(Complete! 12/23) "But Your Back is Broken!" WDWers do Disneyland Paris - Sept 18-23, 2022

[Araminta18]

Hello! Welcome to my trip report! My husband and I visited Disneyland Paris for the first time this September, and had an amazing few days. I love writing trip reports because it allows me to basically relive the trip, so if you're interested in Disneyland Paris from the view of a first-timer with WDW experience, and don't mind a bit of verbosity, join in!

The details:
who: me and my husband Trevor
when: Sunday September 18th through Friday September 23
where: Hotel New York Art of Marvel

Introductions:
So I'm Tiffany, I'll be your ghost host for this trip report. I turned 35 on this trip, and while I'm a librarian by education, I currently do federal records management, since records management is where the pay is, and I gotta pay for Disney! Favorite princess is Sleeping Beauty, but I also love Mary Poppins and Beauty and the Beast and Rapunzel. Favorite ride: I can never pick just one -- Haunted Mansion, Rise of the Resistance, Tower of Terror/Mission Breakout...I can't pick! (I ended up having a new favorite ride after this trip ) But I also love the food and the theming -- the music and all the attention to detail just makes me happy.

My traveling companion is my husband Trevor. He's 36 and loves Star Wars, but has grown to love Disney--his favorite characters are Boba Fett, Vader and Stormtroopers, and on the non-Star Wars side, Grumpy. His favorite rides used to be Haunted Mansion and Star Tours--he doesn't really like coasters or thrill rides, but I did get him to try Big Thunder Mountain and Space Mountain and I don't know that he'd call them favorites, but he definitely likes them. I think the only rides he won't ride at WDW are Everest and Rockin Roller Coaster and most of the time Tower of Terror. And I don't mind riding solo, and he doesn't have any problem entertaining himself, so it works out really well. Though stay tuned to see how he tackled (or didn't...) the more intense coasters at Disneyland Paris!

So...what can you expect from this trip report? A lot (A LOT) of pictures for each day (like literally, probably gonna have to break each day into 3 or 4 posts to get around the picture limit), including terrible selfies. Lots of pictures of our meals (I think I actually managed to take pictures of all of the food, before eating it, which is a definite win), and probably way too much detail. If you want a taste of how my trip reports go, you can check out my old ones (for Disneyworld and our one Disneyland trip) in my signature. There's also a pre-trip report for my next WDW trip that includes some bonus planning for Disneyland Paris, if you're curious: https://www.disboards.com/threads/u...-universal-jan-2023-ptr.3881034/post-64009984

This trip came about because my in-laws are currently in Germany and my father-in-law had been wanting to do a "guys trip" with Trevor and his brothers, to do some hiking in various places in Germany, Switzerland, France, etc. They finally planned it for this fall, and while I have absolutely no interest in hiking, I figured I'd tag along and visit the in-laws for a few days with Trevor, and then when they left for their hiking trip, I'd take the train from Germany down to Paris and explore Paris for a week, and then Trevor would meet up with me and we'd do Disneyland Paris for a few days. It actually worked out really really well - we had a wonderful time visiting with Trevor's parents, and I had a wonderful time in Paris by myself, touring all the things. I assumed people here weren't interested in that part of the trip, so this trip report will pick up on Sunday, when Trevor joined me in Paris and we headed to Disneyland Paris. (If you are interested in my shenanigans all by myself in Paris, I can post those...just tell me where! )

 

[Araminta18]

Table of Contents

Sunday, September 18, 2022 - Arrival Day! (part 1)
Sunday, September 18, 2022 - Dinner at the Manhattan, Hotel New York - Art of Marvel (part 2)

Monday, September 19 2022 - Hello Disneyland Paris! (part 1)
Monday, September 19 2022 - Pym Kitchen Lunch (part 2)
Monday, September 19, 2022 - SuperHero Station and More Exploring (part 3)
Monday, September 19, 2022 - All the Rides! (part 4)

Tuesday, September 20, 2022 - Meeting SpiderMan! (part 1)
Tuesday, September 20, 2022 - Auberge de Cendrillon (part 2)
Tuesday, September 20, 2022 - Illumination! (part 3)

Wednesday, September 21, 2022 - Meeting Mary and Bert...Maybe! (part 1)
Wednesday, September 21, 2022 - Bistrot Chez Remy! (part 2)
Wednesday, September 21, 2022 - Closing Down Disney Studios (part 3)

Thursday, September 22, 2022 - Last Morning at Disneyland Paris (part 1)
Thursday, September 22, 2022 - Skull Rock, Adventure Island, and Our New Room! (part 2)
Thursday, September 22, 2022 - Lunch at Walt's (part 3)
Thursday, September 22, 2022 - Last Night at Disneyland Paris (part 4)

Friday, September 23, 2022 - Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jig

 

[Araminta18]

Sunday, September 18, 2022 - Arrival Day! (part 1)​

I'd been in Paris since Monday the 12th, but today Trevor joined me at about 11 am. However, the night before, he'd texted me that he'd pulled or thrown out his back Saturday morning, when he'd lifted up his carry-on-size suitcase to put it into the car for the drive back to his parent's house (from their last stop on the hiking trip). And when I asked how he was feeling, he said that it only hurt when he "bent, twisted, or moved the wrong way"...and we were planning to head to Disney that night! On rides! With lots of bending and twisting. Poor guy. So I was starting to get a bit worried about how this all would go, but nothing for it but to pick him up and see how it went.

So I picked him up from the train station, and then we had a couple tours booked (including a dessert tour of Montmartre ). Those finished around 4 pm. At that point, we didn't technically have plans besides "get to Disney": the Ratatouille ride was closing after today for the whole week we'd be there, and I wanted to ride it in Paris, today, before it closed. And the park closed at 9. So that was technically the plan - to get to Disneyland early enough to be able to ride Ratatouille. We did talk about going over to Notre Dame so Trevor could see it, since that was the only thing he hadn't seen that he wanted to (per Trevor, it was one of the few things he knew about/had heard about), but when we discussed that it would take us at least 30/45 min to get there and the same amount of time to get back, and add in the construction in the front of Notre Dame such that you couldn't get close, Trevor decided it wasn't worth going down there. I still feel a little bit bad that we didn't go, but I guess that just means we'll have to come back once the renovations are complete such that we can actually get up close.

We made our way back to the metro from where our tour ended, and ended up in a little bit of a confusion. I don't remember the specifics, but somehow the line we were on didn't take us quite where I thought it would and so we ended up walking to the next station to get back on the metro, but the transfer didn't work either and it was just a pain. It was supposed to be a quick metro ride back to Gare de L'Est (so we could pick up our suitcases from where we stored them that morning when Trevor arrived) and instead it turned into like 3 metro stations and a 10 minute walk...I don't even know. Moral of the story...as much as I love the Paris metro when you're dealing with the big stations (and I really did love the convenience of the metro), trying to get from the metro to the big stations (with the long distance trains, etc) is a bit of a pain! Eventually though, we made it back to Gare de L'est and picked up our bags, and then got on the metro to go to Chatelet Les Halles where we could transfer from the metro to the RER A train that would take us directly to Paris. Pro Tip: it is very far from the metro platforms to the RER platforms! And with Trevor's back being broken we didn't want him lifting any bags up and down stairs, so I was doing a lot of the heavy lifting. But eventually, we made it. I was very hot and sweaty by this point, but we made it! The train came pretty quickly and we were able to grab a seat (after a few stops) with our bags.

The "we made it to the train but I'm still a bit dead" photo. I'm often red in the face, but not quite *this* red in the face!

The train is really convenient to get to Disneyland - the train station is right there at the entrance to the parks. As we got off with all our bags, the plan was to check in at the hotel and drop the bags and then head to the parks. On the map, it looked like there was a pretty quick path that would take us right to the Hotel New York, but as we walked that way, we ran into a locked gate about halfway. So back to the train station and then to the bus stops to get on the bus to the hotel. It seemed a bit ridiculous to take a bus considering how close the hotel is to the parks/the train station, but apparently the only walking path required going through security and we weren't going to do that with all our bags. So on the bus we went, and conveniently the bus was there waiting.

Hotel New York was the first stop, 3 minutes later, and when we got dropped off and headed into the front door, we ran into a security checkpoint anyways! I've never seen anything like it they had double-set of doors with about 6 feet between the two doors, and in that cramped space they ran our bags through an x-ray machine and we had to walk through a metal detector before we could enter the hotel itself. But we made it through and headed in.

