8 AM. We thought we would be escaping these early mornings once we were off the cruise, but apparently not. All guests staying in a Disney hotel are given a free continental breakfast every morning of their stay but, since every guest gets a free continental breakfast, the hotel restaurants are usually swamped in the mornings. In order to thin out the crowds, Disney offers Breakfast in Fantasyland, a program where people who are willing to get up a bit earlier can get into the park an hour early to eat their breakfast and then enjoy a mostly-open Fantasyland an hour before everyone else gets in. I, of course, opted to take advantage of this every day of our stay. I do a lot of things without thinking them through.
After luxuriating in the surprisingly nice shower, complete with unheard-of water pressure for a hotel, we managed to stumble out of the room. The day was, of course, overcast. Even though our stay here outside Paris was only four days long, they were so uniformly gloomy that I wonder if they just save themselves some time and call the sunny days “undercast “instead. The walkways were quiet and sparsely populated and as we walked past the hotels and through the still-closed Disney Village, we came to appreciate the omnipresent music back home in Walt Disney World. The silence only highlighted the fact that everything wasn’t operating yet, giving the whole thing the feel of some post-apocalyptic theme park. If there’s anything weirder than seeing the European version of America, it’s seeing it abandoned.
As we neared the parks and the scattered people began to converge on a single path, we saw the first big difference between the Disney parks back home and Disneyland Paris: maintenance was being performed in the daytime, in plain view of guests. Behind moveable metal gates that are usually used as impromptu bike racks because of the thin metal bars spaced widely apart were workers cementing loose tiles in the walkway. We gave them a free pass because it was still over an hour until the park opened to the general public (despite the fact that Breakfast in Fantasyland is available every morning so they certainly were aware of the schedule) but as the day progressed, we saw more and more maintenance workers in the middle of the parks, in barely cordoned off areas, applying paint or doing masonry. I give them credit for actually doing the maintenance, but the only effort to actually hide anything is when something is under construction. Perhaps they can’t get the overnight crews here like they can at the stateside parks, but they can at least invest in a couple plywood walls.
We approached the Disneyland Hotel, which is also the entrance to the Disneyland park. When we were booking the trip through DVC, the Disneyland Hotel was 23 points more per night (the equivalent of $230/night in crazy DVC math) than the Sequoia Lodge, so we went with the latter. I had known that the Disneyland Hotel was built right at the front of the park, but seeing it in person made me regret not spending the extra points to stay there: it really is right at the front of the park. You have to pass beneath it to get to the ticket booths and the entry gates. Just beyond it is the familiar train station entrance from the Stateside parks and I imagine that Disneyland Hotel guests either have their own separate entrance to the park or a stairway that dumps them out directly in front of the gates. Beyond its proximity to the park entrance, its architecture has a kind of fantastic charm that the Sequoia Lodge lacks (well, the Sequoia Lodge’s architecture lacks any kind of charm, it’s the theming outside the buildings that makes it enjoyable), although some might be turned off by the Pepto-Bismol pink its painted (Disney nerds have come to hate this color for entirely separate reasons). There’s a large courtyard with fountains, topiaries, and, surprisingly for a Disney Park, descending staircases that lead up to the entrance and the space is large enough that, at least at this early hour, separating from the crowd to get a photo is pretty easy. We took advantage of the photo opportunities, but we weren’t here to mill about, so we headed underneath the Disneyland Hotel and to the entry gates.
The instructions for attendees of Breakfast in Fantasyland were so sparse as to be non-existent. The tickets offered no instructions as to means of entry and our assigned meeting place was “Fantasyland”, so we just joined the large line at the gate, assuming these people were in the same boat as us. Our first clue should’ve been that the line was still a line, and not a giant mob pushing their way through the gates as we’d come to expect from European “queuing”, but since we didn’t catch on to that it was a while before we realized that the line wasn’t moving at all. These intrepid travelers were staying offsite and were lining up an hour early to get in. We never would have found this out had it not been for some English-speaking family who were loudly discussing the time they had made the same mistake as us, waiting in the regular line, instead of heading to the special entryway for Breakfast in Fantasyland attendees that they were making a beeline for. There’s no signage of any kind, nor instructions on the printed tickets, indicating that the entrance on the very end on the left-hand side, out from underneath the hotel itself, is the entryway for people going to Breakfast in Fantasyland. This confusion was not limited to ourselves, as several people who also understood the thankfully-loud English-speaking family joined us as we pushed our way through the back of the lines toward the proper entry gate. After flashing our tickets, we were walking underneath the train station and onto Main Street.
Main Street was a ghost town. Perhaps the demand for Breakfast in Fantasyland was so great, but probably because no one knew how to get in, we were part of only a handful of people milling about, with nary a castmember in sight. As a result, we got to take in the sights in a more clinical way than we would’ve been allowed if we had to dodge and weave through crowds. Everything in Disneyland Paris seemed to be painted a bit brighter than it would stateside which, if it’s actually true, is probably to allow the buildings to still “pop” against a dreary sky, which they did. All the buildings seemed to be shining in the sunlight despite the preponderance of clouds. As we wandered down the street, the first of the Main Street vehicles, the fire engine, drove past, bringing with it more life to the park. There was still nowhere near the number of people that we’d see later in the day, but as castmembers joined the tourists milling about, the place seemed to slowly awakening.
The castle lay at the end of the street, by far the most fantastic architecturally of all the parks we’ve been to, and I think it both benefits and suffers from it. It suffers because the multiple turrets reaching skyward are all so thin that forced perspective doesn’t work, so the illusion that this is an actual inhabitable castle, regardless of its fantastic construction, is lost. I think if a bird landed on parts of the highest turret we’d fear invasion from giant winged mutants. On the other hand, the castle is built into a hillside, and it is quite wide, filling up your peripheral vision as you approach it. The other castles seem to have been plopped down in the middle of a theme park, a self-contained structure within a set boundary, while this castle, with its sprawling construction and its large surrounding courtyard, gives the effect that it was here first (even if its design doesn’t feel quite right). In terms of looks, I still place Walt Disney World’s Cinderella Castle at the top of my list, but I really appreciate the details surrounding Disneyland Paris’ castle, and had it not been for the too-fanciful upper portion, it would easily be my favorite.
