The Disneyland Paris Half Marathon Weekend had the added benefit that it gave us the excuse to visit Disneyland Paris for the first time. (Now Shanghai is the only Disney park we haven’t visited.)

There’s two theme parks there: Disneyland Paris, and Walt Disney Studios. Plus Downtown Disney and the various resort hotels. As I mentioned in my race blogs, the resort is pretty compact and everything is within walking distance. Similar to Disneyland, but without a big city surrounding it. The park feels like it’s off by itself.

I really hadn’t done too much research on Disneyland Paris before our trip. I’d heard about some of the attractions but intentionally didn’t want to know very much.

We visited in the off-season from Wednesday through Sunday. The parks were very quiet on Wednesday-Friday, and also on Sunday evening. Saturday was busy, but not awful. But because it was off-season there were a number of attractions that were undergoing refurbishment, and a number of restaurants that were closed.

Disneyland Paris

I was surprised that the Disneyland Hotel is on the park boundary – we walked under the hotel to reach the entrance turnstiles. Which means that some of the rooms look into the park. It’s really a lovely hotel.

Disneyland Paris was preparing for their Halloween celebration (though it didn’t officially start until October 1), and some of the decorations were up. We saw changes in the first few days of our visit – figures would pop up that we hadn’t seen the day before.

Really very festive – and I particularly enjoyed all of the different ghost figures. I wish they’d do those at Disneyland.

One interesting thing about their Main Street – there’s the street part, but then behind the buildings on both sides of the streets is a covered arcade. There are entrances to all of the shops and restaurants from the arcade side. Great way to get out of the weather, or to bypass crowds on Main Street.

And the castle…it’s just lovely. Even if it is pink. I think it’s my new favorite Disney castle now.

There’s a dragon under the castle!!! I had heard about the dragon, and wanted to make sure that we saw that. She was a bit temperamental, but we saw her wake up and roar at us a few times.

I really, really loved the Fantasyland at Disneyland Paris. It’s huge and roomy and very nicely laid out, and there’s lots of attractions – more than in any other area of the park. There’s lots of little extra touches, too, like this water feature. I was disappointed that the Pinocchio attraction was down for refurbishment, and the castle walk-through was also closed, but otherwise we were able to do all of the Fantasyland attractions.

There’s a Toad Hall! But it’s a fish and chips restaurant. We didn’t get chance to try it.

The Casey Jr. Circus Train is much different than the one at Disneyland – I was surprised at how fast it goes. It’s more like a junior Big Thunder Mountain. Even though it goes around Storybook Land it’s not really a good way to see that like it is at Disneyland in California – it goes too fast.

This version of Storybook Land Canal Boats is called Le Pays des Contes de Fées. It’s not narrated like the one in California.

There are more scenes, and much different stories, than the one here. Like Peter and the Wolf, Night on Bald Mountain, The Sword in the Stone, Beauty and the Beast, and even the Wizard of Oz!

Alice’s Curious Labyrinth was fun.

It really was a maze with dead ends and circular paths. Unfortunately the Queen of Hearts area was closed off, but at least we could go through the rest of it.

I love carousels, and Le Carrousel de Lancelot was beautiful. One really surprising thing – the horses on the two outer circles of the carousel are HUGE! Definitely sized for adults and not kids. The horses on the two inner circles are smaller – more the size I’m used to seeing. They weren’t as elaborately decorated as the larger ones.

Lee dragged me onto “it’s a small world”. It actually wasn’t too bad!

There were some different figures than we have here, like the Loch Ness Monster and Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.

The U.S. section was interesting – very western cowboys and indians, with Hollywood and the Statue of Liberty thrown in.

We visited Fantasyland one night – the lighting on some of the attractions was very nice.

As was the lighting on the castle.

The very first land we visited after Main Street was Frontierland. It had been overrun by Pumpkin People. 🙂

Unfortunately much of Frontierland was closed because of a long, extensive refurbishment of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and the area around it. I’ve been told that it’s the best Thunder Mountain, so I was disappointed to miss it.

The only attractions open in Frontierland were Phantom Manor and the train station. Phantom Manor was our first attraction at Disneyland Paris. That was the attraction I’d hear the most about – mostly that it was a little more grisly and scary than the mansions at the other Disney parks. Since it was placed in Frontierland the house was quite different than the others.

And inside the decor reflected more of the Western theme, also. Especially when we reached the graveyard scene. Much more of a “Boot Hill” look. And lots of skeletons in rotting clothes. I was expecting it to be even worse, but it was definitely more intense than the ones I’ve seen in California, Orlando, and Tokyo. And I was surprised that there was no narration at all during the ride.

Another surprise was the cast members. They seemed to have much more leeway to interact with the guests, and were shushing people who were talking in the Stretch Room, and telling them to put away their phones and cameras (the lighted screens were distracting).

In Adventureland we rode Pirates of the Caribbean. It was very nice to see the classic, non-politically correct version of Pirates where they were still chasing their brides. And it was refreshing to not see Jack Sparrow. It’s the reverse of the one in California – Paris starts with the “live” pirates and finishes with the skeletal pirates.

Indiana Jones et le Temple du Péril was another attraction closed for refurbishment so we didn’t get to experience that, either.

We wandered around Adventure Isle – it seemed as though there were lots of activities there to entertain the kids.

And there were more Halloween pumpkins – though these are the only ones we saw outside of Frontierland and Main Street.

Discoveryland is the Paris equivalent of Tomorrowland. It’s the Jules Verne look that we had at Disneyland for a while, though it works much better in Paris. There were a lot of construction walls up in Discoveryland, and Star Tours was closed for refurbishment.

We rode Space Mountain. It’s much different than the attractions at Disneyland and Magic Kingdom. More like Rock’n’Roller Coaster, with the launch and the inversions. It was a pretty good coaster but neither of us wanted to do it a second time. The corkscrews are hard on my neck, especially when it’s dark and I can’t anticipate them.

Also visited Les Mysteres du Nautilus which is a walk-through of the submarine. I wanted to see the giant squid but that effect didn’t seem to be working.

Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast is a lot like the one at Disneyland – except that the Buzz animatronic is in French mode. 🙂 Lee got a higher score than I did, too – he almost never does that here!

The afternoon parade is called Disney Magic on Parade. It certainly starts off with a lot of magic – the opening unit features the three fairies from Sleeping Beauty, the Fairy Godmother, Merlin, and the Blue Fairy! I was especially happy to see the Blue Fairy.

I enjoyed the parade – there were lots of characters, and the floats themselves were really detailed and creative.

One interesting thing about the floats is that most of them had a different story depicted on the back side than the front side! For example, this float had Frozen on the front and Tangled on the back.

The final float had Tinker Bell tucked away in a little alcove on the back of the float. She was saucy and sassy and enjoying herself.

The nighttime show is Disney Dreams. It’s much more of a castle projection show than a fireworks show – the fireworks are more of an accent to what’s happening on the castle.

I liked the show. It actually had a little bit of a plot that strung together all of the various scenes from the different movies. The projections were very clear, and the castle is so large that they were easy to see. I especially enjoyed the Hunchback of Notre Dame segment. Though that’s the only reference to that movie that I saw in our time at Disneyland Paris. Too bad.

We think that normally there are fountains in the moat that accompany the show, but the moat was also undergoing refurbishment. At least it didn’t prevent them from doing the rest of the show.

We really enjoyed our time at Disneyland Paris, and I’d like to go back some day. Here’s a final look at the Disneyland Hotel as we left the park the last night of our trip.

The Walt Disney Studios report is coming up next!

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