Disneyland Paris - Day #1

A few more photos are on the blog and hopefully a little video will be up shortly. In the meantime, here is today's update!

Gayle: It was so warm yesterday, we knew it would be a “shorts day” today. We felt really lucky about this, as we didn’t expect it to get this warm here, so we just added shorts to our bags a day or two before the trip! :-) Now, on with the day…

Every day at Disneyland Paris (DLP) has Extra Magic Hours (EMH). This means guests of the resort hotels gain access to the park two hours prior to the opening to the public. (See, you WILL learn things about Disney whether you want to or not!) So we were up early to breakfast and at the front gate just prior to 8am. This is something we also do at Walt Disney World (WDW) in FL, but this was different. First, there were NO other people on our bus, which would NEVER happen at WDW. When we arrived at the gate there were only about 10 other people waiting with us; again, this would never happen at WDW. It felt very weird.

Kara: We have a regular path we take when we enter a park – go around the castle and back to Dumbo. We stopped several times to take pictures of Sleeping Beauty Castle – a couple of them were really good. Then it was off to Dumbo. We didn’t have to wait in the queue and our flight had several empty elephants. Very odd. While we were back in this part of the park we also rode Peter Pan’s Flight and the Tea Cups. Only two of the four lands at the Disneyland Park were open, so after this we headed over to ride Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear. Gayle doesn’t care much for roller coasters so I rode Space Mountain on my own. I don’t like really big roller coasters, but most of the Disney Park coasters are great for me. However, this version of Space Mountain shook me like crazy. It was still a decent adrenaline rush and good for a little screaming – but nowhere near as fun as some of the other stuff we rode a bit later.

Gayle: Yeh, at the Magic Kingdom in FL, there are a limited number of rides open during EMH, and a list of them is provided. No such list was provided here, which made for a bit of backtracking when learning something wasn’t yet open. Grrr. Speaking of… “it’s a small world” was closed during EMH; that simply goes against all things Disney. If the park is open, the small world MUST be open! While Kara was on Space Mountain, I went on Buzz Lightyear. It’s easier to score points here, as you can lift the laser gun out of the ride vehicle. Kara & I then met up to go on Buzz together. However, just as we were nearing the front of the line we noticed they were no longer loading people into the vehicles. Hmmm. Then the ride stopped. Uh oh. Then the music stopped and all the lights came on. This is virtually the Disney equivalent to the “blue screen of death”. Luckily we were given Fast Passes to return at a later time. Fast Passes allow you to come back at a later time and enter a shorter (usually nill) line. There is always a designated hour or so of return time, but since we endured a ride breakdown, we could return any time we wanted. And this allowed us to get a second Fast Pass for another ride (Star Tours) during this time, which is something you also usually can’t do.

Kara: Since we had ridden everything that was open we walked over to Frontierland so we could be there when it opened at 10. On our way we stopped in the Castle. Gayle took several photos inside the Castle of the stained glass windows. When we left the castle we headed to Frontierland. Apparently this park allows anyone into the park before it opens – it’s just that only people with resort IDs can get into the two open lands. So, we joined a pretty large mob of people at the entry to Frontierland. When Frontierland opened we headed straight to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (BTMR) – which is one of my favorites. Apparently it is also everyone else’s as we experienced a ride-entry mosh pit at the entrance to the ride. We finally got into the queue and waited only about 10 minutes in line before we got on the ride. Gayle actually rides this one with me, although she hung on – to me – the entire time. In my opinion BTMR here was much better than any other ride thus far and it’s better than BTMR in Disney World. Very fun!

After this, we went over and rode Pinocchio – a ride they don’t have at Disney World. After this we went back and rode the storybook boat ride which included miniature versions of many of the Disney stories. It was cute. We finished out our time at this park with our Fast Pass to Buzz Lightyear. Gayle kicked my butt!

Gayle: To be fair, I hang on for dear life on BTMR because I’m always afraid I’ll fly out. (It stems from a scary experience at Kings Island many, many years ago.) By this time we headed out of Disneyland and were off to Disney Studios. First, to reach the front gate of the Disneyland Park you have to go through the Disneyland Hotel. That’s really weird compared to WDW. I actually don’t think I’d like staying there because all of the people coming & going all day (& night). The other thing is the front gate of Studios is only about 75-100 yards from the Disneyland Park & Hotel. That is REALLY weird. In FL NOTHING is close enough to see! As we were entering the Studios people were having their photos taken with a 1970s/80s? model of a black Cadillac stretch limo. That seemed odd. Do they not have limos over here? The funniest thing was the limo had an Ohio license plate on the front! HA!

Kara: We headed through Studio 1 – this big rectangular building right inside the Studios. There are restaurants and shops inside. We exited into the park, which is what I call Studios in miniature. Everything is right there. We planned to take in the two shows today so we could do the other attractions we wanted to do tomorrow. So, first we watched Animagique which is a Disney character shows featuring black light effects. There were songs from several Disney feature films. Then we headed over to the other show – Cinemagique. This one was a little more odd. A guy in the audience (an actor) got pulled into the screen and then they took him through several classic movies. It was funny, but not really what I expect from Disney.

Gayle: Yeh, Animagique and Cinemagique were really just adaptations of Mickey’s PhilharMagic, Journey of the Little Mermaid, The Great Movie Ride, etc. from FL. I guess this is smart on Disney’s part. Why should they recreate the wheel, when most Europeans won’t be visiting WDW? I guess if the regular visitors here like them, then so be it, but they certainly weren’t what we were expecting.

Next is the start of a little preview for tomorrow. We left the park to check out the laundry facilities at one of the other hotels. In a previous blog I described the basic differences between our hotel and its inspiration in FL. Laundry facilities here are available only at the lowest-level/basic hotel. In FL the equivalents would be the All-Stars or Pop Century. This is Disney’s version of a motel vs. hotel. In FL, they are definitely the nicest motels available and fully Disney themed. Here they have Hotel Santa Fe (New Mexico theming) and Cheyenne Hotel (Wyoming theming). Very imaginative, eh? We went to Hotel Santa Fe, the motel we briefly saw upon our initial arrival. Our eyes literally bugged out. How in the world is the Disney name associated with this place?! Kara described it as a horrible “Motel 6”, but even better – one of those abandoned motels they investigate on CSI! LOL! On the way to the laundry we saw a crashed flying saucer. Yeh – no kidding – I’m now calling it Area 51. That’s just sad. We eventually found the laundry, but are still unsure if we can actually get them to work &/or clean our clothes, so stay tuned to the update tomorrow.

We escaped from there ASAP and headed back to Sequoia Lodge. Very soon we were back at Disneyland for a quiet dinner of… BBQ chicken & steak fries. Frighteningly, this was one of the best meals we’ve had so far. We tried to stroll the very busy shops and shockingly, didn’t buy a single thing. Usually I blow my budget exponentially in the shops at WDW. It’s like a whole other dimension here. I have my “World of Disney” and let’s just say DLP doesn’t really fit in my world. We did however grab some yummy chocolaty treats at the Bake Shop before heading home for the night.

And P.S.: We were reading a menu the other night that listed cheesecake made with, not cream cheese, but “Philadelphia Cheese”. Do they make cheese in Philly? Guess something got lost in translation!

Goodnight!