Value Resorts and Inside Staterooms? Bah Humbug! 30 days of Disney fun! 02/10 Day 30

[YukiPhnx]

Wow, I'd love to watch Animagique, it looks like fun!

So many Stitch stuff! Paris really likes Stitch, huh? It's too bad North America is not a big fan of him.

Nice views from the balloon ride! I have a fear of falling, so I don't think that ride is right for me....

I really like those night views of DLRP. Especially Space Mountain! It looks so cool with all those different colours on them!

So what's the main diff between DLRP's Halloween Party and MNSSHP?

 

[Kellybelly777]

Great Updates! And I do, of course, your pictures!

While I'm thinking of it: What do you think of Phantom Manor compared to Haunted Mansion? I've always had a weird fascination with the background story of that ride, and I think it's very cool how there's an actual story to Phantom Manor.

 

[dizneeat]

Wow, I'd love to watch Animagique, it looks like fun!

So many Stitch stuff! Paris really likes Stitch, huh? It's too bad North America is not a big fan of him.

Nice views from the balloon ride! I have a fear of falling, so I don't think that ride is right for me....

I really like those night views of DLRP. Especially Space Mountain! It looks so cool with all those different colours on them!

So what's the main diff between DLRP's Halloween Party and MNSSHP?

Animagique and Cinemagique, the second show they do are really fun to watch and I am sure you would love them, Yuki!

Yes, Stitch is one of Europe's favourite characters, by the looks of how often you can see him here! But that's okay with me - I LOVE HIM anyway!

All the Disney parks are somehow the same and then so different. It's hard to explain - but there are many rides that are the same and then they are in different locations, or like BTM in Europe is set on an island which you have to ride to through an underground tunnel.
Space Mountain is totally different - much more futuristic, much faster - real coaster with corkscrews. It's fairly dark too, even though they made it a tad brighter, so at least you can see "some" props!

Difference between DLRP and WDW Halloween Party - NO fireworks, NO special parade, CM are not dressed up - there are a few things they do extra, like artists working with fire, NO trick or treating, NO dressed up characters.
To be honest, it just feels as if they only open the park for a few more hours for people who buy an extra ticket. People do dress up, but mostly in scary costumes, not fun and nice ones like WDW.
There is NO real party feeling to it - I guess that is what I miss most. The Disney Halloween spirit!
Don't know if it makes sense.

Great Updates! And I do, of course, your pictures!

While I'm thinking of it: What do you think of Phantom Manor compared to Haunted Mansion? I've always had a weird fascination with the background story of that ride, and I think it's very cool how there's an actual story to Phantom Manor.

Glad you like the updates and photos!

Phantom Manor: Well, the most prominent difference is that it is set in Frontierland, instead of Liberty Square or New Orleans Square. It looks so very different from the outside, but on the inside it is pretty much the same as WDW. Stretching room, you walk onto the doombuggies, there are some things that are exactly the same as WDW and then some are totally different going with the story of a girl who wants to marry someone, her father does not approve of.
There is ONE part they don't have in WDW, a cemetary with a tomb that, if you listen carefully, the "corps" inside starts to knock on the side of! Lots of "fun" inscriptions on the graves - we did take a lot of photos once and I need to go look if I can find them, so I can post them.

 

[dizneeat]

Bonus Mini Trip Report

Halloween Fun at Disneyland Resort Paris

Still Day 2, October 31

Happy Halloweeeeeeeeeeeen!!! - Part 4

We strolled through Adventureland and back to the hub to find a spot to watch the parade. We found a good one right in front of the Pizzeria Bella Notte. Unfortunately they don’t run a special parade, but the regular Fantillusion which gets prepped up with a few more villains.

The parade was fun, but started at the park entrance and took a while until it came our way, so we were past our Fast Pass slot when it had gone past. We were about 15 minutes late and went over to Peter Pan and the cast member did not want to let us through, since we were late. I reminded him that we “had been stuck” in the parade crowd and he finally let us get in line. By then the lines had picked up quite a bit, even in Fantasyland. We walked around a bit again after the ride and strolled through some of the shops before we went to find a spot to watch the Castle Forecourt show.

It was a special Minnie Halloween Party show and was quite nice, but people were constantly squeezing in in front of us which made it really hard to enjoy the show all the time. Once the show was over we decided to call it a day. It was nearly 12pm and the party was going on until 1am, but there was no way to get on a ride without a long wait, so we thought we could beat the crowds and get to our car without much hassle.

