Photo Trip Report: My first trip to Europe!

[SpaceMounatin]

My best friend Marc (Absimilliard) has been talking about bringing me to Europe for a theme park trip for a long time. I never thought it would actually happen, but it did. He used to work at DLP, and we had mutual friends there, so he invited me on his little trip this past January. Needless to say, it was amazing. We did 4 theme parks in 5 days. But being this is a Disneyland Paris board, I'll just post the PTR from Disneyland Paris

The Trip
On January 14th, I drove up to my friend Marc's house in Montreal. We've planning this trip for a while. The idea was for us two to fly out of Montreal to Paris and meet up with his cousin Alex at the airport, and his friend Louis was going to pick us up, drive us around, etc. Basically that is what happened, but it was the background to the trip, so deal...

January 15th, 2008
Disneyland Paris

I don't feel like typing the entire day, being there are so many pictures that it's self explanatory. So enjoy.

This trip report is brought to you by blurry Airplane yogurt.

Marc and I on the plane from Montreal to Paris.

Here we are finally in Europe. It amazed me how much shorter the flight was, than my drive to Montreal...

Here's Louis, who picked us up and was an excellent host.

Driving down the road, we saw our first sign of Disneyland Paris.

We parked here, because it's closer than the parking lot for the parks.

...and this is where I started hyperventilating.

Yea, I'm so gangsta, don't be hating

My friend Emmanuel (and his friend Maxime) were waiting for us inside the park.

Disneyland's Castle?

Sleeping Beauty's Castle is definitely the best Disney castle I've ever seen.

We headed into Discoveryland for our first credit...

...Space Mountain!!!! I've waited 14 years to ride this (no lie, I have).

So this is like a Super Nova or something...

The Columbiad is what blasts you into space.

They were only running two trains. The ride was very rough, but I still loved it. Out of the entire trip, we rode it 4 times.

First meal of the trip, PIZZA BURGER! It looks so wrong, but it tasts so right...

Seriously, wow!

Going into Frontierland...

...to find Big Thunder Mountain closed

So we went over to Phantom Manor.

Love it! Love it! Love it!

Then we went all the way over to Indiana Jones et le Temple du Péril.

Seems to be running fine.

 

[SpaceMounatin]

Until we were next and it broke! We left and did it again at night (but I didn't take pictures of it, so oh well).

They did a great job on theming.

Exiting out of Disneyland to go to...

...Walt Disney Studios!

It was hands down my least favorite Disney park I've ever been to.

hmm...where have I seen this before?

This way to Crush's Coaster!

Marc, Louis and I inline for Crush

Crush's Coaster was allright. They had terrible operations, but the ride was okay. Not worth a wait over 10 minutes.

Construction photo zomfg!

Out of the three Tower's I've ridden, this was my least favorite (I've never ridden California's)

Nice garden, eh?

The boiler room wasn't as good as Florida's...

Next up, Rock N Roller Coaster.

It's a clone of Florida's, except for going to a concert, you're at a concert.

We saw Moteurs Action! Which was really cool.

Afterwards, we went back to Disneyland

The group outside of Space Mountain. Alex, me, Emmanuel, Marc, Louis and Maxime.

This is the last picture before my battery died. After we did Space Mountain again, we did a few dark rides, and got all the credits at Disney before leaving. It was probably the best Disney visit I've ever had. And the park was basically empty. There were times where we'd walk from one attraction to another and we'd see no guests. It was awesome.

Click here to view my POV of Phantom Manor

We'll finish with me at the Creperie, where you get all you can eat crepes!

-Dainan "Best first day in a continent ever " Rafferty

 

[hildasmuriel]

Thanks for the report. Lovely photos.
Shame BTM was closed.

 

[Carpgirl]

[QUOTE=SpaceMounatin We'll finish with me at the Creperie, where you get all you can eat crepes!
Where is this Creperie, I love crepes?

