A Twins Guide to Disneyland Paris

  I never thought in my whole life that I would make it to Disneyland Paris! Even when we were planning on going to Paris I never even considered Disney until mom said she had free tickets! Having family that works at Disney is such a perk-fest! I was told by a bunch of silly nothings that Disneyland Paris is just a 'waste of our time' because it's not 'authentic Paris' but eff off losers I went to Disney in Paris and it was wonderful! We got up a little later than I planned because my clock was set for 9:00am but I forgot Paris is one hour ahead and we actually got up at 10:00am. We had breakfast for Nutella on french bread, which was delish, and were out the door by 11:15am. A later start than I wanted, but it's all good. We boarded the Metro 4 and rode it until we got to Les Halles then took the RER to Marne la Vallee Chessy. We ran into a slight problem on the RER as the first one we boarded needed to be emptied for some reason, so we all got off and had to wait about 15 minutes for the next one. There was a woman on the speaking explaining what happened, I think, but as we don't speak French we had no idea what was going on! The next metro came with no problems though, so whatever the issue was it had to do with the train and nothing else.

We arrived at the station around 12:45 and walked right outside to Disneyland Paris! Naturally there was a long walk to actually reach the park entrance but it was a pretty walk with fountains and flowers. Now there are actually two parks at Disneyland Paris: Disneyland Paris and Disney Studios. Jess and I had no idea what was in either but we had a park-hopper ticket so we were gonna find out! Much later though because we ran into a weird issue at the gate. In order to get in we needed to have our paper printouts scanned in order to receive a ticket for entry. We were directed to the Cast Member ticket booth area where there was only one person in line in front of us. Great right? No really because something major was going on with him and were were in line for 20 minutes waiting. The man working the booth said a few things to the people behind us in line in French but Jess and I didn't understand him until he told us in English to just go to Guest Relations and went back to what he was doing with the other person. We ended up in the wrong spot and went to the ticket line rather than Guest Relations cause we couldn't find Guest Relations and the woman in the booth told us to go to the Cast Member ticket line. I explained 3 times that the man there had sent us elsewhere before she gave us directions to Guest Relations which had a seriously long line. We waited it though, once sending me to check the Cast Member ticket area to see that the same guy who'd been holding up the line before was in fact still there, until we got to the front of the line. We ended up following a man who'd apparently been trying to convince the person working to just let him use expired tickets for about 20 minutes, maybe more but that's how long we were in line and he was there the whole time. When we got up to the front of the line was when he 'had enough' and walked off in a huff to literal applause from inside the booth. The man there was very helpful and got us set up in no time to go in.

By the time we entered the park it was 2:00pm, which was kind of a bummer cause I wanted to be there sooner, but the park was open until 11:00pm, and Studios park was open until 8:00pm so we figured we had enough time, and we totally did! We started at the Snow White Ride which was basically the same as the one they used to have at Disney World before the put in the Seven Dwarves Mine Train and we loved it then and we loved it now! Jess and I are big fans of easy-going kinda narrative-following rides! No surprise we next hit Pinocchio's Journey or whatever they called it in French, a ride similar to the one we rode years ago in Disneyland California! Again, it was very cute and we enjoyed ourselves immensly. After that ride we checked the map and saw that the Ratatouille Ride was in Disney Studios, the park that closes at 8:00pm. We decided we didn't wanna rush through rides in the main park so we headed over to the Studios to ride what we wanted there before we did anything else. It was a brief walk and a pleasant one before we entered the fancy Disney Studios. The park is very much like Disney World's Hollywood Studios in terms of rides (Tower of Terror, a Toy Story World) and in terms of it being obviously the lesser liked and fun of the two parks. There aren't many rides and it's mostly shows so it's not a bad park, just not Jess and my vibe.

On the way in we were greeted by a Cast Member doing surveys, which Jess and I love doing, and we had a lovely chat! When we greeted her she asked if we spoke English and we said yes and that we're American and that surprised her. She told us she thought we were Italian. She was the second person so far to claim we look European instead of America. We talked about how our father's family was from Italy and that might explain it and she told us she's from northern Italy and we discussed last names and lineages and all that jazz before we ever actually got to the survey! Dubbing her a solid interaction we made our way over to Ratatouille. The ride had a 5 minutes wait for single riders, so that was the obvious way to go, and Jess and I ended up in the same cart just different levels anyway. I was next to an English girl and her sister who after a few minutes asked if I was British or French. That makes three. I don't know what vibe I'm giving off and I'm not sure if it's good or bad.

The ride was way cool with 3D incorporation and a smooth riding cart that reminded us of the penguin ride at Seaworld the way it moves about on the tracks. We then meandered through the Toy Story area and admired how cute everything was and took a few pictures. We ended up in the area with the shows and that was apparently the end of the park. A small thing, but they seemed to have a decent number of people in the park so it clearly wasn't a total bust! Still, having seen all of the park and having nothing else we wanted to ride, Jess and I headed back to the Disney Park.

