Trip Report The Lurkyloos Do Disneyland Paris in the Snow! UPDATED 10/18 - How to Get to Paris from Disneyland!

[tammy]

Stunning pictures!! I'm in awe...thanks so much for sharing.

 

[lurkyloo]

It is but I can't do the upside down that much any more whereas in the right car I still enjoy SM. DLP's Rock n Rollercoaster was awful though. I hit my head on the restraints so many times. But their BTM is the best!

Agreed! It was the only other E-Ticket we got on besides Space and POTC and we LOVED it! I think it really is better than WDW's and even Tokyo'!

Stunning pictures!! I'm in awe...thanks so much for sharing.

Thanks for reading!

 

[reyasmommy]

WOW! …….. Just, WOW! What a unique experience, and it looks like you had the park all to yourself.

Now, I'm REALLY excited for our trip in a few weeks!

 

[lurkyloo]

@reyasmommy It really did feel like we were alone a lot of the time, especially in the furthest reaches of Adventureland!

You are going to have such a great trip!

 

[lurkyloo]

Lunch at Walt's – An American Restaurant

Our first in-park meal was lunch at Walt’s – An American Restaurant, which Imagineer Eddie Sotto says was designed to be like a Club 33 that anyone can experience. Since the Club 33 we knew and loved has been remade into a New Orleanian Old Spaghetti Factory, I was excited to recapture the old feeling at Walt’s.

Walt’s shares an address with Walt Disney Imagineering in Glendale, CA.



Here’s what’s actually at 1401 Flower Street…





Out of habit, we booked our lunch at Walt’s for noon, the first seating that day. Now I wish I’d done a little more research. For one thing, it was so bright out that the contrast from the windows made it really difficult to photograph the dim Victorian interior of the second floor. Also, it turned out that only a few of the seating areas were open at that hour, and if we’d arrived even 45 minutes later, we could’ve been seated in what turned out to be my favorite room. But the top tip I later got from a helpful DISer is that you can watch the parade from Walt’s if you time it right! Then again, with our luck on this trip, they would’ve seated us in a back room instead of at the primo table we did get overlooking Main Street, U.S.A.



Walt’s was designed to introduce Europeans to Walt Disney’s life story through photos and memorabilia found in the lobby and stairwell.






“You all serve chili here, right?”




I guess “The same bland stuff you find in every gift shop on property” wouldn’t fit on the sign.



Every time I see a mechanical bird at Disney, I wonder if THAT is the one Walt brought home from New Orleans that inspired AudioAnimatronics. But there was no mention of it in Disneyland Paris: From Sketch to Reality, so I’m thinking this ain’t it…

Walt’s has a breathtaking view of not one but FIVE trash cans! Perhaps this is to honor Walt’s famous calculation that patrons would drop their trash if there wasn’t a can available every 30 steps.























You can take the elevator or the stairs… The elevator isn’t quite as fancy as the one in Club 33 was, but it’s up there!






The Tiffany glass reminds me of Swenson’s ice cream parlors!

The photos in the stairwell depict Walt’s rise to fame and lead you to the host station and upper elevator lobby.



Each of the rooms upstairs is themed to a different land at Disneyland Paris. I wish you got to pick which one you sit in, but like any restaurant, they only open areas as they need them. The rooms are arranged in a ring around the central core so that each one has windows onto Main Street, U.S.A. or Flower Street.





We were seated in the Main Street, U.S.A. room, which seemed to have the least theming but also the most seats with views of its namesake street.






The camera decided that what’s really important in this shot is those wine glasses. Thanks, camera!






This is what happens when you get snarky with your camera…






…And then it retaliates by focusing another shot on wine glasses!

The Frontierland room has sculptures by Remington on the mantel (not pictured) and perhaps THE swaggiest swagged draperies in the entire park.







The Discoveryland Room is an Art Nouveau fantasy. Apparently the mantel carvings depict smoke curling upward.























This shot looks through to the host station at the top of the stairs, if you’re trying to get your bearings.

