When it was finally confirmed by Disneyland Paris that they were starting a new Spring season this year Patrick and I jumped at the chance of checking it out. A couple of months pass by and we finally arrived...
Friday 16th May
Eurostar have annoyingly moved the direct train to the resort to a later time so when we arrived we just went straight for food in the Village. We decided upon Annette's, fully aware that the food here varies from great to very meh. Unfortunately we received the very meh food. The staff were great though and it's still great to see some of them going round on roller-skates still.
We checked in to our hotel (Residhome Val d'Europe, 1 stop away on the RER), dropped our bags off and headed back over to the parks. As with most of our trips we started off by going into the Disneyland Park, mainly to check out all the new decorations. The park was fairly empty (short queues for everything, felt very surreal).
As with all the seasonal events now at Paris they've decorated the train station on Main Street to introduce you to the celebrations...
Over on Main Street USA around the band stand was a whole bunch of decorations. There was a very Mary Poppins vibe for the whole event and this area made it very clear. Some nice topiarys and the band stand was covered in decorations and penguins.
Eek, looks like the band stand could do with some well needed repairs
We started walking up Main Street when we noticed there were only a few people around Minnie Mouse, confused by the lack of people we jumped at the rare chance. I'll note that most characters had specially designed new outfits for this new season.
She demanded a hug from Patrick...
Disneyland Paris have started investing in a huge refurbishment into the whole of Main Street, they are literally going to strip everything down and rebuild with materials better suited for the Paris climate (meaning it should look better for a longer period of time). They've started with the Transportation building. But they're also turning the photo and video store into something new (a clothes shop if I remember). Sounds like this refurb is going to take forever so if you go and you think it looks bad that there's so much covered up, now you know.
Ha, when we looked at the time board and saw this we couldn't quite believe it...
We had a little look at the Central Plaza topiarys for the Spring festival. They look great...
We then headed over to Big Thunder Mountain, there was a fairly short wait but seeing as there were fastpasses available we grabbed them and queued up for Phantom Manor. There wasn't much of a wait...
Inside the stretch room the cast member was doing the usual spiel in English and French and then he remembered there could be some Spanish peeps inside so asked (in Spanish l'obv) if anyone spoke Spanish. A group of girls were like "Si!" and we basically just replied with "Good luck" much to everyone's amusement. He did everything in character and spent a fair amount of time creeping people out, I wish we took down his name to inform the park of his awesomeness. The ride itself was in a fairly decent state, the mirror effect at the end still isn't working though, surely it's a minor thing to fix? Considering it wasn't working last time we rode it (November) and it had just come out of a refurbishment closer we were both shocked it wasn't there. Maybe they keep forgetting to turn it on?
By the time we left the Manor it was time for our fast pass on Big Thunder.
A lot of the effects weren't working on Big Thunder which I found a little upsetting but it was riding fine.
I think this was the point when we randomly decided to head over to the Studios for it's last hour. This turned out to be a fairly good plan as everyone was going the opposite way. It felt odd seeing all the Spider-man posters but more on that in day 2's report. We headed straight for Rock 'n' Rollercoaster which didn't have much of a queue.
I think we ended up getting seated somewhere in the middle. But wow, you could tell this had just come out of a refurb closure. The audio was LOUD, all the lights were working and it rode really well. I had an absolute blast riding it.
We then decided to head over to Crush's Coaster, mainly to check out how the new queue is coming along. We decided to join the queue anyway (about 40 minutes? - it was far below average wait time). Unless you do a side by side photo comparison you can't tell that the exterior queue has changed much apart from the mass of construction boards up around the entrance area - not helped by magic carpets just going into a massive refurbishment, adds a slight claustrophobic feeling to the beginning of the queue area.
Once inside we could see the holes in the ground where the new single rider fencing will be put into place, that was exciting to see, going to mean loads of re-rides in the future!
The ride itself was great fun, had a fairly decent spin.
The Studios park had closed by the time we got off Crush's coaster so it was back over to Disneyland. We ended up walking around Adventureland for quite some time. We spotted the new addition by the lake...
They fit in so well <3
We grabbed some pasta at Colonel Hathi's. The food is alright but the setting of the restaurant is amazing, the details everywhere are just awesome.
We walked around a bit more, admiring the best part of Disneyland Paris.
We ended up riding Pirates of the Caribbean.
No queue <3
It was in fairly good condition, great to see the duelling pirates back, even if they have been moved a bit. It was then over to Discoverland via Fantasyland for some Space Mountain: Mission 2 action. There wasn't a queue which was a rather amazing shock. The sound was loud which was brilliant and it was running extremely well, we both loved our ride on it that we just ran straight back around and enjoyed it just as much. Great to get more than one ride where we could actually hear the soundtrack.
We then decided to join the queue for Star Tours. It was about a 10-15 minute wait. The cast member batching us to our rows was awesome and was being really cool with the kids. Sadly though he swapped shift by the time we were boarding, I got the feeling he would have given everyone a brilliant spiel during the loading checks. Oh well. We were sat in the front which was weird for me because I think I tend to get sat at the back. It's definitely a lot less forceful at the front, but I got a chance to admire the animatronic as I was so close to it.
We decided to run over to Big Thunder Mountain for another ride, no queue! By the time we got off the ride was closed and Disney Dreams was about to start. This was the first time we'd seen it in person since the addition of the Lion King and Brave. The Lion King section works quite well but the Brave bit is really awkward. Would be nice to see that taken out sooner rather than later.
We were super tired by the time Dreams finished so we walked back to our hotel and crashed, ready for another long day. Still, it was an excellent start to the weekend, we both regret not making the most of the small queues but it's not like we haven't ridden everything already.
