Trip Report Where we have adventures and fun in Disneyland Paris and Paris! - Completed

[afan]

Loving your TR and pics. How were the crowds?

And I just am in love with Dude! So cute!

Here and following along!! Love it! Looks like there's no one in the parks with you!

to you both! Thanks for coming over! The crowds weren't bad except for the first day with the parade, but it was a Sunday so there were probably locals. I had looked at the school calendars and found that the week we went was just before the UK and France have a term break or something. We did notice on Tuesday that we were hearing more German's, those mom's were scary when talking loudly to their misbehaving kids. Even the lines in Paris were short, I think the longest we waited to get through security anywhere was 10 minutes. The character lines were the worst.

Enjoyed your first 2 days. It's been quite a few years since we were there so it's jogging my memory seeing all your pictures. Looks like the weather was good for you.

We had fantastic weather, above average mid 70's up to mid 80's by Saturday. I was happy to back sandals and capris/skirt instead of of sneakers and all long pants.

 

[afan]

Day 2 Part 4 -

Jafar was meeting outside the Le Passage Enchante Aladdin which were some cool miniature scenes telling the story from the movie. I especially liked the mural at the end.

It was time to use our fp and we were in for another fun surprise. Big Thunder Mountain is amazing! I wanted to pack it up and bring it home. It’s so much better than the one at WDW and the ride is smooth. We ended up riding it again later this day and then each of the next three days once a day including in the first row for our last ride. I found the middle to be the best. I don’t like the back to cars because you move around too much and the front row you end up stopping some with the hills for the rest to catch up. It was weird. If you go to DLP this needs to be one of your first attractions so you can do it more than once.

Yes we old school stole our pics for some of our rides J

I think this is when we met Woody but it didn’t get written down in order and the photo’s don’t help. He had a short line and no photopass photog but had a handler that took pictures for us and not just of us standing with him which was nice.

Day 2 Continued - https://www.disboards.com/threads/w...-paris-and-paris.3686192/page-2#post-59316296

 

[afan]

Day 2 Part 5 -

By now it was almost time for Pirates and Princesses a parade/show that had debuted earlier in the spring as was just announced will come back. The costumes are fantastic and it has quite the catchy tune that repeats over and over. The princesses come out on a float from one direction, with Ariel leading the way in a car because she has her fin on which I don’t understand. Then the pirates come from the other direction and they meet in the hub. They use the parade route for this so each show will swap which side they are on because they go from the back to the front and vice versa to make it easier.

This is also where we saw their hub make sense. The partners statue (which I sadly never took a photo of after we saw it the first day) is in the Studios park and there’s no statue in front of the castle. The middle of the hub is wide open and there are 4 permanent stages in each quadrant of the circle. It made for a unique set up with the princesses and Mickey divided between two stages and the pirates and Minnie on the other two. This set up also seemed to keep things flowing with a straight shot down main street and into the castle.

Day 2 Continued - https://www.disboards.com/threads/w...-paris-and-paris.3686192/page-2#post-59316370

 

[afan]

Day 2 Part 6 -

Next we headed to check the fast pass return time for Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast, this was the last day it was open before it went down for refurb, which it needed, so we wanted to make sure and do it. The times we still earlier than we wanted them, because we’d planned a short afternoon break at the hotel, so we headed for Star Tours short line. It often had a short line of 5 to 10 minutes throughout the trip.

We chatted with CM David when we were waiting for our flight and I asked him if we could get the ride in English. I’d read/heard on a DLP podcast that you could ask for it in English but David said it was random and that maybe we’d get lucky. We chatted about what little French we knew and we asked him how to say Star Wars in French, he said Les Guerres des etoiles which I still can’t say. I can’t roll my r’s and I took Japanese in high school so I’m way in the other direction as far as learning languages.

Our scene was in French but I was the rebel spy! I had a great photo with side eye too. I found this hilarious because I’m not a SW fan and haven’t seen any of the movies since I saw the originals when I was little. I have vague memories of the ewoks. I have a basic understanding of it all because it’s hard not to because of pop culture and it being a part of Disney now but when my friend starts explaining something I have a hard time not tuning her out. I have told her that I do that though. I do it for Harry Potter stuff too but I promise I’m still fun

I actually enjoyed the ride and I think it’s because it was in French. I didn’t have to worry about trying to follow along with the dialogue and the story I could just watch the movie and get the basic jist of it. We ended up riding this 4 times and got 3 different stories which I thought was great. The 2nd as my favorite but I’ve no idea what it was, the new bad guy was in it instead of Darth Vader, and we ended up sitting diagonally hanging, I almost lost my bag down the aisle because I didn’t expect to end up at that much of an angle.

