Photo: Yang Hui/GT

Shanghai Disneyland reopened on Monday and welcomed the first batch of visitors at 9 am, its first guests since the theme park was shut in January due to the COVID-19 epidemic.

"I arrived here at 6 am with my friends as we thought there would be crowds eager to have fun in the park after it has been closed for several months. We are required to show our health codes and get our temperatures checked at the security check point," a Shanghai resident surnamed Xu, who was first in the queue, told the Global Times on Monday.

"The park is taking prevention and control measures, which I think are quite good,like one-meter social distancing and requiring all employees and visitors to wear face masks," Xu said.

"It's quite meaningful to be here on the first day of the reopening as it also shows China's progress in containing the virus. I'm so excited and my boyfriend even took a day off to accompany me," said a visitor from Shanghai surnamed Wang.

Apart from local visitors, the park also attracts fans from other regions of the country.

"I came to Disney from [North China's] Tianjin. The reopening is quite uplifting after we have been restricted indoors for so long due to the pandemic,"a visitor surnamed Li told the Global Times.

"It took me 30 minutes to get in. I came here once before, and find there aren't many changes in the park compared with the past. Apart from the typical parades and some indoor theater performances that are not open, other entertainment facilities are available," he said.

Shanghai Disneyland is the world's first Disneyland to reopen amid the coronavirus pandemic. The Shanghai resort was shut on January 25.

"We hope the reopening can serve as a beacon of light across the world, providing hope and inspiration for everyone and demonstrating that we can overcome any challenge together,"Joe Schott, president and general manager of the Shanghai Disney Resort,said at a reopening event.

In a bid to secure smooth operations, the park has strengthened prevention measures. It has restricted daily visitor flows, requires tickets to be preordered online, and staff are required to wear masks during their shifts.

The number of visitors to the park has reduced significantly compared to pre-pandemic figures, the Global Times learned on Monday.

At 9 am, the first few dozen visitors entered the park, with more gradually pouring in after. By 10 am, hundreds of visitors who had made reservations to enter the park at 10:30 am were lining up.

Within hours of the reopening announcementon Thursday, the search volume for Disney tickets and holiday packages increased more than 500 percent, according to travel platform Trip.com. On Friday, over 1,000tickets had sold out an hour after going on sale at 8 am.

Global Times