Divv3k

I don't know if I'd call Cinemagique the "big screen version" of the Great Movie Ride. Now granted, it's been almost nine years since I last rode GMR but apart from the fact they're both based on movies I don't really think they're much alike. Whilst I did really like Space Mountain, I definitely preferred Big Thunder. Not that SM was bad or anything like that, but it was a bit rough in places. Big Thunder Mountain on the other hand was just an awesome fun ride throughout. But yeah, the show inside SM is excellent, though I do wish I had gotten the chance to see it during it's "Mission One" days. I'm not really sure if it was really different and am curious to know how it was changed.

Space Mountain Mission 2 on February 2nd.

All the latest is in this thread: http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30591

After conquering the Studios by the Thursday evening we hit up DLP for the last hour so we already had got in Space Mountain, Buzz and Star Tours. I just have to say how awesome I thought Space Mountain was! Despite a few pretty rough sections the launch and show inside the building are really cool! It was weird with all the inversions and stuff - definitely a far cry from the Space Mountain I remember riding in Florida in 1998! Buzz was really cool too. Probably the best of the shooting rides I've been on. Bring on Toy Story Mania! Star Tours was a real let down for me. I got into Star Wars in 1997 when the Special Editions came out and was real excited to ride it in MGM back in 1998 and I remember loving it back then, but this time in Paris it just felt so dated. We both felt a bit motion sick from it too. So whilst we rode Buzz and SM a few times again the next day we really didn't feel any need to touch Star Tours again. I'm hoping the long rumoured Star Tours update comes along soon! Anyway, having conquered Discoveryland we got to Disneyland Park for opening and headed straight for Big Thunder Mountain. Now having loved BTM at WDW I had high expectations for the so-called best of the BTMs. I'm pleased to agree with all the reports! It's just such a fun ride, I love being on the island and going through the mine shafts. I even caught a few bits of air time. Indiana Jones wasn't the best for us. Pretty rough through most of it, but still it looks pretty cool and I've been on much worse. We made our way through all the other attractions with Pirates particularly sticking out for me; I was reminded why it's my favourite dark ride. Phantom Manor was really cool too, although my memory's a bit fuzzy on the WDW version so I can't really compare. It was great having such a quiet park to run through, with the only real wait of the day being the 20 minutes or so we waited to get our photo taken with Mickey. Oh, I should also mention all the hot princesses on the princess parade! Who said that parade was just for girls? FASTPASS Since it was mentioned in an earlier thread I should point out that during our visit you could have as many fastpasses for different rides as you wanted. You could only have one pass per ride at a time but could have as many different rides if you get what I mean. I took a photo of me with two passes to evidence this. How long this situation contiues for I've no idea. All in all, we had an awesome trip, it was just so great to be back in Disney parks again. I'll be sure to return once Tower opens! Here's the last batch of photos: Thus endeth our Disneyland Resort Paris Adventure! Hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for reading! Of course you can't do a Disney TR around here without including one of these guys. Fun for all the family. Disney sure know how to pick their princesses. Don't forget to pay the dragon a visit if you visit DLP! We had to. If you ever make it through the maze you can go up the little castle for a good look around Fantasyland. One of these two is a crazy animated character and the other is standing on Divv's shoulders. Michael's a bit confused, but at least he's dry! Can't forget Fantasyland! Phantom Manor was exceedingly good too. Of course we had to let Mickey have his picture with us at some point. Only one side of the station was running but we never waited more than 15 minutes. And we were more than happy to give Space Mountain a whirl or two. Hector Lopez was more than happy to greet us. Back to Discoveryland because, well, it's awesome. If you prefer your Pirates Johnny Depp free then Paris is for you. Onto what was probably my favourite ride of the trip. I got both these fastpasses within five minutes of each other. One for BTM and one for Indy. How long they'll keep letting you do this I've no idea. Well this is definitely the shortest wait either of us had ever experienced at a Disney coaster. Which was just brimming with people. Onto Adventureland we go. The real reason why BTM is a TPR favourite. Did I mention it was cold? More specifically - Big Thunder Island! First stop - Frontierland Like I said, it was a foggy day. The second we walked through the turnstile the furries were desperate to get their picture taken with me. It's a cold and foggy morning but who cares? We're at Disneyland Park!

