April 11, 2016

Pirates Planned for Hong Kong Disneyland Before Shanghai

Long before Shanghai Disneyland was a glimmer in Robert Iger's mind, Pirates of the Caribbean was actually scheduled to go into Hong Kong Disneyland

If you've been on the blog here awhile, you know I've already posted another piece that shows the proposed Adventureland addition, but here's another. But here it is again, below. And a few more after that!


As with most of Hong Kong Disneyland, the setting for the attractions is some of the most beautiful landscape ever created by God. The natural hills, the sea, and the general sense of lush serenity make the first China park one of the prettiest- even if it is the smallest of all Magic Kingdoms. 


Proposed Pirates ride with Splash Mountain ending attraction
for Hong Kong's Pirate Coast land.

Certainly, once the Chinese government got involved, they determined the Shanghai park would have to eclipse the older sister. They couldn't really let an ex-British colony have the best of the best. What the smaller park did get, however, was a charming version of It's A Small World (which you'll never see in Shanghai) and a state of the art Mystic Manor- the envy of theme park fans worldwide.





Even more Pirate Coast art!

The Imagineers are quite the creative bunch, aren't they? The concepts they come up with and the art they create are often masterpieces all their own. I can only imagine what is left in the vaults for us to discover...

(Art copyright The Walt Disney Company.)

2 comments:

Terry said...

1/ Adventureland in HK is one of the most immersive theme lands Disney has ever done. However apart from Jungle and Lion King there are no other major attractions.
2/ Mystic Manor surely is a nice attraction but that's not enough. HKDL needs something that has elaborate queues and large show scenes (e.g. Indy and Pirates)
p.s. It's a Hong Kong park not a Chinese park. It's located in Hong Kong and run by Hongkongers not Chinese.

Mark said...

Thank you, Terry, for your thoughts on this post. I always enjoy reading responses. Thanks for reading!