All You Need to Know About Staying at Hong Kong Disney Resort + Tips and Tricks!

Staying at a Hong Kong Disney Resort hotel adds extra magic to your trip. Here’s what to expect, plus tips to help you make the most of your stay!

Hollywood Hotel is the most affordable of the three, but it sure doesn’t skimp on the glamour. Sporting an art deco theme, you’ll find animation sketches and concept artwork splashed on the hotel’s walls.

This is actually our favourite hotel to stay at with kids in tow, as it’s the only hotel with a large mural in the (Disney- or Marvel-themed) rooms. In the summer, kids will love the pool’s water slide, as well as the outdoor playground.

Explorers Lodge

Explorers Lodge dares travellers to take a walk on the wild side with a rustic animal safari theme. Due to its popularity, Explorers Lodge is often the most crowded hotel. The rooms here are the largest compared to the other two hotels’; it’s also the only hotel to have the sink outside the bathroom. 

The Disney-themed decoration in the room, however, is lacking; you’ll only find two carvings of Mickey and Minnie on the bedheads. P.S. There’s a water slide here too! 

Disneyland Hotel

Exuding an opulent Victorian vibe, Disneyland Hotel is the most classic of the lot. It’s also the most expensive! For an extravagant vacation, splash out on the Kingdom Club suite, or the special Cinderella- or Frozen-themed suite. All three hotels’ outdoor pools close in the winter, but its indoor pool stays nice and heated. You’ll also find a maze on the hotel grounds, which offers great fun for kids.

Granted that staying at a Hong Kong Disney Resort Hotel might not give you early entry like its Shanghai and Tokyo hotel counterparts, but it sure makes up for it with lots of other perks. Here’s what you can enjoy when you stay onsite, plus some tips and tricks for a little extra pizazz.

1. Don’t skip the hotels’ activities

There’s a whole line-up of complimentary and paid activities available, and hotel guests can participate in any activity offered by any of the three hotels. Check out the whole list here! These are some of our favourites:

The Explorers Adventure at Explorers Lodge is a dynamic dance party, where you’ll first learn how to bust a move. The highlight is a guaranteed meet-and-greet session with a Disney character — with little to no queue to boot. 

Hollywood Hotel has a cute D.I.Y. towel plushies workshop, where you’ll learn to make these little babies from scratch. 

Get your creative juices flowing at Disneyland Hotel’s character drawing workshop and 3D princess colouring session.

End the day with a bedtime story at Disneyland Hotel’s and Explorer’s Lodge’s playrooms. These are conducted in English, Mandarin, and Cantonese every night.

And yes, each hotel has its own playroom that’s free to enter! From top to bottom: Explorer Lodge’s Nemo’s Recreation Reef, Disneyland Hotel’s Storybook Playroom, and Hollywood Hotel’s Malibu Games.

Tai Chi with a Disney Grandmaster is another hot favourite — more on that here. 

2. Save yourself the planning headache with a Kingdom Club stay 

Think: club rooms and suites, but Disneyland’s version. The seventh floor of the Disneyland Hotel is exclusively for Kingdom Club guests, who will enjoy:

• Buffet breakfast and dinner, on top of 2.5 hours of free-flow alcohol in the evening
• All-day refreshments
• Light supper of cookies and fruits
  

You’ll find all these in the exclusive Kingdom Club lounge.

There’s a Club crafts session and, if you’re lucky, a Disney character might pop by to join in the fun. After dinner, a pyjamas-clad Disney character will drop by to say goodnight. That’s not all: kids can also listen to a bedtime story read by the cast members in English, Mandarin, or Cantonese.

Tip: If you’re staying in different resort hotels, simply inform reception prior to check-out, then leave your luggages in the room. The efficient staff will pick them up, and seamlessly deliver them to your next hotel.

3. Have a mix of good food and quality character interactions with a character dining buffet

If we had one grouse about the Hong Kong Disney Resort, it’d be about how expensive the food is. But, if we had to choose, we’d say that the character dining buffets (albeit pricey) offer a pretty good experience. 

Disneyland Hotel’s Enchanted Garden has characters (two at breakfast and three at dinner) who approach your table during dinner. At Explorer’s Lodge’s Dragon Wind and Hollywood Hotel’s Ink & Plate, one character stays at a designated spot. For the former, you’re only given one interactive session; for the latter, you’re allowed to approach the character as many times as you wish. 

The food is pretty good too, might we say. We’re talking about giant crab legs, goose webs, abalone, all kinds of roasted meat, and lots of sushi; and we even managed to get our roast goose fix. The food varies across the restaurants, but each had a good spread. As a finishing touch, children are also given edible paint to decorate a cookie at Ink & Plate. 

Tip: If your little ones are night owls, we recommend booking a later seating. We had dinner from 8pm to 10pm at Enchanted Garden, and had so much priceless interaction with the characters once the restaurant started to empty out.

Alternatively, head to Citygate Outlets (two MTR stops from Disneyland station, or a 10-minute taxi ride from the hotel) for dinner. If you’re feeling peckish, there’s a 7-11 convenience store at Inspiration Lake within the resort compound.

4. Get your park shopping sent back to the hotel for free

We love that we don’t have to hold back on our shopping whilst in the park: all we had to do was inform the cashiers that we’re a hotel guest — and we were able to send our shopping (no minimum spend or number of items) back to the hotel.

This service is complimentary, and your purchases will be waiting at the hotel lobby once you return. Amazing, huh? If you can’t get enough, the hotels’ gift shops are open until 11pm for some post-dinner retail therapy. 

Tip: Don’t forget to bring your hotel key card holder, which you can use to gain access to a priority park entry lane.

Getting to Hong Kong Disneyland from the Hotels

The best part? All the hotels are within walking distance to the Disneyland park. Disneyland Hotel is the closest (10 minutes), whilst Explorers Lodge and Hollywood Hotel is just a little further away (15-20 minutes). 

The walk along the waterfront boardwalk is lovely, followed by a lovely jaunt through the park promenade (where you can listen to piped Disney tunes, and spot posters of miscellaneous Disney characters). Both paths are flat, wide, and stroller-friendly. Otherwise, there are free 5-minute shuttle buses from each hotel that’ll bring you to right outside the park.

Bonus: you’ll find a practically empty Disneyland arch along the park promenade. Take all your pictures here, as the main one in front of the park is usually crowded!