Disneyland Paris (and Paris in general) Trip Report

[brifraz]

Almost time to board our doom buggies. There's a bit of a Tower of Terror vibe as well.

And, there she is!

Slightly less quality of pictures as we are now on the ride, but there's the bride again with (you are gonna have to zoom in and look pretty carefully) the Phantom looking over her shoulder.

She really does show up quite a few times along the way.

And then, there's that last scene. The one in the old western town. Yes, it's a ghost town. Very different from the graveyard in other versions!

And it's kinda tough to see, but an effect that I thought was pretty cool was in the hotel window, there is game of poker going on and the cards are all floating with no actual players in sight. Again, the picture won't really do it justice, but it looked really cool.

After the ride, we took some more pictures in the area - that's where those Big Thunder Mountain train going into the water pictures came from. It was right about 8pm and we wanted to make sure we got good projection show and fireworks seats, so I headed to the hub to get a good spot while the girls headed back to It's a Small World for another ride.

 

[brifraz]

Did I just do three posts in one night? With far too many Phantom Manor pictures and one random Young Frankenstein reference? Just crazy stuff!! What are the odds I get any more done tonight? Pretty slim actually... but hopefully I'll get some more stuff posted this week for you. This weekend, we are going to be heading to WDW for a quick trip to celebrate our daughter's 21st birthday (thank you, Spirit airlines for crazy cheap fares), so I likely will bail out of this report for a little bit to do some live trip reporting. We shall see!!

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

Loving the trip report, not sure how I missed it earlier.

Our once in a lifetime trip to Paris, and DL Paris, in 2014 has since been followed by 3 more visits with likely more to come, despite that I think you saw almost as much in one trip as we’ve seen in 4.

Our last visit was in 2023 and your report is like a little trip down memory lane. Looking forward to more.

 

[Swissmiss]

Pretty nice detail work on that knocker. Please, at this time, let's have a moment of silence for Teri Garr and Gene Wilder (IYKYK).

IK (had the scene in my mind before I even read your second sentence )

 

[brifraz]

IK (had the scene in my mind before I even read your second sentence )

It's pretty rare that I take a picture with some kind of plan for my trip report in my head, but I saw that and immediately thought that I needed to get a picture so I could post something about "what knockers" and get away with it.

 

[cgersic]

Just loving this report! Not sure I'll ever make it here, so it's so much fun to see you and your girls do it together. Edited to add: I just watched Young Frankenstein again recently - SUCH a classic!!

 

[brifraz]

So, I'm waiting at the hub, behind a planter for fireworks time. Got there just after 8pm.

Not that you can tell from that picture, but there wasn't all that much of a crowd. People like me sitting on curbs and along railings, but not many in the paths. But, by 8:45pm, it was getting pretty crowded.

But, we chose wisely in terms of our location and had a great view as it got darker.

Meanwhile, the girls went back to It's a Small World for another ride and... more pictures! Just a few things that I think might've gotten missed in the other two posts of IASW pics!

And, once the girls got back and we were waiting for the night shows, @MeffysMom got her top artsy picture of the trip!

But, it's time for a show!! Specifically, the projection show - Disney Electric Sky Parade. It was truly amazing. Didn't really take any pictures, but got a pretty good video!

 

[brifraz]

Seriously, two weeks?? Sorry about that. Got a little derailed by our weekend trip to WDW for our daughter's 21st birthday. You can look at some pictures from that trip here - Live and Picturesque. And, it's been a couple extremely busy weeks at school with lots of after school and evening activities. But, today we are getting a day off due to some pretty decent icing going on out there. Stuck in the house, not a ton of work to get caught up on, it's trip report time!!

I believe that I left you with a video of the projection/drone show, so now it's time for some fireworks! Lots of fireworks pictures coming at you shortly, but first just a little commentary. Not at all impressed by DLP work with crowd control. Through the entire wait for the shows and then during the shows, I'm not sure that I saw more than 5 CMs anywhere around the hub area. At one point about half an hour before the drone/projection show, a trio of CMs walked through and told people to put down selfie sticks. Everyone seemed to comply with the request and then promptly put them right back up as soon as the CMs had finished their walk through. Being used to WDW, we were expecting teams of CMs managing crowd flow, taped walking paths, etc. Nothing of the sort at all. On the positive side, the crowd was (in general) more polite and respectful than WDW crowds are.