No I haven't forgotten about this TR! This part isn't very theme parky so some of you may wish to skip this part entirely. Or even just skip onto the photos if my incoherent ramblings bore you! After leaving the parks we headed back to the Hotel Santa Fe where we were staying to clean up. Bought a few beers in the petrol station (you can't do that in Scotland!) and kicked back for an hour or so. Then we walked over to Disney Village and attempted to find somewhere to have dinner. We ended up going to the Steak House where I decided that since I was in a foreign country I should try out the local cuisine and eat some snails. They were actually quite tasty and I would definitely eat them again. Of course that was followed by a delicious rump steak. After dinner we had a wander round the various shops in Disney Village trying on hats and the like for laughs. We followed that up with a few beers watching some random boxing and making bets on it in the Sports Bar. We were planning on hitting Hurricanes the night club but by the time the boxing finished it was after midnight and we had an early rise the next day. The next morning Michael was a bit reluctant to get up at 0730 (it was really still 0630 for us on UK time) so I proceeded to plug my mp3 player into the TV and play "It's A Small World" exceedingly loud. That did the trick. We went on to make as much as we could of the all-you-can eat breakfast and proceeded to Disneyland Park (which I'll get to soon!) Here's the photos. Coming soon - Disneyland Park! Apparently a UFO crashed on the grounds of the Santa Fe. Which was a shame as it meant I couldn't get a really good picture of the awesome Clint mural thing above the hotel entrance. So it was a pretty foggy morning. Moments before Michael's "Small World" wake up call. Ok, so back to our Pueblo! Time to leave and get some poussez! Ok, one more. This is my best "Ronald Villiers" impression. (Probably only Scottish readers will get that!) This is the last hat photo, I promise. Fantasmic comes to Disneyland Paris for one night only! Seeing as that's what you all really come to this site for! Anyway, back to more hats. That's as much head Michael was getting this trip. The Disney Store's E-Ticket - make your own Mr Potato Head! Michael checked out the toilets. Maybe we should get his opinions for the toilets thread. This mushroom didn't seem anywhere this big when I was standing next to it. Man, it looks so huge! No dress in Disney Village was safe! Michael heard they were casting for High School Musical 3 and immediately got into practice. "How about this for tonight?" You've no idea how much effort it took to get the damn monkey to stay there. "Are you sure? All your dreams could come true!" "Never!" "Since your girlfriend ain't here how about these for the hotel room?" Oooohhh! Just like looking in the mirror. Do people actually buy and wear these things? Then we both proceeded to go on a bit of a hat fest. After dinner I picked up an award! Followed by an excellent steak. They were actually pretty tasty. First I went for some snails. Ya know because, when in Rome... wait, we aren't in Rome! Seeing as we're both men we felt some meat was in order. Hmm, that didn't come out quite right. What better place to spend the evening than Disney Village?

Wow Robb - I didn't realise you worked on Aladdin! That was one of my all time favourite Mega Drive games!

