Disneyland Paris 2012 Trip Report: Part 6

Right after indicating that all of the photos were edited and promising that I would finish this trip report soon, I went on a two week hiatus from posting. Oops. I think most of you probably understand, as we’ve been in Japan for the last couple of weeks, and my staff of 1 doesn’t work well from the road. If you’re just finding the site now and want to read our Disneyland Paris 2012 Trip Report from its start, click here.

As an item of housekeeping: we’ve already had a lot of questions about Tokyo Disney Resort. A trip report is coming for the Tokyo Disney Resort trip, but it probably won’t be here for a while. You’ll understand why once it does get going. Since so little good information is out there for planning a trip there, I’ll also be doing a series of trip planning posts. I know they won’t help many people, but I wish someone would have written posts like them before our trip–it would have saved me from reading a lot of trip reports. (How do you all make it through these things?! )

Back to the here and now (or in this case, the last November), and we’re continuing this Disneyland Paris trip report from our last full day in the parks. As I noted in the last installment, I have to cut down on the size of these reports, keeping them to only around 60 photos each. That means that this is going to be a fairly pedestrian installment since it will stop before the exciting nighttime stuff. To add some mystery and intrigue, I’ll spice it up with some controversy, fireworks, and even a possible cameo by Christopher Walken.

We had just left the abysmal Walt Disney Studios Park and had washed the sour taste out of our mouths with some delicious treats at Gibson Girl and Cable Car Bake Shop. Having just had dessert, it made since to go to yet another restaurant to have real food. (For how much we complain about the food at Disneyland Paris, it does seem odd that we’d waste the time to go to 3 restaurants in succession, rather than just saving time and only going to one.) Due to our meals at Blue Lagoon and Walt’s, table service was out of the question. Instead, we opted for Toad Hall, which served “so very British” counter service fare. (more…)

Disneyland Paris 2012 Trip Report: Part 5

This day would be our last full day at Disneyland Paris. If you haven’t read about the previous days, before reading this, you should check out the previous installments, which contain hundreds of photos. The last installment ended up taking the site down several times throughout the day when it was posted, so this report will contain fewer photos (which also means the entire report will not be done this week since there will need to be additional installments). My apologies if you had trouble accessing the last installment. Now, on with the report!

Some famous scientist (probably Al Gore) is credited with once having said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.” Hoping to break my streak of overcast mornings with a glorious sunrise, I was once again up early and out, waiting for the fog to break. Of course, it didn’t. Sarah, being much more sane, elected to stay in bed and have me come back and get her when I was done with my exercise in futility.

For us, I have found this is one of the great benefits of staying at a “within walking distance” hotel at any of Disney resort complexes. Sarah is very patient with me, and goes on little sleep when we’re on vacation, but she generally can’t do the 4 hours of sleep a night that I can run on. At night this is no issue–I usually just wander around the hotel where we’re staying and take photos, while she goes back to the hotel and goes to bed. In the morning, it’s more of an issue. If I’m within walking distance of a park, I’ll generally start my day in that park when I’m up and ready and either go back to the hotel to get Sarah when she’s ready, or have her meet me in the park. If we stay at a hotel that isn’t within walking distance, I generally just wait for her. I’m a bit like a dog whining at the door anxiously trying to get outside to chase cars when I have to wait. Sarah really ought to win a Noble Peace Price or a Major Award for putting up with me.

Anyway, I started out the day with breakfast at Inventions by myself (they again accepted my Sequoia breakfast ticket without additional payment), and then headed to the park to wander around. As you can see, there wasn’t even the most remote chance of seeing the sun that morning. (more…)

Disneyland Paris 2012 Trip Report: Part 4

Sorry for the delay in getting this installment posted. I know this is the highlight of approximately no one’s day, but still. We were in Walt Disney World a couple weekends ago and since I’ve been working on some exciting things that we can’t wait to share with you soon. (This seems to be the excuse everyone else uses when they have a lapse in blogging, so I figured it will work…sitting on the couch watching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia counts as an “exciting thing,” right?) If you’ve missed any of the first three installments, or want to revisit them, start by going here.

The good news is that all of the photos from this trip are now edited, which is generally the hold-up in getting these things posted. As for the text, I usually just run this site through Gizoogle, and copy and paste the results here. It’s quite simple, as my Control+C/Control+V skills are impeccable. Anyway, I hope to have the remaining installments all up soon.

We still had a bit of time to kill before our reservation at Blue Lagoon, so we headed over to the Storybook Land Canal Boats (actually called Le Pays des Contes de Fées, which translates to Fairytale Country) and Casey Jr, which were more or less right next to one another, just as they are at Disneyland. In Disneyland Paris, it was almost as if they were tucked away into their own mini-land (which was added to the park in 1994–this 2010 map gives you an idea of their location), almost how New Fantasyland is a bit separated from the rest of Fantasyland in the Magic Kingdom.

These are two attractions that we absolutely love at Disneyland, and the Paris versions did not disappoint. Casey Jr. was all upside. It was like a modernized version of the Disneyland classic, with no “downside” that I can think of. The beauty started in the queue, which winds and passes through a wooded area; there were some traces of fall colors remaining when we visited, making this area especially beautiful. The rest of the attraction is pretty much the same as Disneyland’s, except with superior visuals. (more…)

Disneyland Paris 2012 Trip Report: Part 3

Only a few hours after going to bed, it was time to get up for our 7:00 a.m. breakfast time slot at Sequoia Lodge. We opted for Sequoia Lodge rather than going to Disneyland Hotel this morning because Sarah thought she might go back to bed after breakfast and the walk to Disneyland Hotel and back would waste a decent amount of time.

