Photo TR: Three days at Disneyland Paris

[viking86]

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...

Edited October 8, 2017 by viking86

[ThemeParkJunkie51290]

WOW! Just a beautiful park! I'm looking forward to the other pictures!

[PKI Jizzman]

Great pictures! Big Thunder looks fantastic and so does the hotel.

[viking86]

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

[robbalvey]

Great report! You owe us a trip to Orlando!

[viking86]

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

[Nrthwnd]

I know it's not an "attraction" as such, but what did you think of the covered walkways on either side of Main Street? The crowds don't seem to use these much, except when it's raining or cold. But they're a great way to get from the back of the park to the front, when it's near closing time. And the Main Street shops have "back doors" into it as well, which is nice access.

 

Great TR so far. Glad you got finally got to the Resort and "try it out".

[viking86]

^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.

[Nrthwnd]

^ Great! I think they were built out of Disney's wanting to make guests' visits more enjoyable, even in not so great weather.

It's also cool, that the left mall is actually about France giving the U.S. the Statue of Liberty, and how that was designed and done.

And the right mall about inventors and inventions in general, including the American inventor Ferris...and his Wheel.

 

Also I have to ask you - did you get a chance to visit The Dragon, in the park?

That made the DLP castle experience for us so amazing!

Yes? ~ Taken Sept.21, 2015.

[viking86]

^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!

[Canobie Coaster]

Great photos! I have to make it out to Disneyland Paris someday. While the Disneyland/Magic Kingdom park looks to have a poorer ride selection when compared to the US counterparts, every shot I see of this park is a beauty.

[dylanreich]

Great trip report and I enjoyed meeting you and visiting Disney Paris with another first-timer as well!

[cfc]

It's been a long tome since I visited Disneyland Paris (2008). I enjoyed myself there, as I do at other Disney parks. It's beautiful, and its versions of some classic Disney attractions (such as Pirates) are great. Then again, it also has the two worst coasters ever built at a Disney park (Space Mountain and Indiana Jones), and service left a bit to be desired.

 

Still, I need to get back there someday.

[viking86]

^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.

[viking86]

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!

 

[Nrthwnd]

There is so much more space and potential for the Studios to improve, figure out what it's actually for,

and then then improve upon, what they did with Ratatouille and it's surrounding "land"scape. The

Toy Story Mini-Land is fine. But they need to axe some old stuff and just re-think the reason for it all.

 

Great tour you gave us through the Studios. I find the Armaggedon Effects Show and the Stunt Action

Show as one-offs. The RnR Coaster still rawks, every time I've been there. The Cinema show was always

updated and good. The Rat ride was fun and great. And the black light Animagique was good for it's years.

I know it got a re-do, and that's great

 

Great TR of DLPR!

 

And once the Hollywood Studios in WDW announces it's new nom de plume... Paris' Studios "might"

follow suit, toute suite!

Edited October 6, 2017 by Nrthwnd

[Canobie Coaster]

Great report! I know Disneyland Paris is a park I'll make it out to someday, so hopefully they can continue to improve the park with new areas like France.

 

That backside shot of Tower of Terror looks really strange.

[viking86]

^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...

 

Great tour you gave us through the Studios. I find the Armaggedon Effects Show and the Stunt Action

Show as one-offs.

 

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!

[ThemeParkJunkie51290]

Love it! The Disney's Studios park seems nice! Well . . . from my point of view. LOL. I'm glad I was able to visit Disney's Hollywood Studios in FL and took a ride on The Studio Tour before it closed. The water rushing all over the place was my favorite part! If I'm ever in Paris, I'll be sure to make a visit at both parks.

[Nrthwnd]

^ Do it, if and when you can! My current opinion, is that the Studios has vastly improved, from when we first visited it....in it's first six months! Not even (to us) a 1/2 park back then. It was more like a 1/3 park, LOL. But extending the animation part of it (that's what Cars, Aladdin and Crush were for), and the "mini-land" of Toy Story, and definitely the entire "Land of Remy", and still the RnR coaster, all the more enjoyable. And hey - if you haven't done Armaggedon, do it, and then you can tick that off the "Attractions List."

