Paris, France: I can’t even tell you how many times a day (since we left Los Angeles on 21 March), the kids have told us how excited they were for Disneyland. Amusing to us, as our grandchildren live within 30 minutes from Anaheim and visit the park every year. Leo has also been to Tokyo Disneyland. But Disneyland is just a magical place - and finally the day arrived.
Four days ago, Disneyland Paris opened a new “land” devoted to the Frozen movie franchise, complete with an alp and a nordic-themed village on a massive lake (that I supposed is supposed to be the bay in the Frozen town of Arendelle). This section of the park was Walt Disney Studios, and has been rebranded as Disney Adventure World. Our vacation was not planned around this new opening, we just had to travel the two weeks the children had from school - just lucked-out.
So, we ordered tickets to both parks and also added a passes to the park tickets which gave quick access to each ride one time. The “fast-pass” add-on was so expensive, I hesitated, but if we will only have one day to see everything, standing in line for 40 minutes to ride every attraction would not be the best use of precious time. Bullet was bitten, and it turned out to be a very wise investment. The tickets purchased were for April 1st, but they could be swapped-out for a day prior/after. This was for no extra charge - just a normal advantage of buying in advance - plus who knew what the weather would be?
The weather was not great. The high was 55, but it was not windy. There was some mist in the morning, but the only rain we had all day was while we were inside for dinner.
It was easy to wake the sleepy-heads this morning! Our route today required walking to the nearest subway station and taking a quick ride to the Les Halles station, which is also a station for the RER regional train east to Disneyland. The train dead-ends at Disneyland and actually drops passengers at the entrance gate of the park. Very convenient.
The only bad thing about all the tickets/passes being on my phone is we couldn’t split up. Sometimes Dave and Leo wanted to ride one thing and Lucile and I wanted to go shopping ride another, but we all were stuck together with my phone.
Our first stop was to Adventure land where we rode Big Thunder Mountain. Big is the key new word on this ride. The ride is twice as long as the California version, and twice as scary and spine-jerking. This is my favorite ride in California, but I will never be riding the European version again. Terrifying. (My fellow riders thought it was fabulous.) One interesting thing noted: we were in complete darkness for several stretches and we finally figured it out - we were in a tunnel under the lake next to Thunder Mountain. But there is a second Thunder Mountain in the middle of the lake - so the ride is through both! The Magic of Disney.
While in Adventureland, we also visited Phantom Manor (Haunted Mansion), Pirates of the Caribbean (pretty-much the same as California), did Buzz Lightyear’s Laser Blast (I lost), It’s a Small World (same damn song, just in French). I skipped the India Jones Temple of Peril, as it had two upside-down loops. The children rode Star Wars Hyperspace Mountain (Space Mountain in California) twice. The Premier Access passes (fast pass) paid for themselves by the third ride. Each ride has a separate entrance for the fast-pass guests. Just place the QR code on your phone into a reader and you go to the front of the line! A few times, we were the only ones in the fast lane; other times there were people in front of us - but it was 25 people instead of 250 people. We bet ten minutes was the longest we had to ever wait, when the sign outside the rides read “45 MINUTES” wait. We saved hours!
After touring through Adventureland, we stopped for food. $12 pizza was the best option. The restaurant was called Colonel Hathi’s Outpost and it was decorated with Native Americans and buffalos and gold miners, and it served kid’s pizzas and Indian food.
After lunch, we continued discovering the other lands in Disneyland Paris.
There are zero weeds in Disneyland.
We started heading to the new part of the park, stopping on Main Street for lunch dessert.
After entering the new Disney Adventure World, we walked all the way to the back to the new Frozen attraction, Frozen Ever After. This ride is fairly gentle, as you are “floating” on water, but you are dropped down a waterfall twice, and one time is backwards. The cars float by very sweet scenes from the film:
It was “snowing” in Arendell. At first, I thought it was the dang bubble-blowers so many of the children were using in the park, but this was just fake snow. So clever. The boats on the dock are actually on some-sort of tracks and actors perform songs from the film, while “floating” out in the bay. (I was too short to see this, but Dave, Leo, and Lucy (up on Leo’s shoulders) saw the performance.
While in Disney Adventure World we rode Ratatouille - some sort of magic puts you inside the movie - inside the kitchen and restaurant while hundreds of waiters and chefs try to smash Remy at hyper-speed. Leo had to do the Tower of Terror - called the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror in France - alone, but he said it was good. We played the Spider-Man W.E.B. Adventure together as a team. Instead of shooting lasers at targets, we had to pretend to “throw” spider webs out of our fingers and somehow the magical Disney engineers have figured out how our flying fingers kill spiders and save the day. Lucy had the most points! The Cars ROAD TRIP was kinda a bust. You are placed on a tram and it kinda goes nowhere, past old Highway 66 road signs and then the trams stop in front of an oil pumping station(?) and there is an earthquake and the tram starts shaking and swaying and a dam must break as an entire lake of water seems to stream down from behind the scene and an oil truck slides down towards the tram. Oh, there are explosions and fire everywhere and - poof - it is over. Twenty seconds of the best disaster film you could imagine on a ten-minute ride.
According to Leo and Lucy, the best ride in Adventure World (and the entire park) was Avengers Assemble: Flight Force. They loved this roller coaster the best - even though Lucy felt a little woozy after, she rode it again with her brother. If Dave and I don’t do a ride, the kids can use our fast-passes.
Buzz Lightyear is also here, near the area where the rides for very young children is located. He was there as a photo-op only:
It was getting dark and it was getting cold. We had 7p dinner reservations in the (still under construction) area that is the equivalent to Downtown Disney. This is the area in Disneyland and Disney World with shops and restaurants, but you do not have to pay to enter the parks to enjoy these features. Dinner was reserved at the only place that had an opening - weeks ago. I must have been fooled, as The Steakhouse was half-empty and the food was terrible.
Lucile ordered off the kid’s menu. Her appetizer was a ball of flavored soft cheese, a Mickey Mouse-shaped blob of roasted tomatoes and 10 pieces of popcorn. What the hell? She also had a decent kid-sized burger and the child meal came with dessert. She chose a brownie. It was small - so just perfectly sized for Lucy.
Leo ordered steak tartar (he loves this) and it was prepared table-side, and also served shaped as a Mickey’s head. I had a terrible and cold chicken sandwich, but DT won with a chicken Caesar. Terribly slow service as well and so expensive. Bummer. After we left, we saw a McDonald’s. This would have been a better choice!
Dear Reader, I know several rides have not been mentioned, but we rode the rides and walked every path. We were in Disneyland Paris nearly 13 hours. There was a fireworks show at 10:40, but we decided to skip the grand finale. We still had an hour commute back to Paris.
Lucy chose her Disney souvenirs. She bought the (previously mentioned) Olaf (the adorable little snowman from Frozen) that attaches with a magnet to your shoulder, and a set of Disney “ears” to add to her collection:
We caught the train just as it was leaving the station and enjoyed the warm ride back to our apartment - falling into our beds five minutes after arrival, promising no alarm clocks in the morning… but they asked to be awakened by 11a because they wanted to go to Les Deux Magots again for brunch.
As one does.
PEDOMETER: Are you sitting down? (I am): 27,809, 11 miles.
Until my next update, I remain, your mousy correspondent.
LINKS:
Disneyland Paris