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Discovery Bay residents complain of long queues and poor allocation

Disney released 5,000 pre-opening tickets for  Discovery Bay residents yesterday, triggering long queues and complaints about  allocation.

Tickets for rehearsal days at the amusement park ahead of  its opening on September 12 were snapped up by residents who queued for up to six hours. The  district council was flooded with complaints from people who said they had not been told of the ticket sales or who were upset about long queues.

Discovery Bay resident Judy Mathews,  who queued for at least four hours, said that at one point the queue had stretched from the plaza as far as the beach.

'Some people came at 6am and finally got their tickets after 12 0'clock,' she said as she waited to buy tickets to attend one of four rehearsal days, planned for  August 24 and 28, and September 2 and 3.

She said she had to pay for the tickets at the Discovery Bay Activity Centre but would receive them  at a later date. 'I really hope I don't have to queue up all over again,'  she said.

Islands district councillor Amy Yung Wing-sheung said she had been inundated with complaints  from residents who had waited for hours for  tickets or who missed out because they had not received leaflets announcing the sale.

'Quite a lot of people did not get the information. I can understand why people are upset about it,' said Ms Yung, who also lives in Discovery Bay. 'I think the whole arrangement is not very satisfactory and the management should have anticipated it. There should be proper planning.'

HKR International  sent leaflets with details of the sale to all Discovery Bay's 7,500 households on Saturday, a spokeswoman for the management company said yesterday. She said posters had also been put up throughout Discovery Bay.

The spokeswoman said the  arrangements had been put in place to prevent tickets being resold.

Each household was entitled to four tickets on a first-come, first-served basis. All weekday tickets, for $198, and weekend ones, costing $230, were  sold out  last night.

Esther Wong Wing-han,  spokeswoman for Disney Hong Kong, said the tickets had been allocated to Discovery Bay residents because 'they are our good neighbours'. She denied the tickets had been sold  to appease residents unhappy about recent fireworks trials.

During designated rehearsal days,  all rides, shows, hotels and films will operate as normal, and  fireworks displays will be held.

Previous fireworks trials prompted complaints from residents, which Ms Yung passed to the Environmental Protection Department. She said she had asked Disney to suspend fireworks when  air pollution levels  were high.

More tickets go on sale today, for a September 4 charity day to raise money for the Community Chest.

A command centre co-ordinated by police will be set up to monitor crowd and traffic conditions at Disneyland, Commissioner for Tourism Eva Cheng Yu-wah told legislators yesterday. She said a contingency system would operate in case of emergencies.



Huge rush for special Disney tickets