viking86

I don't buy much theme park stuff. I started collecting fridge magnets, but about a year ago I bought a new apartment and now I have a fridge with a wooden front. So that is on hold for now... But I bought a 25-year anniversary bowl at Disneyland Paris two weeks ago. And I also have this one I bought at Disney's Animal Kingdom three years ago.

I have zero interest in baseball, but I have a thing for classic old stadiums, regardless of what sports they are being used for. So I love the pictures from Wrigley Field, particularly the one with the catwalks leading to the upper tier. Yes, it may not have the comfort factor of a new build, but it just oozes character and charm and I'd take that any day over a soulless new concrete bowl!

The Catastrophe Canyon part of the Studio Tour is really awesome, and if it had been a stand-alone attraction I would have said it was great and actually worth waiting for. It's just that the rest of the tour just flat out sucks and it makes the wait sooo long... But yes, definitely visit both parks for a first visit. Just make sure to get a park hopper ticket, so that when you're done with the Studios park after a few hours you can skip back to Disneyland. (the Studios park closes early anyway) Lol that's like at least one third of the park you mentioned there! And I see that also Tower of Terror didn't open until 2007. Attraction wise it must have been a truly awful park when it opened back in 2002. But as you said in one of your earlier posts, there is a lot of potential for this park, and the more recent additions are great so maybe there is a bright future for this park some years down the road..??

^You're welcome!

That track being so offset from the center of the structure is a serious OCD trigger!

^Thanks! DLP is definitely worth a visit if you're in Europe. I wouldn't say it's like WDW where the resort alone is worth travelling across the Atlantic for, but as a part of a larger Europe trip? Definitely! And yes, seeing ToT from the back was strange. Particularly since they didn't theme it to anything else, it still just looks like the back of a building... Definitely one-offs! I made the mistake of doing Armegeddon on my own before meeting up with the other guys, and they hadn't done it yet so I actually ended up doing it twice!

Brilliant TR! Really enjoyed your captions with the photos, some of them gave me a good laugh!

^That is an awesome label! I want one!

