A Delightful Disney Day Two!

After having our high-hopes-for-Disney-bubbles burst on Day One, we started Day Two at 6.45 am with moderated expectations.

Sophie’s a great morning person and she was poking us to get up for breakfast bright and early in the morning.  We had signed up for the Disney Character Breakfast at the Enchanted Garden Restaurant where you’re served an international buffet and as a huge bonus, you get an opportunity to meet selected Disney characters.  We opted for the 7:30 am – 9:00 am seating to give us ample time to make it to the Park by 10:30 am for its opening.

Sophie was decked out in Minnie Mouse gear (hair clip included) and in her best behaviour all morning as she waited excitedly to meet Mickey Mouse.  This, she said, was what she was going to show Mickey when he came to our table:

Midway into the buffet spread at 8 a.m., there were sudden loud shrieks across the room and we turned to the doorway to look – Goofy, Pluto, Daisy and Mickey were bounding into the buffet hall and waving at everyone! From that point, I was unable to properly enjoy the buffet – I didn’t want to get up to get more food in case I missed any of the characters coming by our table.  Oh… and Sophie was super thrilled too! 🙂

She was SO HAPPY to take a photo with Daisy Duck ALL BY HERSELF! The Disney staff accompanying the characters were very helpful and took pictures with our cameras with a good number of permutations – there was Sophie by herself + character, Sophie with mommy + character, everyone + character, Sophie, Mommy and Zaza + character and Zaza and husband + character…. Well, you get the picture.  It was a very efficient process so that every single table (and there must have been at least 50 tables if not more) would get a chance to meet the 4 characters.

Daisy Duck ended up to be one of Sophie’s favourite character at breakfast because she looked positively pretty and was the only girl character to turn up at breakfast.

Even though she smiled in both photos, Sophie was actually terrified of Goofy. Perhaps he was a little too tall, and didn’t have pretty pink and purple colours on him! She kept saying, “No goofee, I don’t want goofee to come here.” So Mommy made sure she stood between Goofee and Sophiee so that she wouldn’t feel so intimidated.

Last to arrive at our table was the Mouse himself!  We waited quite awhile and throughout the wait, Sophie insisted on watching Mickey take photos with other tables and would laugh in excitement.  When he finally made it to our section, Sophie chirped, “OH Mickey is here, I must hide my blanket now!!!”  Not only did she hide her blanket, but she stood on the chair and waved her Minnie Mouse doll to show him even as he stood 2 tables away!

Sophie waving her Minnie Mouse doll to show Mickey as he came closer to our table! 

With the Mouse himself

It was such a high for all of us! I’ve been to WDW 3 times and have never been able to snag a character breakfast! After the breakfast high ended at 9 am, we had a bit of fun in the hotel maze in the wonderful cool Hong Kong weather as we only had to leave for the Park at 10 am.

We managed to get on a rather crowded 10 am shuttle to Disneyland HK and were pleasantly surprised to learn they were letting people into the Main Street early.

We were held on Main Street in front of the castle to watch an opening ceremony.  There were masses of people in front of us by the time we made it to the opening ceremony so I couldn’t see what was going on and all I could catch was a glimpse of Belle and Sleeping Beauty.  I jumped and shrieked for my husband to get closer so Sophie (who was sitting on his shoulder) could see her favourite princess, Belle!  As the ropes dropped and as everyone started running towards the rides, we decided to follow the princesses instead as they walked towards the Castle, hoping to get a photo op. And boy were we lucky!!!  We managed to get in line with only 6 others in front of us to take a picture with Belle AND Sleeping Beauty Together!!

Sophie had finally become an ecstatic little lemming and was pacing to and fro, went to hide her blanket (again) and couldn’t stop smiling and shrieking and pointing at the princesses!  All this at just 2 years old – I was such a proud Aunt!  When it got to Sophie’s turn, she was just starstruck and stared in awe at the two of them.  The amazing part about HK Disneyland was that however long any queue was, each of the princesses took time to chat to her, asking her her name and age and calling her a little princess for the day! It was every little girl’s dream come true.

Sophie was so shy but she soon warmed up and in the photo below, you can see her animatedly trying to tell them something about herself! Meet three of Disney’s princesses!

In case you’re wondering where the princesses can be found, I’ve taken a photo of Snow White’s Grotto which is in between the queue for Belle & Sleeping Beauty and the queue for Rapunzel:

After a photo with Belle & Sleeping Beauty, we realised Rapunzel was hidden further inside and just had to get in queue again for another absolutely pretty photo op! Like the other 2 princesses, Rapunzel was all smiles. She compared Sophie’s hair ribbons with her own and her chatting made Sophie feel at ease!

Below: This would’ve been a prettier shot without the blanket but the smile says it all, doesn’t it?