We had a nice multicultural moment: we were taking our picture in front of the castle, as was a Spanish couple and a German couple. After a few aborted attempts at taking our own pictures, we all realized we could help each other out and after some universal pointing as to what buttons to press, we all had taken each others’ pictures and were on our way through the castle and into Fantasyland.
Our first reaction: everything here is just…better. They saw the concepts put forth in the previously constructed parks and just plussed them: Disneyland’s Dumbo built around a small central fountain? Disneyland Paris’ Dumbo is built atop a large surrounding fountain. The walkways were spacious, but the intimacy of the place was kept intact with its surrounding fanciful structures and foliage. We were only taking in a first glimpse, though. Our early dinner the previous night had left us craving the “Breakfast” part more than the “in Fantasyland” part and we quickly surmised by the crowds entering the place that Au Chalet de la Marionette Restaurant was where we were to eat.
The Continental Breakfast was, well, continental. Lisa joined the obscenely long line for coffee while I went to look around. There were several tables: two on either side containing breads and cereals a central table containing cold meats. The organization was virtually non-existent beyond that description. For example, while the breads were at one table, the butter and jams were over with the meats, and only one of the two cereal tables had the milk. The plastic utensils were all in the center of meats table so that if you weren’t in the mood for some cold pimento loaf, you were left scratching your head as to where to get the spoon for your cereal. By the time I had gathered everything I’d cared to try (two rolls, a piece of untoasted bread, a croissant, and some chocolate breakfast cereal), Lisa was just finishing up on the coffee line and I was able to pass on my collected wisdom to her. We sat down at a table that was far too large for the two of us, yet the only one available, and came to an agreement that we’d be skipping this the following morning. Au Chalet de la Marionette Restaurant was charming, though, a reproduction of the Pinocchio Village Haus stateside (I just realized…Pinocchio is Italian…why is the Village Haus German?) complete with the paintings on the wall taking us through the story of Pinocchio.
We wandered out of the restaurant and out of Fantasyland entirely. We had assumed, since the details of Breakfast in Fantasyland were nonexistent outside of the title, that the entire park would be open in some capacity, and we were trying to make our way to Discoveryland, Disneyland Paris’ version of Tomorrowland. The entrance from the hub was cordoned off, though, so we made our way back into Fantasyland, thinking we could beat the system and enter through the back. We couldn’t, and the closest ride to our failed attempt was it’s a small world, so we went there.
Either the façade of the Disneyland Paris it’s a small world is on a different schedule than those stateside or the clock was off, because we waited several minutes past the quarter hour mark for the display to come alive to no avail. Our disappointment duly noted by no one, we made our way onto the line, past the colorful flags covered with greetings in all different languages and a child in that country’s native garb with something representation of that country behind him or her. America’s representation was a little cowboy, furthering the view of America as the Wild West from Disney Village and heightening my anticipation to see the first foreign interpretation of America it’s a small world-style. There were plenty of castmembers at the dock, but they were all gathered in a group at the far end, enjoying the last of their coffee and chatting amongst themselves, the last bit of respite they’d get before the workday truly began. We were left to seat ourselves, but honestly, we were the only people getting on the ride, and if two adults can’t get in a stationary vehicle by themselves, what hope is there for the world?
Their version of it’s a small world was the most highly stylized of any I’d been on. The sets were cartoony and trippy, charmingly so, but had I been on a bad trip it would’ve all appeared demonic. There were a lot more flat cutouts, but there was a lot more of everything in general, so that the cutouts only added to the already elaborate detail of the sets. There were fanciful interpretations of all the countries shown, including a flying Pegasus for Greece and a dancing Loch Ness Monster for Scotland, but my favorite was America. America can be summed up as follows: Cowboys, Indians, New York, and Hollywood. There was a farm thrown in the mix as if the concept of “flyover states” had physically manifested itself, and there was also, oddly, a lone football player and a lone cheerleader singing in a cutout of a stadium underneath a sign that just read “Rah!”. I know that the ride was designed by Americans in an effort to appeal to the European idea of what America is, so it makes some of the other choices even more weird: Hollywood’s signing dolls are Busby Berkeley-era showgirls and a star and starlet off the red carpet from the 40s. New York’s famous skyline, complete with Statue of Liberty, is accompanied by a yellow cab driving over…the Golden Gate Bridge? Overall, though, it was hands down the best version of it’s a small world we’d been to. They took the charming, stylized designs of Mary Blair and placed them in ultra-heightened, ultra-stylized setpieces, taking the whole concept to a new level of cuteness that only the most hardened heart could hate.
The exit for it’s a small world is the same as the entrance, outside, but instead of dumping you back out into Fantasyland, you have to go through a building advertising whatever sponsor the ride had. It wasn’t unpleasant at all: the interior was designed as a three-dimensional walkthrough of the world in the style of the ride, with Big Ben right up against the Eiffel Tower and the Taj Mahal, and so on. The sponsor was a telecommunications company and every so often a window in a building would light up and a silhouette would be shown placing a phone call or using a computer and somewhere in another country, some other window would light up and another silhouette would answer. There were interactive kiosks scattered throughout this area, looking like two conjoined phone booths. We stepped into one: you’d choose your language and an avatar corresponding to your country of origin (cowboy or Indian for America, of course) and you’d be able to communicate with the person in the corresponding booth, with the technology translating to and from your native tongues so you could understand each other. The young kid in the booth connected to ours kept popping over to see our progress, eagerly awaiting to converse with us, but it eventually became apparent that the thing was out of order despite a lack of signage indicating it, and we were forced to leave the young boy disappointed, unable to communicate to him what was going on. It’s an ironic small world.