Part 2 - Walt Disney Studios Park For the second part of this trip report I’m taking a look at Walt Disney Studios. The park is located right next to Disneyland Park, and it only takes a few minutes to walk between the parks. Now for the park itself.... well, it’s not great! It has a couple of good rides, but throughout most of the park it’s very obvious that it was built on a budget, and it’s a stark contrast to the beautiful park right next to it. Don’t get me wrong, I had a good time and there are definitely some positive things about this park, but after some hours I felt very done with it and didn’t really have any great desire to go back. Se let’s get onto the pictures shall we?? The entrance arch to the park. And this is the entrance gate. Sorcerer Mickey Statue inside the entrance gates, with the Earful Tower in the background. I must honestly admit it was very strange to see a statue of Walt in this park. While I normally don’t agree with how people normally use this statement, I couldn’t help but think “It’s not what Walt would have wanted” about this park... Pro-tip: Head to Crush’s Coaster first thing in the morning, as the line builds up very quickly. This is basically a spinning coaster in a box, with a little bit of theming outside. Inside it’s mainly dark with little theming throughout the ride. It was a lot of fun though! And there was a lot of funny faces to be seen on the outdoors part, particularly for the riders facing backwards. Moving on to my favorite ride in the park, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. The first thing that strikes you is the rides location, its right in the center of the park. This feels very strange compared to it’s siblings, and it also means that you are able to walk around it and see the tower from every angle. I don’t know any other parks where you can do this. The ride is located in the center of the park, and can be seen from all of the park. Is this the only Tower of Terror where you can walk all the way around the building? The entrance is right in front of the building. Once you get inside the queue feels pretty much identical to it’s WDW counterpart. While I don’t remember the exact specifics, the lobby, library and boiler room feels exactly the same (which is not a bad thing). One thing I found interesting was the preshow in the library room, sometimes it would be in English with French subtitles and sometimes it would be in French with English subtitles. Maybe they had one version in each of the library rooms, but I wasn’t able to confirm this. The hotel lobby is a very familiar sight. As for the ride itself, I was pleasantly surprised. I kinda has this thought it my head before riding that it’s not a “proper” tower, but it was a huge amount of fun. Yes, it lacks the 5th dimension scene, but it’s still a really good ride. The drop sequence is just sooooo much fun, bouncing up and down the tower, and has the whole ride vehicle screaming with laughter. So all in all, setting my expectations unreasonably low made it a really good experience for me. Moving on past ToT, you get to Armageddon: les Effets Spéciaux. This is a special effects show where you are on a space station in the path of an oncoming asteroid. The experience itself is quite fun, but it has a stupidly long and boring preshow. The building for Armageddon The vehicle shown outside was cool though! Next door is Rock’n Rollercoaster avec Aerosmith. The ride itself has an identical layout to its WDW counterpart, but theming and story is a bit different. And as you can see from the exterior, it’s extremely obvious that this park was built on a budget. The ride was a lot of fun though, and also felt slightly more intense than what I remembered from riding the WDW version. The extremely cheap facade of Rock’n Rollercoaster. The line in front is for the stunt show, Rock’n Rollercoaster was close to walk-on so they didn’t even bother with opening the fastpass/single rider lines. Our onride photo! Most of the park feels like this. Various attractions just plopped down in random spots with no coherent theme and a severe lack of atmosphere. To the left is the stunt show, I skipped it since I’ve done the one in Orlando and I believe they are identical. Tower of Terror looming over the park. I decided to go for a ride on the backstage tour. Oh boy, was this a boring ride. The Catastrophe Canyon part is very cool, but the rest of the ride mainly consist of driving on a road through the woods at extremely low speed with a few random movie props here and there. And once you are finished with the cool stuff you get to drive all the way back again, yay! The vehicles for the backstage tour, which took forever to load! Catastrophe Canyon. This part is really cool, consisting of fire, water and moving props. Did I say water? I meant LOTS of water!! At the other end of the studio tour they have another scene of a ruined London. It looks nice, but other than a little fire there is nothing exciting happening here. Alright, let’s have a look at Toy Story Land! Here’s Buzz, watching over the entrance. The parachute drop was closed for maintenance, but we saw it testing on multiple occasions. The park has an Intamin Surfrider called RC Racer. It’s a fun ride, and with the 4-across seating the single-rider line moves very fast. This is also the only ride at the whole resort to feature bins in the station, as bags and backpacks are for obvious reasons not allowed onto the ride. However they have smaller bins with lids onboard the trains for smaller items. The ride itself has a very short ride cycle, but it's very fun once it gets going! The ride goes fairly high up, so if you’re in the backseat you get a pretty decent view of the park for half a second. Oh look, they have a slinky dog coaster here! Actually, it’s just a very slow Music Express ride which we skipped. Okay, let’s have a look at the newest, and also by far the best section of the park; France! When making an area themed to their own country they surely didn’t half-ass this one, because this area is BEAUTIFUL! I hope this is a sign of things to come for this park, because this was the only area in the whole park where I felt like I was in a proper Disney park. This area is also home to the Ratatouille dark ride. This is a trackless dark ride which is a ton of fun. I also liked the fact that even without having seen the movie, you can easily understand what is going on. I’m sure this ride will be a perfect fit for the France pavilion at Epcot. The entrance to Raratouille. I did get a bit dizzy on the ride though, so while I had fun I didn’t really feel like going again. Oh look, they have Cars Land here! Well, one ride that is... The ride vehicles spin around in a figure-8 pattern, and I must say the ride was actually more fun than it looked. They still have the hat here. #hatwatch So yes, that was a quick look at Walt Disney Studios. Yes, the park has some flaws. In fact, it got quite many flaws, the most noticable one of course being that much of the park was built on a budget. It’s also a very small park and I was pretty much done after half a day. However that didn’t prevent me from having a fairly good time at the park, but on it’s own it’s not a park I would have travelled for. But to end this report on a positive note, here are my main positive things about the park: - Tower of Terror, despite being ackwardly placed and not being a “proper tower”, is still a fantastic ride and the theming inside is top notch! - Rock’n Rollercoaster, RC Racer and Crush’s Coaster are all very fun rides! - The France area is awesome and hopefully any future expansions of the park will follow the same level of quality. - SINGLE RIDER LINES!!! Almost every ride in the park has a single-rider line, thumbs up for that! I’ll end this update with a picture of Sorcerer Mickey! In the next and final update we’ll head back to Disneyland Park for a look at Discoveryland, as well as the afternoon parade and nighttime spectacle!

85*F is hotter than our hottest summer day this year!

And I thought their current expansion rate was crazy!!

Very wet this week...

The park looks nice, but maximum 80 kg to ride a rollercoaster? That's ridicilous!!

