Disneyland Paris 18/19 July

[Gazza]

Disneyland Paris

https://www.parkz.com.au/attraction/disneyland-paris

So, the other half to my trip report for Walt Disney Studios

Both days I visited I went into the park in the afternoon. This probably makes sense because there’s not really anything you want to ‘rope drop’ in Disneyland, it’s all quite high capacity attractions (aside from Peter Pan, which I ended up skipping both days, just couldn’t be arsed waiting 90 mins for it.

Most rides seemed to be around 30-40 min waits, so no problem visiting a wide variety of attractions.

Overall impressions is that it is very nice, you can really see how they went above and beyond with the theming here in order to impress the well cultured European market. The castle is ornate. They have nice arcades behind main street. More details in general. I also felt that Paris has the “better” version of many of the classics. Their big thunder mountain is better, Pirates of the Carribean has a better themed queue and facade, Phantom Manor looks a lot cooler than the haunted mansions, and of course who can forget their more thrilling Space Mountain. 

Only downside is I don’t think the park has enough ‘unique’ rides (Aside from Space Mountain being very different). It’s like how Tokyo has Monsters Inc or Beauty and the Beast, or HK has Mystic Manor, or MK has Seven Dwarfs mine train. The main unique thing Paris has is some additional themed walk throughs.

 

So Paris is good if you are a fan of the classic E-ticket rides, but you’ll have to go next door to the studios for something more unique.

On to the rides!

Indiana Jones - Et Le Temple du Peril
Ugh got this one out the way early. It’s like a bigger version of Nitro Coaster type layout, a glorified galaxi with a loop, but built by Intamin. Rough as guts, and the theming is decent (But not a touch on Raging Spirits)
The queue line is down under a canvas tent and you go up a grand stone staircase to the ride, which is built around a temple. It does get points for how well they position a stone arch that hides the structure of the loop, so if you are not paying attention you might not be aware it goes upside down.

Star Tours 
Yeah, this one is always nice for its well themed queue. The storyline we got was a bit older, it was the pod racing sequence and then ending up on Naboo, which I think debuted when the new 3D version of star tours was launched. The last time I did star tours in Tokyo in 2019, it was a brand new film based on the last Jedi

 

Space Mountain

This was perhaps the one I was most hyped for. When they would show Disneyland Paris on shows like Getaway as a kid, Space Mountain would alway feature prominently.

The outside looks gorgeous, particularly the enormous cannon pointing up the side of the mountain. It’s a shame they deactivated the whole mechanism where it woul roll close and recoil when fired. It was such an iconic thing. Maybe one day they will bring it back, and delete the star wars overlay in the meantime.

The first bit of the queue is outdoors, before going through some plain corrugated metal corridors inside.

Eventually you reach the well themed open air station.

It has the new Vekoma trains with onboard audio, so comfort wise it was fine. Out of the station is an enclosed turn, drop and then incline which gets you onto the catapult launch. Despite not being the fastest launch, the fact you are pushed back in your seat going uphill gives it a bit of force. 

Inside, its like a more drawn out version of RNRC / Avengers Flight Force. Starts with a big drawn out turn that does a lap around the ride building, eventually leading into a sidewinder and a couple of tighter turns, mcbr, then a drop into a corkscrew. From that point the layout peters out a bit, with a regular lift hill towards the end, some more turns and helixes, and vekomas early attempt at an overbanked turn.

All the while the audio is playing chaotic star wars music and there are projections on the wall of tie fighters etc being blown up.

It’s a Small World
What can you say about this ride? Does anyone other than kids enjoy it? Do people just ride it for tradition? For its infamy? Because it has a shortish queue and it gets you out of the sun for 15 mins.
Possibly all of the above. I think all the kooky imagineers get put on the design team for this, with all the stylised design sets depicting various countries.

Molly Brown Riverboat

A moment to relax. I rode this in the afternoon which allowed for some awesome shots of Big Thunder.

Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast
A ride I secretly enjoy and will always ride at Disney.
There was a 30 min wait for this one, so I actually googled how do get a high score. A couple of the secret targets are very hard to to hit, but i was able to spam some of the difficult triangular targets and at least get a score in the hundreds of thousands rather than the tens of thousands.

Pirates of the Caribbean
This is proper POTC. Other versions have you going straight out from a New Orleans area into this pirate boat ride. Meanwhile this one has you going into the actual corridors of a pirate fortress, so big points for having an actual themed queue.
All the scenes were the same, including the pirate battle and the burning town. What made this version better was how the layout was on a few levels and had a few crossovers, so youd get views through to other scenes from a higher level before actually arriving in it a few mins later.

 

Phantom Manor
Another Disney classic, and well executed. It looks a lot more spooky having the house sitting up on a hill by itself, surrounded by overgrown gardens. There were a couple of scenes unique to this version. In the load area there is a lonesome bridge, staring out a huge glass window with a thunderstorm raging outside. At the end of the ride you go through a haunted mining town (to tie in with its location in Frontierland), and that part was reminiscent of Fire in the Hole.
Still, my favourite part will always be the floating head in the glass ball.

Blanche-Neige et les Sept Nains
Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs. These  fantasyland dark rides are a bit ‘blink and you’ll miss it’. You speed through a quick retelling of the story in what feels like a couple of minutes, so only have a brief moment of time to appreciate the scenes before crashing through the doors to the next one. Nice enough, but I struggle to think of a single moment in the ride that really sticks with you or where I was like ‘woah how did they do that’.
Ok there was one memorable thing. The ride control panel is themed like an old open book, and the buttons are on the pages.

Les Voyages Des Pinnochio
Similar Comments to the above. Mostly UV black light painted sets.

Autopia
Big Ole car ride through some pleasant pine trees, and a handful of billboards with advertisements for space destinations, and themed bridges to give it that Discoveryland feel. If you are short on time you could probably skip this, but again, not much of a queue so I gave it a go.

Big Thunder Mountain
Ended up saving one of the best for last.

There was an intial false start. The ride needed an evac so they emptied the queue and i came back an hour later.

The paris one is different because the coaster is on an island in the middle of the river, with the station on the mainland. This means you have a pitch black tunnel at both the start and end of the ride to get over to the island and back, which bookends the experience nicely with thrilling moments. So from the station you drop down into a mine, and it feels like you go really quite deep underground. I’d just about say its a better tunnel than Oblivion. From there it’s classic Big Thunder, with themed lift hills (including one with projection mapping involving fuses burning towards a stack of TNT) and helixes, but also a lot more random drops, and it seems to maintain speed better than the others, rather than hitting a lift the moment you build up a bit of speed. The end of the ride has you go into a themed tunnel, but then the track starts diving deeply and getting darker, and then you just keep diving and diving and go around a huge underground banked turn, and head back up a lift hill. The train practically makes it to the top before the chain finally catches and you rise out into the daylight and coast into the station.

 

So one thing you must know about Paris is that it has a handful of well themed walkthroughs. This seems to be a European ‘thing’ since you see similar attractions at Efteling and Europa Park. 

Adventure Isle
A series of bridges, caves and passageways and great themed sections, like a grotto full of pirates treasure, and a skull shaped rock you could look out through. Needs more slides
La Cabane Des Robinson
Not Far from Adventure Isle, and another Disney Staple.
What I find notable is the way it uses a lot of visual distraction to still maintain the reveal of different parts.
From a distance, all you see is this giant tree and a couple of platforms sticking out.
When you get there, you basically just see a staircase disappearing up into the tree and the famous water wheel. Quite unassuming considering all that is going on above.
When you are up there in the tree canopy, you can see walkways going everywhere, above and below you, and the bits of the treehouse perched in different parts of the tree, so all you can really do is follow the walkway along and be guided through the labyrinth.  Thematically its one of my favourites.