Breakfast at Sequoia Lodge wasn’t nearly as good as it was in Disneyland Hotel at Inventions. The only standout to speak of was this delicious juice that reminded me of the juice served at ‛Ohana’s breakfast. I don’t know what it was called or what it contained (probably a mix of passion fruit, pineapple, and mango, but I could be entirely wrong), but it was delicious. I made repeated trips to the breakfast bar, coming back with a fresh cup of that and of coffee each time. I probably had 5 cups of coffee that morning, and for someone who doesn’t drink coffee (or even for someone who does) that’s a lot. This was basically my regimen for the trip: sleep very little, drink a lot of caffeinated stuff. You might want to consult a physician before undertaking a similar regimen, but I’m pretty sure they’d highly endorse the practice and tell you it’s incredibly wise and the best way to become physically fit.

Sarah went back to bed after breakfast, but I was too wired to possibly even consider sleeping, so I headed to the parks, opting again for Disneyland Paris. We did go to the Walt Disney Studios Park eventually, I swear. (more…)

Disneyland Paris 2012 Trip Report: Part 2

Before we get to the meat of this installment of the Disneyland Paris Christmas 2012 trip report, a couple of housekeeping items. First, thanks for all of the comments to the first installment. It was cool for us to see so many comments from so many different places. For this installment, I would love it if anyone from outside North America who is reading would leave a comment. Even if you don’t have anything to say–it can be as simple as, “Greetings from ______________!” I don’t know why, but seeing these comments from other countries really makes my day! Second, the website seems to be doing fine with these photo heavy trip reports since I made the backend changes, so I’ve decided to really push things–this installment has over twice as many photos as the last installment (well over 100) AND you can click each of the photos in this installment to view them larger. So the photos are double the size and there are twice as many…hopefully this doesn’t end up causing me any problems!

Okay, on with the report! After doing two of the three “biggest” attractions on our list (Space Mountain: Mission 2 being the other), we headed over to Fantasyland to knock out a few of those attractions. I didn’t take any photos on any of the first ride-throughs, so I’ll share my thoughts on these later. From there, we felt like we could relax a bit and enjoy that famed Disneyland Paris ambiance. Just a few years ago I couldn’t have imagined being in a park we had experienced dozens of times and slowing down–let alone a brand new one on our first day there–which I guess goes to show how our touring style has changed (evolved?).

Frontierland was the first stop, as I had read much about its backstory in Disneyland Paris: From Sketch to Reality. However, almost as soon as we stepped back into Frontierland, we noticed that Phantom Manor had no wait. We didn’t know if this was a bubble in the crowd or what, so we jumped at the opportunity. I still only took a handful of photos, mostly in the stretching room, as there was so much I missed the first time. (more…)

Disneyland Paris 2012 Trip Report: Part 1

For the longest time, we were Walt Disney World snobs. Although we regularly vacationed elsewhere, we couldn’t fathom “betraying” our home Disney resort and going to those “other” Disney theme parks. More importantly, since we only visited Walt Disney World one or two times per year, we couldn’t imagine skipping Walt Disney World for a year and visiting Disneyland instead. Then, in 2010, we visited Disneyland for the first time because we were out in California anyway. We absolutely loved it, and immediately began eyeing the international parks, trying to figure out when we might be able to first visit one of those parks. (If you’re reading this trip report and have no plans to ever stray from Walt Disney World, we strongly encourage you to learn from our pre-2010 mistake and visit at least Disneyland if you can. If you are using it to plan a trip to Disneyland Paris, you might first want to read our Disneyland Paris Trip Planning Guide.)

Tokyo Disney Resort was the top priority, and in mid-2011 after the devastating earthquake, we noticed travel to Tokyo was really cheap, so we started planning. Towards the end of 2011, we began getting serious about our Tokyo plans for 2012, going as far as to book a room at the Hilton Tokyo Bay for Thanksgiving 2012. Alas, the plans would not come to fruition, as airfare prices skyrocketed from the $500 roundtrip low we saw in mid-2011 to well above $1,500 when it was time to finalize our plans in early Fall 2012. However, at the same time we were canceling that trip, we noticed airfare to/from Paris and London was reasonably priced, so we decided to call an audible and price out a trip to Europe that wouldn’t include London, Paris, and of course, Disneyland Paris. The trip was about the same price we’d pay for trip of comparable length to Walt Disney World at a Deluxe Resort, so we pulled the trigger.

Much like Japan, Europe does not celebrate American Thanksgiving. This came as somewhat of a surprise at first, since Thanksgiving is an excellent holiday that should be celebrated regardless of national relevance. Not celebrating Thanksgiving is like not celebrating the Fourth of July (wait…bad example). It’s just absurd! Joking aside, it ended up working out wonderfully to travel internationally over Thanksgiving: we had two weekday days off built into the trip, and there were no crowds anywhere due to the lack of a holiday in Europe.

The trip started with a flight from Indianapolis to Toronto. I know what you’re thinking, and I was just as shocked that Canada has airports as you are. I was also to find plumbing, and I was constantly on the lookout for stray moose in the airport, but didn’t see a single one. From Toronto, we were off to Charles de Gaulle (CDG) airport in Paris via Lufthansa. I am not an airplane expert, so I don’t know the model of the plane, but it was great. The longest flights I had previously flown were Detroit to Honolulu and Detroit to Montego Bay, both of which were pretty uncomfortable flights. This flight was long, but it was completely bearable. Probably more pleasant than a (shorter) flight to California, actually! Sarah watched The Dark Knight Rises on her in-seat LCD screen during the flight; my screen was on the fritz, which was aggravating at first, but in retrospect, I’m glad it didn’t work. I slept pretty much the entire flight, which definitely would have happened if I could have watched movies. (more…)