We decided to save the rest of Fantasyland for later, figuring that it would be busiest in the morning, just as it is stateside. We were able to get into Discoveryland now. Discoveryland is Disneyland Paris’ solution to the problem of Tomorrowland: the future is a hell of a lot closer than anybody thinks. While we stateside are left to cringe every time the girl in the final scene of Carousel of Progress shames her grandfather for not having a car phone, Disneyland Paris has sidestepped the tricky problem of trying to guess what parts of the future will stay futuristic and instead focused on the future as seen by visionaries in the past. More specifically, the future as seen by France’s own Jules Verne, inventor of the science-fiction genre. Discoveryland, therefore, is all gleaming metal, complete with bolts and welds, using the technology of the 19th century in fantastic ways to achieve the futuristic. There are, of course, giant metal rings surrounding pretty much every structure, for what evokes the future more than superfluous rings? There’s tons of what the imagineers call kinetics here: everything’s in motion, from the fountains to the vestigial Astro-Orbiter, which, now lacking a ride, has devolved into a buzzing, whirring sculpture evoking the motion of the planets. The centerpiece here is Space Mountain: Mission 2, our first destination. The original structure of the stateside Space Mountains remains the same: an inverted funnel with the support structures on the outside instead of the inside. Everything else has changed, though: the stark white is replaced with bronze and blue, the flat inner surface replaced with triangular panels evoking Spaceship Earth’s design, and the jagged spires atop the roof are now numerous antennae covered, naturally, with superfluous rings. Most impressive, though, is the giant cannon built along one side. This Space Mountain is a nod to Jules Verne’s De la Terre a la Lune, From the Earth to the Moon, in which members of an American gun club build a cannon large enough to shoot them in a capsule to the moon. That cannon, the Baltimore Gun Club’s Columbiad, is reproduced here. And it adds a great showpiece to an already impressive building. Every 30 seconds or so, the chamber of the gun opens up as the rollercoaster loads into it. The chamber then shuts as smoke billows forth from it. A few seconds later, accompanied by a loud boom, the rollercoaster shoots out of the cannon and, with a flash of light, seemingly into the sky. Walt Disney called the huge structures that drew you further into the park (think the castle at the end of Main Street) “weenies”, and Space Mountain: Mission 2 has got to be one of the finest ever built.
We entered the line, which winds around a lake in which the Nautilus, Captain Nemo’s ship from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, is parked. It’s a walkthrough attraction, one we’d definitely be headed to, but along with the cannon launching riders to the moon, it makes an already great queue a lot more interesting. There was a half hour wait for the ride, something we didn’t mind, but we encountered our first problem with the setup of the park: the lines were wide paths instead of the narrow winding queues Stateside, and because of the awful approach to queuing that Europe seems to have, people feel free to pass you if you leave any available space to move. Families solve this problem by standing shoulder to shoulder, forming an impenetrable wall through which no opportunistic bastard may pass. Lisa and I are certainly wide enough to create a formidable obstacle, but on the wider parts of the line, impetuous youths and grumpy adults just navigated through the cracks, worming their way to the front of the line because apparently their time is worth far more than our own. The line, therefore, moved seemingly randomly, but really moved in accordance with how many people were let to cut the line. It was actually moving, but the people who had made their way forward were the ones benefiting while those who were queued up like polite idiots were left to wait twice as long as they should have. We, then, had plenty of time to soak in the atmosphere of the queue itself, which to say, we waited in the dark for quite a long time. We were able to encounter our first instance of Disneyland Paris’ method of dealing with the language barrier. Although the park is built in France, it’s meant to attract all of Europe and all the various tongues that accompany that tourism. French is given primacy and there’s never an attraction where French isn’t spoken, but other languages pop in at odd times and in odd ways. Overall, it’s actually quite diplomatic, but there’s still quite a few places where the choices seem, well, strange, most notably in the more narrative-heavy attractions over in the Disney Studios. That’s for tomorrow, though. Instead, here, the safety instruction video is given in both French, with English subtitles, and English, with French subtitles, all by the same woman. Every so often her video pops and fades…what is it about futuristic communication that we can’t get a decent video connection? Everyone’s either interrupted by static or gets odd jitters here and there. Anyway, the most entertaining thing about the video is the chipmunk-cheeked kid who is the subject of the safety procedures, who seems to be enjoying himself a bit too much to be healthy. The dark part of the queue ends where the normal line and the Fastpass line meet up, and you then shuffle into a room full of the Baltimore Gun Club’s elaborate designs for their space flight. The problem is that, after spending half an hour or more in the dark, you only see this elaborately themed room for a few minutes, since they only let you into it in small groups. The actual loading platform for Space Mountain is, oddly, outside, albeit under a roof. You empty back into the sunlight (or whatever sunlight has made it through the cloud cover) and get in line to board the vehicle. We loaded a couple rows from the back of the coaster and were on our way. The ride starts off as described above, except that you’re inside the cannon. It uses the same linear induction technology you might be familiar with from Rock n’ Roller Coaster: you go from 0 to 60 in no time flat. The inside is absolutely nothing like the track of the original Space Mountain with the exception that you’re still in the dark. There’s loops, corkscrews, and insanely banked turns that give for a completely different experience. There’s black-lit space effects everywhere, more impressive than the exciting black-lit highway signs of Rock ‘n Roller Coaster, coupled with a bunch of cool effects, including a hyperspeed tunnel that you fly through instead of slow down in. I won’t say that it’s better than our Space Mountain (although Lisa would) because it’s entirely different. I’d still say ours is scarier because of the silhouettes of the track that seem so close to your head you’re afraid to raise your hands above shoulder level. Still, we both loved the ride.