When we landed David came down our aisle and asked us to wait for him. He gave us a hand written fast pass so we could come back again which was super nice of him.

We exited in the gift shop and I wanted something that said I am the rebel spy but they didn’t have anything! We looked like 3 different times. I ended up getting a pair of socks with Darth Vader on them, because I tend towards him and the storm troopers if I had to pick anyway. And then later on in the village I found a Storm Trooper pin that said Disneyland Paris so I got that as well.

The Buzz fp’s were almost at the return time we wanted so we sat and people watched while we watched the return time change. Once it was the time we wanted we got our fast passes and headed to the village for lunch.

We got a little lost trying to find lunch because we didn’t realize we had to leave the secured area to get to our destination. We had lunch at Five Guys, yes I know, but given everything I’d read about DLP qs and the dinner we’d had the night before we opted for burgers and fries we knew would be good. We weren’t disappointed since it tasted just like home.

Once we were done we went to find the bus back to the hotel. We wanted to experience the shuttle and see how it was. We got a little turned around by the map but eventually found the stop we needed for Sequoia. We didn’t really feel like it was worth it heading back to the resort, especially if it’s busy but we would use it that evening to get back to the park.

We relaxed in our room for a bit since we knew we’d be up late since Illuminations wasn’t until 11pm. We took the bus back to the park and got there about 4:40. We went straight to Buzz to use our fp. The one nice thing is that the gun isn’t attached so you could move it around which kind of made it easier. I also discovered you could hold the trigger down and it would keep shooting but I don’t know if that helped. There were some targets that I know I hit because I saw it and I didn’t get any points but maybe that’s part of the reason for the refurb.

Next up was meeting Darth Vader, who doesn’t talk and you don’t hear him breathe, but he’s very intimidating. I told him I’d been the rebel spy that morning and I got stared down. This is a permanent set up so he had a photopass photog but they still used my camera, it might have been a separate person that used it though. I never looked at the PP pics so I don’t know how many they took but we had 3 or 4 while most meets had only one or two. But most PP’s seemed to only take one or two with their camera vs a lot of the interaction at WDW.

It was time for another flight on Star Tours using our fp from David. There wasn’t a wait so we didn’t need to use it but we figured it would get back to him that we’d used it or at the very least it would be acknowledged somewhere that it had been given and used which is the point of them. It was in French again so I enjoyed it

Day 2 Continued - https://www.disboards.com/threads/w...-paris-and-paris.3686192/page-2#post-59316425

 

[afan]

Day 2 Part 7 -

We walked the back way over to Small World to check it out. It was nice and the dolls looked very fresh and the colors were pretty vibrant. It was different going through the North America section with the Canadian hockey players and Mountie and the US with the Golden Gate Bridge and a Miami Dolphin (odd choice) and Boston Red Sox. Having France as the Grand Finale was fun since the can can girls have always been my favorites. It was a very glittery and sparkly finish.

The only backside of water we found in Disneyland!

After Small World we headed over to meet Mickey. He meets in his own location in the back of the park. The posted wait time was 40 min and that’s about what we waited. This was also the only place he meets in the parks.

On our way to find dinner we rode Pirates again because it had a short wait. A lot of the rides would have a 5-10 minute wait at various times of the day except for Hyperspace Mountain and BTM.

We ate at Colonel Hathis Pizza Outpost and I probably should have had the pizza but I wasn’t in the mood so I got pasta with a bolognaise sauce that didn’t have much meat. The noodles were also too al dente but it was edible enough to deal with the hunger. The garlic bread was super yummy and if I’d known that I probably would have just ordered 2 or 3 of that and been happy.

Day 2 Continued - https://www.disboards.com/threads/w...-paris-and-paris.3686192/page-2#post-59321223

 

[Gina-Gina-Bo-Bina]

5-10 minute waits are amazing! How awesome to be able to pack so much fun into a single day.

Great updates, and LOVE the character pics!