 

[lurkyloo]

My absolute favorite room was Adventureland. The colors! The fixtures! The detail! The sun dappling the carpet!







https://assets.disneytravelbabble.com/2018/06/14114546/IMG_2873.jpg






















However, this room only looks out on Flower Street, so if you are hoping to watch the parade, you’re going to want to be in Discoveryland, Main Street, U.S.A. or Frontierland.

















Tucked behind Adventureland is the Fantasyland room. It is not my taste, but I appreciate how elaborate the theming is.























On display are original maquettes used when designing attractions at Disneyland Paris.













Not pictured—and I could’ve sworn I took a picture—is the weirdly grotty ladies’ room. It’s like opening the door in Club 33 and stepping into one of Epcot’s oldest, most neglected restrooms. No theming. The light over the sink was burned out, the tile was cracked and dirty, and it smelled like mildew. Very weird…

But let’s talk about lunch! The menu says some of the dishes are modern versions of Walt’s favorite foods (yet no chili?!).


The shabbiest menu at the park’s swankiest restaurant!

 

[lurkyloo]

We could’ve split an entree and probably didn’t need appetizers at all, but we wanted to try lots of things to show you, Dear Reader! Patrick did the two-course Walt’s menu and I ordered a la carte so I could get exactly what I wanted.



First up, free bread! It was OK.



“Lobster bisque cream, smoked sweet corn and sorghum emulsion with tomato powder.” It was pretty good!



“Classic Caesar salad: romaine lettuce, croutons, marinated anchovies, Parmesan tuile and shavings.” Patrick declared this pretty good as well.



Patrick had the “Free-range Label Rouge Chicken Breast, Thanksgiving stuffing, sweet potato mash and giblet gravy,” which he said tasted like it was conceived by someone who had no idea what a Thanksgiving meal was supposed to taste like. The stuffing had a particularly weird texture, apparently.



I had the “Free-range pork chop at the perfect temperature with a Barbecue sauce, ‘Mac and cheese’ and asparagus.” The pork was way overcooked—not that unusual for a Disney restaurant, but when you call something “pork cooked to the perfect temperature” you’d better have it at the perfect temperature!



The quotes around “mac and cheese” should have tipped me off… It was a masterwork of construction but tasted like plain noodles held together with paste and the barest hint of cheese flavor in this, the land of amazing cheese!



For dessert I had the “Chocolate cake with tonka bean ganache and cocoa nibs crispy biscuit,” which was good in the generic way of most fancy restaurant desserts.

Nothing we had was horrible, it just wasn’t all that memorable or worth what we were paying. My advice at Walt’s – An American Restaurant is to get the cheapest thing on the menu and just go for the atmosphere (but ladies should try to “go” before they get there, perhaps at a restroom with a smiley-face rating system!)

We certainly enjoyed our view of Main Street, U.S.A. It distracted us from the litany of “Closed” labels in the Disneyland Paris app as we tried to plan our post-lunch itinerary.















We finally decided to nip back to our room for a little break before diving back into Disneyland Paris for the day. Along the way we saw….









Still closed…



Patrick went around to the front of the hotel to take some shots from Fantasia Gardens.






Even snow can’t soften the Disney Legends sculpture….




Some Disney fan has to write a mystery novel where a Disney Legends award ends up being the murder weapon!























































Is that…. a one-eared bunny?



Oh wait—this one’s a dancing hippo, so that must’ve been an alligator? No.... @Karin1984 is telling me it's actually an elephant!







I’ll leave you with this highly professional and fact-filled video of Disneyland Paris in the snow:

Up Next: Further Snowy Explorations, the Parade + the Fireworks!

 

[Lesley Wake]

Now that I've gotten back from DLP, I can actually comment with some intelligence!

Good morning, Big Pink Wall o’ Doom!

So when I ate at Inventions I was sat at a table underneath your room! It definitely had the same view, just a few floors down!