We had gotten Fastpasses for Buzz Lightyear’s Laser Blast before we rode Space Mountain and we headed over there next. We encountered something charmingly universal: people trying to scam the Fastpass attendant. An elderly mother with her 30-something year old son was trying to get over on the Disney employee manning the Fastpass entrance. The oldest trick in the book, pretending not to speak the language, is useless here since every Disney employee seems to speak every language imaginable, including Klingon, but people try nonetheless. After the attendant patiently explained in their native tongue what the Fastpasses were, how they were required for this entrance to the ride, and how they could obtain them, the next technique the old woman employed was ignorance, and she assured the attendant that they had procured these so-called Fastpasses already, and then proceeded to produce their park tickets. After another patient explanation and much grimacing on the part of the old woman, the family then stomped off defeated.
The queue for Buzz Lightyear is seemingly a lot longer than the Stateside parks, but that may be because it’s entirely indoors. It has a much more active Buzz Lightyear audioanimatronic and etch-a-sketch background, similar to Disneyland’s version, as opposed to the static Viewfinder from WDW. Other than that, the queue is pretty much identical, even down to the hidden Mickey on the map of the planets. The ride itself is also fairly identical, with the exception of a few welcome pluses: the guns aren’t bolted to the ride vehicle, they can be freely manipulated independent of the way the car is facing, and the ride mostly eschews flat cutouts for 3-D targets. The former allowed Lisa to greatly improve her normally abysmal score, although they still haven’t worked out the most problematic detail of the ride: having to figure out which of the dozens of tiny red dots is yours. Still, the extra details made this our favorite version of the ride, especially since Lisa didn’t suck as much as she usually does.
Lisa had to make her way to the lady’s room, so I took the opportunity to get in line for something I had been craving since the moment I saw it: Gaufres, waffles that they serve to you warm, covered in your choice of sugar, whipped cream, or chocolate syrup. I opted for Whipped Cream, because the guy serving them up was filling each hole in the waffle with the Whipped Cream, and who can resist that? I only got one to share for a reason I don’t quite understand and it took all my willpower not to devour the whole delicious treat before Lisa returned from the restroom. I did nibble my way down in my impatience, so that instead of 50/50, it was really 55/45. A couple of things I noticed during my Gaufre adventure: there seems to be a strong local contingent in Disneyland Paris. As I waited online, the kid working the stand was joking around with his friend, standing just outside the line, who was trying to scam a Gaufre for a song and dance, which wasn’t working out for him. Outside the Videopolis, where I anxiously wolfed down my Gaufre, were a bunch of kids who seemed to only be there to stand around and look vaguely thuggish, impressing no one. They didn’t seem to be waiting for anyone or anything in particular, it just seemed that in the sleepy town of Marne-la-Valee, the Videopolis in Disneyland Paris was where you went if you wanted to look like a thug. The Videopolis is home to both an eatery and the Legend of the Lion King show, making it apparent that even here where they’ve solved the problem of the future they still have non-future creep. Lisa found her way back to me and happily ate her 45% of the Gaufre, none the wiser about the missing 5%.
We decided that Star Tours, Honey I Shrunk the Audience and Autopia are all pretty tired rides back home, so we were skipping that portion of Discoveryland, and were making our final stop in Les Mysteries du Nautilus. If it weren’t for the Nautilus itself parked in the lake outside Space Mountain: Mission 2, you’d have no idea there was even a ride here. The entryway looks like a little merchandise kiosk at the exit of Space Mountain: Mission 2 because there’s no line to speak of, you just walk right in. It’s essentially the Swiss Family Treehouse indoors, with you walking down a long corridor into the Nautilus, where you weave through its many tight crew quarters and engine rooms, the stark decoration, the rusting bolts and the omnipresent gauges giving an authentic submarine feel, at least for people who have never been on an actual submarine. The showpiece of the attraction is the two huge portholes in the main chamber of the Nautilus where, every minute or so, the climactic confrontation with the giant squid occurs. It’s a really cool effect, one that I was unfortunately unable to capture on camera, but you can see it on this guy’s lengthy tour of the attraction on Youtube. There’s a cool effect in the same room that probably goes unnoticed by many because of the giant squid effect, but if you play Nemo’s organ (heh heh), there’s a mirror just above to look into and every so often Nemo’s face appears in the mirror.
We said our goodbyes to Discoveryland and made our way back out onto the hub to get to our next destination: Frontierland.
Frontierland is the showpiece of all of Disneyland Paris. It’s elaborately themed, with an intricate backstory linking all of its attractions together. Frontierland is the town of Thunder Mesa, an industrial mining town that once thrived but now has seen better days. In its heyday, it was drowned in riches from the Big Thunder Mountain Gold Mines, and its richest inhabitant was the man who laid claim to Big Thunder Mountain: Henry Ravenswood. Ravenswood was a cruel and callous man, disregarding the local Shoshoni Indian Tribe’s claim to the mountain as a sacred place in order to build his new mining company on it. His newfound riches enabled him to build Ravenswood Manor, a mansion atop a hill overlooking his empire. Here he collected all manners of things to show his enormous wealth, and it was here that he announced with his wife, Martha, that their 22 year old daughter, Mary Murphy Ravenswood, would marry a worthy local suitor named Frank Ballard. On the day of the wedding, Henry Ravenswood learned that Frank planned on taking his daughter out of Thunder Mesa and out of his control, so in a fit of rage, Henry killed Frank, hanging him from the rafters in the attic of the manor. Mary never knew what became of Frank, but she waited for him, refusing to take off her wedding dress, becoming a recluse, known only to come out to hold séances to find her missing fiancée. She died within the year. A short while after Mary’s death, disaster struck the Big Thunder Mountain Gold Mines: the vengeful spirits of the Shoshoni’s sacred burial ground brought the promised destruction, bringing every possible natural disaster upon the place simultaneously, continuing there to this day. Henry Ravenswood died, bankrupt and bitter, a short while later, and his restless spirit assumed the form of the Phantom, which battles with the spectral bride that haunts the manor to this day. Thunder Mesa remains as a shadow of its former self, but Big Thunder Mountain still calls to those enticed by its promises of untold riches. Those with more of a head on their shoulders can tour the town a little more safely, be it on the riverboats touring the Rivers of the West or in a visit to the Shoshoni tribe at the far end of town.
