Disneyland Paris Solo Trip Report - August 2015

[Dav2205]

Hey everyone!

So I recently came back from a 4 day solo trip to DLP. Details of my trip -

Went from 25th-28th August
Stayed at Ibis budget Val D'Europe
Indirect train from London - DLP
Purchased a fantasy annual pass on this trip!

Day 1 - Tuesday 25th August 2015

So here we are, day 1 of my trip report. This includes all travel and a bit of Disney stuff. You'll see why it was only a bit of Disney stuff when I get to that part of the day (building suspense already, clearly I'm a natural storyteller!).

My day began at 4:30am! Well I say it started, the previous day actually didn't end as I couldn't sleep so gave up and just got up. After getting ready and catching a cab to St. Pancras (I live in Hoxton for anyone who knows London so it's only 10 minutes away) I was checked in good time for my indirect train to DLP. On a side note I'd have much preferred the direct train but I booked this trip a month ago and it was more than twice the price. Apparently my time isn't worth that much :d:.

The train ride was easy and uneventful, and I will say that living in London I find the Eurostar to be absolutely brilliant. There really is no comparison to flying. It's so much less stressful. Anyway I arrived into Marne la Vallee on time (around 12pm local time) and jumped on the RER back to Val d'Europe where I was staying at the Ibis budget for a few nights. Now I stayed at this hotel in May with my girlfriend and thought it was ridiculously basic, but I was on my own, it was really reasonably priced and the Disney hotels are just stupidly expensive when booked last minute so I decided to go for it! My room was ready and so by about 1pm I was in the resort and heading into Disneyland park! :grin:

First stop in the park was to collect my annual pass. I went for the fantasy pass as didn't think the extra perks of the dream pass were worth it to me. No pic here but you can see it on my Instagram account (username is dav2205).

Once I collected my annual pass I'm not going to lie the tiredness absolutely floored me. I knew that jedi training academy was on in Cafe Hyperion and they had changed up the menu a bit so decided to have a quiet hour or so and check it all out -

The food was actually pretty good. I've had some genuinely horrific food at DLP over the years but this was tasty by fast food standards. Also think it's cute how they've given everything a Star Wars twist!

I also thought the show was really cool and a welcome addition to the park. All I know is if it was there when I visited as a kid I'd have been all over it! Some of the effects in it were also really cool, and I can see it being popular for a very long time!

At this point I started to realise why I usually don't visit the park in the summer time. It was BUSY. So much busier than May. It was so busy, it was raining and I was so tired that I didn't bother doing anything else in Disneyland Park and decided to head over to the studios and see if the queues were shorter there.

In short, they weren't. In fact the queues were so long for all the rides that I did one of my least favourite attractions at either of the parks. The stunt show. Or at least it was one of my least favourites because I found myself actually enjoying it. It's probably to do with the fact I haven't seen it in over 10 years!

I don't have any more pictures for today, but can tell you the only other thing I did was Ratatouille (thank goodness for the single rider line - only had to wait 15 minutes!) which was absolutely superb as I remembered it. The trackless ride system is so clever and for me it's got the qualities that make it enjoyable to all age groups which is just Disney personified.

At this point it was about 6pm and I just couldn't take anymore so decided to bail on the parks for the day (one of the perks of having 4 days there I suppose!). I headed back to Val d'Europe and stopped off at the supermarket for some breakfast supplies and sushi for dinner. After a quick call home and to the GF I was out like a light at 9:30 with my alarm set for EMH the next day (which totally didn't happen but I'll explain that in the post for Day 2!)

 

[Dav2205]

Day 2 - Wednesday 26th August

In terms of Disney stuff this is by far the longest day. Overall I was in the parks from 9:30am til after Dreams today so this is going to be a long *** post. The reason I went for this as the long day is because the weather on Thursday was forecast to be horrible all day (and boy was it right) so I decided to make the most of the nice weather while I could!

Now if you've read Day 1 (and if you haven't, why not? Go read it now. I'll wait) you'll have noticed my intention was to get up for EMH in Disneyland Park before heading over to the studios for it opening. Well that fell by the wayside and I ended up arriving at the studios park around 9:30 am. I'll also say that it looked properly crowded today, even before opening. It turned out to be even busier than I first thought, but I think once you see everything I did today I did quite well!

