So much for best laid plans of mice and men: after being billed as the mother of all theme parks, Shanghai's new Disneyland will be the smallest yet.
The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the central government's top planning agency, has announced that the park will be 116 hectares - less than a third of the size most pundits had predicted. This will make it smaller than Hong Kong Disneyland, which covers 126 hectares and is currently the smallest of the US entertainment giant's five parks worldwide.
In stark contrast to the triumphal manner in which the project's long-awaited approval was reported three weeks ago, the official confirmation of the park's small size led local media to openly take the Mickey.
'Really Minnie! Shanghai Disneyland will be even smaller than Hong Kong Disney' screamed the headline on yesterday's Xinmin Evening News. Shanghai residents were ambivalent about the news yesterday.
'I believe it is pointless to build a Disney park in Shanghai,' said Coco Wang, an employee of a Japanese company. 'The city's construction boom for the World Expo and for the city's international profile is going on at the expense of people. We are suffering more traffic jams and pollution.'
The Shanghai government's announcement three weeks ago that the project - which has been on the drawing board for a decade - had been given the go-ahead, sparked concerns in Hong Kong about the impact competition could have.