Hong Kong Disney is Open

Walt Disney's newest theme park opened today on Lantau Island, about a 30-minute subway ride from downtown Hong Kong.

Plans to build Hong Kong Disneyland were unveiled in 1999 and now, seven years later, the $1.8 billion project is complete, the place is feng shui and the doors are open. The placement of every building, stream and waterfall within the park was carefully planned out, and even the date was picked because it is a lucky one in the Chinese tradition. Officials also paid special attention to Asian culinary customs, making sure that menus were respectful of traditions and offered a wide variety of local favorites, like dim sum, beef noodle soup and roast duck. (They changed their mind about the shark fin soup though.) A different part of cultural preparation included a visit by over 500 Hong Kong natives to Orlando earlier this year to get their crash course training in the "language of Disney".

Hong Kong Disney is the smallest Disney theme park (310 acres) but also the cheapest among the global parks. The park expects to welcome 5.6 million visitors in its first year, with a daily maximum capacity of 30,000. Of course, it is already sold out for today :-)

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