Messin' With the Mouse

By Topalaska (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

In the No Man’s Month during which the Baguette Winner had arrived in France and I was still in New Zealand, my aforementioned girlfriend made an executive purchase: tickets for two to Disneyland Paris.

The tickets had to be used in June. Yesterday was a day in June, and thus the tickets were used.

Here are several things that the wise ol’ internet advises about visiting Disneyland Paris:

-       Try not to go in Summer;

-       Try not to go on a weekend;

-       Definitely try not to go on a long weekend;

-       Saturday is a day of the weekend, idiot. It might even be the worst day.

We went on the Saturday of a long weekend (Monday is Whit Monday in France, obviously), but it isn’t technically Summer yet. It was however a perfectly sunny day which, apparently, was only 26 degrees (felt like 36). So Disneyland was busy.

It is actually two lands: Disneyland Park and Walt Disney’s Studios. The first is (apparently) much like its famous sister park in Anaheim, and the latter is very similar to Warner Brothers Movie World on the Gold Coast. There is also a mall and a golf course.

We had done a cursory amount of research, and knew vaguely which rides we most wanted to ride. Anything with a health and safety warning was at the top of the list. Trouble is, Disneyland has evenly distributed these roller coasters around the park, so we had a whole lot of walking ahead of us. It was hot, thirsty work, and it took extreme heroism to pull it off.

To be honest, Disneyland is too big. Neither of us are huge fans of many, many people, and our day involved a lot of weaving through human traffic to rush to the end of a 40-minute queue. [According to the web, lines can sometimes get up to two hours, so we could have had it much worse.] A few years ago, we went to Movie World (mentioned above). That park has five or so very good roller coasters, and our day there mainly consisted of traipsing from one to the other and standing in queues (much like here). However, that park is much smaller and easier to navigate, and you can happily move from ride to ride searching out the smallest lines. Disneyland is not great for this, especially when hot and busy.

What Disneyland does have, however, is impeccable production value. Every inch of the park is beautifully laid out with cobbled stones, perfectly manicured hedges, fountains and statues. We spent so much time flying around, flustered because of all the people (ugh, all the children!) that we completely ignored the 50-strong troupe performing choreographed numbers from Mary Poppins in the street, and we never bothered to explore the castles, ponds and parks-within-the-park. Also, the rides themselves must have cost a fortune! Some of the pretty boring ones (Pirates of the Caribbean, Phantom Manor, Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast), which are clearly best for children, were flawlessly decorated worlds, entirely indoors in what must have been aircraft hangars. They were amazing, if pretty disappointing from an adrenaline perspective. 

Since we’re talking rides, here’s a quick top five:

1) Space Mountain: Mission 2 - This is the best roller coaster at Disneyland. Think the Superman ride at Movie World, but in the dark! And with cool holographic comets and things whizzing past. Also, the line moves pretty quickly, somehow. Do it often.

2) Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster with Aerosmith – This is in Walt Disney’s Studios. The entrance is a bit like the Hard Rock Café, with music memorabilia (signed guitars, etc) on the wall. There is a weird (read: terrible) video with Aerosmith while you wait, and the roller coaster itself is meant to be the inside of a recording studio. You ride an early Aerosmith soundtrack, with bits of chatter from the band during the stops. All of that is irrelevant, as the actual ride is fantastic. It’s fast, dark (an indoor ride), with tons of loops. Basically everything you want from a roller coaster, but with Steven Tyler’s ghoul face all over it. If this was a Kiss ride, it might have been number 1.

3) Twilight Zone Tower of Terror – This is the other great ride at Walt Disney’s Studios. It is very similar to the “Giant Drop”–style rides which ever theme park seems to have. As with much of Disneyland, this ride wins because of the theming. The ride takes place in the malfunctioning service elevator of a haunted hotel; all of the staff are dressed as hotel porters, and you are encouraged to “enjoy your stay”, rather than your ride. Much like the Giant Drop, you are taken up in the elevator, before dropping without warning a few floors. However it is not just one descent: you go down a few, then up a few, then down a lot, etc. At each stop you see out onto that floor (full of ghosts!), or straight out the window (to see how high you are). The overall experience is probably not quite as stomach-churning as the ride at Dreamworld (Gold Coast) or its equivalents, but it is more interesting. I thought it had enough of that awful dropping sensation, but with some pretty entertaining added extras.

4) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril – The most traditional roller coaster at Disneyland. It is outdoors, with loops and barrel rolls, and basically what you would call a “typical” roller coaster. Still good though.

5) Big Thunder Mountain – This is another outdoor coaster. It has fewer loops and barrel rolls, but more sharp turns and drops. The line for this was disproportionately long and slow, and in future we will probably do one of the top three again as opposed to waiting for this. But, if the line isn’t too bad, it is definitely worth a spin.

Some odd thoughts from our day:

-     Although this review wasn’t glowing, Disneyland is undoubtedly perfect for families with young kids. The parade; the castles; the cast members; the teacups and Dumbo rides; it was pretty magical.

-     Disneyland is open til 11pm! We didn’t really think about this when we went, but next time we will definitely go later in the day. By 4pm, the lines had started to ease, so we think we will try arriving then and staying late. Also, dinner and drinks at Disneyland sounds pretty cool (yes they sell booze). Plus, apparently there are pretty lights:

Image from radiodisneyclub.fr

-     We thought Disneyland had really missed a trick by not having a bunch of Wizard of Oz stuff, especially a Yellow Brick Road. Stupid us, while Disney has produced three spin-offs (including the James Franco one), they don’t own the 1939 movie. So that explains that.

-    We actually never saw anyone in a Mickey Mouse costume, which was weird. I saw Baloo, and the BW saw Donald Duck.

-     We couldn’t find milkshakes. We stopped in at a bunch of the fast food restaurants and food trucks, but couldn’t find them. They may have had them at the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream store, but that was too far away. Seems silly not to sell them.