What GD and CP REALLY did in Paris...

[Moonliner]

Ahh ha! Vacation eh? I think not. We all know the REAL reason you guys went to Pairs. Viva le révolution (http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/11/01/france.riots.reut/index.html)




PS. Hope you all had a good time

[Ghoulish Delight]

Hey, JUST because we pushed those two kids onto the track everyone thinks this is OUR fault. The French are so damned touchy.

Actually, we were so tuned out that we had no idea about this until we got back.

We DID have a good time. A full trip report and photos are forthcoming. My executive summary is as follows:

Disneyland Paris is amazing. Took a bit to get over the "bizarro Disneyland" feeling, and the layout is such that navigating the park is mildly annoying, but it's spectacular. Space Mountain:Mission 2 is awesome, hopefully a lot of the effects will make an appearance in Rockit Mountain here. However, we were unimpressed with Discoveryland as a whole. Uncohesive, underthemed, uninspired colors. Bleh. Pirates and Phantom Manor or something to behold. And their take on Main Street (same period, but big city main street rather than small town) is impressive. The Halloween festivities were a lot of fun, and done in an unobtrusive manner such that we could look past them when we wanted to.

Paris itself was equally amazing. This was really like taking 2 vacations in one. And we wasted no time. In 3+ days we saw 5 museums, took a 4 hour Segway tour, had many a delicious meal, attempted to experience the nightlife (details in the full report), saw dead people, witnessed a mass rollerblade exodus, toured the Metro system extensively, climbed the Arc de Triomph, got to the second deck of the Eifel Tower (too long of a wait to get to the top), and did a Mouse Adventure's worth of walking daily. We couldn't have had a better hotel, literally around the corner from the Louvre, no more than 2 Metro stops away from nearly everything. It was a fabulous experience.

There will be more detail than you'll ever need to know once we compile the full report and pics.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Ack! I knew he'd post before I did. :p

Here's my quick hit that I've been working on for too long already...there will be much more to follow.

Disneyland Paris.

I knew somewhat what I was in for. I'd seen pics of the park in the past. But it had been about a year since I'd really looked at any of that. I'd avoided DLRP info as well. I wanted to be surprised. And I was!

It's one of those "you have to be there" things. People can tell you that they have a beautiful entrance gate, and they still have Skull Rock, and a dragon under the castle, and you can even see pictures of all these things...but it's another thing to actually see it for yourself. Photos do not do them justice.

The first day we were dragging our jaws along, just gaping at everything. A Main Street from the same era, yet themed to a big city instead of a small town, and absolutely beautiful in design. A Pirates queue that's long, dark, and totally immersive. A Mansion (Manor!) that's actually frightening. Much of the park is a Disney geek dream come true, with plusses everywhere.

Space Mountain Mission 2 is fantastic. We're now officially pissed that they left our SM the way it was. Projections, lights...it's not like it would take too much for them to give us what they have. We rode that as much as we could.

There are things that aren't necessarily better, just different. Big Thunder is a lot of fun, and the tunnel is awesome, but I wouldn't say it's definitely better than ours. The Teacups do spin easier, and the decor is different and gorgeous, but again, ours is just as nice. The walkways are more picturesque and winding, which is nice if you're strolling about. There are waterways everywhere, and sight lines are blocked with trees, so you can allow yourself to be immersed in your location. But if you want to get somewhere it can be confusing and annoying. Interesting trade off there.

A lot of things were closed for the season. Autopia, the Twain and Molly Brown, Storybook and Casey Jr. I was especially annoyed that we missed the latter two - Storybook is one of the most "Disney" rides in my mind.

Never fear, there were plenty of things that I know I prefer at our park. All the rides are faster there - boats, dark rides - making for a more frenzied feel. This is especially the case on IASW, where they've chopped it to half the length and just jammed everything in there at once. Add in the fast boat and it was a bit too much to handle.

The Halloween stuff was fun, whimsical. It also didn't take away from our experience - the first day we barely noticed it as we took in the park for the first time. The Pumpkin Men statues were cool. They had mischievous costumed characters messing with people. The parade was fun, lots of villians, including a cross-dressing Ursula. I'm glad the Manor wasn't Halloweened in any way - it was amazing as it was.

Our CM interactions were always great, and it was during one of these that I realized something, as silly as it sounds...this really is another Disneyland. The CMs here are the same as our CMs at home. The feeling of this place was at first odd, but it's when you've got a smiling CM making sure your day goes well, you know it's got the same heart. We had a limited-english CM ask us where we were from, and we said California, near Disneyland. She seemed interested and wanted to know if we thought Disneyland Paris was beautiful. We replied whole-heartedly, "yes, very beautiful!" She seemed very pleased by this, and said "Thank you" so earnestly, that I knew she loved her park as much as we love ours.