^And if you ask me I'd say that (Hyper)Space Mountain is the best ride at the whole resort. Now, I can easily imagine that with the old trains with OTSR it was probably a rather unpleasant experience. But the 2017 version of the ride is AWESOME! I will get back into details about that in a later update, for now I got the Studios Park coming up very soon.

I have no other words...

^All the details inside those covered walkways were indeed a very nice touch, and I also liked that each side was different. And yes, we did pay a visit to the dragon!

Wow that ride looks quite intense! Interesting to see how it goes through the station again at the end of the ride, never seen a ride do that before! Great video!

^The covered walkways were awesome! They were excellent to help clean out the crowds after Illuminations, and at one point we also used them to navigate the park during the parade, which worked brilliantly. I definitely think they learned from the other parks when they designed these additional walkways.

^Haha thanks! I do need to go back, don't I...??

^^&^ Thanks, Disneyland Paris is indeed a very beautiful park!

Disneyland Paris Part 1 - First look at Disneyland Park (see below) Part 2 - Checking out Walt Disney Studios Park Part 3 - Back to Disneyland Park for parade, fireworks and the awesome Hyperspace Mountain I have travelled twice across the Atlantic to visit Walt Disney World in Orlando, both visits which have been amazing. But despite it being only a few hours away by plane I have never visited Disneyland Paris. And I’m not really sure why.... Maybe it’s the less-than-great reputation the park has that has gotten to me. Maybe it’s the fear that it would be a dissappointment after visiting WDW. I don’t know, but I never felt any strong desire to visit Disneyland Paris. Until a couple of months ago that is, when I was planning my vacation and I found that flight tickets to Paris where really cheap. And given that pretty much all of the major refurbishment projects are now completed, and with the park celebrating it’s 25 year anniversary this year, I figured now would be a good time to visit. And once the trip was booked I started to get really excited. I would not be dissappointed... Okay so just let me get this out of the way: Disneyland Paris is no WDW, but it’s a pretty damn good place to visit! Well, the main Disneyland Park that is. The Studios park leaves a lot to be desired, but I will get back to that in the next update. In this post I will focus on some of the things that Disneyland Park has to offer. Before I jump to the actual park, let me just say that getting to the parks is really easy! Many of the nearby hotels, also those which are not Disney resorts, offer free shuttle buses to the park. I stayed at Hotel l'Elysee Val d'Europe, which offered a free shuttle bus which ran every half hour in the morning and evening. During mid-day it was every hour only, but that didn’t matter since I was already at the parks by then. So to keep it short, using the shuttle bus to get to and from the parks was super easy. I will reccomend though to spend some time hanging out in the Disney Village after the park closes, as the buses will be extremely packed during the first hour after park closure. In addition to the buses there is also a train station right outside the parks, where you can get the TGV train directly to the airport or take a local train into Paris. So all in all, getting to and from the parks is very easy and convinient. Okay, so let’s get to the parks shall we? Before you enter the main plaza you have to go through a security check, with metal detectors and scanners for the bags. I’m not much of a fan of this, but given recent events in France and other European countries it’s totally understandable. And its quickly forgotten once you get inside. From here you have the option to head to either one of the two parks, or head to the Disney Village, which is like a smaller version of Disney Springs. There are some familar sights here, like the World of Disney store, Planet Hollywood or Rainforest Cafe. But for me, I went straight to Disneyland Park. After passing some beautiful fountains and taking in the spectacular view of the Disneyland Hotel over the park entrance, I went to get my tickets. Having purchased my 3-day park hopper ticket in advance, I got a voucher to print at home. Once at the park it was just to scan the voucher at the machine in exchange for the ticket. And then again scan the ticket at the gates to get into the parks. Again, super easy! Once inside the park, it becomes more familar. The plaza, train station, main street, hub and castle are all laid out in a very familiar way. As expected it all looks great, and along with the music played around main street it really gets you into the proper mood for a great day at the park! Final note before I jump into the pictures, meeting up with some fellow TPR members really turned a great trip into a fantastic one, given that I was travelling alone. So Andrew, Chris and Dylan, thank you very much, you really helped making my trip a memorable one! Okay, now let’s get onto the pictures. Note! The pictures are taken over three days and not neccesarily in the order they were taken. So in some of the pictures it will be quite clody, while being clear skies in others. This is the view from the main plaza. The Studios Park is off to the left, Disneyland Park is straight ahead in this direction. Beatiful fountains outside the park entrance. In order to enter the park you walk under the Disneyland Hotel. Once inside you get a more familiar sight with the train station. Disneyland Paris is celebrating 25 years this year, which was very obvious throughout the park. The band playing... I’ve never been to Disneyland Paris before, but this sight still felt very familiar. A look at the Main Street buildings. And the other side... They had several figures around the hub in front of the castle. Here’s Donald and Daisy (or Dolly as she’s called in Norway) Mickey and Minnie. The castle is a little smaller than it’s WDW counterpart, but it’s a beatiful structure and I really like that they went for a different look for this one. Yup, I’m ready to have some fun! I took a lot of castle pictures during my three days. Is it possible to have too many castle pictures?? I’m not sure... Fantasyland carousel Here’s a look at Mad Hatter's Tea Cups Disneyland Paris also has the Peter Pan’s Flight ride. Dumbo the Flying Elephant Okay guys, we’re not doing this right?? I mean, the structure is beautiful and all that, but we’re not actually doing it right? I guess we’re doing it... One of the main attractions at Disneyland Paris is Big Thunder Mountain. This is one of very few rides that during my visit built up a significant line (60-70 minutes) so if you go here get a fast pass for this ride early. For the ride itself, it’s very fun. With the exception of the station, the whole ride is located on an island. This means that the ride goes through a tunnel under the water both at the beginning and at the end of the ride. These tunnels are very dark, and particularly on the return trip it feels like you’re going a million miler per hour through the tunnel. Got a fastpass ticket at 11:53 and as you can see from the return time it wasn’t long until they ran out of fastpasses. Happy riders returning from the darkness! The ride has a dual loading station, but they didn’t always use both sides during my three days at the park. Stunning looking ride! Chris and Andrew giving the ride thumbs up! If you want to get some really goods view of the ride, hop on the Molly Brown for a relaxing journey around the island. On board the Molly Brown you get some views which you cannot get from the “mainland”. You also get a great view of Phantom Manor from the Molly Brown. Some of the decorations around Phantom Manor. Don’t dance too slow, you might end up like Leadfoot Fred... At the back of Frontieland I came across a random little Frozen themed area. This area was not in use for anything, but I assume it has been used for meet’n greets or something... Indiana Jones was closed for scheduled maintenance. I knew about this when booking the trip, so while I would have liked to give it a go, I didn’t really mind that it was closed. A little bit of the scenery around the park. And a little more.. Entering the land of pirates. Pirates of the Caribbean is a great classic Disney ride, and I ended up riding it multiple times during my stay. So yeah, that was a first glimpse of what Disneyland Paris has to offer. I was definitely impressed by the park! Yes, there are some things which can be improved upon, like food service for example, my overall impression was very positive. In the next update I’ll head over to Walt Disney Studios to show you what that park has to offer, before coming back to Disneyland Park and having a look at Discoveryland and the afternoon parade before finishing off with Illuminations at the end of the day. Stay tuned! In the next update we'll head over to the Studios Park...

