Where was Bertie? He spent the night in the Aire at Disneyland Paris at a cost of €40.
Weather: Sunny intervals, warming up from around 12 degrees to 20 degrees.
I'm going to start by nipping back to 2013, when we celebrated our 10th wedding aniversary with a trip to Florida. Everything was arranged and paid for, including a week at Disney, when Mick suddenly voiced his concern that I would hate Disney World. Too late to worry by then, we went ahead and discovered that I absolutely loved Disney. So much so that we extended our stay there to two weeks.
In 2019, with a significant birthday coming up, we decided to take Mick's boys, their partners, and all of the grandchildren to Disneyland Paris. That was all booked for April 2020 and, obviously, it didn't happen (because Disney was closed, Eurostar wasn't running and even if they were, we were all trapped at home).
So, we'd never been to EuroDisney (as I still think of it), and we were going to find ourselves driving past Paris (not something that happens very often). Thus, last week I booked us some tickets, just for the one park and just for one day.
A relatively early start (away at 0730) saw us arrive at Disney at around 0845, and with just a small delay at the entrance to the Aire (the Italian van in front of us had great problems getting in; we just drove up and the APR system opened the barrier for us) we found ourselves with a choice of around 475 motorhome parking spaces (assuming that the 500-van capacity that I've read is true; it's certainly a huge area). However, around 485 of the spaces are covered with part of the massive Disney solar farm, and we wanted to be out in the sun, which gave us a choice of three spaces. In case I'm being perplexing with the maths, there were about 25 motorhomes already parked up, about 12 of which were in the uncovered area.
The only downside of the outside spaces was that they are at exactly the opposite end of entire car park from the Park's entrance, giving a 1.2km walk.
A long old day was had. We were in the park from when it opened at 0930 until gone 1530, when we escaped back to Bertie for a couple of pots of tea. The intention had been to eat early, then return to the park for the main parade of the day, but once we'd collapsed into Bertie our inclination for the parade waned, as we couldn't see what we were going to find to do in between that finishing and the night show starting. We had already done everything we wanted to do in the park, bar one roller coaster. It turns out that Disneyland Paris is really quite compact, in that the walk between attractions is at most 7 minutes (contrast with Alton Towers, where we went in July, which has less stuff, but is much more spread out), and the queues yesterday were really short for everything we wanted to do bar Big Thunder Mountain (and even that peaked at 45 minutes), so great chunks of the day weren't wasted in queuing.
At quarter past five, I suddenly decided that as this was likely a one-off visit, we really ought to make the most of it, so we sprang into action, power-marched back to the park and got there just as the parade was starting (and fifteen minutes before it reached where we were standing, so we could have been a bit more leisurely). Worth the effort, I declared, as we made the walk back to Bertie for tea.
Our last forkfuls had no sooner been deposited in our mouths than I chivvied us back out the door. The queue for the Big Thunder Mountain roller coaster was being reported as 45 minutes, I didn't want to leave without having a go on it, and I also didn't want to miss the big lightshow that acts as the finale to the day.
Big Thunder Mountain was excellent (and we were off the ride 30 minutes after joining the queue). The Electrical Sky Parade (essentially drones flying in formation, lighting up to create shapes in the sky, but in the dark so you don't see the drones, just the lightshow) was fantastic. The subsequent 'light spectacular' was pretty good too. The huge crush as everyone then tried to exit the park simultaneously wasn't such fun.
Even less fun was the state we'd left Bertie in, with dirty dishes and pans everywhere, but we sorted that out before we finally fell into bed.
A long day, but good value. The tickets had cost us £54 each (they were £60 on the UK Disney site, but by buying in Euros (I chose the Irish site for ease of language) I got a more favourable exchange rate), and the parking was a smidge under £34. Yes, €40 looks expensive on the face of it for just a secure motorhome parking space, but when you consider that the fee is €30 for day-parking for cars, then €40 for a day and a night looks far more reasonable, and it's certainly convenient having a living room and kitchen available on site; I'm not sure we'd have lasted until closing time without that luxury. It was surprisingly quiet overnight too; or maybe it was really noisy and we were just tired!
Weather: Sunny intervals, warming up from around 12 degrees to 20 degrees.
I'm going to start by nipping back to 2013, when we celebrated our 10th wedding aniversary with a trip to Florida. Everything was arranged and paid for, including a week at Disney, when Mick suddenly voiced his concern that I would hate Disney World. Too late to worry by then, we went ahead and discovered that I absolutely loved Disney. So much so that we extended our stay there to two weeks.
In 2019, with a significant birthday coming up, we decided to take Mick's boys, their partners, and all of the grandchildren to Disneyland Paris. That was all booked for April 2020 and, obviously, it didn't happen (because Disney was closed, Eurostar wasn't running and even if they were, we were all trapped at home).
So, we'd never been to EuroDisney (as I still think of it), and we were going to find ourselves driving past Paris (not something that happens very often). Thus, last week I booked us some tickets, just for the one park and just for one day.