More later...

[Ghoulish Delight]

My favorite CM interaction came when we checked into our hotel. The CM, Danielle, first noticed my shirt (I was wearing the button up Jack Skellington/HMH shirt) and said something to the effect of "Ooh, Tim Burton." Then, as he began to give us the vital info regarding how to get into the park and where things were in the hotel, etc. Then he pulls out the park map and begins to instruct us where not to eat. He crossed out a bunch of dining locations, circled others ("If it's the same crew working here, it's good"), and said of another, "It's okay to eat here, but PLEASE don't get the pasta. I'm Italian." Disney geek and food snob. I loved this guy!

[Gemini Cricket]

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b268/braddoc310/rejected-icon-150.gif
"More! More! More! We wants to hear more!"
:D

[Ghoulish Delight]

http://www.bitterfilms.com/rejected-auction2-small.jpg
"I am the Queen of France!"

[Ghoulish Delight]

Hmm, two pieces of the Disney portion of the trip that neither of us has mentioned: Disney Village and Disney Studios Park.

The much maligned Studios Park was in some ways far better than I expected, but in many ways just as bad as you've heard. What there is to do there is rather entertaining, and the entry building is beautiful (it's what Hollywood and Dine should have been). But there's simply not enough to do (we did the whole park in about 4 hours. It literally is the size of a land), too much of what there is to do is shows, and the theming is completely nonexistent. It makes Hollywood Picture Backlot look like the Indy queue in comparison. And their "backlot tram tour"....yikes.

But even with that...I'll take the Studios over Disney Village any day of the week. Holy god what a craptacular travesty that is. 100 yards of pure ugly and unadulterated tack. The fact that it's got the Disney name on it is shameful. It needs to be bulldozed.

[Matterhorn Fan]

And their "backlot tram tour"....yikes.Details, please. Surely it can't be worse than what's left of WDW's backlot tour. Can it?

[Ghoulish Delight]

Details, please. Surely it can't be worse than what's left of WDW's backlot tour. Can it?Oh, I bet it can. Here's the run through:

You are guided on video by Jeremy Irons and some French actress. Honestly, their spiel is entirely forgetable. Standard "Hollywood is great, isn't amazing to see the things that go into this oh-so-important business" crap.

First, you pass a few large props from what's purportedly a set from Dinotopia. You arrive at their earthquake effects setup. That's actually pretty decent. Lots of fire, lots of shaking, lots of water. And you even get taken around behind it to see a bit of the hardware.

Then you loop back around, past the loading station, see a few props strewn around, and arrive at a destroyed city set. You're told it's for a movie in which a dragon attacks London. Odd, but full of promise. The set is very detailed. We couldn't WAIT to see the awesome animatronic dragon, spitting fire, come up from behind the buildings!! But alas, all we got was a big flame thrower from a hole in the ground. Yawn.

And finally, you're taken past a fake costuming warehouse and are supposed to laugh as Jeremy Irons is shown in some stupid costume on the video.

And that's IT. That's the whole thing. MAYBE 15 minutes? And we saw the wait time up over an hour at points. We only waited about 15, thankfully, by taking advantage of a rather odd queue arrangement. I would NOT have been very cheery had I had to wait an hour for that.

[Matterhorn Fan]

From that description, it actually sounds a teensy bit better than WDW's (I wouldn't wait even just 5 minutes for the one here). They've got the costume building, some rotting props, and catastrophe canyon. Oh, and they drive around the Lights Motors Action show. What a colossal waste of space.

[Not Afraid]

I believe it is pretty much the same as WDW's - with the exception of the talent.

[Matterhorn Fan]

Yeah, Jeremy Irons rocks. ;)

[Prudence]

Of course, when we were there WDW's had some Star Wars props. Therefore it was deemed a highlight.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

My lord, I had no clue that WDW's Studio tour was THAT lame, especially since it's been around for a while longer. One less reason to take on the behemoth that is Florida.

I'm sorry I haven't had time to write reports here...work is busy and so is after work, what with trying to get our house in an orderly fashion and trying to catch up on our DVR stuff. I swear I'll write more later...

[Not Afraid]

WDS tour in Florida used to be quite a bit bigger but they cut it back to put in other attractions. I'm not sure it was a huge draw anyways. And, by all means, the studio tour shouldn't be the deciding factor in whether to visit WDW or not.

Even Universal's tour (the original, I believe), although much better is still on the lame side.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Even Universal's tour (the original, I believe), although much better is still on the lame side.I always loved the tour at USH. I was last there about 4 years ago and I still dug it. It's the original way that people learned about movie making. The place has actual history, and is still a live studio. I dig that.

