I see lots of people asking about DLP in a day. Well, my DW and I did it as part of a bigger trip to Paris and we had a great day. The big secret I can share is that you should buy your tickets at the Disney store on the Champs Elysees. These are actual park tickets and save you from standing in line at the park for tickets. Just go straight to the entrance.
Woke up at 8AM at our hotel near Notre Dame. We took the subway over to Les Halles and caught the RER from there. It was a solid 35 minutes from there to the end of the line at DLP. You have to make sure you catch the correct train since two different ones occupy the same track. There are overhead signs to tell you where which stops the next train will be making. Most signs are clearly marked with DLP and a Mickey symbol. Kinda cool.
Once you get out of the RER station, your literally in the middle of the action. Studios are straight ahead, thier version of DTD is to the left and DLP is to the right. Walk though the bag check, under the DL hotel and you're on Main Street. We were walking under the train station exactly ay 10AM.
So we had 12 hours to do both parks. A daunting task but we were up to it. You have to be really honest about what are your "must dos" because the park may be crowded (it was extremely crowded for us on 9/13). Some rides are very similar to WDW or DL so if you've been on them, it might not be worth re-riding.
My advice is to go left at the hub. Get a FP for BTMR and then go ride Phantom Manor (right next to one another). PM is much scarier than the US HMs and well worth a ride or three. We got 3 rides in on PM before our FPs were ready. We rode BTMR which IMHO is the best of the three I've been on (WDW and DLR are the others). The cool part is that you load on the "mainland" and the whole ride is on an island. Great ride.
Moving north to POTC. We didn't ride Indiana Jones because it was closed. I've been before and it's nothing to write home about. If you're pressed for time, I'd say skip. POTC is well worth it just for the entrance queue. Very well detailed and the load area is very cool to see.
From there, we grabbed FPs for Peter Pan and went to our ADRs at the Plaza buffet. This totally wasn't worth it. 25 euros for basically nothing. It wasn't that full and it really wasn't good. A poor effort on Disney's part to make an American buffet. If I could do over, I'd eat from the food carts and save my money for other do-dads.
At this point (around 1PM), the park was full on packed. Made our way to Space Mountain 2.0. Great ride but really rough. Bouncing your head a lot between the seats. We tried to get in on the Lion King show but it was already full. This is one you really have to decide on. To get in, you have to wait 35-45 minutes before the show, then another 40 in the show. That eats up over an hour on one attraction. Not worth it for us and one day.
We then moved on to IASM, Alice and back to Peter Pan for our FPs. Everything in Fastasyland is worth riding. Everything feels strangly familiar except most of the dialogue is in French. A bit unsettling but comforting at the same time. It made me homesick for WDW for some reason.
That covered most of DLP so we moved to the Studios around 4PM. Everything here is pretty much covered in other parks so it's real easy to breeze though. RnRC is different so it's worth a ride but is inferior to the WDW version. I suggest hitting Animagique and of course Crush's Coaster. Animagique is the stage show version of Philharmagic. Interesting conversion without the same impact.
Crush's Coaster may be one of the single best rides anywhere (Disney, Universal, anywhere)! Spinning coaster but not like Primevil Whirl at DAK. So much smoother. Great on-ride preshow much like Finding Nemo at TLS in EPCOT. Such a great ride. Prone to breaking down and no FP so if you simply must ride, ride early.
We went back to DLP to do some shopping and catch a few more rides in Fantasyland. Overall a great day but obviously didn't get to do every ride. It's all about choices. I was just happy to be there again. It was the DWs first time so she was super excited. Good times.
My pics can be found here.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jvrabel/sets/72157607364694494/
Woke up at 8AM at our hotel near Notre Dame. We took the subway over to Les Halles and caught the RER from there. It was a solid 35 minutes from there to the end of the line at DLP. You have to make sure you catch the correct train since two different ones occupy the same track. There are overhead signs to tell you where which stops the next train will be making. Most signs are clearly marked with DLP and a Mickey symbol. Kinda cool.
Once you get out of the RER station, your literally in the middle of the action. Studios are straight ahead, thier version of DTD is to the left and DLP is to the right. Walk though the bag check, under the DL hotel and you're on Main Street. We were walking under the train station exactly ay 10AM.
So we had 12 hours to do both parks. A daunting task but we were up to it. You have to be really honest about what are your "must dos" because the park may be crowded (it was extremely crowded for us on 9/13). Some rides are very similar to WDW or DL so if you've been on them, it might not be worth re-riding.
My advice is to go left at the hub. Get a FP for BTMR and then go ride Phantom Manor (right next to one another). PM is much scarier than the US HMs and well worth a ride or three. We got 3 rides in on PM before our FPs were ready. We rode BTMR which IMHO is the best of the three I've been on (WDW and DLR are the others). The cool part is that you load on the "mainland" and the whole ride is on an island. Great ride.
Moving north to POTC. We didn't ride Indiana Jones because it was closed. I've been before and it's nothing to write home about. If you're pressed for time, I'd say skip. POTC is well worth it just for the entrance queue. Very well detailed and the load area is very cool to see.
From there, we grabbed FPs for Peter Pan and went to our ADRs at the Plaza buffet. This totally wasn't worth it. 25 euros for basically nothing. It wasn't that full and it really wasn't good. A poor effort on Disney's part to make an American buffet. If I could do over, I'd eat from the food carts and save my money for other do-dads.
At this point (around 1PM), the park was full on packed. Made our way to Space Mountain 2.0. Great ride but really rough. Bouncing your head a lot between the seats. We tried to get in on the Lion King show but it was already full. This is one you really have to decide on. To get in, you have to wait 35-45 minutes before the show, then another 40 in the show. That eats up over an hour on one attraction. Not worth it for us and one day.
We then moved on to IASM, Alice and back to Peter Pan for our FPs. Everything in Fastasyland is worth riding. Everything feels strangly familiar except most of the dialogue is in French. A bit unsettling but comforting at the same time. It made me homesick for WDW for some reason.
That covered most of DLP so we moved to the Studios around 4PM. Everything here is pretty much covered in other parks so it's real easy to breeze though. RnRC is different so it's worth a ride but is inferior to the WDW version. I suggest hitting Animagique and of course Crush's Coaster. Animagique is the stage show version of Philharmagic. Interesting conversion without the same impact.
Crush's Coaster may be one of the single best rides anywhere (Disney, Universal, anywhere)! Spinning coaster but not like Primevil Whirl at DAK. So much smoother. Great on-ride preshow much like Finding Nemo at TLS in EPCOT. Such a great ride. Prone to breaking down and no FP so if you simply must ride, ride early.
We went back to DLP to do some shopping and catch a few more rides in Fantasyland. Overall a great day but obviously didn't get to do every ride. It's all about choices. I was just happy to be there again. It was the DWs first time so she was super excited. Good times.
My pics can be found here.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jvrabel/sets/72157607364694494/