From the day 1 post you'll already know (or you should, because you'll definitely have read it after my prompts above) that I rode Ratatouille yesterday so I'm pretty sure you can guess what my first port of call was today? You're right, the Studio tram tour!... err no

The line for the regular queue was already huge, I'm talking right back to studio 1 huge but I had an ace up my sleeve. That's right, single rider line baby! I'm talking right at the front of the single rider line (well 2nd in line, but who's counting?). Was this a good idea. Well what if I told you I was on and off Crush by 5 to 10 that morning. I'd say it was pretty successful . As for the ride itself? I find that if I start going forwards I'm fine, but if I start facing backwards I get dangerously close to the ride making me feel too sick. Nevertheless I always really enjoy it, it's just that once a day is enough!

After that it was straight to this place to pick up a fastpass:

And got a not bad return time:

I then headed into Toy Story playland. I'd never been on any of the rides here, and the only one I was interested in was RC Racer. Once again I jumped into the single rider line and was on within 5 minutes (it was only about 10:30 at this point, not bad huh?)

RC Racer was fun but holy moley is it short. It must last what, 40 seconds? If I'd waited an hour for that I'd have been mega raging haha. For a 5 minute wait though? Love it. After that it was out of Toy Story play land and after a few pictures of the (beautiful) La Place de Remy

it was time to rock on with these guys -

I'm convinced you can go on this ride 1000 times and the start of it will still be thrilling. The only slightly negative thing I would say is I prefer the theme and story of the Orlando version compared to this, it just feels a bit more immersive!

Next it was time for one of my favourite shows, with a theme song rivaling Small World in the catchiness rankings:

Really enjoyed the show as always but I'm also looking forward to any potential updates they make. I'd like it to maybe become a bit more Pixar themed. This is going a bit off topic but I feel that Disney Studios could really do with having more of an identity and I think that making that entire side of the park Pixar themed would go a long way to achieving that.

Then it was finally time for the one ride in DLP that still scares the absolute bejeezus out of me no matter how many times I go on it -

What can I say about this ride that hasn't been said already? Before Ratatouille it was by far the best themed attraction in the studios, and in terms of immersion and theme it's one of the best in the resort. And it makes me yelp like a 5 year old girl which is always good for an ego check!

At this point it was 12:30 (only 12:30?!?) and needless to say I was starving. Decided to keep it French (or Disneyland Paris interpretation of French anyway) and go to the Blockbuster Cafe for one of these bad boys

Bread, ham, loads of cheese. Yep it was good. It's also nice to see some Marvel themes creeping into the Paris parks seeing as though they're not able to do it in Florida! At this point it was time to say

to the Studios park as I had a tour of Disneyland park booked for 2pm. Continued in the next post...

 

[Dav2205]

Part deux as the French would say...

Like I said above I had a tour of Disneyland Park booked for 2pm. If you haven't done this before it costs 25 Euros per person ( no annual pass discount but there is a shareholders discount) and lasts around 2 hours with a free pin given to each guest at the end. There was only 3 of us on the tour, myself and 2 really nice Welsh girls (her there if you are Disers :wavey. The tour literally goes the whole way around the park so you better be prepared for a walk! I'm not going to go into a blow by blow review of it so all I'll say is that overall it gave me a greater appreciation for the thought that went into designing this park (especially Frontierland!) and if you're even remotely a Disney parks geek I would wholeheartedly recommend the tour. Next time I think I'll try the Studios tour, see how they try and spin some of that into positivity :d:.

The tour lasted from 2pm to 4pm and ended in Discoveryland so after I said my goodbyes to the group I grabbed a Fastpass for Space Mountain and retreated to Cafe Fantasia in the Disneyland Hotel for a well earned Jack and coke but not before getting a quick view of the Frozen girls in the hub area:

I love Cafe Fantasia. It is expensive (13.50 euros for a Jack and coke!) but the atmosphere is so relaxing and it's such an easy escape from the hustle and bustle of the park. I chilled here for a little while before heading back to the park to catch the parade:

And then used this to see what the refurbed Space Mountain looked like:

In short, looks great, still hurts like hell. Can't wait til they replace the vehicles on this, hopefully cut down on the head bashing a bit because apart from that it's a great ride!

I then went in search of some food, which was no mean feat because the park was packed. In the end I headed to one of the more remote counter service restaurants - Colonel Hathi's!

