Shanghai Disneyland

Shanghai Disneyland’s Enchanted Storybook Castle is the newest and tallest castle of any Disney Park around the world. Rather than representing a single Princess, this castle is the first to represent all of the Disney Princesses as evidenced by colorful mosaics and relief sculptures inside, distinctly shaped spires atop, and the theming of its Royal Banquet Hall. The overall architecture is Renaissance inspired (as opposed to Gothic-European architecture of the other castles) but also incorporates Chinese decorative elements. For example, a golden peony, the traditional floral symbol of China, tops off the highest point. Not only doesn’t this castle feature a restaurant (Royal Banquet Hall) where each room represents a different Princess story) but it has two attractions: “Once Upon a Time” Adventure, a walk-through attraction based on Disney’s first full-length animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (kind of like a high-tech, interactive version of the Sleeping Beauty Castle Walkthrough at Disneyland), and Voyage to the Crystal Grotto, a charming musical boat ride that winds around the castle and through the waterways underneath its massive structure. Be sure to take a look at the other iconic Disney Parks castles: Sleeping Beauty Castle (Disneyland Park) Sleeping Beauty Castle (Disneyland […]

Soaring Over the Horizon is a family attraction which gives the sensation of soaring like a bird across 13 different world-famous landmarks. The ride is based on Soarin’ Over California, an innovative attraction which debuted in 2001 in Disney California Adventure. This revamped version of the Soarin ride opened with Shanghai Disneyland on June 16, 2016. The next day, both Disney California Adventure’s version and Epcot’s version were updated to the new film and given the new name Soarin’ Around the World. Each version of this ride contains an exclusive fireworks finale scene. Another Soarin’, Soaring: Fantastic Flight opened in 2019 in Tokyo DisneySea. Queue Details Since this version of the ride exists in Shanghai Disneyland‘s Adventure Isle, a new story was developed to give the flying ride context within the new land. The queue is intended to be a cavernous celestial observatory for a fictional tribe of people called The Arbori. The tribes people dedicated the cavern to the sky guardian Q’otár, a condor-like bird which gives its shamans the ability to fly. The pre-show and safety spiel features one such shaman who shape-shifts into a bird and leads us to the ride. This unfortunately means that Patrick is […]