Europe Road Trip: Day 3 - Disneyland Paris

Filled with croissants and pastries from the breakfast buffet at our hotel, we caught the shuttle bus over to the Disneyland Paris parks, which are conveniently located adjacent to each other. Through the security check (with fewer gun-toting soldiers than Asterix!) we collected our complimentary tickets (thanks Alex!) and queued up at the gates of the Disney Studios park to await opening. We decided to do this one first because it had shorter opening hours than the main Disneyland park, and also because it had the better thrill rides.

We headed immediately to the Tower of Terror and after a short technical delay in opening, were one of the first to ride. When visiting Florida in 2014 their version of this ride had been one of my highlights, and I was pleased to find the Paris one just as good. The staff were magnificently in character, and the ride itself is just as exciting as I remember. We bought a Photopass for the day, so we were able to acquire on-ride photos from everything we went on (well, all the ones that had a camera, at least!)

However, we began to run into what became a recurring problem - as it was an "off peak" day the shops were being run on as few staff as they could manage, which tended to mean the photo counter was also the till, and thus had larger queues. This was not helped by certain photo products having to be assembled by the cashier at time of purchase, which could lead to long waits if a family ahead bought several products. We joked that for some rides the queue for the photos was longer than that to get onto the attraction!

Over at Rock'n'Rollercoaster we again had no problem with queues, walking almost straight into the pre-show. The coaster itself was very similar to the Florida one, as far as I remember, being an indoor Vekoma launched coaster with a few corkscrews thrown in for good measure. The theming inside was different however - while the Florida one was themed around the journey, with road signs and traffic signals, the Paris one had musical imagery instead.

Next door was the Armageddon attraction - a special effects experience along the lines of the Twister attraction at Universal Studios. We had to show how well we could scream and duck (as if that'd help when a large rock is heading towards Earth) and were then ushered into a spaceship command room where various effects went bang and shook - all the usual. The lady guiding us through it was notable for her enthusiasm all the way through!

We'd been recommended to try Stitch's Escape, but kept missing the showtimes and arriving when the next one was half an hour away. This happened more than once...

Another ride we'd been advised to try was Ratatouille, though neither of us knew what to expect - RJ especially as he'd never actually seen the film. It was probably the ride that most impressed us technically. You board rat-themed cars which move through various 3D scenes in a similar way to the Spiderman or Transformers attractions at Universal. However, the big difference is that the cars aren't running on a track - instead they glide across the floor, often dancing around each other and moving in different directions. The way the scenes are directed, you feel like you are one of the rats running across the kitchen floors and through the vents - it's really nicely done and I highly recommend it - was well worth the 40 minute queue.

Coming out of there we found we'd missed Stitch again, so decided it was a good time to do the Studio Backlot Tour. I have a sneaking suspicion Disney don't actually produce any programmes at the park, so instead the tour took in a couple of set pieces where special effects involving fire, water and moving platforms made for a diverting 10 minutes or so.

Having missed Stitch again (next show 35 minutes) we decided we'd have our photo taken with Goofy and Pluto, who were out in the middle of the park. We joined a queue, and had been in it for roughly 10 minutes when it was announced that the characters needed a quick break and would be back shortly. Once they reappeared, we stood behind agonisingly slow families having various combinations of photos taken, as we counted down the minutes until Stitch would begin. At about 4 minutes to go, and with us next in the queue, the character minders again announced there would be a break. We could have screamed!

RJ then asked the minder if we could just really quickly have our photos done as we had to be elsewhere. The minder didn't understand a word of it, so just let us. We got our photos (and hugs) and then actually ran across to Stitch.

Only to find we'd missed it again, by a matter of minutes. RJ in particular wasn't happy...

By this point we were getting hungry so decided to try and find lunch. This was where a combination of factors came into play. For a start, as a park, Disney Studios doesn't have that many food outlets. And because today was an off-peak day, several of the ones it did have were closed. We tried in vain to find anything that wasn't either an expensive table-service restaurant or a burger, and failed completely. All I wanted was a sandwich!

Instead we went over to Crush's Coaster. This was an indoor spinning coaster with cars shaped like turtle shells. It was very good fun, especially as in the dark you could barely see where you were going, and with the spinning had no idea in which direction!

