DLRP from the air

[Courtman]

Following on from my WDW from the air thread here I thought I'd trawl through the archives to give people the chance to see my "local" Disney park.

We took these pictures back in August 2005. While little has changed in the Disneyland Park, the Studios have undergone a lot of change with the addition of the Tower of Terror, Crush's Coaster and Race Rally. Hope you enjoy them!

The entrance to Disneyland Paris. The impressive Disneyland Hotel is the entrance to the Disneyland Park. You can see the railway line through the middle of the picture, and the station is to the right of the picture. A multi-storey car park sits over the railway line. Disney Village is just below the train station.

An overview of the central hub of Disneyland Paris. The Sleeping Beauty Castle is in the centre-left of the picture, with Main Street to the right. Directly above the castle is Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Blast and Cafe Hyperion (home to Legend of the Lion King). Space Mountain dominates Discoveryland. Below the castle you can see the entrance to Adventureland and the bazaar.

Fantasyland is visible in this picture, with Snow White being directly behind the carousel. All of Discoverylandi is visible in this picture, you can see the Nautilus sub just right of Space Mountain. The Speedway is right of that. Star Tours is the blue and grey building over the railway track, with Honey I Shrunk the Audience the building right of that.

Its a Small World in a very large building. Below the building is Casey Jr train ride, and "Pays de Contes de Fetes", a storybook boat ride. Moving right of the railway line is Alice's Labyrinth and the Mad Hatter Teacups.

 

[Courtman]

This industrial looking building is in fact Pirates of the Caribbean. The railway line runs through the Pirates building and then on to Its a Small World.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is surrounded by the steamboat ride. On the left of the picture is the Disneyland Hotel. The large flat-roofed building is the ride building for Phantom Manor, with the Manor to the immediate left of that building.

This is the only picture of the Walt Disney Studios I have. The big studio bottom left is the Aerosmith Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, and to the left of that is the set and stands for Lights! Moteurs! Action! Left of the LMAX set is the Reign of Fire drive-thru set for the Tram Tour. The foundations for the Tower of Terror are being dug in the centre of this picture, and Crush's Coaster is now almost complete near the car park at the top of the picture.

 

[Courtman]

On to the resorts. We saw the Disneyland Hotel in the first picture of this set. Here is Disney Village (the odd looking bit right of the picture with the large red and silver towers). Below that is Hotel New York, the other deluxe hotel at DLRP. The balloon ride Panoramagique is airborne from the lake, the star is the set-down point for the balloon. Sequoia Lodge is at the bottom left of the picture.

The Newport Bay hotel. Behind is a large (empty) car park, with Cirque du Soleil behind that. Disney Village is again visible.

Looking over the Newport Bay hotel up to Hotel New York. The balloon is airborne again. Behind Hotel New York is the main DLRP car park.

 

[CyKosis]

Nice pictures, did you take a helicopter tour to get them?

 

[Courtman]

A shot of the two Disney "value" hotels - Hotel Santa Fe is the Mexican-themed hotel, with Hotel Cheyenne at the bottom of the shot, the cowboy hotel. Both are very nicely themed hotels, especially Cheyenne.

Also within striking distance of the main parks are four non-Disney parks. We normally stay at the Holiday Inn, pictured here.

All the "off-site" hotels here are linked to the resort by free shuttle busses. Here we see the Vienna International Dream Castle Hotel, the Holiday Inn and the Hotel Kyriad.

Disneyland Paris has two local general aviation airfields we used. Meaux is pictured here and has four large grass runways. Its about a 15 minute taxi ride to the resort.

The other airfield is Lognes, a small airfield with a tarmac runway. Pictured sitting in front of the tower at Lognes is the aeroplane we flew from Cranfield (in the UK - where I work) to Paris in. SleepingBindy (also a pilot) is getting the aircraft ready for departure.

That's it for our DLRP photo's fom the air. Hope you liked them, PM me if you want any copies hi-res or otherwise!

 

[wdwmagic]

Great pics, thanks so much for sharing them!

 

[marni1971]

Great pics! DLP is a fantastic resort; I hope one day it gets some of the expansion originally planned, as evident in your pics.

And yes, you have a PM

 

[barnum42]

Fascinating pics. Thanks for sharing.

 

[kev1000]

Great pics there is lots of room around the resort for expansion.
Thanks for sharing.

 

[cmatt]

awesome,awesome, awesome pics - went there literally a month after those photos were taken

 

[faisj]

Great pictures do you perhaps have the phone numbers of the organisation
who can fly over the park.
I would love to do it someday.

If possible could you tell me how much it cost,,,

 

[Courtman]

SleepingBindy and I flew ourselves with our own aircraft so the cost comparison wouldn't count.

There are two airfields nearby - Meaux-Esbly (about €30 taxi fare), and Lognes-Emerainville (a short train journey and 20min walk). At Meaux there is a very friendly club Aero Club d'Esbly, their website is http://acesbly.nexenservices.com/. You could hire a Cessna 172 (four seater aircraft with high wing so better for looking down at DLRP than the PA28 that we flew), with an instructor for abuot €136 per hour.

 

[mikelan6]

Excellent pictures! Thank you. Too bad you didn't get the Campground, the Golf Resort and the Radisson hotel.

 

[yeti]

Nice pictures, did you take a helicopter tour to get them?

Was that supposed to be a joke?

 

[Courtman]

Was that supposed to be a joke?

In fairness to Cykosis, he posted the question while I was prepping the third post - i.e. the one with the picture of the Cherokee in!

 

[Philo]

Thanks for the pics

Some elements of DLP are awesome. I especially love the layout of BTMR! Straight under the lake, round the mountain and back under the lake again. IMO in completely eclispses WDW BTMR, its longer, faster and much more exciting. Same is true of SM

The castle is great to and I love the way the DLHotel coveres the entrance to the park but the whole landscaping is really brilliant.

 

[Courtman]

Thanks for the pics

Some elements of DLP are awesome. I especially love the layout of BTMR! Straight under the lake, round the mountain and back under the lake again. IMO in completely eclispses WDW BTMR, its longer, faster and much more exciting. Same is true of SM

The castle is great to and I love the way the DLHotel coveres the entrance to the park but the whole landscaping is really brilliant.

I agree with you 100%. We've been to Orlando loads of time and it has the best atmosphere of the parks, but the layout and theming of the Disneyland Park in Paris is stunning.