Breakfast at the Castle Club Lounge is the real deal, with a wider variety and more extensive menu than anything I’ve seen at Walt Disney World’s club lounges (though, sadly, without the egg salad I loved so much at the Ambassador Hotel Club Lounge at Tokyo Disney!). In addition to pancakes, waffles, crepes, bacon, sausage, potatoes and eggs, there was a custom omelette station, oatmeal/porridge, fruit, cereal, tons of pastries, English breakfast items like tomatoes and baked beans, and super-swanky charcuterie/cold cuts that even I wouldn’t turn my nose up at! Also, if you go at the right time, they have characters visiting each table, making it basically a small, relaxed and exclusive character breakfast. So if you’re trying to make the cost calculations come out ahead, you can throw that in the balance.

That seems legit! The one at Golden Forest Lounge was pretty basic, some heaters with bacon/sausage, eggs, pancakes, potatoes. And 2 baskets of pastries.

Disneyland Paris’ Extra Magic Time is available to all Disney hotel guests every morning, in both parks simultaneously. The hours are a bit funny: They tell you that Extra Magic Time lasts from 8:30am to 9:30am, but the park opens at 10am. Nobody kicks you out during that last half hour or anything, but why not just say it lasts from 8:30am to 10am?

Don't know if it's changed since you guys visited, but when I was there they allowed in everyone at 9:30, despite saying the park didn't open until 10. I also don't remember if they opened up all the rides or if only the EMT rides were still open until 10 (I don't think I tried going on anything besides those from 9:30-10). Also, they opened up a couple rides in Discoveryland (but that only started in May/June).

This upper gallery was closed for refurbishment during our visit. Maybe it’s a good thing, cuz I’m betting Patrick woulda been compelled to take a million photos of all that amazing stained glass!

Yeah, he definitely would have! They also have tapestries on the side without windows. And you can walk out on the balcony behind the stained glass windows to get a view of Fantasyland.

The only place we raised an eyebrow was at the reductive depiction of the US as nothing more than New York, San Francisco and Hollywood, but I’m sure denizens of other countries have been doing the same at their representation for years. (“Le sniff! France is more than can-can girls and the Eiffel Tower. We also have wine!”)

Haha, don't forget the football and baseball players!

I love these costumes! I feel like we’ll never see anything this elaborate again at Disneyland since they started cutting costs by having cast members launder their own costumes. Either Disneyland Paris still cleans all its costumes in-house, or they just trust French cast members to know what to do with them!

Totally agree! I loved the CM outfits at DLP, especially Pirates!

We didn’t take photos this time around, but I’m pretty sure we have some later in the trip. Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland Paris is AWESOME! Until I see the one in Shanghai, I have to declare this one the best version anywhere in the world. It has everything you love about the original, with some fun twists. (The caves come last! A high flume takes you right over the loading area!) And everything is bright and fresh and in good working order. We both loved it!

Another agreement! It was definitely my favorite!

Out of habit, we booked our lunch at Walt’s for noon, the first seating that day. Now I wish I’d done a little more research. For one thing, it was so bright out that the contrast from the windows made it really difficult to photograph the dim Victorian interior of the second floor. Also, it turned out that only a few of the seating areas were open at that hour, and if we’d arrived even 45 minutes later, we could’ve been seated in what turned out to be my favorite room. But the top tip I later got from a helpful DISer is that you can watch the parade from Walt’s if you time it right! Then again, with our luck on this trip, they would’ve seated us in a back room instead of at the primo table we did get overlooking Main Street, U.S.A.

So, I think we were sat at the same table because your photos of the view of Main Street matched mine. I ended up going for the noon ADR, even though I was able to get one at 3:30. Schedulewise it just worked better.

My absolute favorite room was Adventureland. The colors! The fixtures! The detail! The sun dappling the carpet!

Completely! So beautiful!

I ordered a la carte so I could get exactly what I wanted.

Same here - I would have gotten one of the menus, but they didn't have an appetizer I liked, so it was just a couple euros more to order everything separately. And I agree about the food. It was good, not memorable, but not horrible. Not worth the $.

 

[olafLover]

.