I got stung by a wasp or some other devilish creature today! I was walking down the street, minding my own business, when completely out of nowhere I suddenly felt this sharp stinging pain in my neck. If anyone wants to tell me that these little devils don't sting unless they are provoked they can go to hell, because I did absolutely nothing to warrant that little f*cker stinging me!

That whole area looks really good! When I first saw the layout I thought it looked like something a beginner would do in No Limits 2, given that it seems to stick very much to a grid pattern. But with all the scenery and paths to break up the grid pattern it looks so much better! Love all the theming, the boat ride and the restaurant looks fantastic as well! It's amazing how far Toverland have come since they opened in 2001...

Do you like it more than Rock 'n' Roller Coaster? Because I do! And from what I have heard, I might have a rather unpopular opinion.. Oh hell yeah, Hyperspace Mountain is EASILY the better ride!! Okay, I can understand that it was an unpleasant experience with the old trains, but with no chance of headbanging it's an awesome experience. A backseat ride on Hyperspace Mountain after it has been warming up all day is just nuts! Don't get me wrong, Rock'n Rollercoaster is a good ride, but Hyperspace Mountain is definitely better!

Hyperspace Mountain was the last coaster I rode before leaving Disneyland Paris last week. I'd never thought I'd say this, but this 22-year old Vekoma is AWESOME!!!