Disneyland Paris - News

[Karin1984]

Are they using the discoveryland theatre inside Cafè Hiperion for anything now? Could it go there?

Oh, I forgot about Hyperion. Yes. Changing my vote to the Hyperion. Last few years it is only used for Let's Sing Christmas. The rest of the year, not that much.

 

[Karin1984]

Table du Lumière available for ALL Disney hotel guests??

I booked the Disneyland Hotel January.
It is not getting any cheaper, you only live once, bla bla bla...

And then I tried to make a reservation for Table du Lumière. Under the impression that only those staying at the Disneyland Hotel could book this.

But, no availability.

While trying to book, I saw in the calendar that the dates for my November trip were open to book.

I saw availability, the booking went through, and now I have a reservation while staying at Santa Fe.

So, either this is a glitch, or one of the last perks of the Disneyland Hotel is now open to all as well...

Now to decide what to do with my January booking To only stay there for the private princess meet & greets... Sounds like a lot of money!

 

[ocdb8r1]

I didn't go to the party 2 weeks ago. I saw many social media channels on Facebook, Insta and Tiktok sharing videos. I did go to several other parties.

You do need to go in with the right mindset. Disneyland Paris is still learning how to do events.
They have learned that bracelets are a better idea than clearing out the park at 8, and have everyone re-enter at 9.
They are slowly learning that rare characters attract people, but that it is very annoying with only a small part of the guests can meet them (hence more selfiie spots).

The program of a party is usually as follows:
- Party starts at 9
Rides are open, (several) restaurants are open.
- 9:30 hub show / opening.
- As of 10 or 10:30 there will be special shows at Hyperion and the hub, as Castle Stage is closed. Normally no shows in Chapparel. They sometimes do have dane parties in Frontierland and Disoveryland.
- Also as of 10 or 10:30 characters will be out.
- At the end of the night, there is a finale at the hub.
- Usually in the last hour there are no more characters or shows till the finale.

Some tips and advice:
- In the days before the party keep an eye on ED92 and DLP Reports, they are usually the first to receive a program and publish it on Faccebook.
- When you have a program, make a plan. ISometimes shows can overlap.
- Accept you will not always have the perfect spot for a show.
- Most people come for the entertainment, so shows and characters are very busy.
- These evenings , they cater to the majority of French guests. So, announcements at the opening or closing show are mainly French. Also they sometimes have little games or quizzes / riddles. They only did these in French, annoying non-French guests.
- For the night in November. It gets cold. Bring layers and rain gear.

That said... The parties are a lot of fun, and if you have the opportunity, go for it.
You are among people who love what you love. Dressing up as characters is allowed. There is a specical vibe on an evening like this.

I hope this helps.

Last party didn't sell out till a week before, and the one before also took a while before it was sold out.
I will buy my tickets on the 15th, but it'll probably not be something to worry about.

Oh one thing... I would advise to stay onsite, even when the prices are insane. We are paying 380 for Cheyenne! And that's the cheapest we could get.

@Karin1984 - did you make it to the event? I am just back and curious your thoughts. This was my first AP event and overall I was fairly satisfied. I was a bit perplexed by the entry procedure. Despite having pre-purchased tickets we had to go to designated ticket windows (which seemed like quite a bottleneck) to exchange our digital tickets/confirmations for physical tickets and a wristband. Compared to the WDW events, I have no idea why they couldn't just have a bunch of staff handing out wristbands out front. I was glad I arrived early...but was also a bit worried they were going to make us all leave and re-enter given there was a full hour between park closing and the start of the event (luckily this was not the case and so long as we had wristbands we were able to stay).

As for the event, I thought they did a pretty good job. The opening show/welcome, Mickey's Merriest Christmas show and the finale all seemed well put together and seemed to go off without problems. The message from Santa was very cute (after a bit of translation help) and while the character meet and greets were a bit chaotic at times, it was nice to see some rare characters and many in Christmas attire. I was suprised by just how many "declked out" guests there were and the overall positive enthusiasm of guests and staff. I wish there was some fun even exclusive merchandise and food offerings....I didn't see anything unique (but maybe I missed it...I will admit, communication was a bit underwhelming).

 

[Karin1984]

@Karin1984 - did you make it to the event? I am just back and curious your thoughts. This was my first AP event and overall I was fairly satisfied. I was a bit perplexed by the entry procedure. Despite having pre-purchased tickets we had to go to designated ticket windows (which seemed like quite a bottleneck) to exchange our digital tickets/confirmations for physical tickets and a wristband. Compared to the WDW events, I have no idea why they couldn't just have a bunch of staff handing out wristbands out front. I was glad I arrived early...but was also a bit worried they were going to make us all leave and re-enter given there was a full hour between park closing and the start of the event (luckily this was not the case and so long as we had wristbands we were able to stay).

As for the event, I thought they did a pretty good job. The opening show/welcome, Mickey's Merriest Christmas show and the finale all seemed well put together and seemed to go off without problems. The message from Santa was very cute (after a bit of translation help) and while the character meet and greets were a bit chaotic at times, it was nice to see some rare characters and many in Christmas attire. I was suprised by just how many "declked out" guests there were and the overall positive enthusiasm of guests and staff. I wish there was some fun even exclusive merchandise and food offerings....I didn't see anything unique (but maybe I missed it...I will admit, communication was a bit underwhelming).

Hey there! Life was very busy lately, so bit absent on the board.

Yes, I made it to the party.
First the entry process, believe me... this is a 100 times better than what they had before with clearing the park at 8 and re-entering everyone at 9. People started queuing as early as 7pm. And that's no fun in November weather. The bracelets are the improvement.
But you can be lucky or unlucky to pick up your bracelets.
We left the park halfway through the day to pick them up, and there was a long line. When we returned later, we were first in line.