Keep an eye out for part 2 and thanks for reading
Friday 16th May
Eurostar have annoyingly moved the direct train to the resort to a later time so when we arrived we just went straight for food in the Village. We decided upon Annette's, fully aware that the food here varies from great to very meh. Unfortunately we received the very meh food. The staff were great though and it's still great to see some of them going round on roller-skates still.
We checked in to our hotel (Residhome Val d'Europe, 1 stop away on the RER), dropped our bags off and headed back over to the parks. As with most of our trips we started off by going into the Disneyland Park, mainly to check out all the new decorations. The park was fairly empty (short queues for everything, felt very surreal).
As with all the seasonal events now at Paris they've decorated the train station on Main Street to introduce you to the celebrations...
Over on Main Street USA around the band stand was a whole bunch of decorations. There was a very Mary Poppins vibe for the whole event and this area made it very clear. Some nice topiarys and the band stand was covered in decorations and penguins.
Eek, looks like the band stand could do with some well needed repairs
We started walking up Main Street when we noticed there were only a few people around Minnie Mouse, confused by the lack of people we jumped at the rare chance. I'll note that most characters had specially designed new outfits for this new season.
She demanded a hug from Patrick...
Disneyland Paris have started investing in a huge refurbishment into the whole of Main Street, they are literally going to strip everything down and rebuild with materials better suited for the Paris climate (meaning it should look better for a longer period of time). They've started with the Transportation building. But they're also turning the photo and video store into something new (a clothes shop if I remember). Sounds like this refurb is going to take forever so if you go and you think it looks bad that there's so much covered up, now you know.
Ha, when we looked at the time board and saw this we couldn't quite believe it...
We had a little look at the Central Plaza topiarys for the Spring festival. They look great...
We then headed over to Big Thunder Mountain, there was a fairly short wait but seeing as there were fastpasses available we grabbed them and queued up for Phantom Manor. There wasn't much of a wait...
Inside the stretch room the cast member was doing the usual spiel in English and French and then he remembered there could be some Spanish peeps inside so asked (in Spanish l'obv) if anyone spoke Spanish. A group of girls were like "Si!" and we basically just replied with "Good luck" much to everyone's amusement. He did everything in character and spent a fair amount of time creeping people out, I wish we took down his name to inform the park of his awesomeness. The ride itself was in a fairly decent state, the mirror effect at the end still isn't working though, surely it's a minor thing to fix? Considering it wasn't working last time we rode it (November) and it had just come out of a refurbishment closer we were both shocked it wasn't there. Maybe they keep forgetting to turn it on?
By the time we left the Manor it was time for our fast pass on Big Thunder.
A lot of the effects weren't working on Big Thunder which I found a little upsetting but it was riding fine.
I think this was the point when we randomly decided to head over to the Studios for it's last hour. This turned out to be a fairly good plan as everyone was going the opposite way. It felt odd seeing all the Spider-man posters but more on that in day 2's report. We headed straight for Rock 'n' Rollercoaster which didn't have much of a queue.
I think we ended up getting seated somewhere in the middle. But wow, you could tell this had just come out of a refurb closure. The audio was LOUD, all the lights were working and it rode really well. I had an absolute blast riding it.
We then decided to head over to Crush's Coaster, mainly to check out how the new queue is coming along. We decided to join the queue anyway (about 40 minutes? - it was far below average wait time). Unless you do a side by side photo comparison you can't tell that the exterior queue has changed much apart from the mass of construction boards up around the entrance area - not helped by magic carpets just going into a massive refurbishment, adds a slight claustrophobic feeling to the beginning of the queue area.
Once inside we could see the holes in the ground where the new single rider fencing will be put into place, that was exciting to see, going to mean loads of re-rides in the future!
The ride itself was great fun, had a fairly decent spin.
The Studios park had closed by the time we got off Crush's coaster so it was back over to Disneyland. We ended up walking around Adventureland for quite some time. We spotted the new addition by the lake...
They fit in so well <3
We grabbed some pasta at Colonel Hathi's. The food is alright but the setting of the restaurant is amazing, the details everywhere are just awesome.
We walked around a bit more, admiring the best part of Disneyland Paris.
We ended up riding Pirates of the Caribbean.
No queue <3
It was in fairly good condition, great to see the duelling pirates back, even if they have been moved a bit. It was then over to Discoverland via Fantasyland for some Space Mountain: Mission 2 action. There wasn't a queue which was a rather amazing shock. The sound was loud which was brilliant and it was running extremely well, we both loved our ride on it that we just ran straight back around and enjoyed it just as much. Great to get more than one ride where we could actually hear the soundtrack.
We then decided to join the queue for Star Tours. It was about a 10-15 minute wait. The cast member batching us to our rows was awesome and was being really cool with the kids. Sadly though he swapped shift by the time we were boarding, I got the feeling he would have given everyone a brilliant spiel during the loading checks. Oh well. We were sat in the front which was weird for me because I think I tend to get sat at the back. It's definitely a lot less forceful at the front, but I got a chance to admire the animatronic as I was so close to it.
We decided to run over to Big Thunder Mountain for another ride, no queue! By the time we got off the ride was closed and Disney Dreams was about to start. This was the first time we'd seen it in person since the addition of the Lion King and Brave. The Lion King section works quite well but the Brave bit is really awkward. Would be nice to see that taken out sooner rather than later.
We were super tired by the time Dreams finished so we walked back to our hotel and crashed, ready for another long day. Still, it was an excellent start to the weekend, we both regret not making the most of the small queues but it's not like we haven't ridden everything already.
Keep an eye out for part 2 and thanks for reading
).