Okay, enough commentary - let's see some fireworks pictures!!

Not just projections and fireworks, but... fountains!

The show doesn't have much in the way of big, high in the sky fireworks, but they really do a great job with lower down stuff combined with projections and the fountains.

And lasers!!

Visuals were very pretty.

And those fountains were quite impressive!

Enjoy!

And, UP!

 

[brifraz]

More from the Fireworks show.

That's the Millenium Falcon at the bottom of the castle in this one.

And, now the big finish (with quite a bit of fire, in addition to projection, fireworks, and fountains).

 

[brifraz]

And that brings us to the close of day 2. We waited a bit for the main part of the crowds to disperse and then headed back to our room for some much needed sleep.

I don't have any notes from our departure, but I'm pretty sure we made a quick pitstop in Disney Village and got a little bite to eat and some drinks to share. What they were and whether they were good? Well... we were crazy exhausted and it was after fireworks, so I'm sure we enjoyed them!!

Next up is our third day in the parks, mainly spent at Studios... and a decent bit spent in rain. I'll leave this day off with one last picture from the fireworks - this one as the last shells were fading. I really enjoyed the moments in the show when the castle went dark.

 

[Kevin_W]

Nice fireworks photos!

 

[brifraz]

Good morning from day 3 at Disneyland Paris! Of course, the morning started off at the Hotel Cheyenne. And, I'm going to take another chance to comment on how much I like the theming here. I wish we had more time to get a meal at the Chuck Wagon or sit around the fire at night. It's not 'in your face' Disney, but obviously that's where you are. IMHO, far better than the WDW Value resorts.

Once again, our morning started with grabbing a quick bit from the Earl of Sandwich right at 8am when they opened. Then it was time to head to Studios to try to hit everything that we could!

Rope dropped the Crush Coaster and, while we weren't right at the front of the line, we were decently close to it - still took about 15 minutes, though before we got on. Just a couple pictures from the queue.

Definitely a fun ride, but a bit much spinning for me to enjoy more than once. The girls really loved it. And, we were quite glad we had rope dropped as the queue was showing at 45 minutes by the time we got out.

Next up, even though the girls had enjoyed it in California before, I had missed out, so it was time for WEB Slingers. This queue was a bit longer, maybe 30 minutes total, but still pretty reasonable. Evidently, our daughter is looking for a job with WEB.

Evidently, some of us take our WEB slinging very seriously and others... well, maybe not quite so much.

We may have been having a bit much fun in the queue, but even more so in the attraction. I really enjoyed it. I am a big fan of Toy Story Mania, Buzz, and MiB at Universal and this is definitely a step up. I know it has it's detractors, but I had a darn good time and will galdly do that one again!!

Next up, we had a plan to hit all the shows in pretty rapid succession. Frozen, then Pixar, then Alice, then Mickey. But it was not to be. Best laid plans, right? We got to the Frozen line at about 10:10am for the 10:30am show. The app wasn't showing queues as being too long, so we thought we would be fine... nope. Already full. Okay, adjust the plans! Over to the line for the 11:05am Pixar show - and lots of plotting to make sure we could still hit everything. Plan in place and ready to go in. And, at 11am, still ready to go in. 11:05, ready to go in! 11:10, ready to go in... 11:15, ready... to... go... in. 11:18am, announcement comes on that the 11:05am show is cancelled and talking to CMs, it sounded like the next show might also be cancelled (alright, which Pixar character forgot to set their alarm clock???).

Moving to Plan C!! Headed back to the Alice in Wonderland queue for the 12pm show. While the girls went to get in line, I stopped to pick up some food at Stark Factory. Not quite set up for carry-out to a line queue, but I made it work. I did have to stop at Agent Carter's desk to get all my stuff organized.

Again, nice theming for a quick service restaurant. And the pasta, while not amazing, was exactly what we needed - filling!! And, when I caught up to the girls, they were pretty close to the front of the queue. We enjoyed our food and then headed in. Really had ZERO idea what this show was going to be like.

Hmmm.... looks interesting.

Felt a lot like the old Lights, Motors, Action seating area. Pretty good size. We got great seats, pretty much right behind the sound and lighting boards, which is our usual target for seats. The stage is something else!