 

(Pardon the SideBar on whether to visit it or not.)

[viking86]

Love it! The Disney's Studios park seems nice! Well . . . from my point of view. LOL. I'm glad I was able to visit Disney's Hollywood Studios in FL and took a ride on The Studio Tour before it closed. The water rushing all over the place was my favorite part! If I'm ever in Paris, I'll be sure to make a visit at both parks.

 

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)

 

 

^ Do it, if and when you can! My current opinion, is that the Studios has vastly improved, from when we first visited it....in it's first six months! Not even (to us) a 1/2 park back then. It was more like a 1/3 park, LOL. But extending the animation part of it (that's what Cars, Aladdin and Crush were for), and the "mini-land" of Toy Story, and definitely the entire "Land of Remy", and still the RnR coaster, all the more enjoyable.

 

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..??

[viking86]

Part 3 - back to Disneyland Park

 

Alright, time to leave the Walt Disney Studios Park behind and head over to Disneyland Park. In this third and final update I will be taking a look at the amazing Discoveryland, where the best ride of the whole resort can be found, before I will end this trip report with a look at some of the afternoon/nighttime entertainment the park has to offer.

 

But before that, here’s an interesting little detail which I didn’t notice before on my second day. The plaque at the park entrance is different from it’s CA Disneyland/WDW counterparts. In stead of reading “...enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy” it says “...enter the worlds of history, discovery and ageless fantasy”. I don’t know why they have gone for a different text, and for me it doesn’t make any difference, I just thought it was interesting and worth mentioning.

 

Here’s a look at the park entrance gates, which are directly underneath Disneyland Hotel.

And here’s the plaque on the wall underneath the train station.

I also found that I had taken a picture showing one of the covered walkways. This is the one that is on the right side of Main Street U.S.A.

The park was being decorated for Halloween, and back in Frontierland there were more decorations for each of my three days.

 

Okay, let’s jump straight into Discoveryland. This are of the park is FANTASTIC! While the attraction list is very similar to it’s Tomorrowland counterparts, the theming and the atmosphere in the whole area is completely different, and I love it! The buildings look fantastic, particularly with the use of gold/brass colors the whole place is almost glowing when the sun shines on it.

 

The sign welcoming you to Discoveryland.

This pillar has a plaque with a quote from Jules Verne. Translated into English it read “Everything that is within the limits of what is possible must be and will be accomplished”.

 

The big eye-catcher in Discoveryland is of course Hyperspace Mountain. I don’t think I’m excaggerating if I say that my jaw dropped once I got to see the whole ride structure ride with my own eyes. It’s just stunningly beautiful, unlike anything else I’ve seen. The main feature here is naturally the Columbiad cannon on the side of the building, a true masterpiece! The only downside is that there are no longer any physically moving parts on the cannon, but it’s still awesome

 

This is the view you get of Hyperspace Mountain when you enter Discoveryland.

Look at it!

I can definitely live with wait times like this.

A closer look at the Columbiad cannon.

It’s a little bit of a shame that there are no longer any moving parts on the cannon, but it still looks awesome!

 

The whole area surrounding the ride is beatiful as well, with water featured, rock formations and a small-scale version of the Nautilus submarine from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

 

The lagoon in front of the ride, and the Nautilus submarine.

 

With the exception of the post-parade crowds on the third day the line was usually in the 5-15 minutes range, but I still took quite a bit of advantage of the single rider line. The single rider line also has several really cool features. First it gives you a real close-up look of the cannon. And second, it takes you on the elevated walkway past the station, giving you some unique views you don’t get from the regular line. I really liked the station interior also, a very different look from what I’m used to. As you can see from the pictures, the ride has also been fitted with brand new trains from Vekoma.

