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As Mouseplanet readers know, I've recently moved to Europe for a time, and one of our first trips while here was to Disneyland Paris. Previously, I took you through how we planned our trip and our first night at Disney Village. Now, we look at Day 2 of our trip as we hit the parks, Disneyland Park and Walt Disney Studios Park.
Thursday was a travel day (checking in to the Sequoia Lodge on property) and because we stayed up late at Disney Village, we didn't want to get up too too early on Friday. The park opened at 8:30 for resort guests with general opening at 9:30. I actually got up early enough to be able to shower, get dressed and hoof it over to Disneyland Park, so I let Mike take his time and sleep in a bit longer.
My real motive, of course, was to check out the shops on Main Street USA before the crowds descended. I waited on line to get in, scanned my ticket, and headed through the gates. I went through the tunnel and looked down towards the beautiful Le Chateau de la Belle au bois Dormant (Sleeping Beauty's Castle). There was a mild snag to my plan—the only shop open before official opening time was the Emporium.
Le Chateau de la Belle au bois Dormant beckoned at the end of Main Street USA. Photo by Gregg Jacobs.
The Emporium wasn't a bad place to start though, so I did a slow stroll, checking out what they had to offer. My only merch goals for this trip were to pick up some souvenirs for the 30th anniversary of the park and may be a shirt or two. I did a quick circle around the park, checking out what was open for the extra hour. I wanted to save the good stuff to do with Mike, so jumped on Pinocchio, which had a short 5-minute wait.
I then walked through the castle and saw one of the great hidden wonders of this park. If you walk throught the crystal gift shop in the castle and head down the stairs, you see a massive animitronic dragon. It moves in a variety of ways, makes noise and actually breathes fire! It's a very cool touch, and many people probably don't even see it.
By then, it was almost 10:00. Mike texted that he was entering the park, so I grabbed some coffee and a couple of croissants for breakfast from the Cookie Kitchen on Main Street. He found me, and we then talked about what to do next and headed towards Tomorrowland.
Disneyland Paris offers Disney Premier Access, which is the Paris version of the Fastpass system. Universal Studios has a similar offering for its theme parks, where you pay an additional fee to skip the line at atractions. Disney Premier Access Ultimate allows you to skip the line one time for a selection a dozen or so rides across the two theme parks. We had purchased passes for Day 2 of our trip for around $100 per person. We skipped them for Day 3 because I didn't want to cough up for both days (and it was closer to $150 for Saturday), so my logic was we'd spend Friday riding as much as we could, and spend a more leisurely Saturday and doing things like seeing the shows that we didn't get to on Friday.
Hyperspace Mountain
Mike and I are adventuresome about rides to a point. On a scale of 1 to 10, we're around a 7 or 8. So we decided Hyperspace Mountain would be first, since Space Mountain is one of our favorites in Florida—but when we were here last (18 years ago), the ride had a Jules Verne theme. We had no idea it was now themed to Star Wars.
Mike has a rule: He doesn't like to go upside down. I told him Hyperspace Mountain didn't. I thought we'd ridden it before and that Mike liked it then. We used our Premier passes and were at the front of the line in 5 minutes. We got on and raced up the first launch hill to the Star Wars theme song. We saw video of tie fighters and imperial cruisers which was all kind of cool. We raced through space and then… was that a corkscrew? I wasn't sure, but I think we briefly went upside-down. We continued on through space and defeated the empire.
We both thought the ride was awesome. It wasn't until later that Mike asked if there was a corkscrew. I honestly wasn't sure, but thought there might have been. In any event, we loved the ride and new theming. It was WDW Space Mountain on steroids.
We needed to walk through the hub to Frontierland, but were forced to stop as they cordoned off the "road" for a parade. I like the daytime parades, but they're generally not a priority and we had a pass to use, but we were stuck, so decided to see what the show was. I'm so glad we did.
Dream… and Shine Brighter parade
It turned out to be Dream… and Shine Brighter, the new parade/show they developed for the 30th anniversary. It was just incredible and we were in the absolute perfect viewing location. Several floats with the Fab 5 and other characters made their way down Main Street and then surrounded the hub. The characters and dancers then left the floats and came on to four different stages that surrounded the hub and danced to the new theme music.
More characters poured out, seemingly from nowhere, including the Genie, Alice, Mulan, Tiana, characters from Coco, and dozens of other all join the show. Much like Festival of Fanstasy at Walt Disney World, we got different sets within the show based on different movies with different songs from those movies and variations on the overall theme song. This was performed in the round around the hub and we were right in the middle. It was incredible!
We all have our "I'm here" moment when visiting Disney, and ever since I was little, mine has been when I see Mickey Mouse for the first time (when I get emotional and start bawling in public). Mickey, all decked out for the anniversary, did that to me here in a big way.
Frontierland
After that great show, we headed toward Frontierland. The land is beautiful, with Big Thunder Mountain Railroad as the centerpiece, and Phantom Manor, the French Haunted Mansion, looking like the house from Psycho, sitting up on a hill. We went there first, ready to use our Disney Premier Access pass.