[innerSpaceman]

Yeah, the tour was tired last time I took it, but lo and behold - - there they were filming War of the Worlds! OMG, a real movie studio and not bu!!sh!t theme park fakery (um, like the rest of USH).


But I gotta say that for the bu!!sh!t stuio theme park fakery, Disney-MGM at WDW is really good.

[Matterhorn Fan]

Yeah, the backlot tour isn't worth your time, but that's not anywhere near a decent reason not to visit WDW. You guys would have a blast out here.

[Ghoulish Delight]

CP wasn't implying that the Florida parks are bad. Just voicing something we realized while we were in Paris. In only 3 days and 1 1/3 parks, we were theme parked out. The thought of tackling Florida with 94 parks (or 5, whatever it's up to these days) seemed rather overwhelming.

[Matterhorn Fan]

I know she wasn't saying they were bad. She was just justifying not coming.

One thing I like about WDW is that there's places to hang out. EPCOT is good for this, as are many of the resorts. (And there's other things to do in Central Florida.)

Someday you'll be less themeparked-out and you'll come. Just don't come in August--it's too humid then. Blech.

P.S. It's 95 parks now, not 94. ;)

[Not Afraid]

95!

Well, I like the 4 Disney parks and will visit them again, but I am not much of a theme park enthusiast as I am a Disney enthusiast. I like to visit Knotts because it is old school fun for me, but I'll leave the others in Florida alone - except maybe Gator Land. ;)

[Matterhorn Fan]

NA, what about Cypress Gardens?


Sorry to derail this thread--we all want to hear more about Paris!

[innerSpaceman]

I wanna hear about how GD and CP sparked all that rioting, and then managed to get out of Dodge unscathed.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Sorry to derail this thread--we all want to hear more about Paris!If you insist. (crap, we haven't even started to sort through photos yet...)

So, enough about Disney for now, on to a couple Paris highlights.

I'll start at the very end, the last thing we did (except for dinner) on our last evening there. We visited the Pompidou, the modern art museum. Much like the glass pyramid at the Louvre, the Pompidou center is a constant source of controversy in this acient city. Personally, I hate the building. Not in a "newness has no place among the history in Paris" kind of way. The thing's just ugly. (see below)

However, the exhibit was awesome. We were turned away from the Dadaism exhibit on the top floor as the museum pass (a great purchase, walking past the ticket line for the D'Orsay was worth every penny alone) we had didn't include it. But not to worry, the main exhibit wonderful. They completely rotate the collection twice a year, and this time they were doing something unique. Instead of arranging things by style or artist or movement or media, they created an exhibit that deconstructed modern art. Each room was a study of different elements that define modern art and differentiate it from classic art. They'd have pieces from different artists, movements, styles, and medium but all sharing a common theme. And it was all accompanied by a very helpful pamphlet describing some of the pieces and constructing the message of the exhibit for you. Really well done.

http://www.tellthetruthtravel.com/images/Paris/Pompidou.jpg

[Ghoulish Delight]

I wanna hear about how GD and CP sparked all that rioting, and then managed to get out of Dodge unscathed.
The secret is to travel with a forged Passport under a name that doesn't match your plane ticket.

[Mousey Girl]

Is the building still under construction or is always going to be that bad?

[Ghoulish Delight]

Is the building still under construction or is always going to be that bad?
That's its completed form, sadly enough.

[SzczerbiakManiac]

I visited the Pompidou Center (http://www.cnac-gp.fr/Pompidou/Accueil.nsf/Document/HomePage?OpenDocument&L=2) in 83 and I thought it was really cool. The reason it looks so "unfinished" is because instead of having all the ductwork inside the building, it's on the outside. All the pipes are color-coded. blue for air
green for fluids
yellow for electrical cables
red for elevators and fire extinguishersBecause all the ductwork is on the outside, the interior is much more spacious than a typical building. Obviously, the design is not to everyone's taste, but for a building designed to be artistically unique, it totally works for me.

[€uroMeinke]

Personally, I loved the escalator tubes - especially in the rain. My best memory of the place was the ticket taker, who refused to take my day pass because it was an hour before closing - "please go in, but you must come back tomorrow and see the rest"

[Not Afraid]

I visited the Pompidou Center (http://www.cnac-gp.fr/Pompidou/Accueil.nsf/Document/HomePage?OpenDocument&L=2) in 83 and I thought it was really cool. The reason it looks so "unfinished" is because instead of having all the ductwork inside the building, it's on the outside. All the pipes are color-coded.

blue for air
green for fluids
yellow for electrical cables
red for elevators and fire extinguishers
Because all the ductwork is on the outside, the interior is much more spacious than a typical building. Obviously, the design is not to everyone's taste, but for a building designed to be artistically unique, it totally works for me.

