DisneyLand Paris

My Husband took me to DisneyLand in Paris today! I'm the luckiest girl in the world!!

DisneyLand Park

The first thing we saw from a distance was the Enchanted Castle. Yey, We’re at DisneyLand! Armed with our tickets we walked through the baggage search and straight for the ticket booth to exchanged for real tickets (just like Pinocchio) and get our hand stamped for a pass out. There was barely a line and we walked in virtually straight away. As soon as we walked through the turnstile we quickly stopped in to a souvenir shop for Ev to get a DisneyLand shirt to wear all day then headed back outside and looked at our map to find the rides we want to... What’s that celebratory music in French?... Mickey is coming!!! Woot Woot!! The music started playing over the loud speakers as the road was clear to make way for the ‘Mickey and Friends Parade’. There was Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, The Incredibles, Goofy, Pinocchio, Tigger, Wall-E, the Chipmunks, Lilo and Stitch... and they were all singing and dancing on the back of the train and waving to Evelyn! Yes, waving just to her ;) What? that’s how DisneyLand is supposed to make you feel? The parade was short but long enough to inset that we are truly at DisneyLand. Time for some rides!

Evy in her new shirt @ DisneyLand

Elastigirl - The Incredibles

Pinocchio

Tigger

As we were saying we have a few ‘must see’ rides already chosen... Hey, there are some little girls wearing Snow White dresses. Ev would wear one if they were in her size... Ok, ok, back to the rides, so we’ve decided we are going to use the... Look, where do we get those Tigger balloons from?... (See what Dan has to put up with!) So back to the rides, the Fast Pass would be good to use on the... Balloo... (Dan covers Ev’s mouth)... roller coasters because we do not want the same experience of waiting for hours like at Legoland... Balloons? 

 

Surprisingly there was no wait on our first ride and we walked straight in as well. Have we missed something, or just come on a really good day. Now, Ev has never been on a fast roller coaster before but was pumped for this one because she knew Dan would love it. ‘Space Mountain’ was incredible. It was in the dark most of the time and twirled upside down and did a 360. It was so fast. We could hear some girls screaming behind us. So cool! 

Space Mountain ride

That ride was next to ‘Star Tours’ which was a group ride in a spaceship and a 2d screen of a Star Wars journey through space and inside one of the ships. It was unreal when Luke’s/our ship flew through an asteroid shower and in space and dropped the bomb that destroyed the Death Star. Very cool indeed! Outside we went to a gift shop and saw small figurines of Minnie as Princess Leah, Mickey as Luke, Goofy as Hans Solo and Donald as Darth Vader. We wanted to get them all.

Star Tours ride

We stopped at the ‘Videopolis’ at about 1pm and had leftovers from yesterday: cold toasted cheese sandwiches (it tasted as bad as it sounds) while watching classic Mickey Mouse cartoons like Steamboat Mickey on a big projector. At least we attempted to bring our own food to save money. Onwards we pushed through...That’s two boy rides in a row. Time for some girly stuff. We walked through Sleeping Beauty’s ‘Enchanted Castle’ and saw the entire storyline made in stained glass windows. Evy’s in love all over again.

Sleeping Beauty's Enchanted Castle

The ‘Mad Hatter’s Tea Cups’ ride was so much fun and there wasn’t much of a line either. The cups spin and we had a wheel to turn our individual cup clockwise or anti-clockwise. It was really fun.

Mad Hatter's Tea Party ride

Even ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’ was there. Lining up for this ride freaked both of us out. The rollercoaster was a small mining car that looped at high speeds and our stomachs sunk as we watched the ride do a 360. Holy Crap! This was scary!! We both yelled/screamed! It’s much more terrifying being on a rollercoaster in daylight. That was Ev’s second rollercoaster ever. Ev said she had tensed her body so much to hold on that she didn’t feel the thrill of the 360 part and wanted to go again. Dan said “No way woman!” Wuss.

Indiana Jones mining cart ride

We walked around DisneyLand a bit more and came to the main stage just in time for one of the shows. 

We had seen most of what we wanted at this park by 3pm and were concerned we might not have enough time for Walt Disney Studios Park so we stopping in for another look at the souvenir shop for a look around then crossed over to the next park.

Walt Disney Studios Park

There he was at the entrance. Walt Disney with little Mickey.

