Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel is the flagship hotel at Hong Kong Disneyland Resort and one of Disney’s famous “Victorian”-styled resorts. But at a resort that really doesn’t demand multiple days, let alone multiple nights, you might wonder how a flagship hotel stacks up—does it hit the high marks, or did Disney cut corners because they could? Here’s our review of Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel!
Planning and Booking
This hotel stay was part of our spring break trip to Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai, separately recounted in a trip report.
We’d booked roundtrip flights between JFK and HKG, which meant Hong Kong Disneyland—only a 15-minute drive from HKG—would make the most sense at the very start or very end of our trip. With Shanghai slated for later in the trip, we decided to spread out our Disney visits and start with Hong Kong Disneyland.
Hong Kong Disneyland has three hotels—Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel, Disney Explorers Lodge, and Disney’s Hollywood Hotel. Emily and I had previously stayed at Explorers Lodge, and Hollywood Hotel was undergoing refurbishment (mostly exterior, but still), so Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel was an easy pick.
This hotel also happens to be the closest to the park—about a 10-minute walk. There’s also a shuttle available, but it goes to the train station and bus depot, which is still about a 5-minute walk from the park.
It’s worth noting that with its typical late opening and connection to central Hong Kong by public train or US$50 Uber, Hong Kong Disneyland is definitely doable with a hotel stay in central Hong Kong. Further, Disney hotel guests do not get complimentary Early Park Entry, which is available for anyone to purchase.
The only significant perk of the Disney hotels is location, but for most international guests with kids that’s a big perk. In our case, we arrived midday into HKG. With at least one full day at Hong Kong Disneyland being necessary, there really was no good reason for us not to have at least one night on property. And while I was working with limited time on this trip overall, this was partly a work trip, and a trip with a five year old, so I went ahead and opted for the two nights.
I booked our stay at Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel on Booking dot com. I usually prefer to book hotels direct, but the pricing was better on Booking. We paid HK$4,470.20, or approximately US$570.59 for two nights.
Any time I book anything via any third party, I make sure to confirm the reservation directly. In the case of Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel, I rather quickly received a message from the hotel in the Booking platform—always a good start. I was also able to link the reservation to my Hong Kong Disneyland account using the reservation number from Booking, thereby confirming this was a real reservation and not some sort of “ghost” or “miscoded” reservation, as can sometimes happen with third parties.
Arrival and Check-In
We landed at HKG at 1:16PM after 14 hours and 53 minutes of flight time. We’d gotten through passport control and retrieved our bags by 2:23PM, and after a short wait for our Uber we were at the hotel by 2:58PM.
We’d hoped the driver wouldn’t spoil the surprise for Zoe. He came close, but Zoe was too tired to notice. But the ever-increasing amount of Disney signage gradually gave it away, and Zoe was both thrilled and a little confused by how similar Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel looks to Grand Floridian, confidently declaring “Oh I remember this hotel! I’ve stayed here before!”
Bell services was very excited to take our luggage as soon as we exited the Uber. I generally prefer not to part with my luggage when it isn’t necessary, but at nicer hotels when we’re sort of a mess I’ll oblige because I get not wanting every jet-lagged family just piling up their luggage in the lobby. (And after we went to our room, the bags were promptly delivered.)
Mickey happened to be in the lobby when we arrived, so Zoe got a magical welcome. We saw characters a few times during our stay, which is a welcome upgrade over our usual experiences at Walt Disney World.
The lobby itself is a large, open space, following Disney’s usual deluxe hotel trend. In this case, the comparisons and contrasts with Grand Floridian are obvious. It’s got the same style, but in a noticeably smaller space.
Despite no line, it took 17 minutes to get from arriving at the desk to being in our room. The Cast Member we worked with was great and was “earning his ears” (that’s Disney-speak for being trained)—a necessary part of the process, and I’m happy to sacrifice an extra few minutes. Everyone was attentive and working through the steps, it just took time.
Check-in at many international hotels can be time-consuming, in no small part because they’ll often have to record your passport information. I’ve found that Disney hotels—particularly Disneyland Paris’ hotels on recent visits—also like to methodically take you through all the information you might need. It’s probably necessary for a majority of guests, just pack your patience in case there’s a line.