 

[lurkyloo]

Don't know if it's changed since you guys visited, but when I was there they allowed in everyone at 9:30, despite saying the park didn't open until 10. I also don't remember if they opened up all the rides or if only the EMT rides were still open until 10 (I don't think I tried going on anything besides those from 9:30-10). Also, they opened up a couple rides in Discoveryland (but that only started in May/June).

Verrrry interesting! I guess that's similar to the way Magic Kingdom sometimes does where you get in and can walk up to the rope at the end of Main Street as you wait for the official opening time.

So, I think we were sat at the same table because your photos of the view of Main Street matched mine. I ended up going for the noon ADR, even though I was able to get one at 3:30. Schedulewise it just worked better.

OK, so I think we have determined that if you make the first reservation of the day, they will put you in that room. I will use this to my advantage next time!

Did they remove the chili?? They used to have it, I loved the presentation (it's in the "can")

It looks like now the only way to get chili is as a side with the €50 burger. Do you remember if it tasted like chili, or was it one of their "interpretations"...?

 

[olafLover]

.

 

[lurkyloo]

@olafLover OK, if you ever make it out to the States, you MUST try real chili and report whether DLP serves real chili! Because I *hate* chili and refuse to take one for the team.

 

[Karin1984]

I have a trip planned for the marathon weekend in September, and we were thinking about a splurge (as me and my friend both go back to school). I was thinking about dinner at Walt's. But after reading your report, I will look into something else.

Oh, and the 'alligator' is a dancing elephant from Fantasia

 

[lurkyloo]

I have a trip planned for the marathon weekend in September, and we were thinking about a splurge (as me and my friend both go back to school). I was thinking about dinner at Walt's. But after reading your report, I will look into something else.

Oh, and the 'alligator' is a dancing elephant from Fantasia

Oh good! I was wondering how that was supposed to be an alligator!

 

[lurkyloo]

Trip Report Update: A Golden Afternoon in Disneyland Paris

After our lunch at Walt’s and a brief stop in our room, we were refreshed and reinvigorated. We went back into Disneyland Paris with hopes high that the snow was melting enough to allow some of the rides to reopen. The first one we checked was Les Mysteres du Nautilus walkthrough, and it was open! This one was at the top of our list because it is unique to Disneyland Paris and, like Skull Rock, a re-creation of something we never got to see at Disneyland in California—namely, the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea movie sets and props that Walt Disney brought to Disneyland in its early days.











As you can imagine, it’s tricky to take photos in such a dim environment, so bear with me….

Disneyland Paris: From Sketch to Reality says the challenge here was to make all the room sets from the movie connect in a real way, so Disney turned to the biggest 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea fan in history, Tom Scherman. This was a man after my own heart: If you thought our Haunted Mansion bathroom was nuts, check out how he redesigned his entire apartment into the interior of the Nautilus!







Scherman had befriended 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea Production Designer Harper Goff and learned all the secrets of creating the submarine. He communicated these to Walt Disney Imagineering via more than 250 sketches on cocktail napkins (a.k.a., the French Post-It note), some of which may be seen in Disneyland Paris: From Sketch to Reality.




I’m gonna declare this THE best napping spot in all of Disneyland Paris!




If Disney had a ship with cabins themed like this, I might actually be interested in taking a Disney cruise!



This is classic Disney theming at its best and reminded us strongly of the Mysterious Island in Tokyo DisneySea. Except, you know, they have an entire 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride there…. But, like any Disney diehard, we just enjoyed soaking up the atmosphere in a place we’d never been before.







According to Disneyland Paris: From Sketch to Reality, this room contains actual antiquities—like a real 1794 map of the East Indies and a book from 1638—for guests to hustle past as they look for “where the ride starts.”











Scherman even created these dive suits for the attraction. For his efforts, Disney gave him a certificate naming him Admiral of the Nautilus!











The main attraction is an iris window that opens to reveal an impossible-to-photograph giant squid attack, complete with electrical flashes and sound effects.















The last major set piece is Captain Nemo’s pipe organ. As you know, the original from the movie can be found in the ballroom scene of Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion, so Imagineers were able to study it to create this replica.











I don’t quite understand why Nemo himself appears creepily in the mirror—is he supposed to be a ghost?—but it’s a cool effect.