After Rapunzel, we decided that it was the right time for a ride.  We got into queue for Autopia – a ride where children can steer a car in a track.  We thought Sophie might want to steer the car but she preferred Papa to drive so the 3 of them SQUEEZZEEED into the car and went down the track.

By the time we finished the Autopia ride, it was close to 11.20 am and at whichever Disney we’re at, we have a practice of eating before mealtimes to avoid the crowds.  Since HK Disneyland is the only Disneyland where you can find yummy Chinese food, Carol, Mark & Sophie parked themselves at Comet Cafe whilst my husband and I went for Space Mountain.  Space Mountain is traditionally the scariest / fastest ride in Disneyland although for me, the ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter in WDW (it’s now closed) was the worst and scariest attraction in any Disneyland I’d ever been too.

But I digress. Back to Space Mountain. There was a just 5-minute queue when we were there and we didn’t even need to use Disney’s Fastpass! For me, the scary factor of a ride would depend on (i) how many people the coaster can sit, and (ii) how I’m strapped down.  This space mountain had a pull down handle over your leg which was a signal to me that the coaster probably didn’t go very fast or high.  Each train could hold 12 people sitting in pairs. Great! I find it more comforting to have someone or many people sit next to me on a rollar coaster! But all that didn’t really do very much as HK Space Mountain was a bit of a letdown. It was a short ride, there wasn’t much of a climb or a drop, and I felt more carsickness than adrenalin when being swung from side to side with flashing lights in my face.  (Digressing again, of the 4 Space Mountains I’ve sat on, the one in Paris Disneyland is the fastest and fiercest! Instead of being slowly pulled up a lift hill, you are rapidly launched into the spectacularly themed mountain within a giant cannon and there are 3 loops in the dark!). Decided I didn’t really need a high speed adrenalin rush for this trip so we stopped for a duck rice / beef brisket noodle lunch which was really quite good by any theme park standards!

After lunch, we wandered out of Tomorrowland right into Snow White and what a beautiful princess she was!

Whoopeee! After 4 princesses, we went looking for Minnie Mouse (undoubtedly Sophie’s favourite Disney character) and grabbed another photo opportunity with Mickey.  I got that warm and fuzzy feeling when I saw how excited Sophie was whilst in queue 🙂 It was turning out to be a G-R-E-A-T day!

Since the day had gone SO WELL, we thought we would continue on and head to the Jungle River Cruise except, after the “Mickey High”, Sophie (who was WAY past her naptime) finally gave up and literally crashed onto her pram.

With Sophie sleeping, we trotted to Adventureland and joined the English tour queue (there was also Putonghua and Cantonese queues) for the Jungle River Cruise.  After the ride, we had 15 minutes to dash back to the Golden Mickeys at Disney’s Storybook Theatre.  The musical show was recommended on Mother, Inc so I thought we shouldn’t miss it.  We ended up running back to Fantasyland and squeezed in at the end of the queue of the 1.45 pm show.  That was lucky because the next show was at 4 pm and we wanted to leave for HK island before that.

As the show started, Sophie was startled by the music and woke up and immediately started clapping her hands!  She really loves music, that she does!  I’m glad she got to watch live performances of songs from classic Disney films. We watched excerpts from “You’ve got a Friend in Me” from Toy Story, “Under the Sea” from The Little Mermaid, “I’ll Make a Man out of you” from Mulan, “Out There” from Notre Dame, “Son of Man” from Tarzan, “Hawaiian Rollar Coaster Ride” from Lilo & Stitch, “Something There” and “Beauty & the Beast” from Beauty and the Beast and “When you wish upon a Star” from Pinocchio.  Loved these Disney songs.

We thought we would slowly make our way to the photo store (we must have had over 30 pictures taken by the Disney staff) and head back to HK island but we got waylaid by the Mickey waffles on our way there.  They were so yummy that we chomped them down even before I could get a photo of it!  Just as we were finishing with our waffles, the parade started!  This time, we got clever.  😛 After a day of princesses, it was pretty obvious what Sophie was interested in.  So we waited til the floats stopped for a dance segment with children from the audience and walked over briskly to the princesses’ swan float.  Sophie had a grand 10 minutes of waving at the 4 princesses and this is her so enthralled by the princesses that she refused to turn around for a photo:

The day had gone just PERFECTLY!  Well maybe not quite, because this was really my original timetable and as you can see, I didn’t get to squeeze in quite as many rides as I would have liked:

But, I couldn’t have asked for more.  Sophie’s first Disney holiday was a success and I could now call Kong Kong and gloat. 🙂  Here’s a final pic of the 4 of us with Mickey:

Bye Mickey Mouse! See you next time!

x, Audrey