Our Room at Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel
Let’s start with a gallery of room photos before commentary:
The rooms definitely have a bit of an old-school feel. The detailing throughout is at times fun and at times elegant, it’s just always a bit dated. But, for as old as the fixtures feel, nothing was worn out. Everything seemed very well-maintained—pretty remarkable for so much wood.
If you’re familiar with some of the western resorts, you might feel like the rooms at Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel are a bit of a throwback. Here’s a look at this room alongside two other rooms—the old, since replaced rooms at Grand Floridian (Walt Disney World) and Disneyland Hotel (Disneyland Paris)
If you compare these three rooms to the new rooms at Disneyland Hotel in Paris and Grand Floridian’s Mary Poppins rooms, you can see that Disney’s trading in pink+green “Victorian” theming for something more modern is a definite glow-up.
As for functionality, the room actually did pretty well. I love surface space—when you come back from the parks with a bag full of half-eaten snacks and a pocket full of receipts, you need dumping grounds—and this room had plenty.
There were sufficient outlets, though I’d always love each side of each bed to have a proper charging solution. The shared USB hub between the two beds worked well enough for us. There was one adapter in the room, and some of the outlets had direct USB ports.
The bathroom is fairly compact, with the toilet, sink, and shower all in one room. With the narrow sink, the arrangement isn’t particularly conducive to multiple guests getting ready at the same time.
I suspect these rooms aren’t long for this world. Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel is set to receive substantial refurbishments beginning in June 2026, and these are at least impacting the occupancy of some rooms. It could just be that the rooms adjacent to construction work won’t be available. But with the resort currently anticipating a new Spider-Man attraction in coming years, now would be as good a time as any to update these dated rooms.
Restaurants at Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel
We didn’t have a chance to dine at either Crystal Lotus, the upscale Chinese restaurant, or Walt’s Cafe, the upscale international restaurant.
Our sole hotel meal was breakfast at Enchanted Garden Restaurant. This was a character meal with Mickey Mouse as the only character greeting. Despite a long line when we arrived, guests were checked in quickly. We didn’t have a reservation, but it wasn’t necessary. In the future I’d maybe make one, just to be safe.
I wrote about my love for hotel breakfast in the trip report, and it makes sense just to quote my limited words on this meal in full:
[This breakfast had] a mix of western and various Asian cuisines. We grab a bit of everything—Mickey waffle from the American area, noodles from the Japanese area, curried vegetables from the Indian area, and plenty of fruits, cheese, juice, and coffee.
Mickey came to our table twice, once when Emily was away getting food and then again after she returned, which I appreciated. The Cast Members were very proactive in taking our devices to take photos, and also gave us the Photopass code in case we wanted to purchase a photo.
We paid around US$135 total for breakfast. You can book the hotel with breakfast included, but we were staying two nights and only expected to have breakfast one of those mornings, so we opted just to pay for the individual meal.
There’s a small bar in the lobby, called Grand Salon. The addition of the lobby bar since our visit in 2017 is a nice upgrade. Back then we stopped to check out Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel and wound up buying two cans of beer from the gift shop that we drank in the lobby. So much has changed since then, and we didn’t get the chance to visit this bar.
Amenities at Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel
Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel has both an indoor pool and an outdoor pool. During our visit, the outdoor pool was open from 8AM until 10PM. This is exactly the sort of guest experience that I expect Disney to offer.
I don’t think a ton of guests use the pool at 8AM, but the park often doesn’t open until 10:30AM. Some guests will want to use the pool before going to the park or before checking out. Opening the pool at an early hour, despite the additional staffing costs, shows a high level of care about the guest experience.
The Fitness Center was open 24 hours. Emily and I both ran multiple times. There’s signage clearly indicating no children under 14 allowed in the Fitness Center. Even as an advocate of “bring kids (almost) everywhere”, I find this is an incredibly sensible safety regulation. So, I’m not totally sure what the couple who brought their two young kids there at 6AM were thinking, but I’d recommend not doing that.
