Disneyland Paris Review
One thing you probably do not know about me… I used to work at Disneyland! Disneyland is what brought me to California almost 5 years ago and where I met my husband. We both worked in Entertainment as Characters. I came to California and I auditioned almost 5 years ago and was casted a role as a face character. I worked there for 3 years and it was some of the best times of my life. It was such a surreal experience and something I will cherish forever. Justin has worked there for 10 years, so it is obviously a very special place for him. When we booked our honeymoon, Disneyland Paris was one of the places we were most excited about. We have been to Disney World, but neither of us have ever been to an International Disney park! DLP is the international park that was on the top of my list. It has the most beautiful castle, and it’s in Paris, one of my favorite cities! We could hardly wait.
We wanted to have Disneyland be on our last day because we really wanted to end our honeymoon with something that was special to us, which is Disney, where we met.
Just like Versailles, Disneyland is about 40 minutes outside of the city by train. The train is literally right outside of the Disneyland entrance, so it is SO easy to navigate. It drops you off right at bag check, which was the coolest thing. Something really interesting about this park is the entrance is through the Disneyland Hotel! I mean…. the pink Disneyland Hotel!!!! It is the coolest, most grand entrance and I was already so excited. Right when you get through the turn styles, you’re right in Town Square. The park was all decorated for Halloween and had the cutest Mickey Pumpkin decorations up. Right when you get around the Town Square round about, you see the beautiful Sleeping Beauty’s Castle at the end of Main Street. The castle is seriously breathtaking. Justin was already prepared for me to stop and take about 1000 pictures. We got there early, so we stopped for a latte and breakfast - first things first, obviously!
There are two parks within Disneyland Paris - Disneyland and Hollywood Studios. Hollywood Studios has less rides and closes earlier than Disneyland, so we headed there first! My favorite ride of all time is Rockin’ Roller Coaster at Disney World. I was so excited when I saw that there was one in Hollywood Studios! We headed straight there because there was only a 10 minute line. Believe me when I say this…… this version of Rockin’ Roller Coaster is so much fun!! It was faster, had more loops, and was overall just so much more fun. It really woke us up and made us ready for the fun day.
If you live in California or frequent Disneyland, you know that the Hollywood Tower of Terror in California Adventure’s was sadly replaced last year with Guardians of the Galaxy. Tower of Terror is one of my favorite rides of all time because I absolutely love The Twilight Zone, so when I saw it in Hollywood Studio’s, I almost flipped… I was so happy. It was only a 30 minute wait, so we happily waited to go on this beloved ride. When we got in the elevator, it was definitely a little different, because instead of hearing Rod Serling say “In tonight’s episode, you are the star and this elevator goes straight to The Twilight Zone,” it was all in French and definitely not the iconic voice of Rod Serling, but that’s okay! It was really cool to see it in a different language. We were just happy to be riding it again.
After our tummies dropped in the Tower of Terror, we headed over to the little Ratatouille land and it is just the cutest little section of any Disney park. We jumped right in line for Remy’s Adventure and it was the cutest ride ever! It was a little story telling ride, but the technology and the animations are what made it the coolest ride.
After strolling around Ratatouille land, we headed over to a ride high on Justin’s list, Crush’s Coaster! I had no idea what this ride was, so I was really excited to experience it for the first time. It had the cutest queue and you could hear Crush over the speakers saying the cutest things. I wish I knew what exactly the ride was because I am very sensitive to motion sickness. You basically sit in a giant turtle and the turtle spins the entire ride. Don’t get me wrong, it was very fun and a very cute ride, but it made me so sick, I had to sit on the ground in the shade for about 20 minutes drinking a coke before we could resume.
After I finally gathered myself back up, we made our way over to Disneyland! We headed over to the castle to get all the cheesy pictures and wandered around Fantasyland. Not only is the castle the most beautiful castle of them all, the walk through inside of it is even cooler. In one section, you can walk through and it tells the story of Sleeping Beauty through stain glass and beautiful art. Through a different entrance, there is a dragon! It is the coolest thing… Every 20 seconds or so, it wakes up, opens its eyes and slightly moves. It is honestly so magical and such a cool part that no other park has. Well, not that i’ve seen!