 

[miztressuz]

If only I could figure out how to upvote for the backside of water

 

[dalmatian7]

Followed you from Gina's trip report. Loving all the details so far. I probably have 10 years or so before I get back to Europe but DLP is on the list.

 

[Mrs Doubtfire]

The pictures from the parade are so colourful. You got a lot done today. Shame about the food quality

 

[afan]

If only I could figure out how to upvote for the backside of water

I had to say it when we were on the ride knowing there was no Jungle Cruise at the park, which was the one thing I did miss.

Followed you from Gina's trip report. Loving all the details so far. I probably have 10 years or so before I get back to Europe but DLP is on the list.

''

Thanks for joining from Gina's TR! I think 10 years will be a great time to go. They are adding a ton to the Studios park and I haven't read a timeline for when it will be done but I would imagine it would by then. I'd like to go again, after Tokyo, but will wait until it's all complete since it will improve that park so much. It's very much a half day park unless you have little kids that want to go on all the Toy Story stuff.

 

[afan]

Day 2 Part 8 -

After we finished eating we weren’t really sure what to do so we wandered towards Frontierland and saw that we could still get fp for BTM, this was when I knew for sure we were there in a quiet time. We got some to use for later and then took a couple pictures in front of a 25th anniversary photo op. There were a lot of photo ops around the park like this but never a PP to use.

We decided that now would be a good time to check out the shops on main street since we hadn’t been in any of them yet. We also stopped at City Hall to fill out a cast compliment for David and to see if they had 1st Visit buttons. They didn’t have the buttons but he used an I’m Celebrating button and wrote 1st visit in French on it.

We continued up the other side of the street, I’d been on the lookout for sweet treats like cupcakes or cookies or something and hadn’t been seeing anything that I wanted. The deli on main street is the only place in both parks that I saw actually had a cupcake. I never got one though but it’s odd when they are everywhere at WDW.

We hadn’t used our club level fp yet and decided it would be good to use it on Peter Pan so we headed towards the castle to walk through it. I discovered a Christmas shop that hadn’t been open when we’d gone through earlier so we checked it out and I found an ornament with Disneyland Paris to get. Finding things with Disneyland Paris on it would turn out to be more difficult than it should be later.

On our way out of the castle we noticed the snow white ride we hadn’t seen earlier in the day had a short wait so we stopped to do that. It was cute.

We finally made it to Peter Pan and used our fp to skip the line. It was fun and similar to the one at WDW. Later in the trip we rode this when the standby wait was short and it makes you appreciate everything they’ve put into the standby queue at WDW to make the wait more enjoyable.

It was time to use our fp for BTM so we walked through Adventureland to Frontierland for our ride. It was still just as fun. It was almost 10pm by this point which meant the rides would be closing and it was time to find a spot for Illuminations.

We found a spot along the back railing of one of the stages so we wouldn’t have anyone right in front of us. My friend sat down to save our spots and I went in search of a restroom and popcorn. The bathroom on the map I saw didn’t appear to have a women’s restroom so I ended up by the main street train station. This ended up being nice because everything was being lit up so I took photos on my way back to the hub.

I love the details in the signs.

There was a popcorn cart selling just popcorn, sweet or salty, and drinks. The line was maybe 5 people deep when I got in line but it took over 10 minutes to get my bucket of way too salty popcorn. I don’t know why it was so slow or why the popcorn was so salty. I could only eat half the bucket because all I tasted was salt by that point. I could have gotten a cute Cinderella’s carriage popcorn bucket for I think 24 euros, not sure if that included popcorn, but there’s no easy way to get that home if I’d wanted to. They also had 25th anniversary buckets that I think were discounted.

I headed back to where I’d left my friend and it had filled in quite a lot in the 20 minutes or so I’d been gone. Lots of people were sitting in the center area of the hub but they would eventually stand up. My friend stayed sitting while I stood and had to spread out a bit to help keep the room we had. There was a lady who was trying to get past us and the people around us because she thought her kid and family should be closer. None of us were having it and while no one said anything, it was about 15 min before the show started so I would have if they hadn’t given up. We ended up chatting with a couple from the UK after this because they’d commented about her. They were nice and come to the park fairly often it seemed. We chatted about the wedding since it had just happened.