Disneyland Paris offers Disney Premier Access, which is the Paris version of the Fastpass system. Universal Studios has a similar offering for its theme parks, where you pay an additional fee to skip the line at atractions. Disney Premier Access Ultimate allows you to skip the line one time for a selection a dozen or so rides across the two theme parks. We had purchased passes for Day 2 of our trip for around $100 per person. We skipped them for Day 3 because I didn't want to cough up for both days (and it was closer to $150 for Saturday), so my logic was we'd spend Friday riding as much as we could, and spend a more leisurely Saturday and doing things like seeing the shows that we didn't get to on Friday.
It turns out, we didn't have to use our passes—the wait was only 5 minutes!
The Manor here is really cool. It has its own unique backstory and the last scene is a Wild West town filled with the dead as opposed to the graveyard. Particularly with the Phantom, who we see several times, this one is a little more creepy and sinister than it's Florida and California cousins.
Creepy Phantom Manor overlooking Frontierland. Photo by Gregg Jacobs.
Next up was Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and we did use our Premier passes. Most the ride here is sitiuated on an island. You board and then go through a loud tunnel that goes under a river. You then get all the lift hills, drops and theming out on the island before returning at the end. Here it is truly the wildest ride in the wilderness and in my perception, at least, longer and crazier than its state-side counterparts.
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad sits on an island and looks incredible. Photo by Gregg Jacobs.
Adventureland
We then headed to Pirates of the Carribbean in Adventureland. We got there ready to use our Premier pass, and it turned out to be a ride where you can't use Premier pass. Posted wait was 30 minutes, so we figured we'd just wait. It actually took about 25 minutes, and we were on. Pirates here is awesome. Like the Disneyland version, it has two drops and many show scenes.
I loved the pirate theming in Adventureland. Photo by Gregg Jacobs.
We were hungry then, so grabbed our handy app in search of food. Tex Mex sounded good, so we Fuente de Oro, a quick service restaurant in Frontierland, not far from where we were. We pre-ordered a couple of burritos and picked a time about half an hour from then to pick them up. We got there at our appointed time. A friendly cast member asked if we pre-ordered. When we said yes, he sent us to a short line and we had our food in 5 minutes. The other lines where people where waiting to order were at least 10 people deep. The food was good (at least counter service good) and we headed out fairly quickly.
Mobile Order tip: The Disney theme parks steer you preorder your food using their mobile apps. And because they can only accomodate a fixed number of orders in any time slot, you want to order early in the day for a later pick-up time to make sure you secure your request. If you wait to put in the order until you're actually ready to eat, you might either have to wait a long time for your food, or be forced to select a much later pick-up time slot.
We decided then that we wanted to head to Disney Studios, so we plotted a path out through Fantasyland, where we hadn't been yet. We saw Peter Pan, which has a long line here just like in the states, so we used our Premier pass and rode. The ride here is fun, very much like the version at WDW. I'll just say it seemed "newer" here, for lack of a better word. Everything glowed.
Disney Studios
We then headed under the train station and out in the direction of Walt Disney Studios Park. Like at Disneyland in Anaheim, the theme parks are right next to one another, so park hoppingjust meant a quick 7-minute walk. We showed our tickets and we were in!
The Walt Disney Studios Park was only a hop, skip and a jump away. Photo by Gregg Jacobs.
We are big Tower of Terror fans. And since I never chose not to wait the two hours to ride it during my four months in Florida, we made a beeline to the Paris version. This is the former Disneyland, rather than Walt Disney World version, without the 5th dimension room where the elevator cars move forward. It was sufficiently creepy, though, and the drop pattern was random, which was fun.
The Tower of Terror calls to you from the center of the park. Photo by Gregg Jacobs.
We then decided to do a circle around the park. We walked towards the animation area and saw Crush's Coaster. As I said earlier, I'm a 7 or 8 out of 10 on the coaster tolerance scale, and it's unlikely that a coaster themed to Finding Nemo couldn't be too crazy, right? But my Kryptonite with rides is spinning—I can get motion sick. This coaster was the type that went along a track, but the cars could spin around. Mike loves these and really wanted to go on, so I decided to suck it up and see how it was.
It was a lot of fun. It's basically a ride in a clamshell that does a ton of loop-the-loops in a giant show building, but the spinning was, thankfully, minimal, and it was just the right amount of intense. We really enjoyed it and were grateful for the passes because the wait, even on the single rider line, was over 80 minutes most of the day. The one thing we couldn't figure out, though, is there's a part of the ride that goes outside that you can see from the queue, but neither of us remembered going outside on the actual ride. Maybe two different tracks? If anyone knows, please shoot me a comment.
Next up was Remy's Ratatouille Adventure. I actually love this ride in Florida, so definitely wanted to do it here. We whipped out our Premier pass and only waited a few ninutes to ride. The Florida version is really a clone of this one, and really enjoyed it. We were also pleased to see that the land this is located in a sort of a clone of Epcot's France pavillion. It's very well themed and has a lot of great food stands. We stopped, grabbed an outside table, and had a snack of crossaints, prosciutto and cheese. They really pulled out all the stops here.