My inner Disney-nerd drooled at the thought of this elaborate backstory and what the land offered. We walked through the Fort, which apparently was once a walkthrough attraction but is now closed, and into Thunder Mesa. Big Thunder Mountain looms over the entire land, although it’s entirely separated from it by the Rivers of the West, taking the place of Tom Sawyer Island. The view would’ve been quite impressive if not for some weird, cheap cutouts of Totem Poles scattered throughout Frontierland that were hiding lighting rigs whose purpose I couldn’t figure out: there was no nighttime show at all here, except for Mickey’s Candelabration, which took place in front of the castle, and there was no nighttime parade, so I have no idea what these were for other than maybe as remnants of previous nighttime entertainment that now were just eyesores. Oh well.
We decided that Big Thunder Mountain’s prominence equated to long wait times, so we headed in that direction to get Fastpasses. We stopped at the Rustler Roundup Shootin’ Gallery where I dazzled Lisa and the people in attendance with the old Camera Flash trick. The shooting gallery here, as well as at Disneyland and Disney World, and at most other places, worked using lightguns: the guns shot a flash of light that, when aimed at the target that was sensitive to that flash of light, would trigger whatever crazy event was associated with that target. If you were to generate one huge flash of light as opposed to the tiny, focused flash from the guns, using, say, a camera flash, you could set off all the targets at once, and the place would go crazy. Lisa, and apparently everyone else standing around, was unaware of this, and I was looked upon as if I wielded some arcane power that demanded reverence. I, of course, did it again.
We were right: the wait for Big Thunder Mountain was 60 minutes and climbing, so I jumped on the Fastpass line. The Fastpass line, though, was a mob of people. There’s no dividers whatsoever to manage any kind of line, so it was basically a fight for dominance, and despite there only being 5 fastpass machines, the crowd was at least 8-10 people wide at its widest. I muscled my way toward the front, still politely waiting what I deemed the appropriate amount of time to be fair, since every fastpass machine was considered fair game no matter where you were standing on the line and it was every man for himself. The biggest holdup was a tour group operator who was monopolizing one of the machines, taking the time and patience of the lone Disney castmember manning the station.
Somehow I made it out alive, and we made our way back toward Phantom Manor. As we approached, we saw the Molly Brown riverboat making its way around the bend, so we made our way over to the Thunder Mesa Riverboat Landing. The Molly Brown is unique among Disney riverboats in that its paddlewheel is on the side as opposed to the back. It’s also pretty well maintained as far as the boats go. We made our way around Thunder Mesa and Big Thunder Mountain, passing many wildlife audioanimatronics, but by far the most noticed of all the animals was a group of real ones: a mother duck and her ducklings. It must’ve been the end of mating season, because mothers and their ducklings would weave in and out of the reeds lining the shoreline, drawing cheers of excitement from everyone who saw them. The coolest of the sites, besides the ducklings, though, was Big Thunder Mountain itself, which you saw from every angle possible. There’s a great effect toward the end of the riverboat’s run where the mine train plunges onto a dock that has pretty much collapsed from the giant earthquake that brought down the mining expedition. As the rollercoaster passes over it, the dock crumbles and water shoots high into the air as the train rolls on to safety.
The riverboat under out belt, we made our way to Phantom Manor. We encountered our second round of visible maintenance workers: in regular street clothes, behind one of those thin ropes they use to cordon off the streets during parades, painting the walls lining the path of the entrance to Phantom Manor. There wasn’t even an attempt to make it look neat: paint cans and bottles of water were scattered about, and one of the maintenance workers was loudly chattering away on his cellphone. The park closes at 6 pm, they couldn’t wait until then?
Phantom Manor, renamed from Haunted Mansion because Phantom Manor means the same thing in both English and French, is clearly a departure from the two Haunted Mansions found stateside. Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion is impeccable on the outside, keeping with Walt’s wishes that his park remain to all appearances on the outside spic and span, and while Walt Disney World’s Mansion looks more like a Haunted House, it isn’t entirely devoid of a sterile feeling. Phantom Manor, however, is undoubtedly a haunted house. The outside portion of the Phantom Manor queue was impressively detailed: rotting and decrepit, with the landscape reclaiming the land, and yet with eerie details, like a tea service set out in an aged gazebo, giving the impression that someone had just left before you got there. I couldn’t help but think that this was what the disappointing outside portion Twilight Zone Tower of Terror queue in Walt Disney World should’ve been: not just abandoned, but occupied by something other than human. Lisa pointed out as we made our way onto the porch that one of the many filthy windows had “Help Me” hurriedly written into the dust with a finger. I noticed a smaller, but equally impressive detail: the oil lamps here are actual oil lamps, with real flames. It was entirely keeping with our experience of the park so far: take the original parks and just make the whole thing better.
Once we entered the ride, the beginning portions were much the same: you enter into a waiting room where the Ghost Host welcomes you before shuffling into one of two stretching rooms. The stretching rooms are, like the original in Disneyland, descending elevators. The portraits here initially show the young Mary Ravenswood out innocently enjoying herself. As you descend, the portraits stretch to reveal that what once seemed innocent reveals that she is always in deathly peril. The Ghost Host narrates the entire time (in French, but if you’ve seen the original, you know what he’s saying) and eventually the lights go out and lightning flashes, revealing the Phantom hanging Frank Ballard from the rafters in the attic. The lights come back on and we enter into the changing portrait gallery, where we see the (somewhat) sunny day that we left outside has now turned to a stormy night. Down this hallway is a large room with a grand staircase, the windows above it constantly shifting between light and dark. Here you load into your Doombuggies and begin your ride.
