AVATAR-Inspired Land At Disney’s Animal Kingdom

How exciting to know Disney Animal Kingdom in Orlando is expanding! Word has it that the attraction will open in 2017. Time to start planning!

Disney Parks Annual Christmas Day Parade 2013

I consider myself a die hard Disney parks fan, having visited most of the Disney parks scattered around the world. To me, there is something just magical about the place and there are special memories I remembered from my very first trip when I was 11 years old to the parks in Orlando. Do you know I still have the Minnie Mouse that my parents bought for me when i was 11? So it's over 20 years old....vintage no?

As I grew up and got married, I've even indoctrinated my hubby and now my little girl to the magic of Disney or is it the obsession of Disney :)

If you didn't know it before, every year Disney puts together a pretty awesome Disney Parks Christmas Day Parade televised on US tv on Christmas day. The show is put together and filmed at both Disneyland Anaheim and Disney World Orlando. Ok, so there's a lot of self promoting within the show itself, like from time to time they'll cut to scenes of someone talking about the Disney Cruise, or talking about the new Disney resort in Hawaii, and we all know it's pretty much a huge advertisement for Disney, but it is an entertaining show none the less and one that must be watched if you consider yourself a true Disney fan. And of course by the end of it you'll feel like going to their website and booking your next holiday there (subliminal messages perhaps?).

If you're not in the US, here is the youtube video of the parade.

Here's something extra if you're planning a trip to WDW Orlando in the near future.

5D Hong Kong Family Fun with ASA Holidays 11-17Dec 2012

We don't often travel on a group tour package and to be honest, perhaps this was a bit of a mistake as Hong Kong is easy enough to navigate on your own. But we were at the Natas fair and was lured by the fact that this tour was more like a half tour and half free and easy and most importantly with no compulsory 'souvenir' shopping ( you know those gem shops or whatever they usually like to bring tourists to ).

Day 1
Best thing about this package was we got to fly on SIA A380 plane which we'd never done before and had we booked it ourselves we probably would've taken a different airlines....because it would've been cheaper.

Look, festive deco on the plane...nice touch :)

There were only 3 other families on the tour group with us, so it was relatively small. And because it was school holidays and because the itinerary focused on going to Disneyland and Ocean Park there were a few children among us.

Upon arrival in HK airport, we had no idea where to find our local guide because we weren't told where the meeting place was. We just assumed there'd be someone standing around with a flag or sign or something, but it took us a little while to find and realise it was on the other side of the airport. Not cool because we didn't want to start off our trip as being one of 'those' people that are always late for the meet ups. We hoped no one thought of it like that....Anyway after we grouped together we were taken to our coach which would ferry us to Hollywood Hotel at HK Disneyland. We were lucky enough that we could check in to our rooms straight away, the tour leader did all the work of checking us in while we stood around (all the while I was thinking hurry hurry hurry so we could go to Disney already). We arrived around 2.30-3 at the hotel. 

This is the second time we've stayed at this hotel and it never disappoints us.  The first time we stayed here we had a room that overlooked the carpark but you could also see the fireworks at night from our room. This time the tour upgraded us all to a seaview room with was very nice (of course).

Bathroom amenities included paper cups with a mickey covering which we took home....

Good quality stuff...H20 brand toiletries! Too bad the bottles aren't refillable though like they were previous time.

Pantry/kitchenette with a functioning mini fridge. 

The view we woke up to from our room. 

After we freshened ourselves, we quickly dashed to the catch the shuttle to Disneyland. That's one of the things that irks me about this Disney property is that it's situated very far from the park itself. Which means the only way to get there is by their shuttle bus - which can get really crowded and more waiting...

Managed to catch the parade when we got to the park. 

We were a bit worried we'd run out of time to do everything because we were so pushed for time as is usually the case when you travel with a tour group. We had a two day ticket, but it was more like a day and a half since that day we got in at 3pm and then the next day we had to leave by 5pm. You really need to plan your time well and read the maps and attraction timings so you don't miss anything or at least figure out what you might be willing to miss out. Included in our package was a free meal voucher, which we could use at 2 dining locations in the park, which made it a pretty good deal.

The fireworks at the end of the night is a MUST SEE at any disney park. It's always beautiful to see and is synchronised to great Disney music. One thing I'd like to point out is the castle is just not as pretty as other parks in the US during Xmas. At Disneyland park in the US the castle has beautiful fairly lights strewn all around. See below pic.

The castle at Disneyland Park Anaheim. Much prettier for the holidays.

Day 2

Day 2 was back at the park. Breakfast isn't included in our package, so if you took this package you either have the option to dine at the hotel or maybe just go to the park and eat once you're inside. We planned ahead and bought cup noodles from home because we didn't want to spend too much time at the Breakfast buffet because we rather sleep in nor did we want to feel hunger pangs while we waited for the bus to get to the park. 

Second day was more or less the same stuff. This year we loved going on the Runaway Minecars coaster ride at the newly opened Grizzly Gulch land at the park. Loved it so much that we got to on it 3 times :) Even my 6 year old loved it!

The new runaway minecars ride at Grizzly Gulch

Bye Bye till next time!

At 5pm we had to gather with the other tour members to transfer us to Regal Riverside Hotel in Shatin which was our home for the next 3 nights. After a 5 star stay at the Hollywood Hotel, our new hotel was a bit of an eyesore. Our room on the 7th floor was very old and dated and just not comfortable enough to call home. But since it was part of our tour package, we didn't stay here by choice nor would we stay here again if given the choice. The place is just too in the middle of nowhere for visitors that want to experience all that HK has to offer. If you're going on your own, stay at Kowloon side, it's way better. Dinner that night was on our own, but  not a problem since there were a few eateries nearby.