The Marvel hotel is awesome you guys - just fantastic theming and fun Marvel touches all over the place. There's a really distinctive smell to the lobby too - kind of reminded me of the smell at Boardwalk, actually. Just stronger. I didn't actually notice a lot at this point 'cause I was wrangling the bags and just getting my bearings, but don't worry - there will be pictures later.

We got checked in and got our magic passes, and headed to the room. Our room was on the ground floor, down what felt like super long hallways (there is neat artwork at the end of each hallway!), but finally we made it!

The room was bigger than I was expecting, after my tiny room in Paris.

The bathroom too was larger than I expected, and we were pleasantly surprised to see a nice deep bathtub (Trevor likes to take baths to help his back and with it being broken baths would be even more desirable than normal).

Entrance, with the bathroom on the left and a storage area on the right.

I just realized the way the angles are you can't see any of the artwork! Overall, we were really pleased with the room - it was large and nicely decorated and just a nice place after the somewhat frustrating travel from Paris to the hotel. We even had a terrace with this view:

Lovely.

So yea! We finally made it to Disneyland Paris! And despite the travel from Paris to Disneyland not being quite as smooth as I'd hoped, once we'd checked in and seen the room and how nice it was, we were feeling a bit more energized.

We were getting ready to head into the parks when I noticed that the TV was greeting us by name!

That was kind of fun. I pressed ok and it starting doing a fun little welcome video! I was a bit slow to start filming, so this is actually a clip from our second room (spoiler alert: we moved rooms for our last night) of the whole thing.

(also in the second clip you can see Trevor lower himself to sit down all gingerly...cause of his broken back)

We also noticed the adorable little soap!

Isn't it cute? The shampoo and conditioner was the fastened to the wall kind, but at least we got cute soap. I may or may not have tried to get a bunch over the course of our stay.

With that, we were all ready to head into the parks! It was 6:43 pm - about the time I estimated we'd be at the parks, I think my pre-estimate was that 7 pm would be our best case scenario. Doing well! As we left, we noticed how they did the door numbers:

Very Marvel!

Now, our room was like at the very closest side to the parks, and conveniently enough there was a door basically right there that we could leave through! But even being that close to an exit door, we passed another Marvel mural.

Trevor had to pose.

And then we were outside heading to the parks! The only downside was that the exit door had no handle with which to get back in - exit only. Kind of a bummer - it meant we had to go past our room to the main lobby and then down all the hallways backtracking back to our room. But at least in the mornings we could just be boom, basically there.

The security checkpoint to get into Disney Village (their version of Disney Springs) was right there and thankfully not very crowded. We made it through and then kind of power-walked through Disney Village, without really looking around too much. We were too focused on getting to Walt Disney Studios park for Ratatouille! Disney Village is pretty small though - I have a picture timestamped at 6:45 right before we went through security, and 5 minutes later at 6:50 I took this picture:

Our first glimpse of Disney Studios! and the Earful Tower! We kept going to get to the entrance line to the right and got our first glimpse of Disneyland Paris:

So pretty over there behind the crowds - I was really sad the Disneyland Hotel there was closed or 100% we would have stayed there.

I made Trevor take a selfie before entering the park.

So excited to just be there!

That line to the right was the exit, and there were basically no lines at the turnstiles right behind us. Disney Studios is kind of weird - there's this open courtyard in the front, and then you pass through that giant "soundstage" building that lets you out into another pretty empty courtyard. Tower of Terror is right there slightly to the left - eventually the path to the Frozen land will start in that courtyard but for now its just kind of empty. But we weren't paying much attention, cause we were heading to the right and back to the Ratatouille ride!

Our first glimpse of "Paris"! Super cute.

And Ratatouille! They were using the outside queue, but it wasn't full. And this is the part I don't love about unfamiliar parks--I can't tell at a glance how long the line likely is, like I can at Disneyworld. The wait time was posted at 40 minutes, and I was like 'well, let's do standby and we can see the queue, and then if we want to ride it again, we can pay for the fastpass". So we hopped in line. It was moving decently, and there were some fun posters on the walls.

But after about 5/7 minutes, at 7:05ish, the line stopped moving, and the loop stopped playing...I checked the app, and sure enough, it was down. No!! We decided to stay in line and wait: I'd been checking the wait time periodically throughout the day and it had been down for about an hour earlier, so I was hoping this would be a shorter breakdown. And since this was our priority for today, and the park was closing at 9, I figured we may as well wait for it. People periodically left the line and so we kept moving up, which I was ok with - when it opened we would be able to hop right on!

Look at this adorable manhole cover in the line!

Trevor thought he was funny taking this while we were waiting.

But after about 50 minutes, at 7:57 per my picture timestamp, they finally cleared the line. They said they didn't think it was going to be coming back up, and since we exited through the ride load area, we saw a CM walking around to each ride vehicle and do something with them (it looked like some kind of shutdown).

At least we got to see the load area? It's super cute. And we did get to see the standby queue: it's nothing special and definitely not worth waiting for. We 100% should have paid for the fastpass - we probably would have made it on just before it broke. Oh well - we didn't know.

The exit area! And the cast members were great, and gave us a fastpass: we could choose between the Cars Road Trip, Parachute Drop, or RC Racer, good for tonight only. I'd done my research so I knew that a fastpass for Cars Road Trip was a waste, and RC Racer had the longer line, so we took that one and headed over to ride it. Trevor said he was good to ride it (I promise I didn't pressure him!).

Because RC Racer doesn't have a paid fastpass, there wasn't a fastpass line -we just came in through the exit and walked right on! The CM asked us which row we wanted, and when we asked which row he recommended, he said the back. So that's where we went. Trevor hates heights, but this is basically a fancier version of the swinging pirate ship (same type of sensation) and he likes that, so he was up for it. And we both really enjoyed it! It definitely made my stomach jump up into my throat, but I like that feeling. It wasn't Ratatouille, but it was a great first ride.

We got off the ride at 8:13pm, and the sun was starting to set. We decided to head over to Avengers Campus, because I'd seen online that they had in stock the Avengers Campus jacket Trevor had seen at Avengers Campus in California but didn't have in his size there. But at this Avengers Campus...would they have his size?

They did! Huzzah! Trevor likes jackets, and this is a neat one - and it even says Avengers Campus Disneyland Paris on the sleeve. We did some more shopping, and this was the first time we ran into Disneyland Paris's somewhat addicting Purchase with purchase scheme: I'd seen these at DisneyWorld, but unlike DisneyWorld where it's the same backpack or jacket at every shop, most of the purchases-with-purchase at Disneyland Paris are different from shop to shop! Not always, but enough that I started checking at every shop. Here in Avengers Campus, it was a shiny Avengers duffelbag. Trevor was like "nah I don't need it" and then he was like "why not". There was a good amount of "are you sure?"s from me in between though. They also had a poster of the map of Avengers Campus which I 100% bought because it's super cool, and got a reusable Avengers Campus/Disneyland Paris bag. And literally right as we were checking out and paying (apple pay on the phone for the win - so convenient! Apple pay is the best), I got an alert on my phone that RATATOUILLE WAS BACK UP!!

Trevor and I finished paying and BOOKED it out of Avengers Campus all the way across the park back to Ratatouille. Thankfully it's a fairly small park. I was speed walking (I may have jogged a little bit) and Trevor tried to keep up but then his back was like "nope!" so he had to walk. We were clearly not the only ones who got the alert...by the time we made it back to Ratatouille there was quite the group of us! I waited for Trevor, who wasn't too far behind me. They weren't selling fastpasses, but we weren't too far back in line so I figured we wouldn't have to wait long. Once we got to the inside part of the queue, I started filming some of the theming.

Earlier when we were in line we saw Gusteau hit the dark stars with his frying pan to turn them on and give himself 5 stars again, but I didn't get that on video.

It was a little nerve-wracking, cause the line wasn't moving continuously - we were stopped for a minute or two at a time and every time I was like "oh no, did it break again!" But after about 10 minutes, we were boarding! Yay! It was an adorable ride - I know the Epcot one is the same but I wanted to ride it in Paris. Who doesn't love being the size of Remy and running away from humans who are trying to get you? I really liked the mix of screens with actual real theming/props. I'm excited I can ride it again in Epcot in February.

