Toy Story Hotel is one of two hotels at Shanghai Disneyland. In this post, we recap our stay at the hotel and review our stay, covering planning, getting to the hotel, checking in, our Buzz Lightyear (!) room, and the pros and cons of the hotel. Here’s our review of Toy Story Hotel at Shanghai Disney Resort!
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.
Shanghai Disney Resort, including Toy Story Hotel, is a short drive (20 minutes) from Shanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG), which makes it a good place to start or end a trip. In our case, we booked our Disney visit at the end of our trip.
Our flight out of PVG (Zoe’s 100th!) would depart at 4:55PM, which would allow us to spend our last morning in the park. Not to get ahead of things, but FWIW, we easily used the English version of Didi, the Chinese rideshare app, in combination with Alipay, to get from the hotel to PVG.
Chillin’ at PVG before Flight No. 100!
If you’re already planning to stay in central Shanghai, fitting Shanghai Disneyland into your visit can be slightly tricky. Shanghai Disneyland is pretty easily accessible from central Shanghai, but the drive is at least 30 minutes and the train takes at least an hour.
That’s not so bad, but the park often has long hours, including 8:30AM opens. Add on an hour of Early Park Entry (which anyone can purchase), and you’re looking at a long day if you visit as a day trip. I’d favor just booking a Shanghai Disney hotel for at least one night.
Shanghai Disneyland Hotel, the other Shanghai Disney hotel
There are only two hotels at Shanghai Disney Resort—Shanghai Disneyland Hotel and Toy Story Hotel. Shanghai Disneyland Hotel is the flagship, luxury option. Toy Story Hotel is the other option (it’s definitely not a “value” option at the prices you’ll usually see). We’d previously stayed at Shanghai Disneyland Hotel before Zoe, but the stay was long ago enough to justify another visit.
That said, Toy Story Hotel just looked SO up Zoe’s lane. In particular, the Buzz Lightyear rooms were something I immediately thought Zoe would fall in love with. The Buzz Lightyear rooms (and the Woody & Jessie rooms) were ¥750 or about $110 more per night than the standard rooms, but I couldn’t pass up this opportunity.
I booked a Buzz Lightyear room at Toy Story Hotel directly via the Shanghai Disney Resort website. I was able to book it with a credit card, and I was able to link the reservation to my Shanghai Disney account. We paid ¥6698.75 CNY for two nights, which came out to about $988 or $494 per night.
Arrival and Check-In
There is an online check-in option in the Shanghai Disney app, but I’m not sure it actually saves much time. The hotel has to take and process your passport regardless, so the marginal savings from spending a bunch of time in the app might not be worth your time. I’m also pretty sure I messed up this process anyways, so it’s possible check-in actually took longer than it needed to.
We were coming to Shanghai Disneyland and Toy Story Hotel from central Shanghai. We left our hotel near The Bund around 9:15AM and arrived at the Shanghai Disney station at 10:24AM. We opted to wait for the bus to the hotel. It arrived at 10:35AM, departed at 10:40AM, and got to the hotel at 10:48AM.
The exterior of the building immediately takes you into the Toy Story theme, and the lobby only builds on it.
There was a small crowd (not pictured) when we arrived but we didn’t have a long wait at the front desk. Check-in was bifurcated, with a person behind the desk handling passports and computer tasks, while another person talked me through the nuances of the Shanghai Disney app. There was a lot of confusion when she kept asking if I had my “application.”
I’ve written before that check-in at international Disney hotels can be slow because there’s a lot of nuance to explain. Having two people theoretically helps with this, but some gains are lost when the hotel doesn’t, e.g., train their staff to use the more familiar “app” when dealing with an American.
Once we got rolling, though, I was directed down new rabbit holes in the app. I specify “new” because the Shanghai Disney app has a ton of rabbit holes to go down. There’s definitely a cultural aspect here as to what Chinese consumers expect from apps. It was dizzying to keep track of where I had to click for everything.
Our room wasn’t ready yet, so we were told to come back later and sent with our bags to bell services (who very speedily handled them).
Overall in mainland China this trip, I checked into three hotels during this trip. The check-in at Toy Story Hotel was the most disjointed of the three. Part of this is owing to the complexity of a Disney vacation, and it’s likely the guest mix here leans more local than at the other hotels I visited. But the prices—higher than the two luxury hotels we stayed at in Shanghai and Beijing—call for a smoother experience.
Location, Transportation, and Perks
Toy Story Hotel is located just to the west of Shanghai Disneyland, across Shendi West Road. (Sidenote: We used the app “Amap” for all our maps in China and it worked well.)
Disney provides a bus that takes you to Disneytown, adjacent to the park. The ride is about 5 minutes, and then it’s a 7 minute walk from that terminal to the park.
We didn’t wind up taking the bus to the park for Early Park Entry because the line was huge. It was so huge that Cast Members were handing out beverages (maybe just water, but looked like coffee or tea).