As with the other counter service food I had on this trip it was a nice surprise. Hot and tasted fairly fresh!

At this point the night kind of merges into itself until I watched Dreams at 11 so I'll just sum it all up. I went to see the Dragon:

then did the Aladdin walkthrough

before taking a ride through retro Star Tours. This ride is weird for me, every time I go on it I know it badly needs an update but I'm really going to miss it when it gets updated as it's the last of the originals in the world now.

And finally a night time shot of Space Mountain. Discoveryland just comes alive at night, it's absolutely gorgeous.

The park was so crowded I actually queued for Dreams an hour before it started. Got a decent position in front of the castle but unfortunately the rain started which made the wait a bit more miserable. At about 10:45pm they did a short frozen fountain show which was cute

but then it was time for Dreams. It's not my absolute favourite night time show but it is definitely up there with the best of them. As a Scottish person I am quite gutted they took out Brave but seeing the reactions Frozen gets from the kids in the crowd I totally get it. As always Dreams was worth the wait and a perfect end to a busy but pretty perfect day!

 

[Dav2205]

Day 3 - Thursday 27th August

Bit of advance warning here, the weather was horrible today so I didn't even take my camera out with me. So no pics for today sorry! I make up with it on day 4 I think!

After yesterday's long day I had a slow start today and didn't get out of bed til nearly 11am! This was kind of planned though, work has been crazy recently and I wanted to spend at least a little bit of the holiday enjoying the break. I had a quick pastry that I'd bought from the supermarket on day 1 and then headed to the Val d'Europe shopping centre.

I'd planned to spend most of the day split between here and the outlets and that err...didn't happen. Am I the only person that finds outlet stores almost universally terrible? I don't know why I expected any different from this one :d:. After an hour and a half (and believe me I was stretching out time here) I decided I'd had enough and retreated to McDonalds for some lunch.

At this point I was really at a crossroads for the day. It was only about 2pm and I was planning on shopping til much later in the day. I hadn't planned on going to the parks at all today because of the weather but that changed once I checked the wait times on the app. Wait times were non existant for most of the attractions in Disneyland Park so I decided to buy a cheap umbrella, suck it up and head up to the parks and do some of the rides I had avoided due to the massive queues on the other days (and repeat a few I'd done already).

New umbrella in tow I had a quick break at the hotel and arrived at the park around 4pm. I knew the rain would put a lot of people off but I was shocked at how quiet the parks were compared to yesterday (and tomorrow!) so decided to make the most of it. I hadn't done Phantom Manor yet and it was posting a 5 minute wait so decided to go for it. Turns out 5 minutes was over estimating it, I walked straight in! I have to say that my enjoyment and appreciation for this attraction has increased ten fold since I did the tour of the park. I always liked it but once you have a bit more understanding of the story of the ride it binds the whole thing together and I have to admit it's moved much further up my favourite attraction list now!

Once I made it out the manor (not a ghost thankfully!) I headed over to check out Big Thunder Mountain. I hadn't been on this yet because the queue was always longer than I'm willing to wait and the Fastpasses were always gone by the time I got there. However today there was still Fastpasses available, and to give a clear picture of how quiet the park was I picked up a Fastpass at 4:30pm for 5:15pm-5:45pm. Compared to previous days that was simply unheard of! I ended up not actually using the fastpass because the rain got worse, and as much as it would be fun to experience the world's first ever Big Thunder & Splash Mountain hybrid I decided to try again at rope drop tomorrow when I knew the weather would be better.

Then it was time to head back to Adventureland and onto Pirates - directly onto Pirates. I walked straight onto a boat! I was slightly annoyed after waiting half an hour for it yesterday :d:but whatever it's my favourite ride and I was just happy that I got to ride it a few times on the trip!

At that point I decided to head round to Discoveryland, mostly with the intention of riding Buzz as I hadn't been on it yet and it is one of my favourites. Again the lines had just been too long at other points of the trip. I picked up a Fastpass (again this was completely at odds with the previous days where they were snapped up ridiculously quickly) and decided to do a few of the other rides in the area again before my time came up. I managed to walk straight onto Star Tours before making use of the single rider line for Space Mountain (Tangent Alert: I found the single rider line for Space Mountain to have very sporadic availability. I tried to use it loads of times but only once was it actually open. The logic seems to be that they won't open it if the wait is longer than the regular line, which makes sense I guess. Just a word of caution that you can't rely on a very short wait in the single rider line to get your fix on this ride!. Tangent over).