There’s an actual narrative here, not just the cobbled-together narrative we’ve garnered from original notes and word of mouth back home. The Phantom intends on keeping us here for all eternity with him while the Bride fights to keep us from his clutches and lead us to safety. A lot of the scenes are slightly reworked to fit in with this: the endless hallway with the floating candelabra now has the bride disappearing and reappearing while the candelabra remains and the grand ballroom scene is now the sight of the aborted wedding, eternally played out here, the Phantom watching over it all, laughing. It’s once you get past the ballroom that ride abandons everything you’re familiar with and becomes something entirely unique: at the entrance to the graveyard you’re met by the Phantom, who beckons you into an open grave. You descend through the earth, past skeletons clawing their way out of their coffins, and into Phantom Canyon, a twisted nightmare version of Thunder Mesa. The abandoned town is now “alive” with the ghosts of the town’s seedy past now populating it. There’s a lot of great gags here, all of which I don’t want to spoil, but by far my favorite is the Mayor welcoming you outside Town Hall, inviting you to be the 1000th ghost of the Phantom Manor. He tips his hat as he welcomes you, and his head comes with it, continuing his speech even as it leaves his shoulders toward your car. Phantom Canyon is incredibly detailed and unique in its presentation and, even though I had seen it in a documentary about the Haunted Mansion (nerd!), seeing it in person was well worth the trip. The bride waits at the end of Phantom Canyon and she leads you to safety and, just as you think you’re in the clear, you pass a line of mirrors only to see the Phantom clutching the top of your doom buggy, following you home.
We made our way out to Boot Hill, the graveyard at the exit of the ride. The graveyard here has a nice combination of language-dependant punny epithets and universally understood pictures on gravestones. The best of the picture gravestones is a line of headstones: a doe-eyed, innocent squirrel is first in the sequence, followed by the self-satisfied bobcat who ate it, followed by the coon-skinned hunter with the smoking rifle who shot the bobcat, and ending with a big ol’ bear, picking its teeth with a bone and wearing the same coonskin hat the hunter had on. The best of the written tombstones, and probably most risqué joke in any Disney park, is a pair of graves reading:
Jasper Jones
Loyal Manservant
Died 1866
“Kept the Master Happy”
Anna Jones
Faithful Chamber Maid
Died 1867
“Kept the Master Happier”
There’s ample space for picture-taking here, as well as an option to bypass it entirely for those not interested, making for a well-thought out exit to an incredible ride. Lisa instantly declared it her favorite version of the Haunted Mansion, not only for the ride itself, but also for the exterior which, finally, looked like a damn haunted house. I couldn’t argue, it really was the best I’d been on thus far.
It was time to take advantage of our Fastpasses for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, so we made our way back there, passing the even-larger queue for people waiting to get Fastpasses. There was another holdup at the Fastpass entrance: another person trying to scam their way onto the shorter line. This time the woman had actually obtained a Fastpass, but she had just obtained the Fastpass moments before, and, ignoring the times clearly displayed on the ticket, pretended that this was a magic pass that instantly entitled her to immediate entrance. The attendant, patient as always, explained to the woman how Fastpass worked, all the while letting people with valid Fastpasses through (albeit at a slower pace, as they were enjoying the free show). The woman resorted to all manners of arm waving before finally skulking off. We gave the attendant the universal eye roll in the scammer’s direction, which she very much appreciated as she waved us through, not bothering to look at our (valid) return times in a nice little “Screw You” to the woman scammer.
Big Thunder Mountain’s queue back home is notoriously long regardless of whether or not you have a Fastpass, and I worried that there would be a lengthy tunnel to get you under the Rivers of the West and over to the mountain. I turns out that the ride boards on the Thunder Mesa side of the river and the train passes underwater in order to get to the island. The ride itself is much larger than its American counterparts and it’s longer and faster too. There’s additional special effects, including the aforementioned crumbling dock, and you combine these with an unparalleled view of Frontierland (since the ride is at the center of the land, not at the back) and you get easily the best version of Big Thunder Mountain. Sensing a pattern here?
The continental breakfast, even with the welcome addition of the delicious Gaufre, was nowhere near enough fuel to get us through the day, and we decided to get lunch before we took our leave of Thunder Mesa and Frontierland. Lisa had made an odd choice once again and stuck with it: she wanted to have lunch at the Silver Spur Steakhouse. We didn’t have reservations, but we waited only about 10 minutes before we were seated. The décor was dark and rustic, reminiscent of a saloon somewhere on the way to the Gold Rush. There was an open-air grill at the back of the restaurant, and flames surged every time another steak was thrown on the fire. The menu was patterned after an American steakhouse with a bit of Mexican flair thrown in for good measure. We started with an appetizer sampler that brought us a huge plate of nachos, wings and onion rings. Lisa ordered the Ribeye while I ordered the I-Bone, a cut of steak the menu said was “discovered” and made famous by Disney when the park opened in 1992, which, considering how long humanity has been butchering cows, brought to mind some horrid cow part previously thought indigestible, but I got it anyway. It was here where we learned that, at least in this part of Europe, there’s no such concept as “Medium Rare”. It’s either Rare or Medium, and Medium here means, essentially, Medium Rare, since the steaks we were served were (gloriously, I might add) just slightly above raw on the inside. We were, mostly due to the lake of seemingly-real cheese on our nachos, too full for dessert and made our way back out into the park.
On our way back to the hub we passed yet another group of maintenance workers, again in plain clothes, again cordoned off by the thin parade rope (at least this time there was a Wet Paint sign with Donald Duck on it) painting a wishing well. I would make a corny joke about how I wished they would paint when the park close, but I guess I just did.