Celebratory photo!

We got off the ride at 8:49 - 10 minutes til the parks closed. We thought about riding again but decided we were good, especially 'cause we had just enough time to make it over to Disneyland Paris to see the fireworks! The fireworks started at 9, and the park closed at 9, but we figured we could make it in before it closed. And we were right - we made it in at like 8:59. Huzzah! We were just going to stand down by the train station to watch it, but a few minutes after 9 pm the fireworks still hadn't started (which was weird). So I pulled up the app and despite me checking like a week ago, they'd changed the hours: the park didn't close til 10 pm, so the fireworks weren't until 10 pm either. Oh well! We thought about waiting but we were planning to watch the fireworks the next day, and we were pretty tired after the excitement of the day and the adrenaline from the Ratatouille ride opening back up had worn off. So we decided to just head back to the hotel: we had a dinner reservation at 10:30 (I was optimistic when I made that dinner reservation!) at the Manhattan restaurant there, but we figured there were good odds we could get seated early. So back we went...but slower than we had entered and actually looking at the decorations.

Aren't these pretty? They're on the train station as you walk into the park. I love them all lit up at night.

I had to take a video too:

The garden area in front of Disneyland at night is also absolutely gorgeous. I love the music loop.

I was already basically ready to say that Disneyland Paris was the prettiest park and I'd only seen the entrance and the train station! As we were walking back to the hotel I got this lovely shot of Walt Disney Studios.

I love that purple glow of Tower of Terror.

In Disney Village we got sidetracked by some of the snack stands -

Chocolate covered strawberries! happy birthday to me

And then we (well me) 100% got sidetracked by the Disney Gallery store, with artwork and statues and some books. They had this awesome model of the castle.

I ended up buying a Disney 30th anniversary pin and a set of attraction posters (including a lovely one of the castle), and a decorative stylized map poster of the park. #buyallthethings

We didn't buy anything else (I don't think... ) and continued back to the hotel. We passed the Black Panther statue by the hotel and Trevor was like "ooh take my picture!"

And then into the hotel - this was the first time we saw this part of the hotel, so had to take a picture.

I really like that hotel name plate/plaque thing.

More awesome art:

I especially like that Scarlet Witch one.

 

[Araminta18]

Sunday, September 18, 2022 - Dinner at the Manhattan, Hotel New York - Art of Marvel (part 2)​

We went down to the restaurant at 9:45 (about 45 min early) and they were kind enough to seat us right away. It wasn't a great seat, but at this point we were tired and just grateful to be eating.

Also look at these adorable salt and pepper shakers.

The service was just a bit slow, but that could just have been us being tired. We started with drinks: Trevor got the Orange Fusion Reactor (non-alcoholic drink): Orange Juice, Passionfruit and Mango Nectars, and Strawberry Coulis.

I liked the gear garnish. It tasted good too, though I liked it better after mixing up the strawberry coulis in it.

We stayed away from the prix fixe menu and went right to entrees. Though we got focaccia bread while we were waiting:

The bread was delicious - probably honestly the highlight of the meal! Super strong flavor and moist - didn't need butter or oil or anything. So good.

Next up, the entrees! Trevor got the Fillet of Sea Bass and Lemon Compote, with a side of roast potatoes.

I got the Free-range Chicken Saltimbocca (Chicken Pieces Wrapped in Ham) and Sage Sauce with a side of fried polenta.

Both of the plates were good, though I probably wouldn't get the chicken again. It wasn't bad, just not to my particular taste. I did really like the fried polenta though! Trevor liked his sea bass.

We were going to skip dessert but then I was weak and thought the cheese plate sounded good so I got that.

Sadly, it wasn't as good as it sounded. The grapes were not seedless, which I did not like at all. The cheese was good though, and the bread was good, if a bit soft for my taste when it's accompanying a cheese plate.

So yea - I probably wouldn't go back here. It wasn't bad, but just not my favorite, especially for the money. The ambiance was cool though - super neat chandelier.

And I did think the check holder/folder/thing was pretty neat.

Marvel theming everywhere!

Overall, it was 95 euros for the mocktail, two entrees, and the cheese plate. We finished at 10:45, and were more than ready to head back to the room and bed. But as we headed back, we passed yet more cool artwork, and even a fun photo op!

The newest member of the Avengers - Brie-man!

This was one thing we really liked about the hotel - lots of really fun and neat artwork, especially for Marvel comic fans, but even if you're not a comic fan, or just a casual Marvel fan, it's really cool. It kind of felt like we found a new piece of artwork around every corner, and I was not sad about it.

Back at the room, we took our time unpacking and getting situated and ready for bed. Trevor was doing ok - not as bad as he feared but definitely had to be careful of how he moved and sudden twists and things. He was very grateful for the big tub so he could take a bath and soak his back! We decided not to try for rope drop or for the extra magic hour in the morning, but to just rest and wake up when we woke up, and hope that Trevor's back was doing better. We ended up going to bed around 12:30 pm.

Overall, a really good day. I was glad to see Trevor again, and glad that his back wasn't causing him too much pain and still allowed him to do sightseeing and enjoy the park. And Disneyland! Absolutely gorgeous. I was so excited to see more of it - and so grateful we were able to ride Ratatouille. Tomorrow: Disneyland Paris in the daytime!

 

[SuperPreparo]

Although I rarely comment on trip reports I have enjoyed all of yours and was excited to see you decided to report on this trip. We did 3 days at DLP at the end of a 2 week trip to England and France this summer and also stayed at Hotel New York. My son and I had been years ago when he lived in Germany, but I didn’t remember much and my DIL and grandkids had never been so it was like a first time trip for us too. I’m looking forward to your take! (Also props to you for doing Paris by yourself! I found the Metro so confusing.)

 

[Araminta18]

Although I rarely comment on trip reports I have enjoyed all of yours and was excited to see you decided to report on this trip. We did 3 days at DLP at the end of a 2 week trip to England and France this summer and also stayed at Hotel New York. My son and I had been years ago when he lived in Germany, but I didn’t remember much and my DIL and grandkids had never been so it was like a first time trip for us too. I’m looking forward to your take! (Also props to you for doing Paris by yourself! I found the Metro so confusing.)

Aw, thank you! I'm glad you're reading What did you think of DLP when you went? Love to hear your thoughts

 

[DLo]

following along. Looking forward to reading more.

 

[Louise97]

You did well to get on Ratatouille after all! We stayed in Hotel New York in October and loved it, the artwork is great. I liked Manhattan restaurant but I agree that I probably wouldn't go back as it was just okay. That chandelier is beautiful though!

 

[Araminta18]

following along. Looking forward to reading more.

Thank you!!

You did well to get on Ratatouille after all! We stayed in Hotel New York in October and loved it, the artwork is great. I liked Manhattan restaurant but I agree that I probably wouldn't go back as it was just okay. That chandelier is beautiful though!

We were so excited that it worked out! Yea, Manhattan was good but a one and done for me. But 100% agree on that chandelier and the artwork all over the hotel - it's great!

 

[SuperPreparo]

Aw, thank you! I'm glad you're reading What did you think of DLP when you went? Love to hear your thoughts

We really enjoyed our time there! It was so nice to be able to easily walk from park to park especially after two weeks of touring. I would say the highlights for us were the food (so much better than WDW), shows (except for Frozen), and the 30th anniversary drone show (amazing!) As far as rides go we did use Premier Access so we accomplished quite a bit. Our favorites were probably Pirates, BTMR and the Crush Coaster. We all loved the hotel! The rooms were beautiful, and DGD6 and DGS4 really enjoyed all the Marvel touches and activities.

 

[Araminta18]

We really enjoyed our time there! It was so nice to be able to easily walk from park to park especially after two weeks of touring. I would say the highlights for us were the food (so much better than WDW), shows (except for Frozen), and the 30th anniversary drone show (amazing!) As far as rides go we did use Premier Access so we accomplished quite a bit. Our favorites were probably Pirates, BTMR and the Crush Coaster. We all loved the hotel! The rooms were beautiful, and DGD6 and DGS4 really enjoyed all the Marvel touches and activities.

The park hopping was awesome - we be-bopped back and forth a bunch.