We wanted to ride Phantom Manor but we found out it was closed for restorations until September. A bummer for sure, but not a big deal as we hurried off to Adventureland! We stood in line for Indiana Jones which was about 40 minutes and not really super-duper fun. It was a roller coaster but Jess and I were expecting it to be more like the one in Disneyland California but there wasn't any storyline going on at all. It was still fun, but also weird because there's an upside-down loop but they just let you take your stuff on. Jess and I have an open bag (cause the zipper's broken) and we only had Jessica's peacock sarong tucked over the top to protect the things inside. Nothing came out cause it wasn't a hard loop and we held it close, but still very interesting! I wonder how many people lose all kinds of stuff! Disneyland Paris is way more chill that Disneyworld apparently!

After that we found ourselves in Adventure Isle, an exploration area with caves, docks, and waterfalls to enjoy! We looked out of Skull Rock, saw the Swiss Family Robinson's wreckage, and explored the dark maze of interconnecting caves! It was way fun! We exited out towards Pirates Beach and made a bee-line for Pirates of the Caribean! The ride is much longer than the one in Disney World with only 2 instances of Captain Jack added to the ride. The Buy A Bride scene is gone from the ride which I didn't mind at all! The Red Lady looks swell as a pirate and the glittering gold and jewels for sale made perfect sense for the scene. There was also a segment of a female pirate fighting either another pirate or a 'landlubber' which was pretty cool too!

 

Post-Pirates we returned to Fantasyland which we'd left earlier that day. We found a cute Mister Toad themed that we poked our head into then found ourselves outside the Mad Hatter Cafe where we took a break and ate our Nutella sandwiches. We relaxed as long as we needed then entered Alice's Curious Labyrinth. The area is a literal maze all themed after Alice in Wonderland that was literally too cute for words! Jess and I only made a few wrong turns before arriving at the Queen of Heart's palace which had a rockin' view of the whole park!

Following that we rode two rides that aren't available at Disney World: Le Pays des Contes de Fees and Casey Jr. - le Petite Train du Cirque. The first was my favourite ride in the whole park. Its a serene and tranquil boat ride that carries you past miniatures of fairytales and Disney movies. Jess liked Eric's castle, but I adored the Aladdin Cave of Wonders where you actually went into a cave with sparkling jewels paving the walls! The other was equally cute, a little train ride that takes you around the area of the boat ride with a lovely little tune playing as you go! If I were to go again I might just spend all day on that boat ride and only leave for intermittent rides on the train!

Next was It's A Small World! There I got a text from my landlord about my mail that of course came through just as I left the wifi zone and I had to sort that out but I got it settled just as we boarded out boat! The ride was, again, longer than the one in Florida and interestingly enough had North America sections! They had the wild west, American-Indians, Canada, and Hollywood! It never occurred to me before that we don't have a North America section! Jess and I had a hoot over the Canadian hockey players and the American football players! Classic!

After that it was off to the future in Discoveryland! We hit Hyperspace Mountain first because we assumed it'd have the longest line but it was only a 25 minute wait! I guess Thursdays really are a slow day for Disneyland Paris! The ride was obviously themed something else before the Star Wars changes and some of the original bits are left in the walkthrough that give that away, but the ride itself was so cool! It is true that the Space Mountain in Paris goes upside down and it was really fun inside the ride where there were spaceships blasting and apparently a mission going on in French that sounded really cool! Mostly though I heard Jessica's one true talent: the R2-D2 scream which she does so well I thought it was part of the ride before I realized I was only hearing it in one ear. That.s the thing I really like about roller coasters though, the screaming. No other place can you just scream as loud and as long as you want without anyone giving it a thought. It's very cathartic and perhaps that's why so many people enjoy thrill rides.

Star Tours was next and we got 3 (yep 3) scenes we hadn't seen before and saw some excellent French dubbing over Finn, Poe, and Maz. The crowd in that ride was very excited and we just all had a ball together as we flew through space! After that was Buzz Lightyear's Lazer Blast. Buzz Lightyear and the Fairytale Boat Ride were the only two rides in the park, as far as we could tell, that were constant motion rides, meaning they go at a singularly slow speed and people just get on and off without it stopping for loading and unloading. This is apparently very complicated for everyone in the park and both rides very often stop moving to correct issues of people not getting on in time or properly. This was no problem for us on either ride though as I loved getting extra time on the boat ride and we just racked up the points on Buzz Lightyear! Jess beat me by about 40,000 points and it was a sad day for us all. Particularly me. I'm usually a knock-out at those games.

Last ride of the day was Lancelot's Carousel which Jess loved because she love carousels! It was sunset as we rode given that it was about 10:00pm at night (that's sunset in Paris, wild right?) and it was a lovely end to our day in the park.We slowly meandered out, discovering a fun little Aladdin walkthrough that had little figurines of the Aladdin story that was cute to see, and checking gift shops only to end up getting a coin momento because I love those things even if they're a little pointless. In Disney Village, basically the Downtown Disney or Disney Springs or Disneyland Paris we scouted out a bathroom before making our way to the metro station. Or what we thought was the metro station. As we entered we were kind of confused about where to go because it looked different than we remembered. Then we heard an announcement saying the building was closed and we kind of freaked for a second cause we had to get home. Upon asking the man directing people out, however, we discovered the RER station was in fact next door and happily trotted over to the very open and running station where we caught the next metro to Les Halles then the 4 back to Chateau Rouge where we had a dinner of yesterdays pizza, took a shower, and crashed for the night!