A word of caution for anyone counting down to the spring 2016 opening of Shanghai Disney Resort: addiction.

Local residents got their first taste of Disney with Chinese characteristics in May after the flagship store in Shanghai's Pudong New Area was forced to close just one hour after its grand opening due to overcrowding. Hundreds of potential Mouseketeers queued up over a kilometer and several hours to get their paws on paraphernalia, but not even the 54,000-square-feet premises - the largest in the world - could accommodate them all.

Disney addiction is real. I know. My parents, Los Angeles natives, began going to Disneyland when it first opened in the summer of 1955. They dated there, took their kids there, and, half a century later, their grandchildren too. Even in their golden years they still go all the time.

I personally loathe the faux smiles of Disney employees and am highly cynical of the characters which comprise the conglomerate's 50-billion-dollar-a-year animated universe. When Hong Kong Disneyland opened in 2005, I and the cartoonist of a Guangdong-based expat magazine I was managing turned the mammalian cast of Disney into a Chinese banquet, including a mashup of Mickey Mouse kebab, roasted Donald Duck and hotpot Pluto.

Funny enough, even though Disney parks across the world generate a third of all global theme park revenues, their Hong Kong resort is popular with mainland tour groups but less so with locals, which may explain why it has taken nearly a decade for it to profit. Unlike venues such as Southern California, where more than half the visitors come from resident markets (such as my folks), Hong Kong Disneyland failed to regionalize.

Localization is the key to any amusement park chain, especially in Asia where tourists tend to be nationalistic. Ocean Park in Hong Kong, for example, is the largest and most visited in all of Asia, surpassing Disney in every regard. Why? Because it incorporates elements of Chinese culture along with Hong Kong's stellar service, including keeping in line some mainland tour groups whom have turned Hong Kong Disneyland into a magical kingdom of chaos.

Nonetheless, I have high hopes for Disney in Shanghai. In light of all the international headlines Chinese tourists have received this past year for their unruliness, Disney knows what it is getting into by breaking ground in a densely populated municipality of 24 million (along with 300 million more from neighboring cities), and have brought in its best minds and designated a significant portion of its resources toward crowd control. As the quick-thinking staff of its flagship Pudong store demonstrated when they closed their doors after the throngs of customers became too much for its staff, Disney's priority is maintaining its image.

The construction of the $5.4 billion Shanghai Disney Resort - possibly the largest foreign investment in China's history - will in all likelihood prove lucrative for its three State-owned Chinese shareholders. Disney already has strong pre-existing name recognition among middle-class mainlanders, who see the iconic albeit imperious American brand as a sign of upward mobility.

Songs from its animated films such as The Lion King and the Chinese-themed Mulan are some of the most recognized tunes among China's Post-90s generation. And with over 150 centers across China, Disney English language schools boast over $100 million in revenue, proving that Disney is on track to permeate the minds of Chinese youth as much as it has Americans.

I myself will be skipping Shanghai Disney. I have no desire to wait in 8-hour-long lines or spend exorbitant amounts of money on marked-up souvenirs. But if locals want to let Disney get them captain-hooked on a rollercoaster ride of corporate consumerism, then they can rest assured that The Walt Disney Company will do everything it takes to offer a safe, world-class experience.