Oh interesting on the food! Where'd you eat/what'd you eat that you liked? We had good meals but I like WDW better.

100% agree on the drone show - that was awesome. We also ended up using Premier Access a bunch too.

 

[SuperPreparo]

The park hopping was awesome - we be-bopped back and forth a bunch.

Oh interesting on the food! Where'd you eat/what'd you eat that you liked? We had good meals but I like WDW better.

100% agree on the drone show - that was awesome. We also ended up using Premier Access a bunch too.

For table service we ate at Bistrot Chez Remy, Captain Jack’s and the Downtown Restaurant at the hotel. We also thought that the quality of the quick service meals was better, but maybe that was because of the little Magnum ice cream bar they included in the meals. We loved all the little food booths they had too, but we didn’t have nearly enough time to sample all the ones we wanted to.

 

[Araminta18]

For table service we ate at Bistrot Chez Remy, Captain Jack’s and the Downtown Restaurant at the hotel. We also thought that the quality of the quick service meals was better, but maybe that was because of the little Magnum ice cream bar they included in the meals. We loved all the little food booths they had too, but we didn’t have nearly enough time to sample all the ones we wanted to.

Oh maybe that's it - we ate at Chez Remy and Captain Jack's (no Downtown) but didn't do much quick service. We only ended up trying a couple of those, and the food booths.

Though now I want one of those croque monsieurs from the Market House Deli.

 

[Araminta18]

Hello Disneyland Paris! - Monday, September 19 2022 (part 1)​

As we basically planned, we slept in a bit. I was a bit sad to be missing the extra magic hour in the morning for the park guests, but I would rather not push Trevor a bunch and then him not be able to enjoy it at all. I obviously could have gone by myself but I decided I was ok waiting for Trevor (sleep is good. ).

We ended up leaving the hotel at around 9:05ish (park opened at 9:30), and today there was a bit of a line to get through security - this picture in Disney village is time stamped 9:30am.

I liked the sun shining through my ears.

Since we had at that point officially missed the extra magic hour, we decided to stop in to World of Disney (which was basically empty) and do the whole VAT tax refund thing. It took about 10/15 minutes? Not bad, actually. And I got to look a little bit more at the theming there...I enjoyed it even more since they've re-modeled the World of Disney in WDW.

Tarzan!!

I thought the characters as constellations was super cute.

But pretty soon we were on our way into Disneyland Paris! The entrance area was a bit chaotic and disorganized - they have a line of cast members and you flash your ticket or your hotel magic pass and then they let you through to the actual turnstiles to scan your ticket and in to the park. I don't know why they have the cast members looking at your ticket before you actually scan it...it really caused quite the large backlog. I guess the idea is that then there isn't a backlog at the turnstiles, but they had significantly more turnstiles active than they had cast members checking tickets, so it looked to me like it was causing more problems. But once through that line, there was a large line at the turnstiles right by the CMs, but we looked over to the right (under the Disneyland hotel) there were a bunch of open turnstiles with no wait. So...our first experience with not great logistical choices from DLP but it worked out.

And then we were in the park and got our first glimpse of the castle!

It's so pretty - pictures really don't do it justice. I was never super impressed with the pictures I saw but in person...wow. It's stunning. I loved it.

They had no photopass photographers out so we had to do a selfie (into the sun, with Trevor squinting ). There weren't a lot of photopass photographers actually - we never saw very many, which is kind of a bummer.

Admiration of the castle out of the way, where were we heading? Phantom Manor!! It was only posting a 5 minute wait and we couldn't wait to try it.

It's also gorgeous in person! I love the contrast of the manor against that perfect sky.

It was definitely a walk-on, which was nice but also meant we didn't get a ton of time to look at the queue. I did really like that you got to enter through the front door, so when you're waiting to be let in, you're waiting on the front porch. And the front porch also has an awesome view - looking right at Big Thunder Mountain.

Gorgeous!

As we were waiting in line, it turned 10 am, and 10 am is when the virtual queue to meet the superheros at Avengers Campus opened! So I was a bit distracted trying to get that - luckily I didn't have any issue, but it almost turned out too good! It said we only had to wait like 20 minutes, and we were not planning to head over to the other park quite that quickly, but what can you do? And I wasn't sure if DLP would be as forgiving as WDW when it comes to showing up late for your virtual queue/boarding group time. So we figured after we rode Phantom Manor, we'd head right over to Avengers Campus.

But back to Phantom Manor! It was super neat.

I thought this was a fun, epically fancy chandelier.

Then into the stretching room, which started all decrepit-looking:

And then when the show/narration started, it transformed into the pristine, new Manor.

I really liked the whole story of Phantom Manor - very Miss Havisham from Great Expectations + a bit of Phantom of the Opera. Basically, Melanie (the bride) has a bunch of fiances die (to the delight/happiness of her dad who doesn't ever want her to leave), and then there's an earthquake that kills her dad (and mom), and then her last fiancee hangs himself in the attic on the wedding day (lured to his death by the Phantom) but Melanie doesn't know he's dead, so she Miss Havishams it up waiting for her fiance who never arrives and being mocked by the Phantom for her devotion. Spoiler alert, the Phantom is her dead dad!

Add in a strong western/frontier aspect, and you have a creepy, much darker Phantom Manor than any of the other Haunted Mansions. Like there's some seriously creepy skeletons -I guess the French have a higher tolerance for creepiness. I guess that makes sense, considering the French have the catacombs. *shrugs*

Anyways, I really liked it. I filmed some of it, if you're interested in seeing some of the show scenes. The scenes at the end (after you fall out of the house) are awesome here - a western/frontier gambling town with a bunch of cool scenes along those lines.

We got off at 10:23 and were about 5 minutes from our virtual queue being called to meet the superheros, so we started heading out to go to Avengers Campus. As we came up to the train station, we saw Mickey and Minnie out waving to everyone from the train station! This turned out to be something we saw every morning, so I put all our video clips together:

It was a fun magical touch. Also, side note, the DLP 30th song is a banger - I love it!

Then over to Disney Studios park. Seriously, park hopping here is so easy - I love it. We were fully in Avengers Campus within 10 minutes.

Had to get a picture of Trevor with the car, since it was on the way to where the superheros were meeting and greeting. Side note - it was actually surprisingly crowded and hard to get this picture: I made Trevor just kind of sneak in there really quickly before someone else did, and you can kind of see someone's heel on the right edge of the photo.

Then to the Hero Training Center! There was a bit of a wait here, but at least the waiting area had seats and some fun pictures.

This is me pretending to be Black Widow. I'll admit the ears to undercut the stare a bit.

After a bit they brought us in, and we could see Iron Man!

The theming is pretty neat. On the other side of the walk way we were in they had lockers for the various Marvel folks -

T'Challa and Shuri!

But after we waited for a bit, they took us out of the room with Iron Man and brought us to a different room to meet with Thor instead! It was a pretty good meet and greet--a decent interaction, and in English no less.

They also do this photo/video thing that is not included with the photopass (if you've bought that, which we did):

It's kind of cool, but it's an additional 15 euros. The Chapek effect... LOL

We finished our meet and greet at 11:15 am, and didn't have anything scheduled until our lunch reservation at noon. What to do until then?!

 

[Araminta18]

Pym Kitchen Lunch - Monday, September 19 2022 (part 2)​

So, 45 min til lunch! We looked around a bit more in Avengers Campus - it's laid out differently than Avengers Campus in CA but still feels very similar. I did like that the QuinJet is bit easier to see - it's up on a platform but not nearly as high up on a building as in California.

Though the bird perched on the wings of the jet there does kind of affect the forced perspective a bit.

We walked by the Super Diner, which is on the far end, and kept going on the little back path that leads back to Tower of Terror, and I decided that I wanted to ride it. Trevor was like "HA no" - he doesn't like Tower of Terror at the best of times, and with his back, that was definitely a no go for him. I bought a Premier Access pass rather than wait in line (I don't remember how long the posted wait was, but it was likely 45 min or so - Tower of Terror always had a long wait!), and basically immediately was waiting to get into the library.

I liked this luggage cart - I don't remember seeing this bit of theming at Disneyworld!

And I also don't remember seeing this broken elevator bit of theming in Florida - did I just miss it somehow?

Library!