 

This is the view from the single rider line, where you go across the walkway on the right, giving you a great view of the station.

To the left of the control booth you can just see the bottom of the stairs. This is where the single rider line is coming down.

I didn’t get any good pictures of the trains, so this will have to do. But damn do these trains work wonders for older, less smooth rides...

 

Okay, so let’s talk about the ride itself, shall we? I have not ridden the original version so I cannot compare it to how it was before, but I knew there was a lot of hatred for this ride, and I must admit I was actually quite nervous before my first ride. Not only am I going on a ride that is probably going to be quite rough, but it will also be in the dark so I will not be able to see what is coming and brace myself.

 

Well, I’m happy to say that boy was I wrong, because this ride is AWESOME! No, of course it’s not a smooth ride, but it’s not bad at all and this ride is also INTENSE! There’s really only a few spots I would call kinda rough, and the new trains with the vest restraints remove any potential headbanging. If riding multiple times there can be a slight discomfort from your shoulders rubbing against the vest, but overall I LOVED this ride! Heck, it might even be my favorite Disney coaster from those I have ridden (DLP and WDW). Now, I can absolutely understand if people hated the ride with the old trains as I can easily see the ride being on the uncomfortable side before the update, but now it’s a fantastic ride!

 

I’m not going to do a step-by-step review of the ride, simply because I’m not able to since the ride takes place in the dark. I know the ride has three inversions, a sidewinder, a corsckrew and a cutback in that order, and you definitely know it when you’re going through them. But what happened between them I wasn’t always sure about.

 

In terms of highlights I liked the launch. It’s not a very strong launch, but it’s definitely enough to give you the funny feeling in your stomach. My favorite part happened after the first MCBR. While I’m not 100% sure about what was going on, it feels like the ride is doing a triple-down while turning to the right before the corkscrew. Particularly in the backseat, this part (and the whole ride really) was a lot of fun.

 

So to wrap it up, this is a perfect example of a ride refurbishment done correctly, mainly with the new trains. Just for fun I had a look at the 2013 steel coaster poll, and I saw that this ride was ranked as #246 out of 364, and by far the lowest of all the Space Mountain coasters, with the second lowest one being Space Mountain at WDW almost 100 places above it on the list. And I get it, and maybe I would also have hated the ride if I had ridden it with the old trains, but now it has become a pretty damn awesome ride and I would love to hear from someone who has ridden both versions to hear how much of a difference the new trains make. I never thought I would come off a 22-year old Vekoma thinking “that was freaking amazing!”.

 

Hyperspace Mountain onride picture with Andrew and Dylan in the backseat.

 

But while it’s definitely the main attraction in this area of the park, Discoveryland isn’t all about Hyperspace Mountain. So let’s have a look at what else is here, shall we?

 

They also have Autopia here, and the petrol driven cars feels just as out of place here as they do at Magic Kingdom.

Les Mystères du Nautilus is a walkthrough attraction, simulating a walkthrough of the Nautilus submarine. It’s worth a go!

They also have Star Tours here, almost hidden back in the corner behind Hyperspace Mountain. This is such a fun ride, one of my favorite simulator rides. It was also pretty much a walk-on all the time during my visit.

 

Another big eye-catcher in Discoveryland is Cafe Hyperion, hooked together the Videopolis building. Looking at the building exterior, with the fantastic looking airship, you would think it would be housing a spectacular ride, but nope! Inside is actually a large quick-service restaurant, but what is most interesting is the huge arena style seating centered around a stage. The lower half has bench seating, while the upper half are restaurant tables for the quick-service restaurant. Definitely an interesting setup, although during my visit I didn’t see anything going on stage other than some movies being shown on the screens.

 

The entrance to Cafe Hyperion

 

At 5:30 PM it was parade time in the park. While on a slightly smaller scale than the WDW parade (yes I know I keep doing the WDW comparison all the time, but it’s the only Disney resort I can compare it to) it was still fun and very popular with the park guests.

