Year of the Dog

[ergo sum]

HONG KONG, Feb. 3 — Thousands of people lined up to see Mickey Mouse this week. But when they could not get in, they got grumpy.


Crowds of angry Chinese, brandishing tickets after they were turned away at the entrance to Disneyland in Hong Kong, had shouting matches with the police and security guards. Some people clambered over the heavy green steel gates as guards rushed to close them. One unhappy child had to be passed by the throng atop the spikes of the gates to his parents inside, in a scene played repeatedly on local television.


The culprit was a discount-ticket promotion gone awry. Disneyland had failed to anticipate the rush of vacationers from mainland China during the Chinese New Year. As the crowds swelled, the park closed its gates repeatedly and stopped admitting people who had bought tickets in advance.


Even the Hong Kong government issued a statement late Thursday calling on Disneyland to improve its ticketing and guest entry procedures. The park’s management has issued a public apology to disappointed ticket holders.


By Friday morning, the crowds had subsided, as most Hong Kong residents refrained from attending the park and the flow of visitors became more orderly. But the lines in the park were still long, even by Disney standards, and the park announced it would not sell further tickets at the gate and was temporarily suspending Internet sales.


The problems arose last month when Disney introduced a discounted one-day ticket plan that allows the holder to use the ticket any time within the next six months except on designated “special days” when the park anticipates big crowds.


In Hong Kong, a four-day public holiday for Chinese New Year began last Saturday and ended on Tuesday. The park designated these as special days. But in China, the public holiday for Chinese New Year lasts a full week. So the mainlanders were able to use their discounted Disney tickets on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.


Mainland tour agencies had bought large batches of discounted tickets and brought in busloads of mainlanders to Hong Kong this week. The park said it would review its policies on what days to label as special.