I got back late last night from a quick trip to Disneyland Resort Paris which was really awesome! Now I hadn’t been to a Disney park since visiting Walt Disney World back in June 1998 so being the Disney geek I am I was pretty excited. I wasn’t actually planning on visiting DLRP until after Tower opened but due to a loophole on Ryanair’s website I managed to score myself some free flights to Paris. Now usually on a trip to Paris I’d be expected to take my girlfriend but for some unimaginable reason she doesn’t like Disney parks so I asked my friend Michael if he fancied coming along. Of course he’s rational and sane (to a degree) and was all to eager to come along. Keeping with the cheap theme of the trip we stayed in Disney’s Hotel Santa Fe. I was quite pleased with it, a nice, clean, cheap room within walking distance of two Disney parks is about all I can ask for. So anyway, we arrived there at 11am and were pleasantly surprised to find our room was already available despite being told it wouldn’t be available til three when we booked it. We quickly headed over to our room to dump our stuff and headed over to Walt Disney Studios. I’ll do this TR in three parts to cover our Day in the Studios, night in Disney Village and our day in Disneyland Park. Disney Studios. The great thing about coming to this park in February is that there were no lines for anything. We naturally headed straight to Rock’n’Rollercoaster. Which was awesome, I really loved the whole “being at the concert” theme. Now I just need to go to Florida to compare. After that we hit up the shows in the park and watched the parade, complete with hot Mary Poppins. Moteurs, Action was really cool, although I tend to find anything with fire makes me happy, so I was guaranteed to enjoy it. Armageddon was a little lame imo. The Martin Short movie Cinemagique was really cool. The live action show Animagique was good enough I suppose but had I watched it before seeing the video from Florida of the characters with moving mouths I wouldn’t have been so distracted by the fact that the characters’ mouths weren’t moving. The Studio Tram tours had some cool bits, namely the fire related bits. I was really saddened not to see any horizons props though, maybe I missed them but was looking out for them the whole way through. Does anyone know if they were moved or did I actually just miss them? We rode the Flying Carpets thing just to get a peek into the construction site for Toon Studio. The Crush’s Coaster façade looks pretty cool but the area where the Cars ride is supposed to go still looked pretty much like a mound of dirt. Of course you couldn’t stand anywhere in the park without seeing Tower teasing you. There were people right up the top of it working all day; hopefully they’ll announce an opening date soon! All in all, the Studios was quite a cool park but now without its flaws. Namely there just isn’t enough to do. We seen and did just about everything the park had to offer and took multiple re-rides on RnR in less than 5 hours, and it’s not as if we were rushing about from one place to the next. Now, I’m sure the fact that the park was pretty quiet was part of that but for this park to match up to the other Disney places I’ve been they really need to get that coaster and Tower open soon. The Studios kinda reminded me of what MGM was like when I first visited in 1991. Anyway, we had time to park hop over to Disneyland Park for the last hour (both parks closed at six) and rode Space Mountain (awesome), Buzz (pretty cool) and Star Tours (lame) but more on them in a future instalment! Onto the photos! Anyway, we end this portion of the report with me attempting to get comfortable on the Narnia throne thingy. Randomness in Disney Village will come soon! You could see it from just about anywhere in the park. It's sure to be a major ride for the park. It really needs it. There seemed to be quite a bit of work going on on the ground around it too, but of course you couldn't see much of that. Opening someday soon! Of course no Walt Disney Studios update would be complete without Tower of Terror construction photos! You couldn;t really see much but the Crush facade looks quite cool. So we had a go on the flying carpets. We decided we'd try and get a better look at the construction site. This door takes you straight into Superstar Limo! Michael's scream was pretty lame. Seeing a destroyed London can only make a Scotsman happy. ...and water. Well it did have fire... Red Hot Sex? Aw no it's just a Red Hot Set> I suppose that will just have to do. The Studio Tram Tour had some cool parts, much of the area on front of it was cordoned off for Tower construction so it doesn't have the nicest looking entrance right now. It was weird being in a Disney park while it was so cold outside. Animagique was quite cute, I hope it gets upgraded to include the creepy talking heads! Armageddon was pretty lame. But it really was the hot Mary Poppins that made it all worthwhile for us. We got out the stunt show in time for the Cinema parade, which was alright. But still I did believe a car could fly. It was good, but there wasn't really any of the audience participation I'd read about in other trip reports. Next up we hit the stunt show. Definitley the best Vekoma ride I've been on. Michael picks himself out a jacket for dinner. First stop is naturally Rock'n'Rollercoaster! I'm obviously delighted to be seeing Minnie again and she's obviously delighted to be seeing me. It's taken me nearly nine years so I'm delighted to be back at another Disney park!

No mention of Gauntlet in that press release. Looks like its done, as if Robb's track photos weren't indication enough. How I wish M&Ds would trade one of their Pinfaris for a Schwarzkopf.

AWESOME NEWS!!! I also can't stress enough how cool Alien War is. I remember getting absolutely scared in the Arches back in 1992. Then they did it at the Irn-Bru Carnival for a couple of years before it disappeared. I was gutted when they stopped it. It was a bit of an annual tradition for a few years. I imagine they're doing this to capitalize on the upcoming AVP2 movie. Any word on where abouts in Glasgow it's gonna be this time? And Paul -you got attacked by the Alien?!? *So jealous*

Excellent update! It sure is weird seeing the park deserted like that, but a very cool thing to experience I'm sure. It appears that BPB are really putting a lot of work into getting the place looking nice for the 2007 season. I'm just wondering how likely it is that the Big Dipper and Big One will be open for the February weekends. Thanks again for the update!