This is the sort of thing that, had I endured it, could earn a long rant from me. The bottom line is that perks like complimentary bus service and Early Park Entry only work if the hotel actually invests in the infrastructure to make them work. Certainly this could be a different review if we’d had to wait in the line.
But I can’t speak to how long the wait actually was, and it was moot to us because…
You can walk to Shanghai Disneyland from Toy Story Hotel. The walk took us just under 20 minutes. It takes about 4 minutes to exit the hotel grounds from the lobby, an additional 8 minutes to get to the terminal the bus would get you to, and then 7 minutes through Disneytown to the park itself. The whole walk is well-maintained and signed. There’s also a non-detailed map of the walk in the app.
Just to make sure that math is clear—the 7 minute portion through Disneytown is required whether you take the bus or not. When you factor in potential time waiting for the bus, time to load the bus, and then the ride itself, the walk is a reasonable option.
Guests at Toy Story Hotel have access to Early Park Entry, which is also available for separate purchase by the public. You’ll find the required QR code in the app (with a little bit of work). There’s also a dedicated hotel-guest entrance to the park in Disneytown. We used this once but overall didn’t find it more convenient than the regular entrance (which we used twice for Early Entry).
Buzz Lightyear Room at Toy Story Hotel
After an evening in the park, we were able to quickly request our bags from bell services and head to the room (the bags were there within a few minutes).
Let’s just get the key point about the room out of the way—Zoe has never loved and probably never will love a hotel room as much as they loved this one. Any residual concern I felt about opting for Toy Story Hotel and the pricier Buzz Lightyear room immediately vanished when we entered this room.
There is no subtlety in this theming. People who think the Contemporary’s Incredibles rooms are overdone would absolutely be unable to comprehend this room’s level of overt schtick and disregard for everything they believe. Even people who think the Art of Animation rooms are “just right” would go wide-eyed setting foot in here. And I love it.
The alien pillow is somehow even barely notable with how much theme is everywhere. The slide puzzle on the wall is completely unnecessary and such a fun touch (also, do they have a slide puzzle expert on hand to reset it? are all the housekeepers slide puzzle experts?).
There’s a Nespresso machine and a hot water machine, and even the coffee mugs were themed! The lead Imagineer on this room saw the preliminary amount of theming and went Kylo Ren on it:
Wrong Disney space character, but whatever
From a functional perspective, this room checks most of the boxes. The console and table provide sufficient surface space, though I would have preferred the console have an outlet. There are bedside outlets and an outlet next to the table.
The room came with a variety of gifts to take home, including a towel, a pillow case, and slippers.
The bathroom is a single room, which I’m not a fan of. It’s also only got one sink. With two double beds the room should comfortably fit four people, but it would be uncomfortable for them all have to share one room—toilet- sink, and shower—in the morning to get ready.
On the plus side, the room had a step stool without us even having to request. There was also a list of basic toiletries (combs, shaving kit, toothbrush, etc.) available on request in the app.
Restaurants, Amenities, and Activities
Toy Story Hotel has one restaurant, Sunnyside Cafe, that we didn’t eat at this visit. We actually ate here years ago while we were staying at Shanghai Disneyland Hotel (we’ll go so far for a quick service meal, j/k…sort of), but I doubt that experience is relevant. These days, there’s a buffet breakfast and quick-service with table delivery for lunch and dinner.
Surprisingly, there is no pool at Toy Story Hotel. I’ve seen reports guests can access the pool at Shanghai Disneyland Hotel, but that would not be convenient, and you should confirm it’s even possible if it’s important to you.
There’s also no fitness center. We attempted to sort out prospective running routes but couldn’t find anything that looked like a sure thing. There are at least some sidewalks along the roads if you’re not committed to a longer run or don’t mind repeating segments.
There is a kids’ Play Room at Toy Story Hotel. There are a variety of stations set up for smaller kids to play at. I don’t imagine older kids (even Zoe’s age, 5) would fill a ton of time here. There’s a screen that plays movies, and some books (in Chinese), though.
Conclusion
Let’s step back. Shanghai Disneyland is a strong enough theme park to justify at least one full day at the park, and two days would be preferable. Once you get into a third day, you shouldn’t have an problem experiencing the whole park. This means you’re looking at probably one or two nights at Shanghai Disney Resort, with the bulk of your time spent at the park.
From that perspective, Toy Story Hotel is absolutely excellent. Without a pool and with only one restaurant, the hotel isn’t going to sustain much time outside the parks. The Play Room can fill some time, but it’s more a convenient extra than an amenity you’d want to invest a lot of time in.
This positions three features of the hotel as mattering most—room (the only space you’ll be spending much time), location, and perks. And Toy Story Hotel is a home run on all three. We loved our Buzz Lightyear room; the 20-minute walk to the park wasn’t bad; and Early Park Entry is a useful perk.
If you’re looking for a more relaxing Disney vacation, Toy Story Hotel probably won’t give it to you. But if you’ve got a young (or young at heart) Toy Story fan and you’re looking for a “wow” factor to fill your time outside the park, Toy Story Hotel is a great pick.