Remy's Ratatouille Adventure sits in a well themed area that reminds me of Epcot. Photo by Gregg Jacobs.
We walked through the Toy Story land as we left Remy and were honestly not terribly impressed, especially after seeing Remy's setting. In a park that generally has great theming, this land contained a lot of off-the-shelf rides that you could find in any local carnival. This may have been our only disappointment the entire trip.
One of the highlights for me heading into this trip was visiting Marvel Avengers Campus. It just opened in July, so our timing was perfect—the crazy opening crowds had passed, but it was still all brand new. There are two big rides there: Avengers Assemble: Flight Force, and Spider-Man W.E.B. Adventure. I did my research and read that the first ride was a re-theming of Rock 'n' Roller Coaster. Since this is a ride that go upside-down, it was a no go. I was really excited for Spidy, though. This one didn't yet take Premier pass, but this was a must-do and the line was only 60 minutes (half the line for Crush Coaster at the time—go figure), so we waited.
I won't give away too much, but this one was a lot of fun. You had to help Spiderman, and you did that by moving around in a vehichle and shooting stuff with your hands, your own personal web slingers. The result was a lot of dead robot spiders and me being exhausted. The ride was very high-tech—think the next generation of Toy Story Mania. Well worth the visit and wait. The "industrial" theming of the land was OK. We did see a few characters walking around, including Thor and Loki.
Again, wanting to get bang for our buck out of the Premier pass, we went to the last ride in the park that took it: Cars Road Trip. We went and didn't need the pass—there was no wait. It was cute. You got on what probably used to be a parking lot tram and rode past different characters from Cars in different situations.The animatronics were good. I think this one was more for the under-8 set, but we did enjoy it.
Back to Disneyland
It was starting to get late, so we decided to head back to Disneyland Park. I, of course, hit the shops on the way out to continue scoping out potential purchases.
We got back to Disneyland and decided to repeat a few favorites. We went back to Hyperspace Mountain. We had already used the Premier pass, so did the 25 minute wait and rode again. We determined that it does, in fact, have a corkscrew—but it was over quickly and since the ride was so good, Mike didn't mind it much.
We then used our pass to walk on to Star Tours, which is essentially the same as the U.S. verison. This made us notice had Tomorrowland had changed from our last visit—from kind of a homage to Jules Verne, to a land themed to Star Wars and other Disney intellectual property. It made it a little less European, but it somewhow all worked.
We then did the same path as this morning and went to Frontierland, and again got stuck behind a parade. The parade was cute and had a ton of characters from the movies, so we enjoyed it.
In Fronteirland, we rode Phantom Manor again, and again had only a 5-minute wait. We then waited about 30 minutes for our repeat Big Thunder ride.
By now, it was getting dark, so we made our way over the the hub for the night-time fireworks show. I was excited about this one since it also had the 30th annversary tag at the beginning that involved a ton of drones around the castle. Then, unfortunately, it started to rain. We were both tired, and now wet and cold, so made the decision to shelve the fireworks until the following night when the weather forecast was better.
We were able to make a late dinner reservation at Billy Bob's Barbeque Buffet in Disney Village. It pretty much delivers what the name promises, a large buffet of decent barbque food and drinks. We pigged out, and then headed back to our room for the night.
Some thoughts
I have a couple of thoughts about today. The Premier pass was worth it. I was glad I bought one for this day and didn't buy one for both days. Happy about today because, overall, it probably saved us a few hours in lines and we rode Crush's Coaster, which we loved and wouldn't have done if we had to wait almost 2 hours. Glad I didn't get it it for the following day, because we got a surprising amount done today, and it wouldn't have been worth another $300 to do another round on rides we had done already. Would see how the lines are on Satutrday and let that dictate the itinerary.
The second thought is how the park looked overall. When we went here in 2004, it honestly just looked tired. Walt Disney Studios was frankly, a lousy park without much to do and minimal theming, and Disneyland park looked old with a lot of peeling paint, trash, and burnt-out bulbs. I still loved it, but something was definitely missing. This isn't true anymore. Mickey ponied up some dough to clean this place up.
I don't know if it was for the 30th anniversary or not, but the whole place gleams now. Everything is clean and bright. There are a ton of beautiful little touches in the Disneyland park, like the kinetic sculptures around the hub and the Karl Fredricksen figure we saw sitting at the river in Adventureland. It's something most people wouldn't notice, but I did, and these are the things that make Disney, Disney. The Studios park is also now worthly of being a Disney park with a lot more to do and a lot more theming. I only hope the Frozen expansion happens before it's time for me to head back to the States, so I can see it without a long plane ride.
OK, that was a long one folks! Next time, we'll look at what we did on Day 3, including rides, shows, and shopping. Until then, everyone stay safe and happy and see you real soon!
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