Before the trip, we already knew that the lines were very long in the better pavilions. The line for the German, Japan, Saudi & China pavilions were particularly long - from 4 to 6 hours waiting!!! Which means lining up for one pavilion would take the whole day!
Luckily, we also knew that some travel agency, especially those specialized in sports event ticketing, can arrange or pre-arrange entries. We have hired one such agency. As a result, we were able to see about 15 pavilions in the 4 days allocated to visit the Expo.
How do they arrange the priority entrance? There are different ways, including
i. send someone in the early morning to get entry tickets that designated a specific visiting time
ii. use the senior, small child, or disabled person priority entry. Each "disabled/senior" person can be accompanied by a number of family member
iii. buying allocation from tour groups who have been lining up from the morning, these tour groups reported more members then actual, thus able to sell the excess spaces
iv. outright bribing (I am guessing) the guards who guarded the VIP entrance or exits!
So in additional to the entry fee to the Expo parks, the travel agency charged us per person per entrance to the pavilions, depending on how hard or how expensive to gain priority entrance. For example, the cheapest would be method i above, which cost only RMB200 per person. Method iv was the most expensive cost RMB2000 per person.
At the end of the trip, after tallied up all costs, we found that we had paid RMB8,100 in official entry fee, plus ~RMB53,000 for these special entry services!
We were also able to hire a specially licensed van, so we can be taken all the way very near the entrance. Special license means the van was meant for people who work for the Expo, not VIP guests.
