Crowds swarm Disney Town in Shanghai ahead of Disneyland opening

It’s still six weeks to Shanghai’s long-awaited official opening of Disneyland, but throngs of visitors hit the smaller peripheral Disney Town that opened over the weekend.

Disney Town is part of the upcoming $5.5 billion 963-acre Disneyland in Shanghai — the U.S. conglomerate’s first theme park in mainland China, outside of its smaller Hong Kong park.

Unlike Disneyland, Disney Town, which opened over the weekend, offers free admission and has already been receiving thousands of visitors a day as anticipation builds for the main park’s opening in June.
While tourists peeked into holes in the tarp coverings to try to get a glimpse of the new park, others got a slice of what was to come at the new Disney Town station emblazoned with Mickey Mouse logos and Disney-themed cafes and photo spots.
The Longyang and Luoshan metro interchange stations received a boost in number of passengers headed toward Disney Town station over the weekend.

But the South China Morning Post says there’s been a downside to all the popularity — vandalism and general bad behaviour, as tourists scrawled their names on lamp posts and other park property, in order to leave a mark on the place.
Someone had scrawled “I was here” on the lamp post.

Other tourists reportedly defied park wardens and stepped on the green, plucking flowers for photos ops. The park had to erect fences and try to restrict the number of tourists at popular scenic spots pushing to take photos.

Other social posts from incensed netizens on Weibo showed people letting their kids defecate in the bushes, and others trampling on manicured lawns for photos.

A user, uhaaa, said: “Consider this a preview of what’s to come when Disneyland opens.”

Anticipation has been climbing ahead of the launch. Disneyland’s Jun. 16 opening day tickets sold out within hours. Some companies have been rallying around the theme park’s big day, too — China Eastern Airlines just unveiled a Disney-themed plane last week, which made its maiden flight from Shanghai.
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