If you’re interested in seeing more of Les Mysteres du Nautilus, there’s a comprehensive video walkthrough here.











Next we decided to go over to Frontierland and see if Big Thunder Mountain was open. It was not.




Nothing to ride in Frontierland, but you can see people riding the PanoraMagique balloon at Disney Village!



We took a moment to throw rocks and snowballs into Big Thunder’s frozen lake. It looks like we weren’t the first! The ducks were none too pleased….




Duck: “HEY! I’m *walkin* here!”





There’s plenty to do in snow-closed Frontierland if you love looking at old mining equipment!





Ain’t she a beaut?



Whoa whoa WHOA—slow down, Disney! There’s only so much mining equipment a person can handle seeing at once!





There was a nifty Coco display over at Fuente del Oro Restaurante—probably the most color amassed in one place in the whole park, outside of It’s a Small World.



















We half-heartedly tried to check on Indiana Jones et le Temple du Péril. Not only was it still closed, they wouldn’t let you get anywhere near it! The closest we came was the edge of Adventureland, near Colonel Hathi’s Pizza Outpost.

 

[lurkyloo]

Like Toad Hall, this was a restaurant I was really interested in seeing, but mostly because of what it used to be. When Disneyland Paris opened, this was a table-service restaurant called The Explorers Club, a sort of cross between Pleasure Island’s late, lamented Adventurer’s Club and the Enchanted Tiki Room. Originally it was supposed to draw parkgoers back toward a Jungle Cruise-type ride, but that ride never made it into the park’s final design. Even after the park opened, the Explorers Club didn’t last long as a sit-down restaurant. One of the early complaints about EuroDisney was that it had too many table-service restaurants, so after a brief stint as a counter-service Chinese restaurant, the Explorer’s Club was flipped into a pizza place (ah yes, jungle pizza!) called Colonel Hathi’s Pizza Outpost.







Apparently the Explorers Club opened with a roving cast of Streetmosphere-type adventurer characters who would interact with diners and the animatronic birds in this massive tree. The restaurant also contained a lot more theming elements that have since been stripped away (perhaps plundered by Joe Rohde for use in Animal Kingdom?).











I was impressed to see a trio of drummers performing in this out-of-the-way spot on an off-season weekday. Not something you’d find in most Disney park restaurants, let alone in a pizza joint!







Amazingly, the AudioAnimatronic birds were returned to Colonel Hathi’s in 2016! I couldn’t tell if they still work (apparently they were designed to have subtle movements so you would be caught by surprise when you discovered they were “alive”).




So this is whatever happened to Rosita!




We’ll call this one “Steve”




Two can sound better than one toucan can!



I dragged poor Patrick all over the place requesting a million photos of the World’s Most Over-themed Pizza Joint.











The drummers were playing their hearts out for a handful of indifferent diners.




“Uh, could you keep it down? I’m trying to figure out where the pepperoni is on this 15€ slice…”



The porch must be a really nice place to eat in better weather. It wraps around the side and front of the restaurant and is surrounded by a pretty little creek.











This is where you go if you want ice in your drink at Disneyland Paris.











I feel like this would be an amazing place for an in-park wedding reception. There’s even a stage for a band!







The order counter area still has ridiculous amounts of theming—like, more theming than in all of California Adventure’s “new” Pixar Pier! It’s such a shame that this is all being wasted on an empty quick-service restaurant now. But maybe it gets more appreciative traffic in high season.



















So… What’s with all the ginormous bottles of Pellegrino..? Is Colonel Hathi some aging Yuppie?







Nice little reminder of what we’re missing….





















This is what happens when the air conditioning is on and you leave the door open….











You can just make out the spire of Indiana Jones et le Temple du Péril in the distance, but they had ropes up so we couldn’t get any closer. It was a ride that remained forever out of reach during our trip and became one of our ridiculous White Whales. Since then we’ve learned that it’s basically just a clone of Tokyo DisneySea’s Raging Spirits, with which we were mightily unimpressed, so I guess we didn’t miss much.







