Trip Report First Time to Disneyland Paris *Completed*

My in-laws have rented a house in the Loire Valley for the month of July and invited my husband & me to join them for a week. So we've decided to spend our first 2 nights in France at Disneyland Paris! We've booked at Disney's Hotel Santa Fe, as it was the cheapest option within walking distance of the parks. The package includes 3-day park hoppers.

We land at CDG Sunday morning around 9:30 am. We plan to take the TGV from the airport to Disney, but I have no concept of how long it will take us to deplane, get through customs, and get train tickets. Hopefully we'll be there in time to grab some lunch in Disney Village (I'm thinking Earl of Sandwich!), drop our bags at the hotel, and make it back over to the parks by 1pm?

My first goal is to see if we can still snag a FP for BTM. If not, we may bypass that at first and continue around the park clockwise. May or may not try to get FP for Indiana Jones, PPF, and/or Star Tours throughout the day. My other must-do's are Phantom Manor, PotC, Les Mystères du Nautilus, and the Sleeping Beauty gallery & dragon at the castle. I'm thinking dinner at Toad Hall, mostly because I want to check out the theming inside.

I'm not sure how long we'll last this night, having just traveled overseas, so we'll head back to the hotel whenever we get tired. Does anyone know how often hotel shuttles run? We might have to play it by ear on whether we walk or shuttle.

 

[meggo819]

At this point it was probably about 9:00 and rides in Fantasyland were closing, so we backtracked to finally ride Star Tours. The queue is almost identical to Florida’s but the goofy robot x-raying bags alternates between French & English. But our entire ride was in English this time.

We spent some time in the gift shop after. My husband really wanted to find a Star Wars t-shirt in French. To be specific, he wanted to find the Han & Leia shirts that say “I love you” and “I know”, but he hoped to find them in French. No such luck - only available in English. We also saw a Yoda shirt that would’ve been fun in French - “Do or do not, there is no try”. In the end he had to settle for one that said “Star Tours L’adventure Continue”.

We still had time to kill before our Buzz FP and my husband mentioned that he had almost been falling asleep on Phantom Manor the day before. So we cut all the way across to ride that again.

Finally time for Buzz

We took a picture of this and wondered if we could beat that score

The answer was no lol

By the time we were done there, it was 10:30 and we decided to find a spot to watch the fireworks. But first we wanted ice cream. Too bad for us! The ice cream place on Main Street was closed and we didn’t feel like hunting around for a cart that may or may not be selling still. This was probably my biggest pet peeve of the trip, especially when the places in Disney Village were also closed on our way out after the fireworks. And we couldn’t even get a drink back at the hotel that night because the store and buffet were already closed. Why not keep some things open when you know tons of people are staying for fireworks!??

Anyway, we found a decent spot where we thought we’d be able to see most of the castle projections.

But I’m pretty short, so when a guy put his pre-teen on his shoulders as the show started, there wasn’t much hope for me. Slightly annoying, but oh well. I enjoyed the music and the fireworks!

It was fun to hear some of the songs in French, like “Beauty & the Beast” and “Let it Go”

 

[meggo819]

Alright, it's been quite a while, but I'm determined to finish this report!

Day 3, Tuesday July 2nd
We decided not to get up too early today, but we were still able to pack up, drop our bags with luggage storage, and jump on a bus shortly after 9AM. So we arrived at the entry gates before the 8:30 to 9:30 Extra Magic Time was over. Official park opening was at 10. I'm not sure what the deal is with that half hour gap, but since we were eligible for EMT any way, we didn't run into any issues entering and beginning to ride.

Our first goal was a re-ride on Big Thunder Mountain. The line wasn't outrageous so we got in the standby line. IIRC, when we got off it still wasn't 10 yet and we weren't sure if all rides were up yet, so I was able to talk my hubby in to a ride on Thunder Mesa Riverboat Landing to kill some time.

Next, I wanted a re-ride on PoTC.

 

[meggo819]

Since we had quite a bit of time today, my husband was being very sweet to humor me with the rides I wanted. The next 3 were Le Pays des Contes de Fees, Les Voyages de Pinocchio, and Blanche-Neige et les Sept Nains. I figured all 3 of these were pretty similar to their counterparts in California -- but the thing is, we missed all of them the one time we went there! So here we go!

I thought this was really cute - a fun, little attraction!

 

[meggo819]

We were starting to get hungry since we hadn't had breakfast, but it was kinda early and restaurants weren't open for lunch yet. So we went ahead w/ the next 2 attractions I already mentioned.

We both found it kinda hard to follow the story on both of these -- I'm not sure if it was a language issue or if it really is just disjointed.

 

[meggo819]

We had lunch at Toad Hall, as I'd wanted to check it out. The line didn't appear too long, but it still took much longer than you'd expect when they basically serve one thing.

The food was a bit more bland than we'd hoped, but it grew on me as we continued to eat. Maybe hunger really is the best seasoning!

We followed lunch with a stroll back toward Adventureland.

 

[meggo819]

Where were we headed? To check out another walk-through attraction:

Aladdin was one of my favorite movies as a kid, so it was fun to see a detailed attraction dedicated to it.

It was finally time for my husband's one request! We grabbed a Fast Pass for Star Tours and watched Mickey's Philharmagic while waiting for our time to come up.

On Star Tours, we had almost exactly the same sequence of videos as last time, but this time it was entirely in French!

 

[meggo819]

After Star Tours, we decided it was time to head out. We made the walk back to the hotel one last time, picked up our bags, and then took the shuttle back to the parks/train station. It was about a 2 hour train ride and one quick transfer, to the town of Amboise, where we spent the next 4 days.

I'll just share one highlight from the rest of the trip - my favorite part of the trip, even above Disney!

If you ever get a chance to go up in a hot air balloon, especially in a place as beautiful as the Loire Valley, I highly recommend it!