idratherbeinwdw
12-04-2005, 07:20 PM
It's my birthday! I'm such a kid at heart that I still love my birthday, even though I wish there were a few less candles on my cake. I was thrilled to be celebrating my birthday in such a special place with a friend I have known for over 25 years. So I woke up in a great mood, ready for fun.
After seeing how empty the park was the previous day we saw no need to be at rope drop. But since this was to be our last full day at the resort we didn't want to get there too late either. We had a leisurely morning, Elaine told me she got up at 8, I slept until about 8:30. The park didn't open until 10, we were out of our rooms about 9:30. We went to the lounge and had breakfast, same as yesterday. BTW there were characters in the lounge both days, chip and dale were there today, yesterday Mickey was there. Since it was unexpected and free it was a nice bonus.
The plan was to start out at the Studios, spend the morning there and leave after the 1PM parade.
The studios in Paris DL have some attractions in common with MGM (R&R, Art of Animation Tram Tour (with catastrophe canyon), as well as HISTA from Epcot. There are also 4 or 5 attractions unique to DLP, and the Cars Action Stunt Show currently at MGM that is "borrowed" from DLP for the 50 year DL celebration. Neither of us wanted to see the stunt show, it was 45 minutes long, more time then we wanted to invest in something neither of us was very interested in. We only 2 days to tour and we wanted to do the stuff we liked best. I'm sure if we had more time we would have checked it out, but since we didn't I'll catch it at MGM in WDW in January,
I wasn't that excited about the studios, saw no reason to do HISTA as I read it's exactly the same as the one in Epcot that I have seen many times, same for the animation and the tram tour. I'm not a coaster person so R&R was out for me, and Elaine wasn't into it enough to go solo. Both Elaine and I preferred to do the MK rides we really loved that were different than their WDW MK counterparts to doing the studios rides that were exact replicas. There were 2 or 3 things that didn't interest us There were two attractions I'd read about that were unique to DLP and supposedly super, Cinemagique and Animagique. So that was the plan, see the two shows (both of which were each about half an hour long), do a little shopping/walking around and then see the parade, have lunch and go back to the MK to redo our favorite things. The studios is still a work in progress, there's a lot less to do there than in DLP's MK, and also less to do than in MGM studios in FL.
The walk from our resort to The Studios was less than five minutes. The place looks nothing at all like MGM in WDW. The big hat is there, as is the earful tower, but the layout is 100% different. We stopped at Guest services to inquire about getting an "It's my Birthday" button, but they said they don't do that in Paris. They did give me a large pin (one that was for sale in the stores there, pin-trader style) that said Happy Birthday on it, which was a nice surprise. Other than that, although we did tell them it was a birthday trip, no recognition was made by the hotel for my birthday. Oh well. I didn't take it personally, I could see that the French are very understated, they don't make a big deal about such things.
After guest services, which is just inside the entrance, we proceeded into the park itself. You pass through a large hangar looking building that has shops and some fast food, and then you go out into the park itself. The partners statue greets you as you enter.
We arrived about 10:10, and proceeded to Animagique. Well this was the beginning of our Studios "curse" or so we called it. Animagique was closed and wasn't going to be opened again until the day we left. OK, we decide not to let that bum us out too much. So we walk over to Cinemagique, it's going to start in about 10 minutes. Yikes! The cm says there are technical difficulties and to try back later! We both look at each other, shrug and decide it was not meant to be. Decide to leave and head back to the MK.
Here's where things get a little foggy--and no, not because I was drinking French Wine, I wasn't drinking any alcohol at all. It was just that it was the second day, and since it was not my first time I pretty much forgot what order we did what in. I can tell that we did HM (phantom manor really but we never got used to calling it that) at least 8 more times, that's both our favorite so we went nuts going over and over. I had read that if you look up at the window occasionally a ghost parts the curtains and looked out, and sure enough we waited a while and were able to see it, that was neat. Also the cm's more than once freaked us out by sneaking up behind us and saying BOO! (while on line) or sticking their heads into the doom buggy at the last second and staring at us. I love when they do that at WDW, and of course I loved it here too. One of them repeatedly stood near us in the stretch room saying "ha ha ha" in a creepy voice. I am sure they recognized us since we kept going on so many times, and they figured we'd enjoy the interaction.
