Photo TR, Disneyland Paris Resort

It's big, pink and pointy..

 

The day started off rather poorly unfortnuately. Obviously angered by London getting the Olympics the French ticket people "couldn't" work out how to get the Visa card to work to pay for the tickets. After spending a good 10 minutes waiting they finally gave in and we got 1-day hoppers. Which we didn't even ask for. :?

 

I only really wanted to get on Big Thunder Mountain, Indy Jones & Space Mountain. So I went for these first. After finally getting our tickets and getting into the park at 9.40am I managed Big Thunder Mountain by 10am, 5 minute queue my arse. It turned out to be about 20 minutes because of the one station operation..

 

The ride is so cool and I loved the underwater tunnels even though I thought it would be better darkly lit. The themeing is superb and it was a cute ride.

Looking down towards BTM's station and queueline area

 

Indiana Jones was a complete walk-on and I was suprised by this ride. It was incredibly forceful and as i'd expected fairly rough.

 

Space Moutain said a 10 minute wait.. Well it was a 10 minute wait.. when we got to the actual queue that is after 10 minutes of walking through a pointless queueline with pictures of a green sun. And the queueline was far too dark. I actually walked into a post at one point because I couldn't see where I was going. Granted I 'should' wear glasses but oh well..

 

The ride itself was amazing although I did feel the special effects were lost completely with the speed of the ride. The launch was very wierd going uphill and from the back you could see the little window in the side of the cannon closing and the smoke starting. A very impressive effect. The ride was let down however by the roughness setting in with age. I came off with a bruised elbow and my dad had a very red mark on his shoulder.

 

I'm not sure if anyone who has been there recently has noticed but Space Mountain now has a fat gate near where the fast-track joins the main queue. If you can't fit through it normally a Disney employee escorts you back through the fast-track queue. Harsh but it saves time in the stations.

The Columbiad Cannon and the Nautilus

 

After getting off I looked at the time and it was only 10.20am! Considering the park was closing at 11 I had to no clue how I was going to fill it up. As we walked to Fantasyland to go to It's A Small World we walked into star Tours. Now I know C3PO sounds gay in English. But in French he's as camp as a field of tents.

The ride was moderately good, although I did feel I was more aware of the people around me than I should be in a simulator.

 

So finally off we went to "It's A Small 3rd* World"

 

*WC Comedy Roadtrip Joke

 

The ride itself is incredible with all the animatronics and themeing. Although I have now experienced the most stereotypical ride ever created. Not everyone in Africa wears masks and goes "Ooga-Booga" and I hardly think all the Reindeers in Scandenavia smile and nod their heads.. As my mother pointed out (no offense) but it's the typical American view of the world.

 

Keeping with the stereo-type theme we headed off to Peter Pan where we found that "typical" english music playing.... Unfortunately by this time nearing about noon it was fairly busy and the queue was atleast 25 minutes. The longest of the day infact.

 

Alot of people have said this ride is great. I totally disagree. So we go from London, to Stars, To NeverNeverland, To the Fight Scene, To the Station... Aren't we missing about 1 hour of the story here? Oh and also many pointless stars inbetween scenes. And NeverNeverland looked like it was made from Papier Mache on Blue Peter.

 

Gladly away from the swinging cars of death (they were squeeking) we headed to the "Toad Hall Restaurant" for Fish and Chips. A pleasant meal interupted by a wasp.

 

After deciding there wasn't alot of worthwhile things left to do in the park we decided to head over to the Walt Disney Studios for the afternoon shows. Before leaving we headed for Pirates of the Caribbean.. Which was just like any other boat ride except I didn't know it had drops.. Unfortunately another ride with a very dark queueline. And again I walked into a few poles and into a chain on the way.

 

The themeing which was of course impressive just screamed normal Pirate-Ride for me. Oh and also at the end we had a massive pile-up with the boats which made the ride time extended by about 10 minutes.. I half expected boats to start crashing into each other by the drops.

 

After finally getting out of the caves we headed through the castle and made a quick detour to the dragon under the castle.

I'm a big dragon, hear me Rawr!

 

Leaving the park we headed towards the Studios and towards the Rock 'n' Rollercoaster. After the rather dodgy pre-station show, my dad was not at all expecting to see another launch. A small detail I forgot to mention. Nether the less he got on and to my utter delight. Front Row! And it makes all the different to a launch coaster it really does. The ride is alot more fun than Space Mountain and I didn't get bruised on this one.

