When Hong Kong Disneyland opened in 2005 it was by far the smallest Disney park. Opening with just 22 attractions [ehow.com] compared with 44 in Paris, 45 in Florida and Tokyo, and 65 in California, the first impression of the park was underwhelming. Since then they’ve added a number of new rides and the park is slowly catching up in size with the other parks. In 2011 they opened Toy Story Land.
Toy Story Land is similar to Toy Story Playland opened at Walt Disney Studios Park near Paris. The area is surrounded by tall bamboo meant to look like grass and is themed to make you believe that you’re toy sized. Giant versions of familiar toys are everywhere.
There are three main rides in Toy Story Land. The largest of the three is the RC Racer ride, a giant U-shaped ride meant to look like a Hot Wheels track. Starting in the middle, the ride car goes forward up once side and backwards up the other, progressively going higher and higher on each pass through the loading station until you get to the very top. It’s not a particularly fast ride and the wide curve doesn’t give you much of a drop sensation but you do get some very nice hang time on each pass.
If a dropping sensation is what you’re looking for, the Toy Soldier Parachute Drop may be more to your liking. While it’s got more of a drop feeling than the RC Racer, the ride is meant for all ages and the drops are not overly menacing.
Surprisingly, the ride that seems the most tame is actually the one that I found the most wild. The Slinky Dog Spin is a Tilt-a-Whirl type ride with ride cars built into a giant Slinky Dog chasing its own tail in a circle. The bumps in the track aren’t very large, but the seats are wide enough to seat 3 and use only one giant lap bar per car so centrifugal force sends you sliding towards the outside while you go up and down.
This new area of the park also has a couple of meet and greet areas to take pictures with characters as well as a food stand that sells Pizza cones which are exactly what they sound like. They’ve done a great job with theme and there are loads of great details to explore including these great popsicle stick benches. I was very tempted to see if they had any residual popsicle flavor but quickly realized that actually licking the bench would be a bad idea. You have to admit they look real enough to imagine that woody, fruity, sugary taste that you tried to suck out of the stick when you were a kid.
Overall this is a great addition to the littlest Disney park and goes a little way into making Hong Kong Disneyland a bigger destination. Grizzly Gulch and Mystic Point lands are scheduled to open in 2012 and 2013 respectively. By the time they finish those expansions I expect that any complaints about the lack of attractions will be a distant memory.
This post was submitted to Travel Photo Thursday [budgettravelerssandbox.com], Friday Daydreaming [rwethereyetmom.com], and Photo Friday [deliciousbaby.com]
Makes me feel like a kid again!
Toy Story Land sounds like a lot of fun! I’ve been to Disneyland Paris when it first opened and it was kind of underwhelming too… I might get a chance to see the one in Orlando this year and am looking forward to it.
Do you have an iron stomach?? I don’t think I could do more than one ride. Love your shot of the Parachute Drop. It would do me in for sure.
I’m a big thrill ride fan, although I’m becoming more prone to dizzyness as the years go by.
Toy Story Land does look like a lot of fun! We’ve been to Disney World in Florida, Disneyland in California, and Disneyland in Paris. My younger daughter thinks that visiting all the Disney parks would be an appropriate goal. 🙂
You can’t miss DisneySea in Tokyo, by far the best Disney park anywhere!
Interesting! I’m in the middle of watching “Toy Story 3” and used to play for hours with Lincoln Logs when I was a kid.
This would be awesome to see! I loved the Toy Story movies, although I’m not a huge fan of cartoons. 🙂
isn’t that cute!
Looks like a fun and interesting place for kids of all ages
Love these photos! Will be showing this to my son – he loves Toy Story. This looks so cool! Wish they had this in CA. Just saw your comment on Disney Sea above – totally agree!
I love how the benches were made to look not only like Popsicle sticks, but also because they still have the stains from the juice. Pure Disney, not missing a detail.
When I was last in HK in November, the harbour was decorated with Toy Story Christmas decorations. Loved it! But had I known there was a whole Toy Story LAND at the park, I would have skipped Lantau and gone there instead!
You can show me all the beautiful pictures of a place that you’d like (and you have some really nice ones here) but all you had to say to get me to plan a visit was “pizza cones”. Must try!
Nice work resisting licking the bench. It does kind of scream out for it doesn’t it?
Thanks for sharing it with us – it looks awesome – and I love the detail – I could totally picture myself sucking the juice out of the stick – I still do that now!!!
Thank you for linking up today! Have a super weekend!
You won’t find me on the Hot Wheels ride, but I’d like to see the giant Lincoln Logs.
The line-up for the Slinky Dog ride actually goes right through the cabin.
My son loved looking at the pictures. It reminds me of the bugs land area at Disneyland.
I will try to load the rest of the pictures up to Flickr sometime soon!
Looks like a fun place to spend a day. I’m not sure how my stomach would handle those rides!
I didn’t even know that there was a new Disney in Hong Kong. Toy Story Land looks like fun.
Love the popsicle stick bench!
This is terrific! A dream come true for little boys!