We left the park and walked over to the parking structure and were shocked when we saw people lining up outside the entrance. Everyone needed to pay the parking fee and there were only 3 machines on the ground floor! Now, when we had left the building we thought that we had seen more machines up the stairs so there we went. I guess a gazillion other people had had the same idea, as people were lining up along the stairwells. We walked up as far as we could and got in line for the machine that was closest to our parking deck. Well, the line moved slowly and from time to time came to a standstill. We only realized WHY, when we moved closer to the machine.
You could only pay with a card there and it did not look like it would take a credit card. So we had been in line for 25 minutes to pay the parking fee at a machine we could not use. So we went out of the line again and walked back down to the next machine. Well, the only ones that took cash were the ones on the ground floor.

By then there were no more lines as everyone in the huge crowd was just trying to make his way up to the machines. The whole lobby was shock full with people trying to push their way to the machines. It took us another 20 minutes to make it to one of them and to finally pay our parking fee. When we finally left the machine we saw that we even had been lucky as now the people were WAY out the door and everyone was just trying to get in. We walked up to our car, took a deep breath and started our way down.

Not far though! About one floor down we hit a standstill. It took us more than 25 minutes to drive down 4 floors and finally leave the building. We got back to our villa shortly before 2am and were lucky we had left the Halloween Party early as I guess there were still people trying to pay their parking fees when we finally drifted off to sleep.

 

[Stefy]

Eeeep that is crazy waiting ages to pay for your parking and then wait even longer to get out of the park! But aside from that looks like you had a great time at the party and awesome pictures too

 

[englishrose47]

Great Pix and review of DLP !! Planet Hollywood is Judy's MUST do everytime we go !!She spends most of the time wandering around looking at snapping pix of all the memorabelia !!!

 

[dizneeat]

Eeeep that is crazy waiting ages to pay for your parking and then wait even longer to get out of the park! But aside from that looks like you had a great time at the party and awesome pictures too

Stefy, it was C R A Z Y!!!!!!!!!!!!! We could not believe how long it took us to actually pay for parking, and I was prepared to sleep in the car when we hit the standstill in the parking garage!!!
The party, which is nothing like WDW was quite nice though, but it was PACKED!!!!!!!!!

Great Pix and review of DLP !! Planet Hollywood is Judy's MUST do everytime we go !!She spends most of the time wandering around looking at snapping pix of all the memorabelia !!!

Thank you! This was only our second visit to Planet Hollywood in DLRP! The food was very nice both times and we really enjoyed our visit!

 

[queenbetsey]

oh wow now i am officially sold! hubby and i sooooo need to go on one of these cruises/ your pics are amazing

 

[MaryAz]

More DLP pics, yay!! I think it's interesting how the parks differ. So sorry about the long line in the parking garage. What a pain!!

 

[cbg1027]

Wow I cannot believe the parking situation at DLRP! That sounds really awful. I am surprised it's not better organized, seeing as this is a Disney thing. Seems like they should have at least had cast members directing people to where they could pay in what form. Not a nice end to your evening!

 

[DaveInTN]

[

Ok, I have a feeling you put that one in here for me.

She has kind of a dazed look on her face. Would it be too much to ask the girl to smile?

 

[Stefy]

Stefy, it was C R A Z Y!!!!!!!!!!!!! We could not believe how long it took us to actually pay for parking, and I was prepared to sleep in the car when we hit the standstill in the parking garage!!!
The party, which is nothing like WDW was quite nice though, but it was PACKED!!!!!!!!!

I don't know how you both stayed so calm. If it was, being car-less and all, I would have plonked myself down on the ground, or a bench (most prob safer) and waited until most of the crowd had gone. I hate crowds, esp really really big lets push them along like cow cattle crowds!!

 

[YukiPhnx]

Is that Dr. Facilier in the show? That's so cool!

Wooow.....what a mess with the parking!~ Too bad they didn't have signs that clearly told you which machines accepted what. If it's just a flat $3, couldn't everybody have paid for parking before entering the parks? But then there was that super long line out of the parking structure.....yeesh. You must've been so tired when you got back to the villa.

 

[dizneeat]

oh wow now i am officially sold! hubby and i sooooo need to go on one of these cruises/ your pics are amazing

The Disney cruises are wonderful! We both were not sure IF we would like cruising, but after our first 4night cruise on the Disney Wonder we were sold! Went back for a double dose in 2010 and are going back for a triple dose of Disney Dream in 2011!

More DLP pics, yay!! I think it's interesting how the parks differ. So sorry about the long line in the parking garage. What a pain!!

So far we have done the two US destinations and DLRP and all three are quite different from each other, as different as the castles are!
The garage situation was insane. I have NEVER seen anything like it and we were so glad we had left early to miss the "real rush"!