Thwarted, we wandered through Adventureland toward an attraction Patrick had been looking forward to, Le Passage Enchanté d’Aladdin.







I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of seeing incongruously snow-covered scenery like this! Welcome to frigid Africa….











OK, I was wrong—I guess La Girafe Curieuse (the “Curious Giraffe”) gift shop DID open during our trip, cuz Patrick got a photo in there. In true Disney fashion, there is literally a curious giraffe poking his head through the roof!




“So… How much for the neon zebra-striped Minnie Mouse bobble-head pen?”



The Imagineers designed La Cabane des Robinson to be the “castle” or “weenie” of Adventureland, but today its looming, off-limits presence just mocked us.




“Ha ha, you can’t touch me!”

 

[lurkyloo]

One place that was open was Le Passage Enchanté d’Aladdin diorama walk-through. This one was on Patrick’s Must-See list, and he went through three times! It is very colorful and charming.



















These two photos are different. I promise.



























It’s like you took a wrong turn and ended up in Morocco at Epcot!






























This was me yesterday when I realized all the rides were closed cuz of snow…




This was Patrick





























Ah yes, that timeless parting expression… “Later, dudes!” But shouldn’t we also be excellent to each other?







Next we went across the path to Agrabah Cafe, a buffet restaurant that feels like a smaller version of the Casbah Food Court at Tokyo DisneySea. The theming is off the charts!









The paintings in the entryway depict a slightly more conventional version of the Aladdin story.







Possibly the prettiest drinking fountains in the whole park!






“Peee-yew! Nobody told me this horse was gas-powered!”



You’re not going to believe this, but Agrabah Cafe was originally the Adventureland Bazaar, a warren of little shops selling authentic Middle Eastern merchandise and themed to One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, with names like Les Trésors de Schéhérazade (Schaharazade’s Treasures), La Reine des Serpents (The Snake Queen) and Le Chant des Tam-Tams (The Tam-Tams’ Song). In 1999 they turned it into a buffet.

That’s right, they demoted the Explorers Club down to a pizza joint because people said there were too many sit-down restaurants at Disneyland Paris, but then they replaced a one-of-a-kind shopping experience with another sit-down restaurant! Disneyland Paris, you cray-cray…

 

[lurkyloo]

Not for sale! This is a restaurant! Do not attempt to buy!







Patrick captured this surreal shot of the patio in the snow through one of the colored panes in the window!













Back out in the Hub, Sleeping Beauty Castle was looking gorgeous with her snowy blanket under a clear blue sky.















Then we temporarily lost our senses and hiked all the way over to Discoveryland to be disappointed by Videopolis.







Videopolis and Cafe Hyperion, the ginormous counter-service restaurant inside, kind of made us wonder, “What were they thinking?” I mean, OK, yes, they were thinking, “Tony Baxter is one of the all-time raddest Imagineers and he never got to see his Discovery Bay concept or its Island at the Top of the World airship come to fruition at Disneyland, so we should put them in Disneyland Paris!” But that’s apparently where they stopped thinking, cuz inside this thing is just a ginormous empty hangar.

When it opened, they tried to use Videopolis as a night-time disco for teens and young adults. But the teens and young adults were at DISNEYLAND and they wanted to continue EXPERIENCING DISNEYLAND right up to closing time, so that tanked pretty quickly. Over the years, they shoehorned in various stage shows that had absolutely nothing to do with Discoveryland: Beauty and the Beast, Mulan—The Legend, The Legend of the Lion King, Legend—The Legendary Tom Cruise Flop of Legend (I might be misremembering that last one). In between they would show music videos—until enough parents complained that their kids were now pestering them for Hammer Pants and hair gel—and, later, cartoons.

Nowadays Videopolis serves as the Jedi Training Academy and, in-between, a dim cavern in which to watch Star Wars: Clone Wars on an infinite loop while you slug back minuscule 6€ Cokes and something called a “fish burger.” Which is exactly what I go to Disney for! Of course, Jedi Training Academy is fun and popular and makes sense because Star Tours is nearby. But just look at the size of this place and imagine what kind of amazing ride would fit inside!