We had dinner at La Table de Lumière at 6, and made it back into the park just in time for the fireworks. Only to see that the droneshow got cancelled I have access to the disability section, so our plan was to get a decent spot for the fireworks and then linger for an hour to get a spot for the opening show.

This strategy worked and it didn't work.
We got a very clear view of the opening show, however... the entire opening show was directed to the center of the square, to the people standing in the middle. All we saw the entire show were the backs of the characters.

It was good that they only did a very short speech in French. They have been much longer.
It was also good that they didn't do any game or solving riddles, which were only in French in the past.

After the opening show we were so cold we started walking around to find any characters. We met Merida and saw Woody and Miguel walk by, we saw a bit of the band in Frontierland rehearsing. Merida was, for us and the first guests meeting, a normal meet & greet. Not a selfie spot.

We walked to Adventureland, and discovered that Mirabel had been meeting for 10 minutes and then went on a 40 minute break. The CM was very kind to give a full list of which characters were meeting where. We didn't want to wait another 40 minutes in the cold so we kept moving.

We saw Jasmine leaving, and the CM told us that she would be back in a few minutes. Other guests informed the CM that Mirabel had a very weird schedule and therefore questioned if Jasmine would be back in a few minutes. The CM got confused and tried to get more information and he couldn't get the info needed. Jasmine didn't return in a few minutes. So we kept walking.

We came across the line for Asha and joined. Asha did show up a bit later than the CM told us. But she did show up, the CM also told us that he only had information about Asha.
Asha had a very weird set up, she was a proper selfie spot, however the CM in charge of guest flow, let 3 or 4 groups stand in front of Asha at the same time to take pictures, so it was very hard to talk to her or even get her to look in the right direction to take a picture. (and it was even harder as next to us stood a cute little girl dressed as Asha so there was no way, she was going to notice 2 adults ;-) )

In the meantime we checked on social media which characters were seen where and we came to the conclusion that there were no really special or rare characters (to us). We took some photopass pictures on Main Street.

We saw the 2nd Christmas show at the Hub, which was very good. I was really happy to see it.

And then we left At previous parties the final show wasn't the best, so we decided to leave. 2 more hourse in the cold to see a show that might not be that good... a warm bed was a better option

So we didn't do the full party.
- If the CM's were better informed and if they would have gotten 1 story to tell,
- if the character schedule would have been published (or at least which characters were meeting),
- if the weather had been better,
- and if our experience with previous final shows had been better...
we might have stayed. But for us, this was enough, we left early, and overall, we had a good time.

We were mostly surprised that they didn't do any indoor shows. Even when you could not have predicted the snow storm the day before, you do know that November is cold at night. An indoor show would have been great. Instead they had decided to use Hyperion as an indoor meet & greet.

I never understood that. Both the Hyperion, but also the Chapparel theater are proper theaters, designed so that everyone can have a decent view from the audience to see the show. Instead they really focus on doing everything at the hub, where getting a good view is hard. But they never use the Chapparel during parties. With the amount of people can fit in there... just don't get it..

 

[zavandor]

Maybe a.thetre requires more CM to handle the guests entrance and exit, plus the cost of the technical people for the lights, sound etc, rather than the hub where anyone can roam around freely?

 

[Karin1984]

Per April 1st Disneyland Paris will replace Mickey as the mascot of the park. Stitch' popularity is only growing, with the live action movie coming up. It makes sense.

(For those in the back, it starts on April. First.)

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[Teamubr]

(For those in the back, it starts on April. First.)

j

 

[Karin1984]

All the news coming out of Disneyland Paris today:
It was pretty unexciting: no opening dates for World of Frozen, Adventure World, the new Rapunzel Teacups, Lion King. Nothing on Disney Village.

All in Adventure World
- A new swing ride in the style of Pixar's Up. (Similar to the Silly Symphony Swing in California Adventure)
Great to have a new ride, but is this the best they can do?
- English Gardens will basically be a garden with statues of Mary Poppins, Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh with photo opportunities.
- Regal View, the restaurant with a lakeside / evening show view, will be a Disney Princess restaurant. We needed another one apparently.
- Lion King Ride got some new concept art of Simba/Timon/Pumbaa before Hakuna Matata, it's in the style of the animation, not the live action movie. The ride vehicle will have 3 people next to each other.
- World Premiere will open on May 15.
- The start of covering the outdoor queue of Towre of Terror will start April 2025.

Disneyland Park:
- Refurbishment on River of the Far West in line with the rest of the Frontierland refurbishment
- Adventure Isle will get some kind of scavenger hunt
- Casey's Corner terrace will open June 2025.

Hotels:
- Sequoia Lodge will start refurbishing in phases in 2026, all parts of the hotel
- Davey Crockett Ranch, the new cabins can be booked as of June 12, for Summer 2025.

Yeah, a bit of a let down after the hype and the exciting news of Universal coming to the UK in 2031.

 

[Karin1984]

Haven't been yet, but wanted to share my thoughts about the Disney Music Festival which started last weekend on the 19th of April and will be on till September 7th.

Likes:
- We have a new festival
- Live music
- It is very upbeat & fun
- There is a lot to do.
- The concert & final show are very good.

Dislikes:
- Characters or musicians are not miced up at most shows. So when they talk or sing, you cannot always hear them.
- No stages. Many of the shows are performed on ground level without the use of a stage. So if you are not on row 1 or 2, you will not see much.
- Space for these shows is limited, as they are not designed to be a show space. Things get crowded quickly and wheelchair users have an even bigger problem.
- Timon's show is a repeat of 2019, Mary Poppins is similar to a show from 2016.
- Rapunzel & Moana's show are weak, as between dances they can talk to the guests, but they can only talk to 1 guest at a time. So... there are dead moments.