Thank you, SM. I thought this aspect of the building made it more fascinating architecturally and well as gave it a uniqe role within the City of Paris. The galleries are unlike any others and the views from the exterior elevator tubes is wonderful.

Remember, the World - especially the French - hated the Eiffel Tower as well at first.

[Ghoulish Delight]

but for a building designed to be artistically unique, it totally works for me.To me, just as "new and different" does not automatically equal bad, neither does it automatically equal good.

Frank Gehry designs buildings that are simultaneously unique, non-traditional, AND eye-pleasing. I much prefer his style of architectural rebelion to the anti-asthetic industrial look of the Pompidou.

[€uroMeinke]

Frank Gehry designs buildings that are simultaneously unique, non-traditional, AND eye-pleasing. I much prefer his style of architectural rebelion to the anti-asthetic industrial look of the Pompidou.

And yet it seems every city now must have a Gehry - which ultimately seems to undermine their uniqueness.

I concede that Gehry's use of more organic forms is more eye pleasing, but Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers and Gianfranco Franchini's Pompidou I think tickles the imagination of turning a building inside out.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Yeah, Gehry's getting a little trendy, so his designs are probably not the place to go to break new ground anymore. But that's usually the end point of any successful groundbreaker. I just brought him up as an example of how once can break the mold without being ugly.

Googling other work by Piano and Rogers, I like the other stuff they've done a lot more than the Pompidou. I respect the concept, but dislike the asthetics. But I've also always disliked interior spaces with exposed duct work. I tend to prefer things that manage to be equally conceptual/utilitarian and asthetic. I see a difference between redefining asthetics vs. completely rejecting it.

And for the record, at least according to google and other sites, Franchini (designer of the contentious Louvre pyramid, which I happen to have an affinity for) did not work on the Pompidou.

[Ghoulish Delight]

I will say that I find the front of the building (with the escalator) less unappealing than the side with the colored ducts. Too primary, kinda garish.

[€uroMeinke]

And for the record, at least according to google and other sites, Franchini (designer of the contentious Louvre pyramid, which I happen to have an affinity for) did not work on the Pompidou.

Hmmm, could be - I pulled it from a Pompidou Site (http://www.cnac-gp.fr/pompidou/Communication.nsf/0/B90DF3E7C7F18CAEC1256D970053FA6D?OpenDocument&sessionM=3.1.12&L=2) that claimed:


BACKGROUND: THE INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

1970: an international architectural competition was launched. It was based on a programme aimed at achieving the objectives set by President Georges Pompidou and drawn up by the Sébastien Loste team. Chaired by the internationally renowned architect Jean Prouvé, the prize-winners selected by the jury were Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers and Gianfranco Franchini, assisted by Ove Arup & Partners. The Centre Pompidou construction office, called Etablissement public constructeur du Centre Beaubourg, was set up at the end of 1971, through a decree by the Ministry for the Arts and Culture. Robert Bordaz was appointed as its chairman

But, I have no direct knowledge of who was in the architectural team and how their roles played out in its construction

[Ghoulish Delight]

Interesting. I wonder if maybe Franchini was in on the concept stage for the competition but not in the actual construction phase.

EDIT: Ah, I found one source that credits Franchini with the interior design.

[€uroMeinke]

Interesting. I wonder if maybe Franchini was in on the concept stage for the competition but not in the actual construction phase.

EDIT: Ah, I found one source that credits Franchini with the interior design.

I suggest we book a trip to Paris to investigate this further - some questions are too important to rely on the internet for an answer ;)

[Prudence]

Frank Gehry designs buildings that are simultaneously unique, non-traditional, AND eye-pleasing. I much prefer his style of architectural rebelion to the anti-asthetic industrial look of the Pompidou.

Have you perhaps not SEEN the EMP building? I'd take the Pompidou any day over the monument to rainbow vomit.

[Not Afraid]

So, Chris Googled the EMP building to get a picture, I glanced over and said "Is it being tented?"


http://www.winsupersite.com/images/reviews/winhec2004_3_01.jpg

[Ghoulish Delight]

Aww, I love the EMP building. It was the first Gehry building I ever saw, as a matter of fact.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Have you perhaps not SEEN the EMP building? I'd take the Pompidou any day over the monument to rainbow vomit.We visited the EMP a few years back. Absolutely loved that one. Pictures do not do it justice because it looks different from every angle, both in color and architecture. Walking toward it, it seems like it moves over you.

I found the Pompidou to be a "design" lacking design. I don't think painting exposed air ducts is interesting or different. My local La Salsa fast food joint has the same "design".

[Prudence]

...Walking toward it, it seems like it moves over you...


Yup. Just like rainbow vomit. I agree that it has to be seen to be believed. :rolleyes: