oaken’s Sliding Sleighs, Cinderella Carousel, Dumbo the Flying Elephant and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, which covers the worst queue in the park before it exists.
• Premier Access, the paid queue-skip, is only worth it on peak days. The three-attraction pass is limited to five attractions, and several of them (Iron Man, Ant-Man, It’s a Small World) rarely have long lines anyway.
• Tuesday to Thursday usually falls in the cheapest ticket tier. February sits in the upper tiers because of Lunar New Year; March is cheaper.
• December to April is the comfortable window, with temperatures of roughly 10 to 20°C; May to October is hot, humid and wet, so pack rain gear as well as sun protection.
• Bring a refillable bottle. Bottled water and soft drinks cost about HK$30 inside, popcorn HK$45, and there are drinking fountains throughout the park. You may bring small snacks and drinks in small plastic bottles; cans, glass, alcohol and anything that needs reheating are banned.
• For a sit-down meal with the widest choice, including children’s meals, the Banquet Hall in Fantasyland covers both Cantonese and American menus. Table-service options include Main Street Corner Cafe, Plaza Inn and Explorer’s Club Restaurant.
• Frozen households can book the Arendelle Royal Breakfast Buffet, which gets you into World of Frozen an hour early with Anna and Elsa present.
• Ask any cast member for a free birthday badge or first-visit button. Pin trading with the lanyard-wearing cast members is on, but you need to have bought a pin first.
• Resort hotel guests get a free shuttle to Disneyland Resort station and a priority entry lane at the gate, which on a busy morning is worth more than the room.

Nearby

Inspiration Lake Recreation Centre, a 15-minute walk from Disneyland Resort station or a stop on the R8 bus, is Hong Kong’s largest artificial lake at 12 hectares, dug to irrigate the resort. It has a 1,500-metre jogging trail, an arboretum, paddle boats and surrey bikes for hire, and it is free, 09:00 to 19:00 daily.

The three resort hotels sit on the shoreline facing the South China Sea with about 1,750 rooms between them: the 400-room, Victorian-styled Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel, the 600-room art deco Disney’s Hollywood Hotel, and the 750-room Disney Explorers Lodge, the largest, opened in 2017.

Tung Chung and Ngong Ping make the obvious second half of a Lantau day. Ride back to Sunny Bay and go one stop west; Sunny Bay to Tung Chung is roughly 10 km and about six minutes. The Ngong Ping 360 cable car connects to Tung Chung station and climbs 5.7 km in about 25 minutes to Po Lin Monastery and the Tian Tan Buddha. If the cable-car queue stretches downstairs, expect about two hours; going up by bus and riding the cable car down is the usual dodge.

Tai O, the stilt-house fishing village on Lantau’s western side, is New Lantau Bus 11 from Tung Chung. Storefronts sell salted fish and shrimp paste, residents run boat trips to look for Chinese white dolphins, and the old police station is now the nine-room Tai O Heritage Hotel, open since 2012.

Back in the city, Victoria Harbour is about an hour away by MTR for an evening on the waterfront.