Lines, lines, lines

Apparently there's a Disney Shanghai in the works, to be opened in 2015. I had toyed with the idea of holding off on my "year of Disney" so that Disney Shanghai's opening can be my last Disney park, but one thing stopped me. Lines. 

I don't have a particular aversion to lines. When I go with Heather we have a 20-minute limit our lines, guided by a variety of phone apps (which usually don't entirely agree with each other). We've got our strategy down to a science: rope drop, Fastpasses, pin trading during the busy hours. Lots and lots of walking. Last summer when we were there we averaged 12 miles a day. When I'm on my own or with friends I don't mind lines up to an hour, especially since the waiting areas are so well themed and so interesting to look at.

What shocked me was that in Japan, people were willing to wait for six hours in line for a single ride. Yep, you read that right. Six hours. 2012, opening of Toy Story Mania in Tokyo. Oh. My. God. 

Seriously - check out that standby time.

Now, if you've not been on it, Toy Story Mania is an amazing ride. You sit in little carts and snake through a 3-D midway of carnival games with your shooter that throws out rings, paint balls, darts, and everything else. There are Easter eggs in the ride for guests in the know, where you can wrack up record-breaking points if you know exactly what to shoot at, and when.

It's awesome. It's always the first ride we run to after rope drop, and the last ride we go on before heading home.

Is it 6 hours waiting worth of awesome? I'm not sure. But I sure as heck wasn't braving these crowds in Tokyo to check out the Japanese version of the ride.

Only three hours from this point!

The Japanese are great with lines and with crowds. They don't seem to mind it the way we do. Kids entertain themselves, people chat with each other. It's genteel. It's orderly. There's a slight buzz in the air. The point is to see it when everyone else sees it. Or, preferably, before everyone else sees it.

Apparently this massive crowd gathering happened when Tokyo Sky Tree, the tallest structure in Japan, opened. The entire population of Tokyo tried to get to it when it opened, leading to three-month wait times just to get in the tower. A friend of mine visiting relatives in Tokyo was put on a bus, driven around the Sky Tree (but not allowed in) and then driven to the Tokyo Tower consolation prize, where he could go up and look at the Sky Tree from the previous highest point in Tokyo.

Yep, Japanese people are tolerant of lines, and tolerant of crowds.

So how does this get back to Shanghai? Well, I'm Chinese, and while I've grown up here in the states there are a few things about my folks I've noticed. We've got all the need to see it first that the Japanese do, and we love an opening. But we don't really have a strong belief in lines. Or social order. Or waiting. It's like a massive, ONE BILLION PERSON free-for-all in China. In other words, I would be afraid for my life on Disney Shanghai opening day. 

I'm sure Disney's park planners are on top of this, and there are logistics in place to handle that massive crush of humanity. If there's one thing they're good at, it's crowd planning. The opening day of Disneyland Park was a disaster of extra people getting in with fake tickets, unruly crowds, and an unprepared park and cast. They've come a long way since those days. If you've never seen how quickly they can dissipate a thousand-person crowd, pay attention sometime when you get out of one of their shows. It's like magic. As nervous as I am about what that will be like in China, I'm really curious to see how far they've evolved in their crowd management, when it comes to managing the toughest crowd in the world.