And, the show is even beyond something else. No, really. I have no accurate comparison to make or way to describe it. But, here goes... imagine if Finding Nemo:The Musical, Festival of the Lion King, a Disney parade, and Cirque de Soliel all had a child together that was raised as a BMX biker and high fashion model. Yeah, I couldn't imagine it either. The girls absolutely loved it. I found it to be a bit of a sensory overload, but incredibly well done and certainly interesting. Next post will just be pictures from the show. Sadly, I'm pretty sure it is gone and not coming back.

 

[brifraz]

I really have no words. Just know that the pictures don't do it justice. We didn't get pictures of all the BMX bike stunts or the gymnasts bouncing all over the place. Make sure to zoom in on some of these pictures because there is something going on all of the place - stage, floor, both sides, all the screens (so many screens!!), sometimes on the roof, in the audience, etc.

Yes, she was just in front of our row - that's not zoomed in.

 

[Gusey]

Just to answer some Questions you had about the Alice show:

• It used to be the Lights Motors Action Stunt Show stadium but was repurposed for this show
• It is set to return this Summer 2025 and is supposed to run for the next few years in the Summer months

 

[brifraz]

Just to answer some Questions you had about the Alice show:

• It used to be the Lights Motors Action Stunt Show stadium but was repurposed for this show
• It is set to return this Summer 2025 and is supposed to run for the next few years in the Summer months

I guess that's why the stadium looked familiar! Glad it isn't totally gone. My wife and daughter absolutely loved it.

 

[brifraz]

Meanwhile... at some point earlier in the day, we had signed up for the virtual queue for the Spider-man Meet and Greet. I'm pretty certain that this is somewhat new and we didn't even really realize what it was at first, but we got signed up and right as the Alice show was wrapping up, we got called. Headed to the Hero Training Center and got checked in. It was about 10 minutes before they called us back, but when we did get to go back... WOW! This is the way that character meets should be. I've certainly done ones in WDW or even DL that were good and you got as much as a couple minutes with the characters, but this went WAY beyond that.

First there was some casual chat. At times, it got a little silly as well. This went on for easily a couple minutes.

Then some time for a hug.

Back to more casual chat and silliness.

Time to strike a serious Avenger pose.

And an action shot of some web slinging.

Someone with far more Photoshop skills than I have should take this an put them swinging over NYC.

Now, time for group shots.

And, superhero landing group shots.

We had easily been in with Spidey for over 5 mintues at this point and then he started doing selfies.

And one last selfie that is a reflection in the ceiling of the two of them lying on the floor.

Based on the picture information, we were in there with him for a full 7 minutes! Yes, 7 minutes. Lots of great chat and laughing and fun. I would say that this was our best character interaction ever, but we've had some real winners. This comes in solidly at #3.

#1 - on our daughter's actual 5th birthday we were picked as family of the day at MK back when you went back to Toontown and met ALL the characters who did the old welcome show and then rode the train with them all, playing peek-a-boo with Mickey all the while.

#2 - daughter in full Anastasia costume at 1900 Park Faire, gets led through the entire restaurant by Anastasia who is showing her off to every table as her mini-me. Followed up by Anastasia yelling to her from the float during the parade later than night.

#3 - Spiderman at Disney Studios, Paris.

If you want pictures of those first two, you'll have to bug me when I'm at home with access to the old hard drives that those are all stored on!!

 

[brifraz]

By the time we were done with Spidey, it was getting toward 2pm and we needed a bit of a break. We also wanted to regroup and figure out if we could still see all three shows that had caused the debacle in the morning. So, we headed out and back to our room. On the way, made a quick pit stop in Disney Village to get a Leige waffle that somehow we didn't get a picture of.

After a couple hours of down time, we headed back in for all the shows in rapid succession. To enhance the mood, it had decided to start raining a bit as we headed into Studios. Our first stop was the Pixar show. Sadly, no pictures from this one. But, "Together" was really a great show. I'm always a sucker for the shows with live orchestra - more of a band in this case, but they were excellent. Of course, there was a sappy, heart-warming story at the center and it was well done with lots of characters involved.

When we exited that show, the rain had really started to come down pretty hard. We made a dash to the queue for the Frozen show and got ourselves in line. Sadly, that line is not entirely covered, so we ended up in an uncovered section. Luckily when the became a full on downpour, those in the weave in front of us who were not covered, let us 'line jump' into their area. Thank goodness! While we were already pretty wet, this kept us from getting thoroughly drenched. Once inside, there were some nice displays about film/theatre history.