Because it’s Disney, there’s some elaborate backstory about the Hyperion airship captain who took explorers to 49 destinations while serving them overpriced burgers with a side of “Ice Ice Baby” before mysteriously disappearing (perhaps he stepped into that A-ha video). The dirigible remains poised for take-off, its bow looming over Discoveryland.







Inside, you can see the “stern” or “butt” of the dirigible.








Theming™!




Guy in Hat: “PLAY MORE VANILLA ICE!!!”



Back outside, Wall-E and Eve were having a snowball fight and the line for Space Mountain was backed up all the way outside the building.







We probably rode Star Tours again…

















Buzz Lightyear looks pretty pleased with himself for replacing an elaborate CircleVision film starring such notable European thespians as Jeremy Irons and Gerard Depardieu and filmed in an ancient castle filled with 500 candles by 400 lb cameras that later hurtled 1,000 yards down a bobsled run at 60 mph. (Thanks, Disneyland Paris: From Sketch to Reality!)

 

[lurkyloo]

Exploring Agrabah Cafe without paying for the buffet had been pretty easy. But the queue at Plaza Gardens made us nervous about looking like line-jumpers, so Patrick just stuck his head in briefly to grab a few shots.



























Our mostly aimless wandering led us back to Main Street, U.S.A. and the Discovery Arcade.







We thought maybe we’d take a load off in the seating area for Cable Car Bake Shop, but when we rounded the corner, the throngs of guests stuffed into every nook and cranny momentarily looked up from gnawing their baked goods and growled at us, so we skittered off to the next shop.







This is what was in the next shop:







I kind of love Art Deco Ariel. Maybe that should have been my souvenir instead of the… nothing I ended up buying.








Belles of the Ball!

It was fun to see the Aristocats featured so prominently at Disneyland Paris.




https://assets.disneytravelbabble.com/2018/06/18182212/IMG_3188.jpg








Apparently the Imagineers’ original concept for Main Street Motors was to sell all kinds of extravagant, one-off things like you’d find in the Neiman Marcus Christmas Catalog, and that included three vintage cars. Now it just sells the same T-shirts and hats found in every other clothing shop on property.








“I’m being driven to my death! Beep-beeep!”



But at least they have sales! I feel like I have never ever seen a “sale” sign in an American Disney park gift shop.







The Vacation Laundry Queen was very disappointed to discover this is not an actual laundromat.







Nope… definitely not a real laundromat…







The sad remains of the SnowMickey.







The Fragile Things Shop….









“Meringue Tete de Mickey Nappage Chocolat” means “Princess Leia Cookie” in French, right?







BoardWalk Candy Palace is pretty fabulous. But they seem to have more glass candy in the decor than real candy for sale!

 

[lurkyloo]

See, I wouldn’t mind all the faux columns on the McMansions in my neighborhood if they had CANDY for capitals!













Man, I wish we had more than this one blurry shot of Dapper Dan’s Haircuts. I love that they have a real barbershop for grownups that you can actually get an appointment at!







We shoulda gone up in this thing—I bet the snowy photos would have been amazing!







As we stepped back out onto Main Street, we noticed the Stars on Parade 25th Anniversary Parade making its way around the Hub. Longtime readers will know that we are super disinterested in parades and I had to look up the name online just now. BUT when you’ve flown thousands of miles to visit a theme park that is 75% closed, suddenly a parade starts to seem like a really fantastic thing to see!

Also, we got a hot tip from this couple: Snow mounds make a great parade-viewing perch!







Snow mounds do not, however, eliminate electrical poles…







Disneyland Paris was really all-in on the whole Steampunk thing for the 25th anniversary, and it’s kind of nice.




























“Why yes, this whole float is driven by our pedal power!”




“And no, Mickey doesn’t pull his weight!”























































Do you think they take Buzz Lightyear down from the front of Astro Blasters when he’s in the parade like they turn off the curtain-twitching Evil Queen in Disneyland’s Fantasyland when she’s in the parade?