 

We decided to take in a couple of shows and so we queued for *Say in an Aussy Accent* "I'm a geddin outta here" *Eddie Izzard joke*. Armageddon for those incapable of getting the joke. The pre-show had subtitles for us English thankfully. And for 7 other languages.. The overall efect the ride was trying to have was lost on me. I was more concerned by the end that my eyebrows had been burnt off by the end effects when the Meteors hit the station...

 

Well straight from this we headed to "Moteur Action" The hour long, audience particpated stunt show. It was very impressive with great jokes such as the remote control car and the "auditions". One of the Audience-Actors was very dramatic as I remember..

 

A recomendation is to be in the park when one of the shows is happening. The huge stand can easily hold aroud 2000 people so the park is literally dead outside leaving lots of time for repeat R'n'R rides.

 

After this we decided to watch the "Disney Cinema Parade" which was short but cute.

Umbana-SquashedBanana!

 

Afterwards we headed back into Disneyland Park for a couple of repeat rides. After being convinced to go on the railroad around the park by my mother we joined the queueline which moved about as slow as an ACEr at a pizza buffet..

 

45 Minutes later we were in a cramped compartment with a brazilian family. The ride around the park is incredibly poor I felt with hardly any interaction (bar Pirates) with the main park. Ontop of that it took ages to get around to Discoveryland which is where I wanted a repeat ride on Space Mountain.

 

And as I just remembered, they decided to send round an empty train into the depot.. Yes when the queueline is huge is so sensible to start knocking down the amount of trains!

 

Anyway after a wait of about 15 minutes I got on Space Mountain in the front car but not the front two seats unfortunately. This time it was a bit better than the last ride. it was getting near to 6.30pm so we headed off to the parade route by the castle to get some good seats. We sat down and waited the parade. Where I got a Blown Kiss off Jasmine. I'm in there 8)

 

The parade however came to a disappointing end at Dumbo... What's so special about that? Mickey/Minnie would be traditional but they were first instead on Steam Boat Willy.... Willie* My bad,

Get a real job!

 

After that we headed off for some food at "Pizzaria Belle Notte". The pasta I had wasn't bad but it came in a rather shoddy cardboard box which decided to collapse half-way through my meal.

 

At around 8pm we decided to call it a day and although I was cursing myself for missing Wishes and the Illuminationd we wouldn't have made the last metro back to our hotel if we had stayed until 11pm. There's always next time.

 

I almost forgot the Alice's Curious Labyrinth. A very strange maze and a bit boring so we left half-way through. Although I do wonder what message Disney is portraying to kids.

 

Hey kids, smoke like me and you look cool. Or you go blue blue and grow extra legs.

 

Hope you enjoyed reading and here's a few extra pictures from my week in Paris.

 

Our hotel was about 5-10 minutes walk from the Moulin Rouge and the Paris Sex District.. It was hard to keep a straight face walking down the road with "SEX" in Neon letters next to you.

 

Sacre-Coeur is on top of a large hill about 15 minutes from our hotel. It looks stunning by night and day

 

The Louvre and Glass Pyramid. We didn't go in due to the large queues. Besides the most famous painting they have is of a woman looking glum. Exciting

 

The Eiffel Tower at night from The Trocadero

 

Me by at the Trocadero. The Eiffel Tower looks darker because of the flash used. Apologies

 

End of my story. I miss Paris.

VERY COOL, i havn't been to a disney park since 89, i think thats going to have to change

 

nice TR

Nice TR...btw, I'm glad London got the Olympics!

Wow..you have some really nice TR pictures there. I really want to go to Disneyland Paris sometime.

I always enjoy TR, even if they are a little negative... It looks like you missed the most important thin at Disneyland Resort Paris... THE MAGIC.

 

I guess we can't all be Disney Geeks like I am....

Quite honestly, the muted lighting on the Eiffel Tower makes the picture of you in front of it better.

 

Nice report. One day I'll have to get to France and see all of this...

 

Eric

Don't get me wrong I loved the parks! It was just the small things which seemed to overshadow the magic. For example walking into poles in queuelines rather spoiled the atmosphere.

Oooh, I really liked the picture of the Dragon under the castle :shock:

Wow, great photo TR. When I see all the nice pictures, I want to go back to Paris and DLRP.

 

--Sören