A relatively early start (away at 0730) saw us arrive at Disney at around 0845, and with just a small delay at the entrance to the Aire (the Italian van in front of us had great problems getting in; we just drove up and the APR system opened the barrier for us) we found ourselves with a choice of around 475 motorhome parking spaces (assuming that the 500-van capacity that I've read is true; it's certainly a huge area). However, around 485 of the spaces are covered with part of the massive Disney solar farm, and we wanted to be out in the sun, which gave us a choice of three spaces. In case I'm being perplexing with the maths, there were about 25 motorhomes already parked up, about 12 of which were in the uncovered area.
The only downside of the outside spaces was that they are at exactly the opposite end of entire car park from the Park's entrance, giving a 1.2km walk.
A long old day was had. We were in the park from when it opened at 0930 until gone 1530, when we escaped back to Bertie for a couple of pots of tea. The intention had been to eat early, then return to the park for the main parade of the day, but once we'd collapsed into Bertie our inclination for the parade waned, as we couldn't see what we were going to find to do in between that finishing and the night show starting. We had already done everything we wanted to do in the park, bar one roller coaster. It turns out that Disneyland Paris is really quite compact, in that the walk between attractions is at most 7 minutes (contrast with Alton Towers, where we went in July, which has less stuff, but is much more spread out), and the queues yesterday were really short for everything we wanted to do bar Big Thunder Mountain (and even that peaked at 45 minutes), so great chunks of the day weren't wasted in queuing.
At quarter past five, I suddenly decided that as this was likely a one-off visit, we really ought to make the most of it, so we sprang into action, power-marched back to the park and got there just as the parade was starting (and fifteen minutes before it reached where we were standing, so we could have been a bit more leisurely). Worth the effort, I declared, as we made the walk back to Bertie for tea.
Our last forkfuls had no sooner been deposited in our mouths than I chivvied us back out the door. The queue for the Big Thunder Mountain roller coaster was being reported as 45 minutes, I didn't want to leave without having a go on it, and I also didn't want to miss the big lightshow that acts as the finale to the day.
Big Thunder Mountain was excellent (and we were off the ride 30 minutes after joining the queue). The Electrical Sky Parade (essentially drones flying in formation, lighting up to create shapes in the sky, but in the dark so you don't see the drones, just the lightshow) was fantastic. The subsequent 'light spectacular' was pretty good too. The huge crush as everyone then tried to exit the park simultaneously wasn't such fun.
Even less fun was the state we'd left Bertie in, with dirty dishes and pans everywhere, but we sorted that out before we finally fell into bed.
A long day, but good value. The tickets had cost us £54 each (they were £60 on the UK Disney site, but by buying in Euros (I chose the Irish site for ease of language) I got a more favourable exchange rate), and the parking was a smidge under £34. Yes, €40 looks expensive on the face of it for just a secure motorhome parking space, but when you consider that the fee is €30 for day-parking for cars, then €40 for a day and a night looks far more reasonable, and it's certainly convenient having a living room and kitchen available on site; I'm not sure we'd have lasted until closing time without that luxury. It was surprisingly quiet overnight too; or maybe it was really noisy and we were just tired!
A few photos, in reverse order, because I'm being too lazy to insert them one by one, and if I select a whole bunch together, it always puts them most recent first:
A small snippet of the Electrical Sky Parade (drone light show), behind the lit-up fairytale castle:
Surreptitiously taking a photo of a jumper I liked in the queue for Buzz Lightyear Lazer Blast. An image search has told me the name of the pattern; I can't find the pattern for sale anywhere, but I reckon I can reverse engineer it:
A small snippet of the main parade of the day:
The maze was tedious (no chance of getting lost; there were so many people in it that you just needed to follow those in front), but the view over the park from the Queen's Castle was good:
Small snippet of a different parade we'd seen earlier in the day:
Taken from a boat ride, looking at Phantom Manor - the best haunted house ride I've ever seen (admittedly, I've only ever done three to the best of my recollection, but this one was excellent):
Big Thunder Mountain, snap taken in the morning, but we didn't go on it until just after sunset:
A parade we didn't watch. We were just passing by:
My most favouritest ride. The incredibly cheesy 'It's a small world':
Happy to be there:
Just a bit of scenery between rides:
Main Street, immediately after entering as the gates opened:
(Just a bit of a postscript, as a thought had whilst putting those photos in. Disneyland Paris isn't a patch on Disney World Florida. That probably goes without saying; one is a small land, the other is a huge world. What I particularly thought was lacking were opportunities to be doing something, but sitting down. In Florida there was more opportunity to take in a show in an auditorium, giving an opportunity to sit down. The only similar thing in the main park in Paris was Mickey's PhilharMagic, which we would have visited had we not accidentally joined an adjacent queue to have our photos taken with some Star Wars character that neither of us knew the name of. We realised the error before we got to the front of the queue, but by then it was 20 minutes until the next Mickey show so we wandered off elsewhere. If we'd bought the two-park ticket, we could have gone to the Studios Park next door where (I think) there's more opportunity to sit and watch a show.)
No comments:
Post a Comment