Day 2 Continued -

 

[afan]

Day 2 Part 9 - The day is finally done

Illuminations is a very nice looking show. It started out with a song from the Lion King in English that made me tear up and I thought oh it’s going to get all the emotions but then the next 2-3 songs were in French and while I knew them it’s harder to follow along when you’re trying to remember it in English so the emotion was lost. They also used scenes from the live action Beauty and the Beast which I found weird, I would have preferred the cartoon. They had some from Star Wars and Pirates as well. We enjoyed the show and were glad we saw it but decided it wasn’t enough to make us want to stay up that late again since we didn’t get back to the room until close to midnight.

Next Day 3 - https://www.disboards.com/threads/w...-paris-and-paris.3686192/page-2#post-59321346

 

[afan]

Day 3: Where we start with a rat and end with some bags (Tuesday, May 22)

Back to the lounge for another yummy breakfast before we headed to Walt Disney Studios for extra magic hours. Most people were headed to Disneyland so this was great for us.

Once inside the park we headed straight to Ratatouille, through the Toy Story area, and rode it twice as walk ons. We enjoyed it again and liked going twice in a row.

We wanted to ride Tower of Terror next but it wasn’t open for EMH like it normally is and with Crushes Coaster down for refurb there wasn’t anything else open we wanted to do. So since we were going to sit and wait for things to open we sat and waited in the line to meet Moana which had already started. The line just kept growing too. She meets at 10:15 and 11:15 and that’s it, so I don’t think everyone in line got to meet here but I don’t know how/when they cut it off. The meet with her and the one later with Cinderella were nice but not like what we’re used to. Watching Moana with the kids you saw great interaction but it’s like they don’t know what to do when it’s just adults. There were no hugs like normal and the small talk was very small and not much more than hi, how are you. But we were glad we got to meet her since Moana isn’t out much, if at all, in WDW. Though I hope she gets added before our trip in November.

Now that it was after 10am we could get fp for Tower of Terror since the standby line was fairly long given the crowd, most likely due to opening late.

Once we had our passes we made our second bad decision that we would regret sooner rather than later. Let’s do Armageddon; les Effects Speaciaux. Umm…ok I’ve never seen the movie but it says it’s a 10 minute wait. At least 20 minutes later we were let in to a preshow with a super enthusiastic CM that tried to get us all excited about shooting a scene in a movie. The preshow had to have been at least twice the length of the actual attraction portion of Armageddon. We finally get onto the set inside a space ship and things catch on fire and I think there was some water at one point along with shaking. It was super lame and a waste of time. I can’t recommend enough, don’t do it and I hope this is one of the things going away with all the changes coming to the park.

Our fast passes were good now, I think we were fairly close to them not being valid any more thanks to Armageddon, but we got to ToT in time and made it out safely. The ride was fun and the only thing I can fault is the placement of their PP camera. We would drop and then go up to get the view and that’s when the photo would flash so no one is really scared or surprised because you just went up and are kind of hovering. It was odd placement. This was also the one PP that had a banner over the screen so you couldn’t take a photo of it.

We saw the next showing of Mickey and the Magician and I really wish it was coming to WDW and that it hadn’t been a misspoken report out of the announcements from a couple weeks ago. It’s way bigger and grander than any of the shows at WDW though the theatre size may be similar to Finding Nemo. It’s in English and French. The magician always speaks English along with some of the characters and Mickey always speaks French along with some of the characters so it’s easy to follow along. The pictures don’t do it justice except to see the size of it all.

When the show was over it was time for lunch so we headed towards a couple of places to check out the menus. Turned out the Blockbuster Café was closed, I guess there weren’t enough people in the park and the other was a buffet that was too expensive for what you get. We ended up back in the big Studios building at the only qs that was open. I wasn’t overly excited about the options since I didn’t want a burger or fries so I made my own meal up. I got mozzarella sticks which tasted like any other frozen restaurant mozzarella stick you can get and some chicken nugget stars that didn’t really taste like chicken or anything other than burnt batter. The mozzarella sticks were good and I managed to east most of the rest so I wouldn’t be hungry but again it was a forgettable meal.

We found a bench and people watched while we waited for the next English version of Stitch Live! This attraction was awesome! It was kind of a combination of Turtle Talk with Crush and Monster’s Inc Laugh Factory. Stitch as stolen a space ship and is trying to not get caught. He talks to a couple of the kids sitting on the floor. There was a man in the audience wanted by the police and a guy that could make monkey sounds. The first was kind of like ‘that guy’ at the Laugh Factory. The latter was just funny.