Returning to Stitch one final time we saw it had around 20 minutes to go until the next showing, and decided we may as well just sit it out and wait. In the meantime we tucked into a couple of bags of crisps that RJ had brought with him, which kept us going. Stitch's Escape turned out to be similar to Epcot's "Turtle Talk with Crush", where a cast member voiced an animated Stitch, and interacted with members of the audience in an amusing way.

A repeat ride on Tower of Terror rounded off our time in the park, so we headed over to Disneyland to find lunch. My best friend Chel was also visiting Disneyland today, so we were texting (no wifi in the parks for some archaic reason) to try to meet up.

A disappointing sandwich from the Main Street Deli was lunch - it was €2 more expensive than the equivalent I had yesterday at Parc Asterix and nowhere near as nice. I have to say, compared to the rather good food we had in Florida I've not been massively impressed with the Disneyland Paris catering thus far. The French surely don't stand for this rubbish, right?

Knowing it had limited opening hours, our first port of call was the "Meet Mickey Mouse" attraction. In the queue for this we finally managed to bump into Chel and her friend Helen. We wanted to try and do some rides together but a combination of our ride schedule and their booked evening meal meant we didn't manage it. Instead we did Pirates of the Caribbean (no queue) followed by Phantom Manor, their version of the Haunted Mansion, which was a total walk-on. Compared to the earlier queues in the Studios park and the busy pathways, none of the rides we visited had much of a wait at all, which was a pleasant surprise!

The parade had just finished, so the centre of the park was clearing as we hopped across to Discoveryland to ride Space Mountain. The special effects were eyecatching and the uphill launch was something different, but I have to say I preferred the Magic Kingdom version. It was still a fun ride though!

Opposite was Buzz Lightyear's Laser Blast, an attraction themed around Buzz and my favourite Toy Story characters - the little green three-eyed aliens, fixated on The Claw. I managed a very respectable score of around 230,000 using special secret tactics I'm not telling you, whereas others I saw only scored around 60,000.

The last couple of rides on our list were the Mad Hatter's Teacups and It's A Small World. The former's just a fairly standard teacup ride, the latter is... infamous. The tune will no doubt be in my head for the next week or six. Although the queue was short, some delays with loading a disabled rider and some people who didn't seem to realise they needed to sit down before the ride could be dispatched slowed things down somewhat. Fans of the Florida version will be pleased to know the Paris version retains the stylish polystyrene ceiling tiles.

By now it was a) almost time for the fireworks and b) time for dinner. Our original plan had been to sit down at a table service restaurant, but a combination of time, budget and generally finding somewhere open on an off-peak day meant that we decided on a quick service chicken burger meal instead. I managed to order both our meals in French at the same time, with the cashier only having trouble understanding one part (the choice between fruit and yogurt, which is odd as they sound nothing like each other, no matter how bad my French pronunciation!)

Straight after we took advantage of the lack of queues by having another blast on Space Mountain, then squeezed our way into the main square to find a good spot to view the fireworks. The "Dreams" show was very nicely done, with a storyline around Peter Pan's shadow going missing and ending up in scenes from various Disney animated films. The fireworks were more low-key than those in the US (but I expect being in a relatively built-up area there's the neighbours to think of) but the show was still very enjoyable.

Once the exit crush had subsided we had a browse through the shops on Main Street along with several hundred others who'd had the same idea, and made our way out to catch the shuttle bus back to the hotel, along with several hundred others. When the bus pulled in it was swamped immediately - our original plan was to get on at the front but a lady with a pushchair decided to park it right in the way so that didn't work. Instead we squeezed on at the centre doors in the way only Londoners would think to do. Thankfully our hotel was the first stop so it wasn't for long!

Tomorrow's a driving day, so no big park update at least. First, I'm going to put my feet up :)

The scores so far
Favourite Coaster	Osiris, Parc Asterix
Least Favourite Coaster	Rock'n'Rollercoaster, Disneyland Park
Favourite Non-Coaster	Tower of Terror, Disney Studios
Least Favourite Non-Coaster	It's a Small World
Best Food	Parc Asterix
Worst Food	Disney Explorers Hotel
Most Idiots Smoking	Parc Asterix
Best Theming	Disneyland Park