Shanghai Disneyland

[Nephythys]

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Up until now, Disney's foray into China has been anything but magical. Its Hong Kong theme park, opened in 2005, has had a bumpy ride due to early missteps and competition — in its first year, attendance fell 400,000 short of an initial 5.6 million target. The following year, the number of visitors dropped to four million. To add insult to injury, the company in 2007 discovered an amusement park near Beijing that was filled with knockoff Disney characters.

But you don't throw in the towel in a market with 1.3 billion potential customers. After more than a decade of negotiations, Disney has received clearance to build its second Disneyland in China, this one in Shanghai. The company announced Tuesday that China's top planning agency had approved plans to build the new theme park, which will join existing parks in Anaheim, Orlando, Tokyo, Paris and Hong Kong.

Has anyone been to the Hong Kong park? Rose and I have a plan- to visit all the Disney parks in the world- guess we will spend a little more time in China someday.