Next up was Moteurs…Action! Or Lights, Motors, Action! It was nice to see the original but I was bummed that all Lighting McQueen does is drive up and around and then leaves. I started to fall asleep during the show and if they hadn’t kept shooting fake guns in their scenes I would have gotten a nice nap. It’s not that it’s a boring show and that their driving isn’t impressive, it just doesn’t interest me that much.

Day 3 Continued - https://www.disboards.com/threads/where-we-have-adventures-and-fun-in-disneyland-paris-and-paris.3686192/page-2#post-59321364

 

[afan]

Day 3 Part 2 -

After the show we headed over to the busses because we wanted to catch one to Val d Europe so we could go to the mall. I was certain I’d read about the bus and that I’d seen one the day before but after waiting about half an hour we gave up and took a cab. It was $15 euro there. We could have taken the train one stop but didn’t want to deal with figuring it out.

Bus stop with a thunderstorm in the distance.

The mall was much larger than I expected, it kept going on and on but didn’t have any actual department stores that we saw which was odd. Our first stop was the pharmacy because I’d gotten a sore throat the day before and wanted some lozenges. This was an interesting experience. You take a number when you walk in and then find what you’re looking for. Once I realized that some of it was things I recognized, like advil, I got my phone out and opened google translate. If you don’t know French, or the language of wherever you are visiting, download this it will come in handy. I typed in sore throat to see what we were looking for and we were able to find what I needed before my number was called. The women I checked out with didn’t speak English, which I had asked in French, and so I showed her my google translate and the box and she confirmed that I had what I needed. They were way more than I’d pay at home, but there’s not much you can do there. They were a nice lemon flavor but weren’t numbing. They did the trick though.

We also checked out the grocery store, and yes we probably could have found what I needed there too but we were expecting more of a Walgreens than what we found and it all worked out. I didn’t want to wander around the grocery store without buying something because that just seems weird, so I got my mom some Pringles and then I got a box of cookies in case we wanted a snack. My mom laughed at the French Pringles but said they tasted the same but there was more salt or less, I can’t remember which. We never ate the cookies but I finally had one the other day and they are pretty good. Chocolate on top of a shortbread/sugar cookie type thing.

I went to Primark because I’ve heard about the store but never been in one. I got a couple of things and understood why we saw so many people with their bags, the prices were quite good. I do regret not getting this pj shirt and we were never near another Primark, so I’ll just have to enjoy the picture.

We also found a fantastic present for an upcoming bachelorette party my friend is going to. For those interested when not in use the corkscrew folds down between the legs

We went back to the food court to get dinner but none of the fast options appealed to us and we didn’t want to take the time to sit down and order something so we had McDonald’s. I know, I know, but when you want to save time you do what you do. It tasted the same as home, so my hope of the cheeseburger tasting better somewhere else didn’t happen.

We walked back to the info desk in the middle of the mall to inquire about getting a taxi back to our hotel since we didn’t know where to find the taxi stand outside. You can’t just hail a taxi you see driving around, you have to either go to a taxi stand or call/have someone call for one. They called for a taxi, gave us a slip of paper and had us wait to the side for the driver to come inside to get us. I liked this part, it made it safer, not that I ever really felt unsafe during our entire trip, but I appreciated this was how it was done. When he got there I gave him the slip and he confirmed where we were going. It was like $18 euro to go back and I don’t know if it’s because it wasn’t a flat fee or if it’s because they called for him.

We dropped our purchases in the room and changed into jeans because it had cooled off because of thunder storms in the area, though we hadn’t seen any rain, and took the bus back so we could go to Disneyland Park.

We went straight to Hyperspace Mountain to use our club fast passes. It as a fun ride, it goes upside down here. Even though Space Mountain in WDW isn’t that smooth, I like it better than this SM. I can ride it more than once a day if it doesn’t go upside down.

After the ride I pulled up the app to check the wait times but the only thing close by that had a short wait time was the Nautilus, which I forgot was just a walk through until we were going down into it. Not a bad decision but not something I would have been disappointed had we missed.

Not wanting to walk all over the park we decided to head back to the village and to shop our way back to the hotel so we’d have Wednesday for any last minute purchases. The hardest thing to find was nice looking, not young looking, clothing items with Disneyland Paris on them. We were having a hard time with that part. Shopping was done but I can’t remember who bought what. I stopped at the Starbucks for an expensive hot chocolate (compared to at home) with a spelling for my name I’ve never gotten before and I’ve gotten a lot.

