Shanghai Disney Resort has laid out its autumn lineup, and Duffy Month is returning for the whole of September with a week-long celebration of LinaBell’s fifth anniversary built into it. The resort announced the plans in a release alongside its Halloween dates.
Duffy Month Runs All September
Duffy and Friends will set sail on new adventures from September 1 through September 30, 2026. The resort is billing this one as a 10th Birthday Special edition, tying the month into Shanghai Disney Resort’s own tenth anniversary year.
The headline addition is a collaboration with Shanghai Animation Film Studio, which will see familiar Chinese animation elements reimagined with Duffy and Friends across entertainment, merchandise and dining. The partnership also produces a promotional animated short in which Duffy and Friends take on an adventure drawn from stories generations of Chinese families already know.
Decor across the resort follows the short. Peaches, gourds and goldfish will appear on the social wall and photo locations, with the group’s signature soft color palette running through banners and ribbons.
LinaBell Turns Five
The curious pink fox gets her own week from September 23 through September 29. LinaBell made her global debut at Shanghai Disney Resort in September 2021, which makes this the fifth anniversary of a character who became a phenomenon almost immediately and has since spread to Tokyo DisneySea and beyond.
During her anniversary week, LinaBell will make special appearances at the entry portal with her friends. Evening programming runs September 19 to 20 and September 26 to 29, headlined by the Duffy and Friends Pajama Party at the Pepsi E-Stage, where the characters appear in brand new pajama outfits to share bedtime stories.
The celebration extends to Shanghai Disneyland Hotel, where guests can take part in themed activities ranging from bedtime storytelling to do-it-yourself workshops.
Halloween Follows In October
Halloween returns to Shanghai Disney Resort from October 4 through November 1, 2026, and this year the run includes an expanded ten Spook-tacular Days rather than the shorter window the resort has used previously.
Both celebrations sit alongside the Mid-Autumn Festival and the Golden Week national holiday, two of the busiest travel periods on the Chinese calendar. Building Duffy Month and the LinaBell anniversary directly into that stretch is a deliberate piece of scheduling, and it is a reminder of how differently Shanghai approaches its seasonal calendar compared with the American parks.
Why Duffy Month Matters
Duffy and Friends occupy a place in the Asian parks that has no real equivalent in Anaheim or Orlando. The group, which includes ShellieMay, Gelatoni, StellaLou, CookieAnn, OluMel and LinaBell, drives merchandise demand at a scale that supports an entire month of dedicated programming. Shanghai Disneyland is already Disney’s most profitable international theme park.
LinaBell in particular became a merchandise sensation on debut, with queues and resale markets that made international news. Five years on, Shanghai is still able to build a week of resort-wide programming around her, which is a fair measure of how durable that popularity has proven to be.
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