 

[thelittlemermaid83]

Great report, shocked to see you ate a Pizza Burger...to me they look gross lol.

 

[tennisfan]

Great photos, thanks for sharing

 

[Morveryn]

I'd love to know where this is too! Crepes are scrummy.

 

[marcus.ka]

Great Photos. I am glad you enjoyed your trip to "our" Disneyland.

But I can understand what you said about Crush:

Crush's Coaster was allright. They had terrible operations, but the ride was okay. Not worth a wait over 10 minutes.

Crush is such a great new attraction. It is even more popular then ToT in DLRP. There are days where you have to wait 90 minutes for Crush (and this does happen almost every day) and you only have to wait 5 minutes for the ToT.

 

[Cyrano]

Thanks for sharing your trip. You did very well covering as much as you did

 

[Booknut]

Excellent photos!! Loved reading your TR

 

[SpaceMounatin]

Hey guys, I’m really sorry for not posting this sooner. I’ve had a lot of things come up recently in my life, and I just haven’t had the time for it. But a late PTR is better than no PTR, eh?

January 19th, 2009
Disneyland Paris

Welcome to early morning at Disneyland Paris. This is the Disney’s Newport Bay Club resort.

On this date, it was just Marc and I. Alex was dropped off at the Airport to go back to Canada, and Louis had to work. So we got there an hour and a half before the parks opened.

We decided to walk around the Disney Village

We wanted to get food, but everything was over priced.

Either we’re still at Toverland, or this is Rainforest Café.

I love the crowds!

I couldn’t resist

We did some browsing, but no actual shopping.

My mom saw this picture, and yelled at me for not getting her anything. Oops…

Sorry Marc, check in isn’t till later

Lol, wat

More shopping….um…yay?

Yea…I think I’m that cool!

El Bandito

A good example of me not knowing my camera settings

They had every state except for New York…but they had Prince Edward’s Island!?!?

Next time I’ll see the show

Good to see that it’s not frozen today!

]
Love. This. Castle. ZOMFG!!!!!!!!!!

We lined up for the rope drop in Discoveryland, so we can be the first train out on Space Mountain

But it was closed when we got there. So we headed to the other side of the park.

From a Vekoma to an Intamin, we head to Adventureland for the worst coaster ever.

Indiana Jones et le Temple du Péril

This is me filming. Marc decided to sit out this one. (He’s ridden it before)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlI8vXaXmTI&fmt=18
This is my front row POV of the ride.

 

[SpaceMounatin]

The caves in Skull Isle were cool.

We didn’t do it. That makes 3 Disney parks on my list so far!

NOT FROZEN!

What can be over here?

Pirates of the Caribbean opened up from it’s refurb, just a few days before.

They had the best station out of any of them I’ve been on.

Marc and I were offered a second ride, and we got our own boat.

Next, we went over to Fantasyland to find Emmanuel.

Dumbo!

This is easily the most beautiful of the Magic Kingdoms!

Over at Les Voyage de Pinocchio we found…

Our friend Emmanuel! Yay!

The back side of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle

Looking up, something doesn’t seem right.

This is what separates this castle from the others.

You go upstairs and there’s stained glass and paintings.

It was beautiful

“Mon amour, Je t'ai vu au beau milieu d'un rêve”

Totally awesome!

Looking down, there’s an empty castle

Looking outside, you see an empty Fantasyland. It’s like a real fantasy =)

Go down stairs and a mystery awaits you!

OH SNAP! It’s a dragon!

Seriously, I can’t love this park anymore already

 

[SpaceMounatin]

Me in front of the castle.

We got lunch at the Cowboy Cookout

It’s nice to see free roaming characters again!

Marc with the badass Chip and Dale.

There is a reason behind this photo. Click the link below to find out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shSYoXY5tIo&fmt=18

Big Thunder Mountain is coming right at us! AHHHHHH!!!!!

I really liked that it is on its own island.

They did really good with dispatch times on this one.

I loved the theming of this place.