Our next stop was Adventureland. The entryway to Disneyland Paris’ Adventureland is themed to an Arabian Bazaar with two huge flaming torches flanking either side (well, only one was working, but I got the idea). Directly to the right of the entryway was Le Passage Enchante d’Aladdin, a walkthrough with miniatures depicting the events of the original Aladdin movie. It was here that we met our busmates from the previous day, Jamie, Leo and Jack, for a second time that day. We had previously been killing some time waiting for our Fastpass time to come for Big Thunder and were reading the menu for a BBQ place by the Indian Reservation at the far end of Frontierland. We were leaning around a couple and their young son in order to read the menu until we realized that it was Jamie, Leo and Jack. I just forgot to tell that story before and I’m too lazy to try and fit it in above. As we waited patiently for the family dawdling for no apparent reason at the entry to Le Passage Enchante d’Aladdin to get out of the way so we could get a picture, Jamie, Leo and Jack, who were also waiting to take a picture, noticed it was us and we made our way through the attraction together. It was notable for its exceptionally detailed maquettes that captured moments from the movie perfectly. We all had the same idea for the next stop, Fastpasses for Indiana Jones et Le Temple du Peril, so we continued on together.
We got our Fastpasses and, since they had already finished their tour of Adventureland, we parted ways. We decided our next stop would be Pirates of the Caribbean, but there was some disagreement on how to get there. There’s no Tom Sawyer Island in Disneyland Paris, but there is Adventure Isle, which is essentially Tom Sawyer Island with walkways to it instead of a boatride. Lisa, for some reason, was vehemently opposed to going through it to get to Pirates, and it led to a standoff, where I entered the cave while Lisa stood at the entrance bridge, holding her ground. Eventually I relented, realizing that even if she came into the cave, we wouldn’t necessarily come out at the same exit, so I walked back to her and dragged her into Adventure Isle with the agreement that we would take the most direct route to Pirates and save the rest of the exploration for later (for reasons she could not explain). I ended up both getting my way and looking like a huge jerkoff, since there apparently was no direct route to Pirates through Adventure Isle, and we wound up exploring half the island before giving up and heading back over the very same entrance bridge that Lisa had set up camp at during the argument.
There were signs for Jack Sparrow everywhere leading up to the ride, but it seems his presence was limited to a live character outside the ride itself. Once inside the impressive (but cartoonish) fort, there was no more mention of him. The queue for Disneyland Paris’ Pirates seems a lot longer, but it is also much more elaborate, with numerous skeletons in various states of decay, all undergoing some form of torture. Whoever ran this fort obviously didn’t take kindly to Pirates. In fact, the entire setup of the ride plays out like a morality tale: the ruined remains of the previous failed attempts lead up to a city overrun by pirates, drunken louts intent only on raping, pillaging and plundering. The madness reaches a fever pitch when a pirate that’s particularly careless amongst some explosives takes everyone with him down to caverns where we see the remains of the pirates’ escapades. Ghastly skeletons sit atop hordes of treasure, each impaled with the sword of another greedy pirate who was just a bit more cunning. Although the Pirates rides have always benefited from their lack of narrative, this minimalist narrative gives it a coherence that, combined with several elaborate animatronics on par with the auctioneer elsewhere, including a set of fluidly moving fencers, makes this…shock of all shocks…my favorite version of Pirates.
There wasn’t much else for us to do in Adventureland, and our Fastpasses had not yet reached maturity, so we made our way back to the hub and headed back toward Main Street.
Lisa had wanted to save Fantasyland for last, but I really wanted to get to the castle in case the walkthrough closed earlier than the park, so our first stop was Sleeping Beauty’s Castle. When we finally made it out to Disneyland, the castle was closed to the public, so this was our first castle walkthrough. A bejeweled golden book sits in front of the staircase that leads upstairs where you can walk around the inside of the castle admiring the beautiful stained glass windows depicting the story of Sleeping Beauty. You can also step outside on the castle balcony for a very nice view of Fantasyland, but we were really there for only one thing: to see the Dragon. Down a set of stairs from that balcony, off to the side of the castle (there no signage indicating where you need to go to see it until you’re already there, you’re just left to figure out that the walkway alongside the castle and under the bridge is the correct way) is La Taniere du Dragon. Inside, in a dark and foggy cave, is the sleeping monster, a massive replica of Maleficent’s Dragon form, surrounded by the bones of its victims. Its stomach expands and contracts as it breathes, smoke pouring from its nostrils. Every so often it rouses, growling and snapping at the crowd surrounding it. It’s actually a lot more active and impressive than I thought it would be. Low expectations will serve you well.
Main Street was packed and it wasn’t even near park closing. You would think half the people just came to the park had come just to shop. I couldn’t stand the crowds, so I left Lisa alone to look for souvenirs while I explored the Arcades lining either side of Main Street. I had read about these, but had forgotten they were there, only finding them as I looked for an exit to shops. One side, the more interesting side, was a narrative about the gifting of the Statue of Liberty from France to America, from its conception, through its construction, to the present day. There were dioramas throughout the hall with photographs and placards explaining key points during the statue’s history. In the middle of the hall was a little entryway you could pass through into a darkened hall that looked out from a ship, its passengers discussing the new statue in the harbor. It was a neat little respite from the day of touring.
Disappointed by the lack of Disneyland Paris themed merchandise, we left Main Street empty-handed and returned to Adventureland to use our Indiana Jones Fastpasses before we ended the day in Fantasyland.
It was broken.
There was a small crowd gathered in front of the ride. The ride had stopped at the top of a hill and its passengers were being unloaded and brought down the staircases to exit. We normally would’ve just turned around and cut our losses, but the presence of the crowd didn’t seem to bother the attendant who was keeping everyone out of line: he wouldn’t just let us stand there, clogging up the area, if the ride wasn’t going to be working again soon, right? Well, the answer is that he would. He was quite jovial, but he didn’t seem to have any idea what was going on. The crowd had just grown bigger as we waited, and, since we were at the very front by the entrance to the Fastpass line, we would have to push our way out if we wanted to anywhere else. Waiting actually became enjoyable. No one in the crowd spoke the same language. It seemed as if all the French had gone on vacation elsewhere, and the majority of visitors were non-French speaking Spanish, Germans and Italians, with a few English and American sprinkled in for good measure. Since we couldn’t commiserate about our predicament, the crowd formed a universal language, groaning as the time passed, gasping and cheering when some progress seemed to be made on the ride, clapping as a makeshift chant to get the maintenance workers going. When the fifteen minute deadline we had given ourselves came and went, we weren’t bothered because standing around and waiting was actually kind of fun.
