Shanghai Disneyland Park

Shanghai Disneyland is one of twelve Disney theme parks. It is located in Shanghai, China, in the sixth of the Disney company’s resorts to be constructed. At the time of its opening in 2016, it was among the largest of the Disney theme park complexes at 963 acres. The park is jointly owned by The Walt Disney Company and Shanghai Shendi Group, which is owned by the Chinese government. Its five-year construction time frame followed more than a decade of negotiation and planning and cost $5.5 billion USD.

The park’s design included multiple changes from usual Disney practices to accommodate the preferences of the company’s business partners and the Chinese culture. Some attractions were omitted or altered, while others unique to Shanghai Disneyland were added. It was designed by Disney personnel on multiple continents, working together virtually. Disney planned to incorporate some of the attraction designs and the technology used to create them at other Disney properties around the world.

Background

The first Disney theme park was Disneyland, which opened in Anaheim, California, on July 17, 1955. The $17 million park was built on 160 acres of land, one-eleventh the size of the Shanghai park. Later expansion added a second park, California Adventure. Walt Disney World Resort—also known as the Magic Kingdom—was completed in 1971 on 25,000 acres near Orlando, Florida, at a cost of $400 million USD. The complete Disney complex there also includes EPCOT Center, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

Disney’s first park outside of the United States was Tokyo Disneyland, which was completed in 1983. It was later expanded to become the Tokyo Disney Resort with the addition of its twin park, Tokyo Disney Sea. The parks sit on 115 acres to the east of Japan’s capital city of Tokyo and cost $2.5 billion USD.

The next Disney resort was Disneyland Paris. Opened in 1992, the park is on 1,700 acres in Chessy, France, and cost around $5 billion USD. It also includes Walt Disney Studios Park.

Hong Kong Disneyland was completed in 2005 at an estimated cost of $14.1 billion USD on 68 acres of land reclaimed on Lantau Island. It was constructed with the lowest guest capacity of any Disney theme park but with room to expand.

Disney also operates several resorts that do not include theme parks. These US attractions include Disney’s Vero Beach Resort in Florida, Disney’s Hilton Head Island Resort in South Carolina, and Disney’s Aulani Resort in Hawaii. The company also has cruise ship affiliations and Adventures by Disney, offering guided family vacations around the world.

Overview

Shanghai Disneyland opened on June 16, 2016, becoming the Disney company’s second resort in China but the first on the country’s mainland. Like many theme parks, it opened when partially complete and expanded as it added sections. Within the first seven years of operation, the park featured six themed areas: Mickey Avenue, Gardens of Imagination, Fantasyland, Treasure Cove, Adventure Isle, Tomorrowland. Toy Story Land and the City of Zootopia were added later. It has two onsite hotels, the luxury Disneyland Hotel and the family-friendly Toy Story Hotel.

In keeping with a practice started with the Hong Kong resort, Shanghai Disneyland was constructed with many differences from the other Disney theme parks. This was done in deference to Chinese culture and the preferences of Disney’s Chinese partners. Negotiating these differences was part of the reason planning took ten years before construction began. The Disney company generally has certain requirements, such as owning a controlling interest in the park and having the Disney television channel available as a promotional tool. Negotiating for permission to build Disney parks in China required the company to make some changes to these requirements. The Shanghai Shendi Group owns a controlling 57 percent of the park, and Disney Channel is not available in the country.

Certain attractions present in other Disney parks were considered inappropriate for China and were omitted from Shanghai Disney. Because of the country’s reverential view of deceased ancestors, the park has no Haunted Mansion. Train rides present in the American parks are also missing because the 1800s time period they represent is not seen as favorable in China.

The park does include a number of attractions not found at any other Disney park. In recognition of the importance of the zodiac to Chinese culture, each animal symbol of the Chinese zodiac is represented by a related Disney character in the Garden of Twelve Friends. The large displays, along with another unique feature, the walk-through Alice in Wonderland maze with a Mad Hatter tea party, provide selfie opportunities that appeal to visitors. The park also includes a large garden area to appeal to nature lovers and older park visitors.

Another unique feature of the park is Treasure Cove. This area houses a variation of the iconic Pirates of the Caribbean ride that uses screens, ride movements, and characters from the Disney movies by the same name to put visitors in the middle of a high-tech, enhanced pirate battle. The area also has Siren’s Revenge, a walk-through pirate ship that allows for more photo opportunities. The park caters to Chinese preferences with more live shows than are found in most Disney parks.

Shanghai Disneyland also debuted a ride called Tron Lightcycle Power Run, which replaces Space Mountain. Riders sit hunched forward on stylized illuminated cycles for a ride under a darkened canopy. The ride proved so popular that the company announced it would be incorporated into other Disney parks.

The Disney company used many lessons and techniques learned from its previous parks to build the Shanghai location. The Shanghai park has plenty of space to expand, which is not true of some other Disney parks. Disney also leveraged technology during the design process, using electronic tablets connected digitally with three-dimensional software to allow Disney Imagineers, as the company calls its engineers, to create life-size virtual representations of the park’s grounds, attractions, and hotels. The Imagineers were also able to work collaboratively from different countries on multiple continents.

Bibliography

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