Awesome creepy boiler room theming! (yes, I am a Tower of Terror fan...what gave you the first clue? )

Unfortunately it did take a bit longer than I hoped/expected to get through the line after the pre-show and on to the elevator itself. Though the CM loading the elevator was super nice - we chatted for a bit and when she heard that this was my first time riding Tower of Terror in DLP, she held me for the next elevator so she could put me in the front row. So nice!

Also, friends - Tower of Terror here is so neat! It's the same story, mostly, and you don't move forward like you do in Florida, but your "narrator" after the main story is the little girl and she's says something different each time (or at least, it was different each time I rode this trip). Like one time she said something like "it's worse if you scream!" right as we dropped and everyone screamed, and another time says a few things about hoping we make it back from the fifth dimension. It doesn't sound very interesting described, but it was a fun added dimension to the ride from what I'm used to in Disneyworld. Gotta love creepy little girls!

While I was riding, Trevor was filming to see if he could catch me on the ride. Spoiler alert: he could not. But he captured some fun ambiance.

Since it did take me a bit long to get through the ride, I didn't get off until about 12:05. (side note: I did miss the magic band and the ease of having the pictures automatically added to your account...here I had to go up to the photo counter after each ride to get the picture added to my account which usually didn't take too long but every so often there were lines. ) So I had to hustle over to where our lunch reservation was: Pym Kitchen!!

Earlier in Avengers Campus we'd noticed that there was kind of a long line to get in to Pym Kitchen, so I'd texted Trevor right before I got on the elevator that he should go get in line 'cause I was likely to be late. I was hoping that the line was just for walk-ups, but turned out no, that was the line for people with reservations too. We waited 15 minutes in the line...which doesn't sound like a lot now but man it felt like a lot then! I do wish DLP was a bit better at logistics, but oh well. On the bright side, waiting in line meant we got a fun view of the shrinking/growing machine:

Though I did miss filming when the spiderbots got into the growing/shrinking machine - that was funny.

We got seated and just were immediately having fun looking at all the fun theming.

Condiments in test tubes!

Trevor got really excited when they brought us the pretzel!

Trevor is a big pretzel fan, so this was already a win in his book.

Then it was time to get the food! We were definitely hungry.

Giant pretzel sandwich and giant hotdog.

giant hamburger!

They did a really good job with the big/small food - it looked fun and it all tasted pretty good too.

I may have taken too many pictures of the food...

dessert! I liked the little beaker shot glass with jello and a raspberry.

The drinks came in beakers!

Trevor got the Particles Mocktail and Red Fruits Serum: Sprite, Blue Curaçao Flavour Syrup, Cranberry Nectar, Cherries Puree, Lemon Juice and Strawberry Flavour Pearls. It was interactive and fun -

And my first hot chocolate at Disney!

Overall we really liked Pym Kitchen - it was a bit pricey but I'd eat there again.

After lunch, Trevor was starting to flag a bit, but we figured since we were here in Disney Studios, we'd ride Crush's Coaster and then head back to the hotel for a nap. We bought the Premier Access, but about a minute after we'd gotten in line, the ride went down. So we abandoned that, and starting heading out of the park. I did a brief detour into the Tower of Terror gift shop (since I didn't have time after the earlier ride, as I was running to lunch) and bought a cool magnet, and noticed these fun photos!

We then made our way out of the park and back to the hotel. I got sucked in to looking at the various gift shops so Trevor kept going on without me, or as he texted me, he was "sortie-ing". "Sortie" means "exit" in French...we learned that one pretty quick!

Back at the hotel Trevor wanted to take pics with the other Marvel statues, so:

Honestly, I remember Trevor really struggling with his back today, but looking at the pictures he doesn't look too bad. Just goes to show, I guess.

And now, nap time!

 

[Araminta18]

SuperHero Station and More Exploring - Monday, September 19, 2022 (part 3)
​

We made our way back to the room (being a bit sad that we couldn't enter through that door close to our room but had to go back in through the main lobby) and basically immediately fell asleep. Naps are the best. We slept for a little less than an hour and a half, because at 3:30pm, we had our Super Hero Station time! If you stay at the Hotel New York, they have this photo op area that includes a meet and greet with a Marvel character, and you can sign up for a time to go. It's a bit weird, cause you can sign up 7 days before you check in and honestly who even knows at that point what's gonna be a convenient time, but. It was our turn!

We checked in and then entered to catch our first glimpse of the area.

Those are some of the various photo op areas. Immediately to the right of this photo is the meet and greet area, and I was super psyched when we saw who was out meeting and greeting:

Loki! He was one of the main ones that I wanted to see at Avengers Campus in Disneyland California, but we didn't get a chance. So it was super exciting to be able to meet him here. It was a pretty good meet, but I don't think the actor was super fluent in English - we talked a bit about meeting Thor earlier that day and what he'd said, but he didn't react and spit out a couple seemingly-standard phrases. Still though - super fun!

And then we had a ball of a time looking at all the photo ops and taking pictures. First up was the Dr Strange area/mirror dimension.

Next up was the upside down Spiderman room. The conceit here is that you're hanging from the ceiling, obviously.

It's a pretty decent illusion, actually.

Next they had a bit where you could try and pull Mjolnir from the rock, and as you pulled the lights and thunder flashed. Which made it kind of difficult to get a photo, come to think of it!

The one after that was you coming through the portals in Endgame...this one wasn't my favorite.

But the next one was wearing Tony Stark/Iron Man's shoes, and this one was neat.

The next one had something to do with Ant Man but I honestly have no idea what it was.

Next was you hovering over Earth (like Captain Marvel):

This one is kind of fun but the illusion isn't great.

This last one though I think was actually my favorite - you in a cage, belonging to the Collector.

Yea, definitely my favorite.

This was the last photo op, but as we were getting ready to leave, they brought out a new character!

Captain America!

So we asked if we could get back in line and meet him again, and they were nice enough to let us.

This was a really fun interaction - he was asking Trevor his advice on going on a date with Peggy, what to talk about, etc. It was cute.

At this point, we were done for reals . I was ready to head back into the park, but Trevor decided to head back to the room and rest a bit more, see how he felt a bit later in the evening. So off I went back to the park, passing some more fun Marvel artwork on the way:

This concludes the Marvel portion of today's trip report...

Anyways! I'd left Trevor back resting in the hotel room and was heading back to the park. It was about 4 pm and I didn't have anything in particular planned, though I did kind of want to see the 5:30 pm parade.

As I walked in, I ran smack into the Dream and Shine Brighter parade/cavalcade/whatever you call it heading backstage, so I hung out and watched that a bit.

It was fun to see, and that song is super catchy! Though I think "Um Monde que S'Illumine" is still my favorite.

I wandered up Main Street towards the castle, and took some time to look a bit closer at some of the 30th anniversary mobiles. They're such a neat decoration - so unique and fun.

Had to take a selfie with the Sleeping Beauty one while wearing my Sleeping Beauty ears.

I decided to continue the Sleeping Beauty theme, heading to the castle to look at the stained glass windows/Sleeping Beauty walkthrough inside.

The castle here at Disneyland Paris is really neat - it's just so pretty but also so involved. Lots of nooks and crannies and paths to poke around in. I love that you can explore so much around the castle.

And it makes for some fun photos!

Unfortunately, the castle was super crowded.

No idea why it was so crowded - I probably should have bailed and come back later but I persevered anyways. Also, aren't those trees on the upper level adorable?

Ok, so go with me on this: La Belle au Bois Dormant is "Sleeping Beauty" in French. But it's not the word for word translation - the word for word translation is the Sleeping Beauty of the Wood...why? Why is the wood in there? She's not sleeping in the woods, she's asleep in the castle? Unless we're calling the enchanted thorns a wood...it just bothers me. ANYWAYS.

On the upper floor they tell the story of Sleeping Beauty through stained glass windows and tapestries - it's super neat, with a lot of great small touches, like the suits of the armor snoring, or the flames of the candles wobbling to look more real, or the trees lit up with small sparkling lights.

I really liked it - but then I like anything Sleeping Beauty that is not Maleficent-focused.

Favorite stained glass window!

And of course, who doesn't love going outside on the castle and looking out over Fantasyland? (if anyone says they don't, either they're lying or they're showing you that they're not the kind of person you need in your life)

This part cracked me up...slightly ruins the forced perspective!