Adventureland has a village theme, a jungle theme, and a pirate theme. It was really cool

It works very well

You’re not doing it right!

This is not any other park!

Genie welcomes you!

It’s just a bunch of dioramas

What I found interesting was that there was no Cast Member to watch over the guests.

Au revoir!

Next we headed over to Walt Disney Studios

That explains a lot!

You’re not doing it right!

It may not be the best Tower of Terror, but it’s still fun.

The queue is always nice. It just seems so much smaller than the two other TOTs I’ve been on.

We were sent upstairs to our elevator.

 

[SpaceMounatin]

Moving on. This is the only picture I got of Armageddon Special Effects. Everyone kept telling me the pre-show is really lame, etc. But that’s all I knew about it. Needless to say, the attraction totally surprised me, and I was blown away. I wont ruin anything about it, but let me just tell you that this attraction is hot!

Next up was Rock N Roller Coaster, except it went 101 on us.

It did let me get some neat “coaster porn” pictures. Here’s the catch car that pulls the train down the launch track.

The trains look a bit better than Florida’s

Then the ride went 102 and re-opened. We ended up getting the “test train.” The test train launched at 70mph. It doesn’t stop accelerating at all on the launch track, and you can truly feel the difference through out the ride. Just ask my neck!

And then it rained…shocking!

I’m sorry, I just can’t like this park. I tried, I really did…but it’s the saddest excuse for a Disney park. Six Flags America puts this place to shame!

We headed on over to Disneyland see if Space Mountain had reopened yet!

Nope! So now I have two! Two closed international Space Mountain’s on my list. The other one was at Tokyo Disneyland, it was closed my entire visit in Japan.

Star Tours time

Walk-on is fine by me!

This chart is unique to only Disneyland Paris

This is why I love the off-season!

I swore I heard rumbling from within the mountain!

OUI!!!!!!!!! Sadly, it was only testing.

Nautilus time

Walking down into the depths of Captain Nemo’s Nautilus

Another example of me not knowing how to use my camera settings.

It was really cool.

“Hey Florida! Remember me?”

We headed back over to Space Mountain to see if it was reopened, but it wasn’t.

Videopolis looks pretty interesting.

So….we headed over to ride Indy again…

 

[SpaceMounatin]

The queue had some okay theming.

We only went on it to pass the time for Space Mountain to open.

Yea… This isn’t the best ride.

Intamin copied the layout of the Pinfari TL59 coaster. Thus…it’s terrible.

It’ll also send you to First Aid.

Well Marc and I were boarding the wet train, Marc slid and banged his knee pretty hard against the seat divider. He rode the ride with a bloody knee and some nice bruises, and the Cast Members didn’t offer any assistance.

Afterwards, we went over to Big Thunder Mountain.

Where we got the first row.

And no the moment we’ve been stalling for all evening! Space Mountain finally opened!

“Rien ne saurait donner une idée de la détonation épouvantable de la Columbiad ni les éclats de la foudre, ni le fracas des éruptions!”

The queue!

Electro de Velocitor

She was running smoother than she was the week before!

You can tell that this photo is definitely not from this day. The reason I’m posting it now, is because I kind of lost it in Louis car, and was half-convinced I left it at Stéphanie’s house in Luxembourg. But I got it in the mail from Louis today, so now I’m posting it. So in this photo is, Emmanuel, me, Alex and Maxime, from our first day in Paris.

Liberty Arcade

It’s an indoor Main Street. The other side had “Discovery Arcade”

I really got a kick out of it.

If you didn’t know it was there, you might miss it.

Disney beauty!

I see this statue every day. I’m not going to lie, seeing this made me feel a bit home sick and depressed. Being this was my last night in Europe!

Our final dinner was at a rotating Sushi bar outside of Disney. I now have three rotating Sushi bar credits: Tokyo, New York (my home) and now Paris.

That doesn’t look very Japanese!

-Dainan “A trully magical trip” Rafferty