 

La Cabane Des Robinson
Not Far from Adventure Isle, and another Disney Staple.
What I find notable is the way it uses a lot of visual distraction to still maintain the reveal of different parts.
From a distance, all you see is this giant tree and a couple of platforms sticking out.
When you get there, you basically just see a staircase disappearing up into the tree and the famous water wheel. Quite unassuming considering all that is going on above.
When you are up there in the tree canopy, you can see walkways going everywhere, above and below you, and the bits of the treehouse perched in different parts of the tree, so all you can really do is follow the walkway along and be guided through the labyrinth.  Thematically its one of my favourites.

 

Le Passage Enchante d’Alladin
This has a few dioramas behind glass telling the story of Alladin. Havent seen this film since about age 5 when we watched it on the last day of term before school holidays, brought back memories, ended up watching it again on the plane home!

Les Mystères du Nautilus
Probably my favourite of the walkthroughs, and I almost missed the best part!
From a small building next to lake in Discoveryland you go down a spiral staircase and through an underground passageway into the interior of the Nautilus submarine (You see the top of the Submarine poking up through the water next to the entrance. All the rooms are ornately themed, with a cool engine room full of moving equipment. The main room I strolled straight through, but when I looked back i noticed a crowd of people gathered around a small circular window. Went back to have a look, and all of a sudden the window expands like an iris / camera shutter, revealing a much bigger circular window looking out of the submarine. The iris opens and closes every few mins, revealing something new each time, eg a pod of whales swimming by. Amazing bit of imagineering to build that mechanism.

 

 

La Belle Au bois Dormant
I found out about this one via the Imagineering Story. They did some really ornate stained glass windows in an area in the ‘foyer’ of the castle, so definitely take the time to check this out.

La Tanière du Dragon
Under the castle, there is a damp cave with a dragon that occasionally wakes up and roars. Easy to miss if you dont know about it.

Alice’s Curious Labyrinth
A large hedge maze with statues from Alice in Wonderland. You eventually reach a small castle, but its bloody narrow and crowded up there, though its a great vantage point for photos over the park.

 

Disneyland Paris Railroad
I thought this was going to be closed for my visit but it ended up re-opening late afternoon day 2.
They've designed the carriages to only load from one side, so most of the views are designed to face into the park…If you are riding, sit on the side closest to the platform. 

For those of you not familiar with the Disneyland Railroads, you dont just do a lap around the park, a couple of times you pass through other ride buildings, and through a  couple of indoor sections with actual built sets (The latter too hard to get photos of in the darkness.

The other “train” Casey Jr Circus Train was closed on my visit, so no powered coaster for me.

So final thoughts. Nice park, superb theming, but perhaps it just feels middle of the range compared to the other Disneylands since it’s all ‘classics’ and the last new ride they got was Buzz Lightyear. 

More photos here:

https://www.parkz.com.au/search/photos/location/disneyland-paris

Edited September 24, 2023 by Gazza

[djmcbell]

I really enjoyed DLP when I went. Loved the little areas to explore (didn't do them all) and I much prefer their Big Thunder Mesa, PotC and Phantom Manor over their Floridian counterparts. Space Mountain I found too different and I'm not a fan of coasters that just throw elements at you.

But still, great park. We went years ago and Indiana Jones was down.

Edit - also liked the steampunk aesthetic of Discoveryland - hope that hasn't gone too Star Wars since we went (2014).

Edited October 5, 2023 by djmcbell

[Whombex]

On 06/10/2023 at 6:42 AM, djmcbell said:

I really enjoyed DLP when I went. Loved the little areas to explore (didn't do them all) and I much prefer their Big Thunder Mesa, PotC and Phantom Manor over their Floridian counterparts. Space Mountain I found too different and I'm not a fan of coasters that just throw elements at you.

But still, great park. We went years ago and Indiana Jones was down.

Edit - also liked the steampunk aesthetic of Discoveryland - hope that hasn't gone too Star Wars since we went (2014).

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril is a one-trick pony with the little loop. The queue theming is good, but you're not missing much with the ride.
Discoveryland hasn't changed much, it still has a steampunk aesthetic. Hyperion Cafe, Orbitron, Nautulis, etc, haven't changed.