 

Mickey, Minnie, Donal and Daisy leads the parade at DLP.

Buzz Lightyear in his spaceship.

I loved the Crush float!

DLP also has the awesome fire-breathing dragon!

Not all of the characters had their own floats, but at least Rapunzel and Flynn Rider didn’t have to walk unlike Snow White behind them.

No float for Belle and the Prince either...

And of course finally my favorite girls!

 

It was at this point my phone decided to freeze up and I had to restart it, forcing me to scramble across the hub to try to get some pics on the other side. Unfortunately this was on the third day with a more crowded park then the two days before, so this was as close as I could get.

 

Elsa, over here!!

 

My favorite time of the day at this park is during sunset, it’s just stunningly beautiful.

 

The sun is starting to set on the castle.

Frontierland is very pretty during sunset.

But the most impressive area of the park at this time is Discoveryland, where everything gets this wonderful glow. Here’s the Orbitron carousel.

Hyperspace Mountain looks amazing during sunset.

Heavy air traffic over Disneyland Paris.

Lights starting to come on.

Crowd gathering for Illuminations.

 

At the very end of the day it was time for Illuminations. This was a fantastic show, featuring castle projections, water fountains, lasers, searchlights and pyrotechnics. I was particularly impressed by the projections. The only other projection show I have for comparison is the now gone Celebrate the Magic at WDW, but the projection quality for Illuminations was definitely a step up as the image quality was top notch! The only thing I was missing was the “big boom” fireworks, pretty much all of what they have are silent fireworks, but other than that it’s a fantastic show and a worthy ending to each of my three fantastic days at Disneyland Paris.

 

And yes, when the Frozen music started you could hear the entire crowd going “OOOOoooohhhhh”. That didn’t happen when any of the other scenes started. So if anyone of you out there was hoping this thing was starting to fade away, I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait a little longer.

 

While most of the show is mainly projections, fountains and lights, the finale of the show features plenty of fire.

I mean literally fire! You could really feel the heat from this one!

And one final overload of pyrotechnics brings this awesome 20-minute show to an end!

Some final post-show projections reminding us that the park has been around for 25 years,

Crowds leaving the park. The covered walkways on either side of the main street really helped to empty the park quickly.

Mickey waving goodbye to the guests from the train station.

 

So that’s a final wrap on three fantastic days at Disneyland Paris! Yes, the Studios Park wasn’t really that great, but that was expected. Disneyland Park however managed to provide me with a lot of the Disney magic. Service still leaves a little bit to be desired, and like others have previously the people here don’t seem to care that much about where you can and cannot smoke. But I didn’t see any line jumpers or badly behaved guests during my stay, and I didn’t have bad experiences myself either. So all in all Disneyland Park is a fantastic park, and one I would definitely reccomend anyone to visit.

 

And again special thanks to Andrew, Chris and Dylan for making the trip a great one!

 

Until next time...

 

[Nrthwnd]

Awesome photos of everything you took, on your last day there.

 

And YAY you got a covered Arcade shot! I believe the right one is called "Discovery Arcade" while the one on the left is named "Liberty Arcade". And Illuminations is really cool. They added "mist screens" on both sides of the castle (in the moat) for expanding the projections, which is really something to see. And yeah, when the "Frozen" section come on, you could hear the volume of the crowd increase quite a bit. Which is fine by me. And we were all screaming for more, at the end of it. Great show.

 

Thanks for sharing all of your visit there!

[viking86]

Thank you, I enjoyed putting it all together! The arcade shot was planned for the first post, but it got lost in the 550 pictures I came back with on my phone!

 

I didn't notice any signs for the arcades, but the names you mentioned makes sense. I remember the one on the right having various plans and small scale models of various inventions through history, while the one on the left was definitely more "US themed"...

[cfc]

Thanks for the excellent report. Although Paris Disney has its flaws, there's a lot to like about the place.