Disney Paris

For my last day in France I decided to go Disneyland Paris with a couple of the girls from the shop. We all met up at the park right when it opened at 10am. It was about an hours train ride to get there but it drops you right by the front entrance and was super convenient.

So I learned after I had already arrived that unlike in the US parks they allow outside food and drink into the park in Paris so next time I'll probably bring a lunch and save myself 25euro in their overpriced food.

The first ride we went on was the 'Peter Pan's Flight' followed by the 'Pirated of the Caribbean' ride. So I would come to learn that most of the rides at Disney Paris are the slow kind that drag you threw a "story" using animatronics, sets, and lighting effects. There are no real roller coasters and only about 3 thrill rides which would be about like children's roller coasters with no big drops and only one loop the loop in the whole bunch. I had never ridden the animatronics rides very much but since it was really the only things to do and that's what everyone else was going to I would, of course, go with them. I don't know whether it was because it was a Monday or because it was cloudy and rainy but the lines were very short and we didn't wait more then 20-30mins except for one exception (Big Thunder Mountain).

We ended up riding the 'Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast' ride twice, once before lunch and once after lunch and both times I got the best score out of the group.

We did 'It's a Small World' and the song was stuck in my head for hours afterwards.

Then there were a couple of rides that would take you past all these little miniature set ups of the different Disney stories. One was a slow boat ride (Le Pays des Contes de Fees) and the other was a slightly faster train ride (Casey Fr. le Petit Train du Cirque) both would have been much improved by it not raining halfway through the ride.

Then we stopped to see the parade and this is much more what I think of when you say parade then the one on Bastille Day. There were floats and music and people on skates and singing. It was great.

It ended with Tinkerbell sitting at the back. After that our friend who was the only one among us from France wanted to go over the the other park. When we had decided to get tickets we had said we'd only do one park so Rosa and I only had one park tickets but she had gotten a two park ticket which was 10euros more apparently. Well we went up to find out if we could get a second park ticket but it would have cost 33euro and I said it was too rich for me and Rosa wanted all of us or none of us so she didn't get one either. Elisa really wanted to go over and ride the new Ratatouille ride so she decided to go over and then come back...we never saw her again. She was supposed to text us when she got back to our park and meet up with us but she never did and I'm fairly certain she decided to spend the rest of her day over there but it would have been nice to get at least a text telling us that. So Rosa and I finished out the day on our own riding a few more rides and then being kicked out of the park at 9 but she wanted to stay to see the fireworks (that wouldn't start till 11) so we did the only thing there was to do...shop (I actually didn't buy a single thing but Rosa spent at least 50euro just on keychains).

After dark they lit up the castle (which is actually Aurora's castle instead of Cinderella's castle here).

Then the fireworks show started. I tried to get a few pictures but they were all blurry and dark so I gave up and just enjoyed the show. It was more then just fireworks and would use the castle and the smoke to project pictures on and played a medley of Disney tunes to accompany the show. If we had been at the front it would have been really neat but we would have been trapped by masses of people for hours and would never have gotten home. As it was we caught a train where there was actually room to sit and road all the way back where I ended up catching the very last train headed to my stop and got home around 1:15am. It was a good/fun day.