Its a bird as big as a chimney! It doesn't look too bad in the photo but it was striking in person.

I kept exploring and wandering around Fantasyland, as the wait times were all a bit high for me to be willing to wait. They have this adorable little shop with a bunch of cute Snow White theming.

Lookit the animals washing the clothes!

I then ended up by a snack stand - the Enchanted Tree!

I'll admit, I wasn't super impressed with DLP's snack offerings - there weren't a lot of unique snacks and what they had was more "fine" than "good", but oh well. Here at the Enchanted Tree I got a Mickey marshmallow.

It is pretty cute, admittedly. But it was too much sweet, even for me.

I got this a little before 5, so I figured at this point I'd wander over to where the parade starts and grab my spot. The parade starts in Fantasyland, by Small World, and everything online had recommended that being a good place to catch it. I got there and was able to get a spot at the rope.

The parade will come out of those gates.

While we were waiting, we got to see all the princesses leaving Auberge de Cendrillon (their character dining) and heading backstage.

That was kind of a fun surprise!

The crowd definitely filled in, and I was glad I'd gotten there when I did. Next time I wouldn't stand on the side like I did, but would rather aim for where the parade is coming out of the gates straight at me, cause people kept leaning over and in front of me. One woman was really aggressive about pushing in front of me, which I thought was rather rude, but I couldn't figure out a way to make her stop without missing some of the parade or unduly escalating. *sigh*

The parade itself was cute - I think I like Festival of Fantasy better but this was fun. I liked the steampunk vibe of the first float with Mickey and Minnie, but the rest were just kind of fine. The Lion King float made me laugh 'cause the Simba animatronic's fur looked so gross and nappy. I was pleasantly surprised to see Maleficent, breathing fire - but no 3 fairies.

I filmed the parade just in case Trevor didn't get a chance to see it.

You can see the irritating woman who shoved in front of me - she's wearing the stitch ears. And she shoved her way up there about a minute or two before the parade started, when the rest of us had been waiting for 30 min. Boo. (No, I'm not bitter, nor do I hold grudges - why do you ask?)

So yea, overall not my favorite parade experience but I was glad I got to see it. Trying to leave that area after the parade though...woof! Super crowded.

I wasn't sure what to do next, so I was just kind of wandering over towards Adventureland and Frontierland. We had a dinner reservation at Captain Jack's at 6:15 pm, so I'd texted Trevor to see if he was up for that or if he'd rather not, since that restaurant we'd booked mostly for Trevor (it's all seafood, which I don't particularly care for), and he said he was! Yay! So I started heading over there, walking through Fantasyland. I got distracted by the jumping fountains in the Alice in Wonderland labyrinth.

Pretty neat, right? I liked them, but then I'm always a big fan of laminar flow.

As I got closer I saw that Pirates was a 5 minute wait, so I figured, why not! I hopped in line and two things: that is the longest queue ever (like seriously it's a literal 5 minute walk through the queue to the load area (per the time stamps on my pictures) and if you ever see the queue for Pirates outside, RUN. DON'T GET IN LINE. It would be a crazy long wait. But mine was a literal walk on, and 5 min later I was on the ride.

 

[Araminta18]

All the Rides! - Monday, September 19, 2022 (part 4)
​

So, I'd heard a lot about how Haunted Mansion/Phantom Manor and Space Mountain were different at Disneyland Paris, and that Big Thunder Mountain was different and way better at Disneyland Paris, but I hadn't heard anything about Pirates. So imagine my surprise when there was a lift hill that takes you through the burning fortress first (including dog with the key!) and then you go down a steep hill into the battle scene and then you're in the normal town scenes and then you go further down into the grotto that's more like the grotto at Disneyland, with creepy skeletons. I really really liked it! It seemed more dynamic and interesting somehow, though that may just be the novelty of it. But I really liked it. It may be my favorite Pirates.

Also their photo is in a much better spot.

I was off the ride at 6:05... just in time to meet Trevor for dinner!

Trevor was feeling up to dinner, so he was making his way into the park to meet up with me. He told me he was flabbergasted by the amount of people leaving and streaming out of the park as he was entering, so he took a video. I'm including it here for completion's sake:

He said it had even calmed down a little bit by the time he got his camera out.

But he made it back and met up with me and we got checked in for our reservation! Captain Jack's has the same conceit as Blue Bayou: watch the Pirates boats go by as you eat - but the restaurant is bigger and on three levels. I really wanted us to be able to see the boats so when we checked in I asked for a seat near the water and said we'd be willing to wait. About 15 minutes later we were led to our seat - on the lower level, but not quite as near the water as I was hoping.

The water and the boats are on the other side of that rope fence. Kind of hard to see through, unfortunately.

Oh well! At this point we were hungry, so time for food! We thought about doing the prix fixe menu, but there were some things we wanted that were on the a la carte menu and not part of the prix fixe menu, so we went with a la carte.

For appetizers, I got the Caribbean Guacamole, Root Vegetable Salad.

The guacamole is under those vegetable noodles. This was good, though very spicy - a ton of pepper on the bread, oddly enough. I liked it, but 18 euros!!

Trevor got the Quinoa Salad and Spicy Cashew Dressing

Trevor's weird and likes quinoa, so he liked this. Though he was hoping the cashews would be pureed into a dressing, not just whole cashews on the plate. (17 euros!)

So at this point, we were enjoying our food but a bit of sticker shock - I guess that's why they have the prix fixe menu, cause it's only (only) 42 euros for appetizer/entree/dessert. And the way we budget for these trips, we give ourselves enough wiggle room we don't have to worry too much about the price of appetizers, so it wasn't a big deal, just wow. Expensive.

Anyways, entrees! Trevor got Oven-Baked Mahi-Mahi Fish Steak With Coconut Sauce and Bell Peppers

He liked this, but it was a lot of food and he didn't finish.

I got the Tender Beef with Tamarind Sauce, Jalapeño Salsa and Sweet Potatoes.

First off yes, that is mashed sweet potatoes in a coconut shell. This was fine - the beef was super tender, per the name -- but it reminded me a lot of pot roast which is not my favorite. It wasn't bad, just not my favorite. I really only got it 'cause the only other non-fish stuff on the menu was vegetable curry soup or slow-roasted suckling pig and those didn't sound good either. But hey, we booked this restaurant mostly for Trevor so it was fine.

For dessert, I got the rice pudding - cause I love rice pudding and I wanted something yummy.

That yellow stuff on the bottom is mango puree. This was indeed delicious.

So overall, the meal was good - Trevor liked it more than me but then he likes seafood more than me. And he almost never gets it 'cause I never cook it and while he could cook it...he doesn't either. I probably wouldn't go back, but again - that's me and seafood. And at WDW there's usually a steak on the menu, regardless of the rest of the menu, but that was not the case here. Separately, I visited the ladies room during the meal, and it's on the second level, and they had a much better view of Pirates boats going by - so pro tip: ask for the second level.

After the meal, Pirates was still posting a 5 minute wait, so we hopped on - I really wanted Trevor to experience it and it's Pirates, so hopefully it wouldn't be too hard on his back. The line was a bit longer than a walk on, but not bad at all (we waited maybe 2 or 3 boats to get loaded on).

Pirates selfie!
Also I love this guy and his hats.

Trevor agreed with me - he liked it a lot. But oddly enough, it hurt his back a bit more than he thought it would. So we decided one more ride and that would be it for him - mostly cause the one last ride we wanted to do was Big Thunder Mountain, to see if it would live up to the hype!

It took us a minute to find the Big Thunder Mountain Premier Pass entrance (another pro-tip: they hide the premier pass entrances...you gotta be on the lookout!), but when we got there, we discovered a slight hitch. The plan was to use the premier passes we'd bought earlier for Crush's Coaster since Crush had broken down and they'd essentially given us anytime fastpasses, but when we went to scan them, their was only one, instead of the two there should be. Boooo. But when we talked to the CM, he just waved us on without us having to scan anything! So that was nice.

Big Thunder selfie!

Trevor was concerned about this one hurting his back, but considering all the hype we'd heard about this Big Thunder, with it going under the water and then up to the island in the center of the lake/water, he wanted to try it.