Still not sure if he thought it was Korem or Karem, either way it should have been Karen

The lego store had a couple of neat displays as they always do.

Day 4 - https://www.disboards.com/threads/w...-paris-and-paris.3686192/page-2#post-59325998

 

[chicagoshannon]

So far it looks like a fabulous time. Not sure about your food choices though. Did you have any authentic French food while there?

Also, strange seeing the FP return times were only 30 minutes.

 

[afan]

So far it looks like a fabulous time. Not sure about your food choices though. Did you have any authentic French food while there?

Also, strange seeing the FP return times were only 30 minutes.

We had macrons, that's it. I'm not a foodie at all and we didn't want to waste time eating dinner at somewhere that would take forever. Neither of us drink much either. The food in the parks wasn't good and I don't eat McD's at home, but food is fuel to me so it did its job. Not to say I don't enjoy food but there are plenty of days where there's nothing I want to eat and would rather not eat than figure out what to eat. I also have the same thing for breakfast almost everyday which would drive most people nuts.

ETA - The food at DLP is well known for not being good and being expensive both qs and ts. We weren't about to pay over 60 euro for a buffet without characters with questionable food. Most qs places have for different entree options and then sides.

 

[afan]

Day 4: Where we have our longest wait (Wednesday, May 23)

Another day another breakfast in the lounge and a walk for EMH. We were back at Disneyland headed to Princess Pavilion with all our rope drop friends. This was our longest wait and while we’d already done everything else that open for EMH in the park, it’s kind of a bummer when the character meets have the longest waits. Not counting the extra time for Moana since we would have been people watching anyway but if we’d waited to get in line we wouldn’t have met her, we waited on average 40 minutes to meet Mickey, Moana and Cinderella. The other bummer about this long meet was we only got to meet Cinderella, you don’t meet two princesses like in WDW. They also only took one photo with my camera.

Pinocchio had a short wait so we decided to ride it again, enjoying the different dark rides they have.

There were finally a few people taking pictures at the Mat Hatter’s tea party so we could ask them to take a photo for us. Sorry for the green box but I wanted to show the hat, that your head goes up into!

We tried to ride Pirates again at park open but they didn’t know when it was going to open so we gave up and went to get fp for BTM. Once we had them we went to ride the riverboat around the river. The boat has 3 levels so we climbed to the top. We had great views of BTM and Phantom Manor which is down for refurb.

French Canadian Geese! Or is it Canadian French Geese?

Phatom Manor

Day 4 Continued - https://www.disboards.com/threads/w...-paris-and-paris.3686192/page-2#post-59326009

 

[afan]

Day 4 Part 2 -

On our way to Discoveryland we caught the Princess Promenade with Sofia the First and Elena of Avalor. It was cute and something you couldn’t do in the US without people camping out for an hour to get their spot.

Our plan in Discoveryland had been Star Tours but it had a longer wait than we wanted so we decided to ride the railroad since we hadn’t done that yet. We just missed getting on the train that was pulling up to the station so we had to wait the half an hour for it to come back. No idea why they were only running one train when the wait at the main street station was well over an hour and it wasn’t even 11 yet.

We had a future choreographer to entertain us during our wait. There was a young girl, probably 5 or 6, that was doing a dance move and then having her mom do the same. It was cute and involved a lot of jumping and spinning.

The train finally pulled back into the station and not many people got off. Each car had a few sections of U shaped benches with a door on them. We went to the one the CM directed us to in the back of the car. The ride around the park was nice. You go behind Phantom Manor where there’s a diorama and you go through a building/tunnel. The train also goes through the end of Pirates and you see the end of the ride. It also goes past Small World but you don’t see any of the ride. It was interesting to go through the ride.

Space Mountain load zone from the train

Disneyland Hotel

Back at the Discoveryland station we saw that Star Tours has a short wait but we forgot to think about the ride time. We got our third different scene and it was still in French. It was good though.

