Shanghai Disney in pictures: The Magic Kingdom in the Middle Kingdom
- Published
Ominous skies may have loomed over the Enchanted Storybook Castle for the resort's opening, but Disney will be hoping for a fairytale ending for their $5.5bn (£3.8bn) investment.
Even magic kingdoms need land for their castles and clean air for their princesses. Hundreds of local residents were evicted and dozens of local businesses closed or demolished to make way for the park and ensure its air was clear enough for Dumbo and friends to fly in.
It might be brand, spanking new but some Chinese netizens have complained that the resort's train is rather plain compared with its opposite numbers in places like Tokyo and Hong Kong, with their Mickey-shaped windows and sofa-like chairs.
Too bad the train designers didn't collaborate with the people behind this jolly locomotive inside the park.
Shanghai is a gourmet paradise, with world famous food at rock bottom prices. But as you are often reminded, you enter a different world when you step into the land of Mickey and co, one in which the magic comes at a price and often with ketchup. Pricey or not, it is a fair guess this little one thinks critics of the food are just culinary snobs.
It's not all hot dogs though. The park has plenty of more "Chinese" dining options too, such as Peking duck pizza, eel on rice and even teahouses.
Disney boss Bob Iger has stressed the resort is "authentically Disney, distinctly Chinese". Gone is Main Street USA, in is Mickey Avenue, which like other thoroughfares in the resort is wider because "when Chinese families come to Disney they come with both sets of grandparents", a company representative told the Financial Times.
But despite a concerted effort to make the park as Chinese as possible, and with a mostly Chinese staff, the Disney cartoons themselves are still not exactly known for an abundance of non-white characters.
Localised or not, the experience is still authentically Disney, right down to the queues. Though this shot was for the opening of the brand's first official store in Shanghai in May.
It may have been nearly two decades in the making but the diggers can't take a break just yet - work has already begun to expand the park, Disney says.
Disney won't be able to rest on its Shanghai laurels. It will be going head-to-head with the newly-opened Wanda theme park in Nanchang, owned by the country's richest man. Claiming to be more authentically Chinese, it offers twirling "porcelain teacup rides", bamboo forests and what is claimed to be the world's largest ocean park.
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