Hong Kong Disney

The reason so many friends were in town for Thanksgiving was Hong Kong Disneyland! Their kids had school off for the holiday and HK is only a short flight away. The perfect excuse for us to join in the fun and let Jade experience Disney's magic!



Disneyland really is magical. The last time Cody and I had been there was actually for our honeymoon, 6+ years ago. It was so much fun to go again as a family. The whole day was amazing.

Perfect weather...
A happy child...
And lots and lots of time together as a family.

Although we did decide it may have been even more fun if Jade actually knew some of these characters.
She knows some of them like Mickey & crew and a bunch of the princesses from books and a handful of others from the few Disney movies she's seen, but she certainly doesn't know a lot of them. Oh, well. I think she had fun anyway.
In fact we decided this IS the perfect age to take her to Disneyland. She is old enough to walk on her own, she is entertained by everything (whether she knows the characters or not), she understands waiting her turn in line (with lots of reminders and distractions, although I'm still not saying she didn't get impatient), yet she's small enough to ride in the stroller when she's tired, and young enough to not have an opinion about what she wants to have or do. She was very content following mommy and daddy around from place to place. We enjoyed it very much, because I'm sure next time she'll probably have more of a [demanding] say in what she wants.

Cody's favorite part of the park was Adventureland.
He thinks he should have been born 100 years earlier, so he could be an explorer.
All I wanted to do was see the shows. Hong Kong Disneyland is actually much, much smaller than California's. We were able to see and do just about everything in one day. And lucky for us, Disneyland had started its Christmas celebrations that week. A great way to kick-off the season!
Thought these guys were super fun.
Also loved the tribute to Hong Kong in "It's a Small World."

Loved the lighting of the tree and the "snow." I'll be honest it was so beautiful and felt so much like America, I was a little bit teary eyed. I LOVE YOU, DISNEY!!!
Of course the night ended with fireworks at the princess castle. Awesome.

To see gobs and gobs of more pictures, click here.


PS You have a few days left to enter the drawing for a Christmas present from Hong Kong (deadline is December 9th). Click here to leave a comment on the Christmas card post to enter to win [something so great, I've considered keeping it for myself].