There were other amenities we didn’t get to take advantage of. Adjacent to the outdoor pool is a small miniature golf course. There’s also a “Storybook Playroom” kids activity space (supervision required, not a drop-off space). These are amenities that are definitely unnecessary for a hotel that surely gets few long stays, but again, they show a truly Disney level of care. The activity schedule was also packed (including some paid activities).
The Hedge Maze
There was one…unfortunate…aspect of our visit. The Hedge Maze.
Spoiler Alert - This section spoils one of the narrative parts of our trip report.
Behind the hotel is a hedge maze that Zoe was positively obsessed with—understandable, it looks really cool. I’d promised we’d spend some time in it, so on the last morning before we headed to the park Zoe and Emily popped in while I went to take pictures of it.
After they exited, Emily was quite perturbed. She had no definitive explanation—the space hadn’t been notably “buggy” per se, but it just gave her the ick. I assumed it was the heat/humidity/claustrophobia of it all. I went briefly in with Zoe to look at something and didn’t really feel uncomfortable.
It turns out Emily has a sense about these things. Within a day, Zoe’s legs broke out in what looked like a rash, with plenty of itchiness. As it was only on exposed parts of skin, and no spreading, we inferred it was some sort of contact rash from something in the maze. As the days progressed and the itching didn’t stop, further research revealed the more likely cause—biting midges.
These are apparently a common problem in Hong Kong, including Hong Kong Disneyland, and their presence explains the prominently displayed insect repellant the hotel had left out for guests (we had put it on the prior day, of course, but not this day).
We were only 99% sure of the cause for a while…and then about a week later Emily got itchy too. It turns out the bites can remain dormant for some time. She described it as the absolute itchiest she’s ever been and, as I write this over a month later, she’s still dealing with the itching. As for me, well, I have a pretty strong preference for long sleeves and pants (in part because I don’t like bugs), and that’s exactly what I was in that morning.
Before wrapping this review up, I’ll say on this point that I think they hotel could do a better job of telling people why the bug repellant is there (nothing relevant is cropped out of that sign), but I also put this one a little on us. We probably should have taken the hint when we saw the repellant.
Conclusion — Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel Is Disney Done Right
This review catches me at a point where I’ve been thinking a lot about guest experiences lately. I’ve just finished my review of the Disney Treasure, and I’ve recently read Marcus Buckingham’s Design Love In, a book about experience design that prominently features Disney now-CEO Josh D’Amaro.
What strikes me most about Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel is that despite not using several amenities, despite thinking the rooms were outdated, and despite my family turning into an itchy mess, I actually really liked this hotel. I’d even say I loved it.
Most important for my perspective is that everyone we interacted with was a total delight. The Cast Members were all very friendly and seemed genuinely concerned with making sure our experience was as great as possible.
If you wanted an example that encapsulates what I think the Cast gets right, I’d point to our breakfast experience. The character and photography team came by not once but twice because Emily was missing. And it felt efficient without feeling rushed. I’m so used to just posing quickly and sending them on their way, but they genuinely worked to get us good photos. They took photos on our devices without any prompting.
This is not at all how I ever feel at, for example, Chef Mickey’s at Contemporary Resort. I enter that restaurant with an “assembly line” mindset and it always delivers that experience. And the last time I ate at Animal Kingdom’s Tusker House, it took 78 minutes to meet Mickey.
There are shortcomings, sure. The outdated rooms and the lack of a quick service breakfast option are the two I’d call out, but I think there’s a good case these are idiosyncratic. I’m not sure many Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel guests share my “Pop Century” mindset of aggressively sleek rooms and rope drops fueled by cafeteria food.
But there’s really nothing about this hotel where I have to do my oh-so-usual hemming and hawing—“it would be nice if they improved this…but I guess they feel it’s not worth it.”
Instead, the hotel delivers just more than what I expected. It surprises in small, but guest-friendly ways—the long pool hours, the patient photographer, even the nondescript lobby bar. It doesn’t pander to us with IP-heavy rooms or viral snacks—it reminds me that Disney is at its best when it gets the little things right.