During this whole time, a group of children had snaked their way through the crowd and were standing just alongside the Fastpass entrance. This is important because I’m about to relate one of my not-so-proudest moments. About twenty-five minutes after we got to the ride the crowd had gone from sizeable to riot-waiting-to-happen. When the ride opened, the Fastpass attendant stepped aside, as if he were letting a bull loose at a rodeo, knowing what was to come. The entire crowd surged forward at once and everyone was forced into the tiny confines of the line. You either moved or were trampled. The children waiting alongside the line, tried to sneak in to the side of the line but found themselves swept up and separated by the swelling current of humanity. A prepubescent boy, no older than 11, looking very much like the kid from A Christmas Story, was being pressed between the rope and my stomach. I had nowhere to move but forward, as the entire population of France was pressing at my back, but I did my best to keep from killing the kid. The kid reached out in front of him, and in a thick Scottish accent reminiscent of a high-pitched Fat Bastard from Austin Powers, called out to his sister:
“I’m sorrah, I tried to stay wit’ ya’, but this big fat guy is crushin’ me!”.
I laughed (in retrospect, internally) and, forgetting the kid was a kid, said:
“I speak the language, dick.”
The kid looked up at me as if I had just murdered his mother. He was terrified. As soon as the line opened up he bolted away, running to rejoin his friends. I laughed and told Lisa what had happened, but immediately felt bad about scaring the crap out of the kid. He rejoined his friends, who had heard what I said and found it the funniest thing ever, and were torturing the kid. At least I gave them a story to tell back at school.
The ride sucked, by the way. It was a plain Wild Mouse-type coaster whose sole loop did not make up for the fact the most interesting part of the theming was the two giant torches out front. Unfortunately, I can’t even say it wasn’t worth the wait, because the wait was worth the wait. The wait wasn’t worth the ride, I guess.
My camera gave out at this point, which didn’t matter much, because our feet were about to as well. We made our way back into Fantasyland. In another nod to the universality of certain aspects of Disney, the wait for Peter Pan was approaching two hours. I don’t know what it is about the ride that’ll make people wait so long to get on it, but whatever it is, it’s not limited to America.
We rode on Les Voyages de Pinocchio and encountered our first foreign voice actor for a familiar character. Why is it that support characters are almost universally voiced by some whiny, high-pitched, nasally guy, no matter what the original character sounded like? Jiminy Cricket’s voice was so grating that you finally understood why Pinocchio never listened to him…hmmm, maybe that’s why. We always end up liking the sidekicks more than the main character back in the states, maybe they’re just trying to rectify that overseas by casting obnoxious voices for non-primary characters.
We rode Blanche-Neige et les Sept Nains, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, which was nearly identical to the original version and thus fairly unremarkable. The most interesting part of the ride was the guy running the operations panel for the ride: he was training six workers, all women, and they were all pressed up against him to see the tiny control board, hanging on his every word. We were, naturally, left to board the ride by ourselves. I wouldn’t dare interrupt the man’s fantasy world.
We ventured into an attraction unique to Disneyland Paris: Alice’s Curious Labyrinth. It’s a hedge maze that was made less fun for two reasons: the wrong paths only let you wander down them for about a foot before you see they’re the wrong path, and Lisa decided to follow someone else through the maze, defeating the whole purpose. The maze itself was fairly enjoyable, opening up every so often to reveal an encounter with a character from the movie, the coolest of which was the Caucus race, which led you in circles past the racing characters, jumping fountains splashing alongside you as you pass. The maze dumps you out in front of a perfect photo opportunity: a giant floral recreation of the Cheshire Cat’s face, but unfortunately my camera had pretty much given up.
It was still more than a half hour before park closing, but the two remaining attractions I wanted to go on were closed: the train, bizarrely, stops running an hour and a half before park closing, and Le Pays des Contes de Fées, the Storybook Land Canal Boats, stop running two hours before park closing.
Not wanting to end the day in disappointment, I remembered a tiny little nerd detail I had heard about: In Pinocchio’s Village Haus in Walt Disney World, a construction error had placed an exit sign off center and, to correct the mistake, an Imagineer painted Figaro, Gepetto’s cat, trying to tug the exit sign into its proper place. Problem solved. Years later, when they built a copy of the restaurant in Disneyland Paris, Au Chalet de la Marionette, they made sure that particular exit sign was in the right place. They added a little Disney detail, though, and I was able to get my camera to snap one last picture of it when we found it in the restaurant: Figaro leaning up against the exit sign, winking, giving a thumbs up for a job well done.
We said our goodbyes to the park, knowing we would probably return the next day since the Disney Studios opens later and closes earlier than the Disneyland Park. We walked back to the Sequoia Lodge, a walk that seemed a thousand times longer than the walk we took in the morning. We discussed our thoughts on the park.
We both agreed that, in terms of atmosphere, in that you could just stand around and enjoy yourself, it rivaled Animal Kingdom, my favorite of all the Disney Parks (you heard me right). Every inch of Disneyland Paris was crafted with exquisite detail and everything was a marvel to look at. There were so many rides that were the best versions on offer that I can easily say that it’s the best of the Magic Kingdoms. Lisa clung to her nostalgia: Walt Disney World’s was all she knew growing up and she was sticking with her childhood favorite. She easily admitted though that several of her favorite Disney rides were now here, though. The positives far outweighed the negatives, but the negatives were noteworthy: the obscene lining procedures that seemed to be completely ignored in the design of the park and the behavior of the attendants. I also hate to be the guy harping about “show”, but watching a guy in jeans and a t-shirt paint the Antique Look on a well kind of ruins the magic. None of these, however, would prevent me from returning to the park again. In fact, the only thing keeping me from going back to this park, which I really did love, is the fact that there’s so much left in Europe that I’ve yet to see.
