Disneyland Paris Trip April 2013: Day 2 - Walt Disney Studios Park

I'll skip all the waking up and having breakfast portion of this post.
An empty Disneyland Park during Extra Magic Hours
We got to Disneyland at 8:20am today - super early and the park was almost empty. It was incredible. We went straight to Discoveryland and rode Space Mountain twice in a row which was lots of fun. There was no one in the queue when we arrived but they still said we had to go round: I don't understand why? Not very magical is it?

Once we were done with that, we moved onto Orbitron: Machines Volantes which is a bit like dumbo except you go much higher and it feels much faster, especially at the top. I really enjoyed myself on this ride, even if it was very simple. Then we moved onto Buzz Lightyear: Laser Blast which I lost as usual. Then it was over to Fantasyland for a ride on Dumbo, followed by Peter Pan's Flight. It was incredible that we'd managed to do six rides in about forty minutes! And if we had wanted we could have gone on the Carousel or re-ridden the rides. 

With half an hour of Extra Magic Hours left we left the park and walked over to the stu
dios and queued at the entrance for about 10 minutes only to find out that Crush's Coaster was not operated at the moment. The ride which we had deliberately crossed over to do was closed. In an effort to make the most of our time we headed straight for the Tower of Terror arriving there at about 9:35am. Officially the rides are only meant to start running at 10am but the secret is that the big ones like Crush and Tower of Terror actually open slightly early.


At 9:40am we were in the Tower of Terror hotel lobby, at 9:45 we were in the library room and at about 9:50am we were boarding the first elevator of the day, which was pretty cool being the first to ride that day. As usual the suspense is immense and then the drops are terrifying but fun.

We then headed over to Toy Story Playland and waited for the opening of the Parachute drop. It started to rain really, really heavily which of course is where the handy umbrellas I'd been carrying around came into play. I hadn't even noticed but the park hadn't actually opened yet and they played the opening announcement over the speakers. About 10 minutes later the Parachute Drop ride opened after having been tested. We got the second ride of the day on this. It still was faster than I thought it'd be even after having been on it before and having just been on the Tower of Terror. You did get a really good view from the top of the Ratatouille ride construction although I got some photos from ground level as I didn't want to risk my camera up there.

Ratatouille ride construction: April 10 2013
Then we went on Slinky Dog which made my brother and me burst out laughing when the ride audio said: "Look at how fast Slinky is" and then the ride ground to a halt as it was stopping ha ha.

We then walked towards Crush to quickly check if it was open, it wasn't. We rode Cars Rally which was surprisingly fun for what it looked like and there was some really good theming in the queue. Thankfully the queue was only 15 minutes as I wouldn't have wanted to have waited any longer.

We walked past Crush again, hoping it would be open but the Cast Member said it "might" open in the afternoon but they weren't sure. The day sounded like it was going to be a write off at this rate. We did have a tour booked for 3PM but after all the walking yesterday we decided we should take in the parks and hotels and the whole area by ourselves, and more slowly. I will be doing the guided tour at the Walt Disney Studios Park on a future trip though, as it'd be nice to hear how things were designed. I do expect this park to undergo a big re-theming in the near future though and a grand makeover, so there may very well be a new guided tour anyways.


Cinemagique was our next stop: an interesting film which breaks the "fourth wall" - it had a few new scenes and I hand't seen this in a couple of years so it was nice to see it again. There is a very loud explosion though which I feel could be toned down a bit. Then it was over the Animagique - even though I know the storyline off by heart I still love this show. The enthusiasm of the actors, the music, the scenery and the whole concept of the show is just great! Plus I like singing along to the songs.

It was almost time for lunch but we wanted to do Rock n Rollercoaster before we ate, so that was the next stop. Apart from the fact we were stuck just before the launch for a couple of minutes (Which really got the tension going), it was awesome! Love that ride. I suggested we re-ride it again, but S was starving.

We had lunch in McDonalds this day to keep the cost down. My notes say that it was 13.90 euros for 2 meals: A Chicken Nuggets meal and a Big Mac meal, plus an extra hamburger (1.5 euros for a hamburger!!). It was much cheaper than the park's food prices, but by no means as cheap as in the UK where we could have got the same food for about 30% less. 

The intention was to go and watch the parade after McDonald's but we were already tired and had done 13 attractions already that day and it was only lunchtime! It was definitely time for a break. We decided to get the bus back to the hotel instead of the RER and I think the driver misunderstood me and thought I wanted to go to Val d'Europe without staying in a hotel there - I was then charged 4 euros (2 euros each for this 5 minute bus journey! Ridiculous! I have later read that this is meant to be free, so next time I'll just board and not ask! There's only 1 bus an hour though which is ridiculous!).

At Val d'Europe we went straight to Auchan and bought some food for the next few days. We then went back to the hotel and relaxed for a good bit. Then it was off to Marne-La-Valle chessy station again and into Disneyland Park.


Here we explored Adventure Isle and saw the bamboo trees that had been mentioned in the previous day's tour. 
Me exploring Adventure Isle
We also rode Pirates of the Caribbean which is always dangerously dark inside in the queue area (I seriously don't know how the french government allows it!), my favourite Big Thunder Mountain, and then Phantom Manor.

Next we walked back across to the Disney Village and explored the New York Hotel which was very nice, and it was incredible how it felt like nighttime inside. This was followed by the Sequoia Lodge which is my new favoured and not just because my friend Eilidh used to work there, but also because the theming was great inside and it has a really nice outdoor balcony with chairs which we sat down 
in for a nice break.
View from sequoia lodge bar balcony

The final hotel stop was the Newport Bay Club hotel which is very nice inside but is absolutely huge, and has a very impressive pool. It was my least favourite of the Disney hotels I'd seen that day though.

Next we walked to the Earl of Sandwich and I had the Jerk Chicken which was great, my borther had asked for a a Ham sandwich, so I asked for it to just be ham and bread with no cheese or mustard. It was noted on the order. Lo-and-behold it came with cheese and mustard which my brother didn't like. He did eat half of it however, as we didn't have time to get it changed as we would have missed Disney Dreams. In hindsight we should have gone and got the sandwich replaced to something he liked as we had ordered, even if we had eaten it in the park after. 

This night for Disney Dreams we got a spot a bit further back on Main Street which was good but not quite as good as the day before's spot which was pretty much perfect. The fact that it was also raining very heavily really (pardon the pun) dampened the atmosphere. Dreams was good but not quite the same, there were a few flamethrower bits missing as well as fireworks, but it was still great - apart from the rain, and the people who rudely stand in front of you at the last minute.

Off we went home at the end of Dreams and we got to our hotel in 30 minutes instead of the hour it took the day before. That's pretty successful I thought.

Read Day 1 of this trip report here and Day 3 here

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