Disneyland Paris

After a wonderful visit to London, it was time to get on yet another train and head toward Paris! However, we decided to hold off on Paris for a little while yet and make a detour to Disneyland Paris! If you know me at all, you know I’m a fan of Disney… so of course, when in Rome (or in Paris!) …. We had to do it. We got a room at one of the resort hotels, and it was very nice!

We arrived to the parks in the late afternoon, but our hotel package included 3 days of park passes, so we figured why not go in and get the lay of the land, maybe ride a few rides and get dinner. We did indeed get to see the castle & do a few rides… but it started raining! It wasn’t too bad at first, so we thought we could just suck it up… but we didn’t have our rain jackets on and it started getting pretty chilly and the rain wasn’t stopping (BTW – there was no rain in the weather forecast 🙄). We briefly looked around for food options in the park, but nothing was really appealing to us… so we decided to walk outside of the park and get something in the Disney Village. We stopped at an English style pub and had a good dinner there. Our server knew sign language – I think it was French Sign Language, but I’m not sure. We told her we were Americans and didn’t know French sign, but I don’t think that fact fully registered with her. She was way too excited about the fact that she met a couple of deaf people. She was really nice, and communication went well enough! Then we went back to the hotel to rest up for what I knew would be a very full couple days of Disney fun!

The next morning, we went to the parks in time for rope drop (in Disney terms, in the early morning before the park officially opens, many people tend to show up early so they can maximize time in the parks and take advantage of lower wait times in the early morning. Disney cast members will often corral guests into a specific area of the park near the entrance and hold ropes for crowd control and so we can’t go wandering off just yet. When the park officially opens, they “drop” the ropes and we’re off to the races). We were able to do everything on our list and more! We logged about 10 miles worth of steps this day! Disneyland Paris and Parc Walt Disney Studios are very enjoyable parks. They have a much smaller footprint than Disney World or Disneyland in the USA, so it was easy enough to get around. Wait times were very reasonable, but there were a couple times our fast passes were necessary. At WDW and Disneyland in the US, Tower of Terror and Haunted Mansion are two of my absolute favorite attractions. There are variations of the same ride in each park – WDW, Disneyland US, and Disneyland Paris – so that was really fun to ride them and compare the differences! There were also several other attractions that were slight variations or rethemings of rides found at the US counterparts.

We were also able to catch a couple of shows – a Million Splashes of Color parade and a show called Mickey & the Magician that was very cute. The magician show actually had a French Sign Language interpreter! We couldn’t fully understand but we got a lot more than we would have without the interpreter! It was neat that Mickey would actually interact with the interpreter during the show too, really making her part of it.

We stayed in the parks until closing! We caught the Electric Sky Parade, where they used a ton of drones to create a light show at the castle, then of course, the fireworks show at the end of the night. We secured a great spot to watch the shows, and enjoyed them very much. The only part I didn’t enjoy was trying to exit the park with thousands of others trying to do the same! Very crowded Main Street, but luckily, didn’t have to deal with it for very long, and our hotel is a <10 minute walk from the park! Very convenient, considering how late it was at this point.

Day 2 of Disney (July 1)… we slept in a little bit, and had a slow start. We got back to the parks around 10:30ish, and decided to do some browsing in the shops and got a few souvenirs. A friend I’ve known since college decided last minute to do a trip to France and join us for Disneyland today! Will is a fan of roller coasters and wanted to get a few credits on his list. We did all the rides we wanted to do again, and just enjoyed the parks while we could.

We left around dinner time, to catch a train to Paris for the start of our Paris visit! Will got a hotel a couple minutes walk away from ours, so we were able to hang out and have dinner together at a Thai place nearby. Great food… slow service. One guy was working the entire restaurant so I didn’t mind waiting too much, but I was definitely hungry… the wait paid off though because the food was delicious! We ended up leaving the restaurant around 10:30 or 10:45pm I think… and it was still a full house!

Full day in Paris tomorrow! More later…