The thing I would give Disneyland Paris the most amount of credit for is their attention to detail and their theming. I was seriously so impressed by how much detail goes into every single ride, land, and building. You truly feel like you’re in the fairy tale land and no other park I have been to has given me that feeling.
We headed straight to Pirates of the Caribbean since we knew it was a calm and relaxing ride I could go on. The theming for their Pirates was on point. The queue is all inside and you literally feel like you’re in a cave as you’re going through. When you get on the boat, the building is much bigger and much more open than Disneyland in California. You pass by Captain Jack’s restaurant, which is their version of Blue Bayou, and you’re on your way. There are definitely some exciting drops and the ride seems much longer and tells the story between the different rooms so much better.
Justin went on to ride Big Thunder Mountain and Indiana Jones while I hung out and people watched. They were much different than the rides at Disneyland in California, but so much fun! Big Thunder Mountain is on a little island and has a really, really cool vibe to it! Indiana Jones is more like a roller coast, which I thought was so cool because I am so used to the typical ride that is indoors and you sit in a jeep!
We had absolutely no idea why, but mostly all of the restaurants were closed! It wasn’t a Sunday or anything, they were just randomly closed which was really disappointing. We kept going to the next one only to see they were also closed. We finally ended up at Cowboy Cookout, their BBQ restaurant located in Frontierland. I know… We go all the way to Paris just to end up at a BBQ restaurant eating burgers…. We were a little confused too, although it was so good! I would highly recommend this restaurant. The food was really, really good.
Since we got all the big rides done, we really just wanted to walk around and make sure we got a chance to see everything in every land. Unlike Disneyland in California, there are so many places in DLP that are completely empty and really relaxing to stroll through by yourself. We went back to Fantasyland and walked a little deeper in to explore. I know it’s kind of lame, but one of my favorite rides at Disneyland is the Storybook land boat ride! It is so relaxing and I love seeing the tiny castles, so we headed there! There’s was much cooler…. It had so many more miniature lands (including The Emerald City with Dorothy, Tinman, Lion, Scarecrow and Glinda……random, but still cool!), and the theming was just so on point.
Next, we went over to Alice’s Curious Labyrinth, which is a really cool maze that has different characters from Alice in Wonderland throughout it and takes you to the Queen’s castle. The maze could have been a little shorter since I’m horrible at mazes and it took us a good 30 minutes to get through it!
As the sun started to go down, we headed over to Discoveryland, aka their Tomorrowland. Their version of Space Mountain is so much cooler and completely different from the others on the outside as well as inside.
Everything starts shutting down about an hour to closing time, so right when our sweet tooth hit and we were on the hunt for ice cream or a crepe, not a lot was open! Everyone started grabbing their spots for the night time castle show, so we decided to finally make our way over. The entire day the park didn’t feel crowded at all….until now. We couldn’t find any spots open for the show, we had to stand completely against a closed popcorn cart to get a partial view, so obviously we could tell this was a really loved show! The castle show was absolutely beautiful. It switched iconic Disney songs back and forth from English to French, which was really cool. We decided to leave before the show ended to beat all the crowds to get to the train station since we needed to get back to the city. We hopped right on the train and headed back to the city. The train was so easy to hop on and off and we had so much fun talking about what was our peak and pit of the day.
Disneyland Paris Tips :
Prepare for cast members to be different than you’re used to. At Disneyland in California and Disney World, there are Cast Members everywhere from Photo Pass, Guest Relations, Character Hosts, etc… It is definitely very different at DLP! There aren’t as many standing around everywhere, but City Hall is very easy to find, so they can help you with anything you need!
Take your time! The parks are quite small, so you really do have time to roam around and soak up everything around you. Look closely to all of the detail, it will amaze you!
Be prepared for lots of smoking! There are quite a few signs at the Disneyland Paris entrance that clearly state smoking ONLY in designated areas, however, no one really follows that and there was an overwhelming amount of people smoking in the park. I’ll admit - I gave a few people some bad glares to get them to stop smoking! It actually worked on some people!
Thank you Disneyland Paris!!! We had an absolutely unforgettable day. It was our very last day in Europe and we spent it at the best place. I was so impressed and I cannot wait to come back one day! Now that I have one international park down, Tokyo, Hong Kong & Shanghai…. here I come!!!
