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




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.

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]

"More! More! More! We wants to hear more!"

[Ghoulish Delight]

"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]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

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]

Originally Posted by Matterhorn Fan

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.