CHINA: Shanghai Disneyland

As the countdown to the official opening of Shanghai Disneyland has started, crowds of visitors already flocked to the Magic Kingdom area this weekend. With huge advance ticket sales and excessively priced drinks, Disney is ready to bring in the big money.

The Shanghai Disney theme park is not opening until next month but is already attracting thousands of visitors. When the official Shanghai Disneyland subway opened on April 28, the first batch of curious visitors streamed in to take a look at the park’s area, which was partially opened up with shops and stalls.

According to Sina, news about the area’s open part rapidly began to spread, with more visitors coming to see it.

Tourists soon found out that Disney was charging them magically high prices, with drinks and snacks sold at the resort being up to five times the normal price. QQ writes that beverages were sold for 15 RMB (2.3$). Some Weibo netizens complained about high parking prices.

Shanghai Disneyland has also already been making money with its ticket sales, that started on March 28. People were so eager to buy a ticket that the website momentarily crashed.

On the Alitrip website alone, there were 48,000 tickets sold in one day. Peak-day tickets are priced at 499 RMB (77$), regular tickets are 370 RMB (57$). Preparations for Shanghai Disneyland’s grand opening have been underway for 7 years.

In November 2009, the Shanghai government first announced the construction of Disneyland in Shanghai, that started in April of 2011. Shanghai Disneyland has become a hot topic on Sina Weibo, where the resort already has 560,000 fans on its official Weibo account.

Apart from sharing pictures of the Disney area, many netizens talk about Disney’s high prices. Although most Weibo users think the prices are too steep, some think it is normal: “If you go to other scenic spots, you’ll also pay 10 RMB for a small bottle of water.”

One netizen complains: “I went to see Shanghai Disneyland today. They charged 15 RMB for a bottle of icetea. It was all so expensive and there were so many people – there are just too many rich people nowadays.”