And we both loved it! This is by far the best Big Thunder Mountain. It starts by diving down underneath the water into a tunnel and it's literally pitch black down there - it's awesome! And the ride itself is pretty long, and the TNT tunnel effect is much better than the one at WDW...it's great. I mean, we've never ridden the one at Disneyland CA but it's so awesome I feel very confident saying it's the best Big Thunder by far. And it didn't even hurt Trevor's back that much--Pirates hurt more...apparently padded seats (which Big Thunder had and Pirates did not) were a better indicator of how much it would hurt his back.

It was about 8:20 pm at this point, and the fireworks were at 9 pm. Trevor decided he would stay for the fireworks, and so we decided to head over to a spot in Discoveryland to watch from (people online had recommended it as a good spot that you didn't have to camp out for tooooooo early). As we were leaving Frontierland though I got this lovely shot:

I just love that it's the Molly Brown and then Phantom Manor and Big Thunder all right there.

The hub was bonkers crowded, so we pressed on to the spot in Discoveryland.

Not bad!

It was about 8:30 so I decided to run over and ride Hyperspace Mountain using the Premier Pass from Crush's coaster while Trevor hung out in our spot. There as no one in the Premier Access line, but they merge awfully early so I ended up waiting a little bit before I got on. The theming - very steampunk, Jules Verne - is awesome! Doesn't quite fit the Star Wars theme, but it's still super neat.

I snuck a selfie while waiting to launch.

It's a super fun ride! I love the launch up the outside of the building, and then the Star Wars theming is great - this is the only version of Hyperspace Mountain I've ever ridden, and I really liked it. And I knew Trevor would love it, despite it going upside down and such - Trevor doesn't really like intense coasters, including launches and upside downs, but he can do it if there's good theming (like Incredicoaster at Disneyland CA), and since he's such a huge Star Wars fan, I figured this would be right in the sweet spot. The only thing I was kind of sad about is that again, the outside theming is so much steampunk -- I kind of wish I could have ridden the original!

I made it back to Trevor at 8:45 - not too bad! It was a bit chilly and we hadn't brought jackets, so I ducked in some nearby gift shops but I didn't see any sweatshirts or anything so we just decided to wait it out, esp since we didn't have too long! And who wouldn't love just hanging around looking at this gorgeous view.

Some castle ambiance for you

The Disney De-Light Drone show (for the 30th) started at 8:55, and it was AWESOME.

I love the audible gasp when the drones first appear. And it has the awesome song! We loved this show. I was kind of sad we were off to the side 'cause I didn't realize there would be fountains as part of the show and we can't really see the fountains from here.

One more picture of Disney De-Light 'cause it's amazing.

Unfortunately, despite being primed after Disney De-Light, we didn't love the fireworks show as much. Part of that was probably 'cause we were off to the side and couldn't see the fountains as much, but honestly, it felt more like a projection show (an old projection show) with occasional firework accents. The songs weren't woven together as well as in say, Happily Ever After, and I honestly found myself getting a bit bored. Which is kind of a bummer. But at least the drone show lived up to the hype!!

After the show, we headed out of the park using one of the hallway/arcades on the side (where the bypass is at WDW, they have covered walkways called arcades). It was crowded, but not as crowded as Main Street, so it was nice. Trevor was still doing pretty good, so we decided to head into Avengers Campus! Avengers Campus was open til 10:30, so we figured we'd head over, ride a ride or two (since they don't have Premier Access, this was hopefully a time to ride without long lines), and then head back to the hotel.

Spider Man Web Slingers was posted as a ten minute wait when we got there...we probably waited about 15 minutes all told, including the pre-show. Which makes sense since we were arriving with the post-fireworks crowd.

Preshow in French!

I'll admit, I missed Tom Holland's actual voice.

Trevor decided he wanted to ride this one.

And we did awesome! 4th best of the hour! Bwahahahaha. We were pretty psyched. I got 244,500 and Trevor got 165,900 - best in car for me! Even though that's not a thing here...but I never manage to get best in car on Toy Story Mania so I'm counting it here.

Next up, the Flight Force roller coaster, which is just a re-skinned Rockin Roller Coaster. Trevor wanted to ride it ('cause he likes Marvel) but decided he wasn't up to it tonight. He did go through the queue with me though - to see the theming.

Trevor-hulk smash?

This was very much a walk-on into the pre-show room, with the Iron Man animatronic!

The animatronic is pretty dang awesome - it's so realistic!

Trevor ducked out when it was time to board. I really liked the coaster! There was a lot of complaints about the re-skin being pretty lame and there being nothing to look at in the ride itself, but I disagree. Maybe because I have nothing to compare it too, but I thought there was plenty of theming, and I loved the quips Captain Marvel and Iron Man traded in the ride itself.

At this point, Trevor decided he was ready to head back to the room. I decided to stay for a bit longer...take in some of the sights and sounds of Avengers Campus at night...including Friday!

https://youtu.be/bsJ68maKSVI

Though re-watching this now it's mostly me and Trevor talking about him going back to the room with Friday in the background...oops!

I went back to ride Web Slingers one more time, as it was almost 10:30 and Avengers Campus was closing. I got a car all to myself, but for this ride you almost don't want that! Makes it hard to get a good score: 417,400, all by myself. Still fun though!

With the park closed, I slowly made my way out.

Avengers Campus sign! Still no photopass photographer -- we never saw a photographer out and about here, actually. Sadly enough.

The exit path takes you path Tower of Terror...and I couldn't let that go by unnoticed!

I had to take a video of the fun effect on the sign - I know we have this at WDW too but I still love it.
https://youtu.be/rwDCSMlbPcM

And that was it! I walked back to the hotel and that was the end of our first full day at Disneyland Paris. It was exciting! Lots of semi-familiar things, lots of new things...discovering Disney Paris is not great at logistics...but overall a lot of fun. Trevor's back was still hurting but he'd been able to ride some of the rides he really wanted to (Big Thunder, Phantom Manor) without too much pain, which was good. He was feeling good enough, actually, that we decided for Tuesday, we would rope drop!

You'll have to stay tuned to see if we actually managed to rope drop.

 

[jgl130]

My family and I are going in February, I can’t wait to read the rest of you’re report!

 

[Araminta18]

My family and I are going in February, I can’t wait to read the rest of you’re report!

How fun! You're going to have a great time!!

 

[Araminta18]

Meeting Spider-Man! - Tuesday, September 20th, 2022 (part 1)​

So the plan today was to ropedrop! If you stay at a Disneyland Paris hotel, you can enter the parks one hour early (usually from 8:30am to 9:30 am); with the opening of Avengers Campus they got rid of the early hour at Disney Studios, but it was still around for Disneyland Paris. So that was our plan today: ropedrop Disneyland Paris and ride the rides that don't have the Premier Access (mostly Fantasyland rides).

Trevor was feeling a bit better this morning - not at all 100%, but slightly better. Though in compensating and trying not to hurt his back, apparently he'd put a bit of a strain on his hip! Poor guy. At least we had lots of painkillers and salonpas pain-relieving gel - it was helping a lot. All that to say, we were up and ready to go in time for rope drop! I'd initially wanted to get there super early to try and be at the front of the rope drop pack - some comments I'd read online indicated we should be at security at like 7:30. That didn't quite work out - we were through security at 8:06 am (per my picture time stamp) and heading to Disneyland.

Pretty view! Though that blanket of clouds was a bit ominous...

There wasn't a ton of people there - we were passing the pre-turnstile check with the CMs at 8:13, and while there was quite a line at the turnstiles there directly behind the CMs, if you looked to the right to the turnstiles underneath the Disneyland hotel, you'd see they were not nearly as crowded. So at 8:15, we were 3 back in line at a turnstile. Not too shabby!

Definitely my #1 pro-tip: don't necessarily follow the crowd, but look around! Also, Trevor was making good use of his Avengers Campus jacket that he bought Sunday night.

They let us in at exactly 8:30 and we started heading back to Fantasyland. They had Mickey and Minnie out waving to everyone from the train station, so we stopped and watched that for a minute or so.

They were also playing "Um Monde que S'Illumine" which was an awesome way to start the morning. I love that song!

We walked up Main Street towards the castle and found our very first photopass photographer out in the hub, so of course we had to stop. It was still so early that there wasn't really a line at all.

Great picture, except for the light washing the castle out completely. The light really was very weird this morning - bright bright sun from the east but that dark cloud blanket creeping closer...it was weird. I need to figure out photoshop to un-wash out the castle!