We did pirates at least 4 more times, IASM twice, Pinochio 3 more times because we were looking for a hidden mickey we'd read about and it took us three more times to finally see it. We did an attraction called Mystery of the Nautilus which we both found silly. It was a mock up of a submarine, but it didn't do much otherwise, we didnt find it "mysterious" in any way. Once was plenty to do that. As I said I am not a coaster person, I kept encouraging Elaine to do TMRR but she didn't want to. We rode the carousel, which is basically identical to the one in WDW.
We also shopped a bunch in search of the all elusive Castle Tshirt. I finally asked someone and was told that no, such a shirt does not exist. She explained parisians would never wear such a thing.
They do have pin trading at DLRP btw, but nowhere near the level that it is in WDW. Very few guests had pins, and most of the cm pins were the same from one to the other. I did get a few trades, nothing too spectacular, but they were at least Paris pins. I saw plenty from WDW too, most I already had. I got most of my trades in the emporium one day, there was a CM with a board full of pins, and you could trade as many as you wanted. Even then only 3 interested me, as most were run of the mill and I could get them in FL. BTW in spite of what you may have heard, the Paris cms were very nice, very friendly and I did not get one iota of feeling like they were rude in any way because I was American. In fact most who I got talking to were dying to go to WDW florida and had many questions about it. The cm with the pin board had been there, and in fact was well aware of DVC and quite envious that I was a member.
We didnt want to do the parade again, so we left, took a little break at the resort, and then walked over to the marketplace (think downtown disney) to shop and eat lunch. We ate at Annette's diner, which had fare similar to the sci fi dine in--shakes, burgers, fries, typical american fare. We had a tasty club sandwich and yummy onion rings, which we split because neither of us was hungry enough for a full meal.
I hoped against hope I'd find something I'd like in the marketplace to take home as a souvenir, but there wasn't anything that was special e nough. There was nothing uniquely DLP that spoke to me, it was, as I mentioned earlier, 90% kid stuff. I had bought a mini snow that had the sleeping beauty castle in it in the store in the disneyland hotel, and the shirt (I mentioned in another post) in the emporium, but all I could find in the marketplace were a couple of fridge magnets that were cute and had the all-elusive castle on them.
I imagine I am running out of alloted space, this will be continued in the next post.
After seeing how empty the park was the previous day we saw no need to be at rope drop. But since this was to be our last full day at the resort we didn't want to get there too late either. We had a leisurely morning, Elaine told me she got up at 8, I slept until about 8:30. The park didn't open until 10, we were out of our rooms about 9:30. We went to the lounge and had breakfast, same as yesterday. BTW there were characters in the lounge both days, chip and dale were there today, yesterday Mickey was there. Since it was unexpected and free it was a nice bonus.
The plan was to start out at the Studios, spend the morning there and leave after the 1PM parade.
The studios in Paris DL have some attractions in common with MGM (R&R, Art of Animation Tram Tour (with catastrophe canyon), as well as HISTA from Epcot. There are also 4 or 5 attractions unique to DLP, and the Cars Action Stunt Show currently at MGM that is "borrowed" from DLP for the 50 year DL celebration. Neither of us wanted to see the stunt show, it was 45 minutes long, more time then we wanted to invest in something neither of us was very interested in. We only 2 days to tour and we wanted to do the stuff we liked best. I'm sure if we had more time we would have checked it out, but since we didn't I'll catch it at MGM in WDW in January,
I wasn't that excited about the studios, saw no reason to do HISTA as I read it's exactly the same as the one in Epcot that I have seen many times, same for the animation and the tram tour. I'm not a coaster person so R&R was out for me, and Elaine wasn't into it enough to go solo. Both Elaine and I preferred to do the MK rides we really loved that were different than their WDW MK counterparts to doing the studios rides that were exact replicas. There were 2 or 3 things that didn't interest us There were two attractions I'd read about that were unique to DLP and supposedly super, Cinemagique and Animagique. So that was the plan, see the two shows (both of which were each about half an hour long), do a little shopping/walking around and then see the parade, have lunch and go back to the MK to redo our favorite things. The studios is still a work in progress, there's a lot less to do there than in DLP's MK, and also less to do than in MGM studios in FL.