Regal Riverside Hotel - non plush bedding and dated room. On the plus side the room is very big for HK standard.

coffee and tea making facilities with clean kettle was also a plus. But the mini fridge underneath wasn't working at all....boooo....

At first glance the bathroom is ok, clean and the usual amenities.

But what is all those stains near the drain?? Rusty drain?

The night view outside the window was nice. 

And this is the day view outside the window. 

Day 3

Today was Ocean Park day. We had a 7am wake up call and breakfast was at 8am. Breakfast was included in the package, it was Dim Sum at the nearby restaurant. Epic disappointment...the food just was not good at all...it was passable....but you expected better dim sum from the land of dim sums!

Big spread.....mediocre taste. There were 7 adults on our table, and that porridge was way too much, only finished half of it.

I've had better Siu Mai and Har Gao in Singapore....

It only took about 40 minutes from our hotel to Ocean Park. Traffic wasn't too bad, but on bad days the tour guide said it would take 45mins - 1 hour.

It had been a very long time since I last visited Ocean Park. The whole park has changed, but evenso, I guess after visiting Disneyland, Ocean Park feels rather dated. And there was way too many people in there. The wait time for the Cable Car ride, a must do there, was 45 mins. Most people would get the cable car going up in the morning, so what I'd do is to take the express train instead and then take the cable car down in the morning. 

As usual, the day felt rushed, the kids didn't have enough time to play all the rides because we had to go to a scheduled lunch at the Neptune Restaurant inside the aquarium. If you have big kids and little kids, you might have to separate because the big kids rides are on the other mountain where you have to take cable car or the train and the little kids ones are nearer the entrance. 

Great that there was no crowd watching the Panda.

Great dining experience at Neptune Restaurant. 

Mushroom soup at Neptune Restaurant

Grilled Chicken with rice at Neptune Restaurant

Salmon with spaghetti.....not too good....very bland.

The revolving tower ride is a good way to see the whole park from up high. 

the 'must-do' cable car ride

So we were then picked up at 5.30pm to go to our dinner (included in the package). Dinner was somewhere in the city. Food was...eh...ok...typical chinese dishes.

Day 4

Today was a free day for everyone. We started off with a local breakfast of porridge and chee cheong fan near our hotel. It was good and cheap. After that we decided to go shopping for the day at Tsim Sha Tsui. To get to Tsim Sha Tsui from our hotel, we took a taxi to Sha Tin station then took the MTR - but it wasn't direct and we still needed to transfer somewhere in between. This is why it's not so great to stay at Shatin if you're in HK for shopping unless you plan to spend all your time at the shopping centre in Shatin. 

We joined the optional city tour which we decided to join because our kid was having fun with the other kids who were also going on the city tour, so we thought why not. But unfortunately we felt it was just not worth it. The tour included a roast goose dinner, a trip to the walk of stars at Victoria Harbour, a trip to the Peak and entrance to the Madam Tuseaud Museum, price was HKD360 per adult. I'll tell you why it wasn't a satisfying tour, dinner was alright, food was pretty much the same as what we had above except there was a plate of roast goose rather than chicken. Then the bus came late because of traffic jam and it was because of this that we were rushed from one location to the next. We also didn't know that going up the peak we wouldn't be taking the peak tram which is a wonderful experience on its own. Our tour bus took us all the way to the top (we should've known though), but it wasn't entirely bad seeing as there was a crazy line for going back down the peak on the tram. Once we got to the peak, we only got to take a photo from one of the lookout points, and not to the very top floor of the peak where you'd get a perfect unblocked view of the city. This is usually extra entrance fee though. Then because of the late bus, we were only given 40 mins to tour the wax museum which is definitely not enough time at all! So disappointing as we couldn't slowly walk around and take proper photos and have fun.

The only lookout point we could take pictures from. Was a bit crowded. The tour guide hyped it up saying it's the best vantage point to take a photo from. 

Mr Wax

Favourite picture from Victoria Harbour

This tour ended really late, we were so tired, only got back to the hotel after 11pm.

Day 5
On the last day, we used our free breakfast voucher. We had hoped it would've been a buffet or something.....but sadly it was just a simple continental breakfast....ham, scrambled eggs, sausage and bread.

Checkout time was 12pm, and we didn't want to hang around the hotel and waste our time. So we checked out first and left our luggage at the hotel and went back to Shatin shopping centre to explore. If you're staying at Shatin, it's worth checking out especially if you have kids, there's a Snoopy World play area on the roof top.

So that was our packaged tour part of the trip. We did an extension on our own including separate hotel at Hotel Panorama by Rhombus which was so much better. It's very unlikely we'll go back to HK on another package tour....just wouldn't make sense.

Food at Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea

Food at Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea is not incredibly expensive, comparable to most theme parks around the world. In general the food we had was pretty good. And don't forget the flavoured popcorns!

Cute drinks vending machine at Tomorrowland.....the only one in the park. Same price as the carts vendors tho.

Lemon Churro....not very nice.....cinnamon better

Soy Sauce and Butter Popcorn

from Pan Galactic Pizza Port at Tomorrowland. This was terrible! The bread was stale and was filled with strawberry jam. Came with potato chips and choice of drink. You can get the same lunch box at Toon Town with better choices!

Foot Long Hot Dog

The Tortilla Sandwich and Smoked Turkey Leg was good. Terriyaki Chicken not so good. 

Pretzel with Sweet Cream Cheese filling....not so yummy