Pictures taken, we walked back to Peter Pan and were in line at 8:41 am. The line was posted at 15 minutes, but we made it on after 10 minutes. And that line wow...not exciting at all. Just winds around outside a bunch and then does one switchback inside and then the ride! But the ride itself was cute. They had actually steam/smoke coming out of the chimneys!

And the ride vehicles have two benches, not just one.

The CMs don't use pixie dust to close the lap bar though.

It was a fun ride though, as always. Who doesn't love Peter Pan?

After Peter Pan, we decided to ride Dumbo, which was posting 5 minutes. I'd wanted to do the other Fantasyland dark rides (Pinocchio and Snow White) but they weren't open yet, so Dumbo it was! We only had to wait for one round before we got on.

But we had a good view of Peter Pan while waiting for Dumbo...look at how crazy that line got! It was posted at about an hour at this point - so glad we'd already ridden!

Dumbo!

Dumbo was fun, and the way they do the theming back there it's like it's over a small fountain waterfall thing -- makes for beautiful scenery as you ride. There was even a Dumbo topiary!

You can kind of see what I was talking about with the weird cloud and weird lighting in that video - if you're looking at the castle you can see the sun and it looks like a normal, cloudy day. But if you have the castle at your back, you just see this dark grey cloud cover, like it's gonna be a dark, dreary day.

As we got off Dumbo I noticed that Pinocchio, despite still being closed on the app, was looking like it had people entering! So we headed over there - got in line at 9:10 and on the ride at 9:15am. Not bad! It was a cute ride, but a bit hard to follow in French. And we missed the blue fairy effect a bit - it ended right as we entered and by the time it started again we were exiting, so that was a bit of a bummer. And I wasn't willing to ride it again just for that effect! Especially because as we got off I saw that Snow White was open! So off we went.

Snow White had a bit of a line by that point - we probably waited about 10/15 minutes. That was ok though, there was lots of fun theming in the line.

The knife through the heart stained glass lamps! I'd totally missed this - Trevor pointed it out to me.

I also loved this adorable mural at the ride load area.

They even had the little witches dungeon with the spellbook open but we didn't get to really go by that - we just saw it from a little bit away and with lots of people in-between.

The other thing that kept me distracted in line was watching a young family with a STROLLER in this tiny/narrow line space. They only got tripped up when they tried to take the stroller through the turnstile and then they argued with the poor CM who was doing the loading for 30 seconds of so. I honestly don't understand how, especially in Fantasyland, you miss the sea of strollers parked outside the rides (even here during the extra morning hour) and think "yes, into this very tiny, very narrow line, where no one else has a stroller, I should 100% take my stroller". But eventually the CM prevailed, they took the stroller out, and the CM went back to loading the ride.

The ride was cute - much more similar to the old version of Snow White at Disneyland, pre-renovation.

I liked the scene with the dwarves chasing the queen up the cliff - especially Dopey trying to leave.

Though this version had a much better ending scene - we got to spend a few minutes there as the ride paused.

Castle mural on one side.

Snow White and Prince animatronic on the other side!

Too bad the movements of the animatronics aren't very lifelike!

At this point, it was 9:40, so extra magic hours had ended. We'd ridden all the Fantasyland rides we wanted to: we'd missed the teacups and the carousel, but both of those had started to get some lines, so we decided to park hop over to Studios and ride Crush's Coaster and see if we could meet another superhero at the Training Center when that virtual queue opened at 10 am.

As we headed over, we passed these fun 30th posters on the construction walls.

They had a bunch in this style for the different attractions...I wish they'd sold these as prints!

As we walked into Disney Studios, there was another photopass photographer out in front of the Mickey/Walt statue! Crazy! So yea I made us stop and get some pictures.

We'd gotten Premier Access for Crush's Coaster starting at 9:30 (when the park opened)...I thought maybe it would be unnecessary but it was already 80 minutes when we got there at 10 am. And yes, we'd successfully gotten a spot in the virtual queue to meet Spiderman!!

Luckily this time the ride didn't break down! We walked right up to the merge point, and then from there waited about 5 minutes in line to actually get onto the ride. The theming in the building is fun - it's as if you're at the wharf. They even have the seagulls, which were 100% my favorite part: "Mine, mine mine!"

Also this coaster was awesome! It's an indoor coaster, basically a wild mouse but with spinny cars, and starts with a dark ride element. We really liked it, even though it hurt Trevor's back a little bit 'cause it was so whippy. I had my hair down and as soon as the coaster started going my hair blew into my face and you're so strapped in that I couldn't get my hands free to get my hair out of my face - oops! But yea, definitely a fun ride. I wouldn't wait 80 minutes, and 13 euros a person was probably too expensive, but it was fun.

After Crush's, our number was called to meet Spiderman, but the Cars ride (similar to Alien Spinning Saucers) next door had basically no wait, so we decided to hop on that one.

Had to take a picture of the Mater billboard!

Honestly, why is it the cool queues are always ones you spend the least time in? This queue had a bunch of fun theming to look at but we didn't have time! Oh well. I probably shouldn't be complaining about walking on a ride.

It's a cute ride - we had fun. And it didn't hurt Trevor too bad - I promise I was asking before every ride how he was doing and if he was *sure* he wanted to ride.

From here we booked it over to Avengers Campus - we weren't sure what kind of grace period there would be for being late to our window. But when we got over there, there was no crowd around the Avengers vehicle so we stopped to take a quick selfie together.

We were the first let into the Hero Training Center, which was kind of weird, but kind of nice. You would think that that would mean we'd be ushered in quickly to meet Spiderman, but we ended up waiting there for about 5 minutes. Which doesn't sound like a long time now but it kind of felt a bit long. But we did get to see the Dora Milaje getting ready to go out!

So this is like kind of backstage, but obviously not since the windows from the Hero Training Center look right onto it. But still kind of neat to see.

Then we got brought back to meet Spiderman! We weren't first, but we didn't have to wait very long. And again, the theming for this area is awesome.

But mostly, this is an awesome meet and greet because of the character! Spiderman was fantastic.

He really liked Trevor's beard - we told him we met Thor the day before and Spiderman said that Trevor's beard made him look like Thor. We also got to train a bit - hit the dummy, jump and run...

They told us to jump and I was like yea that's gonna be a no from me. But Trevor committed!

They had us crouch at one point but neither of us were gonna do that...Trevor tried a bit but it hurt too much. So...yea. But overall, it was a fantastic meet and greet. Highly recommend. We had a great time.

We left and we didn't have anything really planned until our lunch at noon, and it was 10:40. We wandered around a bit and ended up getting some churros from the Spain food booth there.

They don't look like much but they were delicious - very soft and doughy inside, which is just the way I like it. Delicious.

We wandered back over to Disneyland Paris (about 11;15 ish when we made it back to the hub) and wandered around the hub a bit, looking at the mobiles and the tail end of the "Dream and Shine Brighter" cavalcade, enjoying the theming, and exploring a bit. And as we made our way to the side of the castle, we noticed another photopass photographer, with a magic shot! There was a bonkers line, but I really wanted the photo so we waited. We got in line at 11:43, and we didn't get up to get our picture taken until 12:10ish. And when it hit 12 noon and our dining reservation, I was like "nope, not ducking out of this line" - we'd already waited but especially because who knew if the photographer would still be there later!! I was a bit worried that we'd wait for the photos and then they'd be all washed out like the earlier one in front of the castle, but thankfully that didn't happen.

I'd asked for a photo in front of the castle, no magic shot, and I thought the CM understood I wanted the castle in it, but apparently not... lol Oh well. Still a cute picture!

At that point, we were 10 minutes late for our lunch reservation. Which usually I would be fine with, but this was a big fancy character meal (Auberge de Cendrillon!) so I didn't want to be tooooooooooo much later and again, wasn't super sure on the grace period. But I thought we could just walk through the castle there on the side to get to Auberge but it was all blocked off!! Tragedy! So we had to go all the way around. Like, picture a circle, and we were at 6 o'clock and needed to get to 9 o'clock, but instead of going clockwise, we had to go counterclockwise - from 6 back to 12 and then backwards from 12 to 9. BLERGH. Do not recommend.

We got there at 12:13 (I was very much out of breath)...would they seat us? Did we miss it?!