The walk from our resort to The Studios was less than five minutes. The place looks nothing at all like MGM in WDW. The big hat is there, as is the earful tower, but the layout is 100% different. We stopped at Guest services to inquire about getting an "It's my Birthday" button, but they said they don't do that in Paris. They did give me a large pin (one that was for sale in the stores there, pin-trader style) that said Happy Birthday on it, which was a nice surprise. Other than that, although we did tell them it was a birthday trip, no recognition was made by the hotel for my birthday. Oh well. I didn't take it personally, I could see that the French are very understated, they don't make a big deal about such things.
After guest services, which is just inside the entrance, we proceeded into the park itself. You pass through a large hangar looking building that has shops and some fast food, and then you go out into the park itself. The partners statue greets you as you enter.
We arrived about 10:10, and proceeded to Animagique. Well this was the beginning of our Studios "curse" or so we called it. Animagique was closed and wasn't going to be opened again until the day we left. OK, we decide not to let that bum us out too much. So we walk over to Cinemagique, it's going to start in about 10 minutes. Yikes! The cm says there are technical difficulties and to try back later! We both look at each other, shrug and decide it was not meant to be. Decide to leave and head back to the MK.
Here's where things get a little foggy--and no, not because I was drinking French Wine, I wasn't drinking any alcohol at all. It was just that it was the second day, and since it was not my first time I pretty much forgot what order we did what in. I can tell that we did HM (phantom manor really but we never got used to calling it that) at least 8 more times, that's both our favorite so we went nuts going over and over. I had read that if you look up at the window occasionally a ghost parts the curtains and looked out, and sure enough we waited a while and were able to see it, that was neat. Also the cm's more than once freaked us out by sneaking up behind us and saying BOO! (while on line) or sticking their heads into the doom buggy at the last second and staring at us. I love when they do that at WDW, and of course I loved it here too. One of them repeatedly stood near us in the stretch room saying "ha ha ha" in a creepy voice. I am sure they recognized us since we kept going on so many times, and they figured we'd enjoy the interaction.
We did pirates at least 4 more times, IASM twice, Pinochio 3 more times because we were looking for a hidden mickey we'd read about and it took us three more times to finally see it. We did an attraction called Mystery of the Nautilus which we both found silly. It was a mock up of a submarine, but it didn't do much otherwise, we didnt find it "mysterious" in any way. Once was plenty to do that. As I said I am not a coaster person, I kept encouraging Elaine to do TMRR but she didn't want to. We rode the carousel, which is basically identical to the one in WDW.
We also shopped a bunch in search of the all elusive Castle Tshirt. I finally asked someone and was told that no, such a shirt does not exist. She explained parisians would never wear such a thing.
They do have pin trading at DLRP btw, but nowhere near the level that it is in WDW. Very few guests had pins, and most of the cm pins were the same from one to the other. I did get a few trades, nothing too spectacular, but they were at least Paris pins. I saw plenty from WDW too, most I already had. I got most of my trades in the emporium one day, there was a CM with a board full of pins, and you could trade as many as you wanted. Even then only 3 interested me, as most were run of the mill and I could get them in FL. BTW in spite of what you may have heard, the Paris cms were very nice, very friendly and I did not get one iota of feeling like they were rude in any way because I was American. In fact most who I got talking to were dying to go to WDW florida and had many questions about it. The cm with the pin board had been there, and in fact was well aware of DVC and quite envious that I was a member.
We didnt want to do the parade again, so we left, took a little break at the resort, and then walked over to the marketplace (think downtown disney) to shop and eat lunch. We ate at Annette's diner, which had fare similar to the sci fi dine in--shakes, burgers, fries, typical american fare. We had a tasty club sandwich and yummy onion rings, which we split because neither of us was hungry enough for a full meal.
I hoped against hope I'd find something I'd like in the marketplace to take home as a souvenir, but there wasn't anything that was special e nough. There was nothing uniquely DLP that spoke to me, it was, as I mentioned earlier, 90% kid stuff. I had bought a mini snow that had the sleeping beauty castle in it in the store in the disneyland hotel, and the shirt (I mentioned in another post) in the emporium, but all I could find in the marketplace were a couple of fridge magnets that were cute and had the all-elusive castle on them.
I imagine I am running out of alloted space, this will be continued in the next post.