The show itself is a bit different, in that the audience moves between different theater rooms instead of the set changing. Vaguely like Carousel of Progress, but you stand in the rooms and walk between them.

Heading into the second room, I ended up at the back of the mass of movement, so I turned around and got a couple more shots of Sven, who kept his interactions up until the room was cleared.

The Ice Castle room pictures didn't quite come out as clearly, but here's Elsa and Olaf.

Somehow, we managed to leave our daughter's Up ears in the first theater and got a bit worried about them being recovered, but luckily we managed to communicate the situation with some of the CMs and the ears were recovered!

Next up was a quick dash across the main thoroughfare to get in line for Mickey the Magician. While waiting, we realized that other than a Leige waffle, we hadn't really eaten since breakfast, so I was dispatched to a nearby kiosk to get some crepes and some fries. Luckily, the waiting area for this one was completely covered, so I dodged the raindrops to get the food and then covered it as much as I could to get it back. All was good and we were happy to have something to eat!!

The Mickey show was really enjoyable as well. Reminded me of the shows on the Disney cruise a few years ago in terms of level of production and performance. It was excellent! Again, no pictures allowed during the show, so you'll just have to imagine how good it was!!

So, despite our plans not working out in the morning, we had managed to see all three shows in a 3.5 hour time period in the evening. And, to our great delight, as we left Mickey the Magician, the weather had cleared a bit and the rain was much lighter. Our next top was back at the NY Hotel Skyline Bar, but that is for a separate (and far too detailed) post coming your way... soon?

 

[brifraz]

Alrighty, then... back to the NY Hotel and the Skyline Bar. This evening was something that we had planned a bit in advance. We had looked at the menu. We are big fans of Marvel. Our daughter in particular really loved the Avengers films. So...

Six Infinity Stone themed drinks? Oh, yeah. Ordering six drinks at once was a bit of a surprise for our bartender and after she got over the initial shock, she decided that we were okay and just having some fun. And it was all good.

Ready to go...

The colors may not be entirely Thanos perfect, but pretty nice!

And some really very nice artwork on them as well.

All three of us tried all six. Our daughter, being a relatively new drinker (and at this point, still not a legal drinker in the US... but her college term in Spain had at least somewhat prepared her for this) was the one that this adventure was all about and I was quite excited to see her reactions to some of the drinks.

Hmmm... gin, pear brandy, roquefort cheese, and olives? I have a feeling this one might not go quite so well....

The best part being that I really, really enjoyed that one quite a bit - in fact, it might have been my favorite. Somehow, the universe was smiling on us, though. Of the six drinks - we each had two that we really enjoyed AND THEY DIDN'T OVERLAP. Seriously. We each had two to enjoy after tasting all six. Which was great and a darn good way to spend an hour or so!

We had a great time enjoying the drinks, chatting with the bartenders and other staff, having a little snack of some of their bites to eat. A really enjoyable evening. And, by the time we headed back to our room for much needed sleep, the rain had completely stopped!

Sadly, we went to bed knowing that our morning in the parks would be relatively short before needing to take our bus to the airport. But, we were looking forward to it!

 

[brifraz]

Alright, it's time for our last morning. Only had a couple hours before we had to catch our bus to the airport, so we were heading into the castle park to see what we could do!

As we had each morning, upon waking up one of our first things to do was check the app and see what the status was for Space Mountain. It had been showing each day as down even before park opening... but... on this morning it was not! It was showing as opening with the park at 8:30am. But... would it?? Were we being deceived???

Skipped breakfast and got ourselves to the gates as quick as we could.

Yup. Very front of the line. And, first in at about 8:25am. Although others were rushing a bit more than us.

Still showing as opening in a few minutes on the app, so over to Tomorrowland we went.

Waiting at the gate with a few other folks and everyone keeping fingers crossed!!! Cast members showed up and... it's a go!!!

Almost there...

Stay on target...

And away we went!!!! So excited to get to ride it and it was really fun. And, as soon as we got off, the girls went right back on!

They got right back on with zero wait. Two rides in about 20 minutes total. Meanwhile, I went over for a quick ride on Buzz.

By 8:55am, it was down again, so we were VERY glad that we got up and got there to ride first thing in the morning. After that, we just wandered a bit and grabbed a bite to eat at the bakery before heading back to our resort to catch the bus.

Sadly, we have reached the end of our Paris adventure.