Wow I cannot believe the parking situation at DLRP! That sounds really awful. I am surprised it's not better organized, seeing as this is a Disney thing. Seems like they should have at least had cast members directing people to where they could pay in what form. Not a nice end to your evening!

The situation at the garage was just insane. There is the regular parking lot for the parks too, but the hike from the parking lot is just looooooooooooooong - do you know the hike at Universal Orlando? It's actually longer than that!
I am not even sure the parking garage is run by Disney. It was just chaos everywhere. We were lucky we got off easy!

Ok, I have a feeling you put that one in here for me.

She has kind of a dazed look on her face. Would it be too much to ask the girl to smile?

Yes, I DID!!! How did you guess?

How can the girl smile, Dave? You have a "Frenchie" in a German "body"! She's supposed to look miserable!

I don't know how you both stayed so calm. If it was, being car-less and all, I would have plonked myself down on the ground, or a bench (most prob safer) and waited until most of the crowd had gone. I hate crowds, esp really really big lets push them along like cow cattle crowds!!

We were tired, Stefy, that's how we stayed calm. Too tired to jump in someone's face.
I don't know if I could have waited until the crowds were all gone. The crowds seemed to get bigger and bigger and paying took forever. Ours would only "eat" coins at second attempt! It was crazy and the pushing and shoving was just insane! If we hadn't needed the car to get back to our resort I might have even left it at the garage!

 

[dizneeat]

Is that Dr. Facilier in the show? That's so cool!

Wooow.....what a mess with the parking!~ Too bad they didn't have signs that clearly told you which machines accepted what. If it's just a flat $3, couldn't everybody have paid for parking before entering the parks? But then there was that super long line out of the parking structure.....yeesh. You must've been so tired when you got back to the villa.

I went back to look at my photos and it could well have been him, but to be honest I am not sure!

Don't forget Yuki, this is France, not the USA! Even if they had had signs we might not have been able to read/understand them.
As for the flat € 2,- fee, that only applied to AP holders and was not working on Sundays! We had to pay the regular fees and it was a pain to "fight" through all the people.
We just fell into bed when we got back - but only after slamming the front door three times until it finally shut! Poor neighbours, but I tried to let the hotel know about the door situation, didn't I?

 

[dizneeat]

Bonus Mini Trip Report

Halloween Fun at Disneyland Resort Paris

Day 3, November 1

Will the crowds ever subside? - Part 1

We slept in until after 8am and then took showers and had a nice leisurely breakfast in our villa. By 10am we were on our way over to the parks again. We parked at the DTD parking structure again, that day we could use the Annual Passholder offer, so we paid the 2 Euros for the day and walked over to the parks. It was a holiday and a huge stream of people was walking toward Disneyland Park, so we decided to head over to the Walt Disney Studios again.

Even though we hit a line at the security check as well, we made it to the turnstiles in a few minutes. Walked through the turnstiles and made a right for the stores at the entrance plaza.

There aren’t many “new” things in any of the stores, but we might have overlooked something, so we decided to have another good look. There were a few things we wanted to pick up on the way out, but first of all we headed into the park itself. We walked over to the tip board and saw that lines were building up already. So we walked down to the left – no English shows of Stitch Live at the moment, on to Rock’n’Rollercoaster. 25 minute wait – it is really dark in there, so, thanks, but no thanks. We both don’t like Armageddon, so over to the ToT. No way are we getting in 65 minute line, but the line for the Backlot Tour is only 10 minutes, so off we go and join that line.

Unfortunately they do NOT tell people where to stand, so when the tram pulls in, everyone leaps forward to finds the perfect spot for themselves. We found a row, dried off the seats and waited for the tour to begin. Finally we were off and even though we have been on the tour a lot of times it is always fun.

Most fun to watch were a few new riders who really reacted to Catastrophe Canyon! Once we got off the ride we walked through the new Toy Story Playland again and were shocked to see that the lines were even longer today. After picking up the few things we still wanted we walked over to Disneyland Park.

 

[YukiPhnx]

Those cars on the tour are SOO CUUTE! What's the story about those? Are they from a show in the park?

 

[dizneeat]

Those cars on the tour are SOO CUUTE! What's the story about those? Are they from a show in the park?

The cars are props from verious movies. There are lots more. I remember the white ones with black spots being from 101 dalmations - can't remember where the others came from!

 

[cbg1027]

I have a great idea! Next time you go to DLRP, take me with you and I can read the French signs for you.

 

[DaveInTN]

How can the girl smile, Dave? You have a "Frenchie" in a German "body"! She's supposed to look miserable!

Oh, I get it now. She's pouting!