The lure of being one of the first to enjoy the attractions of the soon-to-open Shanghai Disneyland caused the crash of the website of the company when it opened online ticket sales on March 28.
The online service was immediately fixed and Chinese could again buy tickets in advance. Among those who ordered ticket online was a generous 7-year-old Shanghai boy who bought 10,000 yuan worth of tickets. The boy planned to give a ticket each to his 19 classmates but did not tell his parents of the online purchase.
The boy made the online booking using the mobile phone number of his father, a businessman. The surprised father initially thought it was an online fraud when he received a confirmation text that 20 tickets worth 10,000 yuan were purchased, reported Beijing Morning Post.
However, rather than get mad at his son, the father said he would support his son’s generosity. “[We are] very happy to see the boy learning to share with others,” he said. As proof that the businessman approved of his boy’s action, he posted online the ticket receipt.
Shanghai Disneyland actually has a five-ticket per ID purchase limit, but the crafty boy knew how to go around it. He filled in the personal information of four people and made the online payment by himself, according to the proud father.
It turns out that the boy was not only generous but also thrifty because the 10,000 yuan he used was saved from his pocket money. The father now plans to pay more from his money so he could buy tickets for the parents of his son’s classmates so they could accompany their kids on their visit to the happiest place on earth.
Meanwhile, Theme Park Insider reported that the hashtag #ThanksShanghai has been used over the past week on Twitter. The tweets come mostly from visitors at Disney’s parks in the U.S. who are blaming the cost overruns in the construction of the Shanghai Disneyland on cut-backs at American theme parks.
However, the editor of Theme Park Insider, Robert Niles, pointed out that blaming the fewer entertainment options, reduced capacity at some attractions and cuts in hours scheduled of some cast members on the Shanghai resort is a very simplistic conclusion. Niles stressed, “This just isn’t the way that publicly-traded companies run.”