We were really excited to be at Walt Disney Studios. We first queued up for the ‘Armageddon’ ride but missed it just as the doors closed. The usher outside was screaming and clapping at Dan “Hurry... run, run, run,” to beat the closing door, but there was no physical way that anyone could make it inside, and even if Dan went through the door, Ev was behind the turnstile anyway. The usher looked genuinely annoyed that Dan didn’t run. Hey we gave it our best man. The next viewing is in 15 minutes but we weren’t in a rush to return. 

Instead we went to the ‘Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster starring Aerosmith’, another ride Ev knew Dan would love. We walked through the corridor of signed LP’s by Aerosmith, Coldplay, Pink Floyd, R.E.M., Radiohead and others then we continued to the rollercoaster. That’s 3 in one day. This one was cool. We got in our seats and Ev put our bag of souvenirs at her feet tightly. We had rock music speakers directly in our headrest and heard the Aerosmith band talking then “3”, “2”, “1” and, loud music, we were propelled forward fast!!! followed by jolting corners, smaller spiral turns, sudden dips then another 360 spin and flashing lights all the way. We both felt the 360 this time and Ev definitely screamed. The ride was awesome and we both wanted to do it again but were a bit dizzy. That ride was the best of the day!

Rock 'n' Roller Coaster ride

Dan wanted to go on the Tower of Terror, but Ev was absolutely not up for it. Three roller coasters in one day was a huge stretch for her, so no we are not dropping faster than gravity. Dan was really shitty cause Ev wanted to line up for ‘Crush’s Coaster’, a kiddy ride and a 40 minute wait instead of going on the Tower so we decided to be fair and not do either. We walked around a bit more and saw some characters being chased after by kids. Ev followed.

Donald Duck

Pluto

Second lunch was at ‘Disney Blockbuster Cafe’ and Ev had Mickey ears shaped pizza and it tasted all the better for it. Dan had a hamburger. Then we finally went to the ‘Armageddon’ ride. It truly wasn’t worth the effort. Ev had a photo with Mickey then we finished exploring the park, including Andy’s room from Toy Story. 

 

Ev and Mickey

We left DisneyLand around 5pm (see clock below) with tired feet and uplifted hearts. Disney truly is a magical place where dreams come true and it was everything Ev had hoped it would be. We’ll be staying in Disney World Orlando in October as well!! Bye French speaking Mickey xx.
 

Arc de Triumphe

We caught our breath on the train back into the city and decided to stay out a bit later to see the Eiffel Tower in lights, but first the Arc de Triumphe at the Place Charles de Gaulle. This structure is a monument to the soldiers who fell during the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. The sunlight was perfect for displaying the heroic scenes displayed on the walls. A service was being held at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from WWI. It was good to see, especially having been to Omaha Beach yesterday.

Arc de Triumphe

We climbed the internal staircase to the top of the monument for some spectacular views of Paris (including the crazy driving beneath).

Paris Skyline from Arc de Triumphe

Eiffel Tower

We drove in that traffic!

We briskly walked towards the Eiffel Tower hoping to reach the top at sunset. From the Arc de Triumph it didn’t look too far away, but everything seems closer when you view things from above. (Check to photo above to see how far we had to walk.) It took us about an hour to get there, although we did stop for dinner at Haagen Dazs Ice cream. We arrived well and truly after sunset, but got some beautiful evening photos of the tower.

Eiffel Tower

From a distance, the view of the Tower and scenery was beautiful. We definitely felt more connected to the city and each other this time round. It was very relaxing. We made our way over the bridge where the dinner cruises were crossing then all of a sudden lights all over the Eiffel Tower lit up like twinkling fairy lights for a minute, then stopped. This was the 9pm sparkle just for us. 

 

Eiffel Tower

We carried on to the base of the tower but were held up by police officers. They were yelling pedestrians who attempted to cross the street to the tower. We thought dignitaries were coming and they had closed off the elevators for them, but after 10 minutes waiting we decided we could do without the expense of riding up so we walked to the train station and finally arrived home. Once we were more relaxed we turned the TV on to the news to see red alert messages that threats had been made to bomb the Eiffel Tower. That made more sense than our theory, but we were really lucky nothing happened. Hopefully nothing more serious will happen while we're here because we still have more to see in Paris. God protect us.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dan-ev/collections/72157624677997272