Great TR Martyn! I'm off to DLRP for the first time on Thursday so this is good for building the anticipation! What were the crowds and queues like? What was the fast pass situation, could you get Fast Passes for multiple rides at the same time as some around here have speculated? Cheers.

Toy Story Mania sounds quite promising. I'm surprised it took Disney so long to utilize the Spider-man technology. Can't wait to see how it turns out.

Thanks a lot mate Keep up the good work! Always love seeing new pictures of Blackpool!

I had heard that the Big One and Big Dipper were supposed to be open for the February weekends. Would be a shame if they were close and I'd probably re-evaluate a trip I have planned there if they are! coaster-inc - I just want to say thanks for all the updates you're doing, I've really enjoyed them. Any chance you could do spelling and grammar checks on your updates before posting them? That would make reading your posts even more enjoyable!

Interesting results. Great to see Nemesis still doing so well after all these years! Even better is M&Ds Tornado finishing last. I feel vindicated that I can now officially call it the worst coaster in the world.

I thought it was Hunter's Grill that did the meat on skewers thing? I'm gonna be at DLP for the first time on 1st and 2nd of February and that's where we were planning on going for dinner. Can anyone confirm which restaurant does the meat on sticks? I take it I should be making reservations for that meal before hand? Also, when you get a Fast Pass how long do you have to wait before you can get another one? Thanks nev for starting this thread as it reminded of a couple questions that sprung to mind earlier that I would have probably forgot to ask before!

Great to see that the Big Dipper has bee repainted! It looks very nice. It's a sad day when you're more excited about that than you are about the "new" coaster!

Happy birthday Robb! Stripper was supposed to be on her way but I made the mistake of mentioning where she was bound and she did a runner! Have a good one regardless!

I think Romber are pretty much guaranteed. It is a CBS show afterall I'm happy that Romber should be there but I've read that the hippies got snubbed which would be a crime.

^ It's maybe a presumptive to say that Intamin and Vekoma respectively will be manufacturing those woodies. I know for sure that Flamingoland were looking at different manufacturers earlier this year and weren't ruling anyone out. Whilst Intamin seems like a natural choice for Alton I wouldn't say it's a sure thing. GCI for example might fit the profile of what they're looking for better.

I imagine that if Thorpe REALLY wanted to build a woodie then they'd find a way to do it. Have these problems with the land prohibiting a woodie ever been confirmed by anyone official from the park. I dunno, I imagine if Alton's woodie is a resounding success then Tussauds will probably put one up in Thorpe too. It's seems to be the way Tussauds are going these days with those two parks. (I.e. Nemesis: Inferno following Nemesis, Stealth following Rita.) Even if Thorpe's 2009 ride isn't a flyer I wouldn't put it past Thorpe getting a woodie. Also, earlier this year Flamingoland confirmed they'd be getting a woodie in 2008 so we've got that and Alton's to look forward to.

More excellent photos Tom. Although I have to say that this TR is putting me off doing a California trip for a while. I know people bash these parks quite often but it's usually the Californians and I always figured that they just bashed the places because they were there home parks and did the rides all the time. For the most part the parks DO look impressive - it's really disappointing for me just now reading this and realising that the parks in California really aren't up to much at all as has been said around here for ages. That being said it does look like you had an awesome time out there and you kept some great company. I am still jealous! Please tell me that Disneyland/California Adventure were amazing and it's worth making a return visit!

^ I'm pretty sure if BPB wanted to build such a woodie they'd find the room. They have a lot more space for expansion than they're given credit for. As for which classic ride will be the next to go I'd guess Steeplechase (sadly) it's not as popular as it once was to justify the huge amount of land it takes up.

Yeah, I think I'm coming to terms with the SLC now. At least from the concept art it looks like it should look good. Well it probably will until the effects stop working after a few months! From a general public point of view this is huge for Blackpool. For me, as long as this is the start of long line in investments I'll be happy. Hope it isn't another thirteen years before the next coaster goes in and hopefully that one will actually be brand new!

I think £180 looks a lot to us in the UK because of the Tussauds annual pass which at £85 gets you into a fair few parks compared to the one park the BPB one gets you into. True the BPB pass gets you in all year. Although Thorpe Park's calender for 2007 has the park open for at least a few days every month from February 2007 til January 2008. Makes the Tussauds pass look even more appealing to me for next year.