Once we were done we had to hustle over to BTM before our fp expired. We almost didn’t make it because we hadn’t thought about the Pirates and Princesses show being on main street and in the hub so we had to detour around it. We just made it to BTM before our fp expired. This ride was the one I didn’t enjoy and it started with the only rude CM we had all trip. I didn’t understand what he said and certainly didn’t hear him say 12 so I followed the others that had gone towards the front. He got a bit snippy and asked if I understood English. Not when you don’t enunciate I don’t. I tried to ask if we could not sit in the back but he wouldn’t have any of it. So we were the 2nd car from the back and it whipped around more than I would have liked. I have back and neck issues and I can normally brace myself so it’s not a problem. Rides with lap bars I have an issue with because I’m generally smaller than the person I’m riding with so the bar never goes down to my legs and I have a gap. I’ve learned how to compensate but when I’m in the back cars it’s much more difficult and I move around and out of my seat more. Needless to say I wanted to make sure this wasn’t our last ride on BTM and I didn’t even look at our PP for it because I knew the photo would be awful.

It was time for lunch and we stayed in Frontierland to have some TexMex. The one good thing was that it was CoCo themed a bit. The bad thing was he charged me correctly the first time but didn’t give me my whole order and when I said something he charged me for what he didn’t give me. I didn’t realize it until I looked at my receipts later. Oh well. I had nachos, that weren’t. They were kind of doritos but not and were spicy and then you got a little thing of salsa. There was no cheese involved. And I got some small churros that were kinda soggy and didn’t have anywhere near enough sugar or cinnamon. The hot chocolate was good though, but they had the same machine as the lounge and I’d had some at breakfast so I knew it was good.

Day 4 continued - https://www.disboards.com/threads/w...-paris-and-paris.3686192/page-2#post-59326109

 

[afan]

Day 4 Part 3 -

After lunch we caught a showing of the 25th Anniversary show. There’s only two per day now since the anniversary is over a year old. It was cute. They had characters and a song for each of the lands. I forgot to check the battery on my camera and it hadn’t shown it was low and it died part way through the show. Thank goodness for camera phones!

After the show we left Disneyland to spend some time in the Studios since the next day was our last. We had intended to meet Minnie as our first stop but her line never got short enough for an outside queue not in the shade.

The Studio Tram Tour finally had a short line so we did that. It was ok but it was short and pretty much just catastrophe canyon and whatever the scene in London is from.

We picked up fp for ToT before heading to the animation studio to check out the animation class. It wasn’t what we expected, it was mostly kids and it looked like the instructor was going to trace the character to show you how to do it. Plus it was mostly in French so we decided to skip it. We went to see the Art of Disney Animation instead. It wasn’t as interesting as I thought it would be but I also thought it would be a short film, which it had but then there was a speaker. I don’t know what she talked about because I didn’t want to put the headphones on to hear the English version since I didn’t know the last time they’d been cleaned. I snoozed through the short presentation.

It was time for our fp so went visited the Tower Hotel again. Luckily we made it out again and heaed towards Ratatouille to get one more ride in. We used the single rider line which was quick. It was still a fun trip through the restaurant. And when we were walking back towards the Toy Story area we finally found the gift shop that goes with the ride. Very few of the rides dump you into a gift shop and only a few more have one next to the exit so you really have to keep an eye out. We finally found some cute stuff with Disneyland Paris on it. I got a zippered hoodie with Minnie on it and my friend got a t-shirt.

With our purchases in hand we said au revoir to the Studios and headed back to Disneyland. The plan was to use our club fp but this is when I discovered that I had never grabbed them from the table that morning. Oops. So we did Star Tours with a short line again and then finished our shopping up at the Emporium.

We saw this sweatshirt in a couple of different shops and it took me a minute to understand it both that it’s the White Rabbit but also that it’s in French and so completely appropriate in France. However if you were to bring it back to an English speaking country…

We stopped at Earl of Sandwich for dinner and it wasn’t busy which was nice. I got a meatball sub that I didn’t like that much. The meatballs were overcooked. I’m guessing it’s not normally like that but I’ve never eaten at one before. Except for Five Guys and our lounge breakfasts I just wasn’t having much food luck so far.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel to pack so we’d be ready to check out in the morning.

Day 5 - https://www.disboards.com/threads/w...-paris-and-paris.3686192/page-3#post-59341186

 

[JenLanDisney]

I'm really enjoying your report, afan! I particularly appreciate that you are well-versed in the US parks and can compare the experience. For example, it's interesting that few rides end in a gift shop. I wonder if I've just becomed accustomed to that over the years?