Buzz was great as usual, the guns are much better than the version at WDW. My brother never beats me at this, and after seeing my score this time I'm sure my streak would have remained in tact if he was there...

I'm afraid at this point the rain became too much, so at about 7pm I decided to get some food and then head back via the World of Disney shop. I had a very nice quick service meal at Victoria's at the edge of main street (the roast beef and bacon sandwich is lovely!) and made my way out of the park. While in the World of Disney store I realised I hadn't bought any souvenirs yet and decided it was time to rectify that! In total I bought -

- 2 Star Wars Vinylmations. I had to go to the store inside Studio 1 at WDS to get these. It's so disappointing that they seem to by phasing these out completely as I love collecting one or two every time I go.
- A cereal bowl to replace the one I bought in May, which I may have dropped and broke...
- A DLP glass, because I don't drink tea or coffee so a mug is wasted on me.
- 1 Pirates of the Caribbean pin :grin:

I also bought a few presents for my girlfriend, namely a bowl that she'd liked when we went in May, a Minnie Mouse tsum tsum and a DLP themed chocolate slab. My mum is getting a Christmas bauble because she is seemingly determined to have a Christmas tree full of Disney decorations :d:. It was 18 Euros with my AP discount though mg:.

Thoroughly shopped out (I shopped for about half an hour, that's about my limit). I was back in the hotel by around 8:30 and watched some of the Champions League highlights before heading to bed. Tomorrow was my last day so I was determined to get there early and make the most of it!

If you've got this far through the wall of text, thanks for reading!

 

[Dav2205]

Day 4 - Friday 28th August

It was here already - my last day :cry:. Even though 4 days was plenty of time to do what I wanted to do I was still gutted to be leaving. I think I'm always gutted to be leaving any Disney resort tbf, and this is one of the few places full of people who completely understand that!

I finished up my packing and checked out of the hotel at around 9am, leaving my luggage in the wee room. My plan for rope drop was simple - Big Thunder Mountain. The crowds today were much larger than yesterday, it felt like there was more people behind me at the Frontierland rope than there was at the entire park yesterday evening! I made a quick pit stop for a croissant at the Market Street Deli before I got my space in the Frontierland scrum. When the rope was dropped I ignored the masses running into the standby queue for Big Thunder Mountain, deciding to pick up a Fastpass instead.

10:30-11am? Not too shabby! In the half an hour or so that I had before my fastpass was valid I decided to head over and do Indiana Jones while the queue was short -

It was posted as 5 minutes but again it ended up being a walk on. The queue was just up to the top of the stairs before you load onto the coaster but went I got there the cast member was asking for one more person so I walked past everyone and straight onto the ride! I've never been entirely sold on this ride. I love the atmosphere in the area but the ride is just a little bit meh, and continues the Space Mountain trait of being a right old head basher. Still I was happy to have done it, and headed back to Frontierland!

Indy had taken such little time that I still had a wee while til by BTM fastpass. I then noticed this pulling into dock -

I'm not sure if I've ever done this at DLP so decided it was time to rectify that. The boat was pretty empty at this time of the morning and all I can say is what a relaxing way to spend 20 or so minutes! I snapped a few pics on the way round

With that new(?) experience out the way, I headed to BTM to use the Fastpass. I felt like this ride had a 4 day build up to it :d:but it'a always worth any amount of build up. This version is SO much better than the WDW version and is a very close second to Pirates on my favourite attractions list at this resort. Thunder Mountain ended up being the last ride I did at Disneyland Park on this trip (I tried to do Pirates again but it was down and the cast members didn't know when it would be back up ). I decided to take a few more pictures

and then headed back over to the Studios to do a last few attractions there.

As a tribute to the recently closed Art of Disney Animation attraction at Hollywood Studios I did the Paris equivalent

I understand it doesn't fit the new direction for the Florida park but am happy we still have it over here. In my opinion the Mushu part is always entertaining (although I wouldn't be adverse to an update!), the short film on the history of Disney animation is really nostalgic and I'm happy the animation academy lives on here!

With that done, there was only one more attraction in the Studios I still had to do

I LOVE this show. I've seen it about 10 times now, but it never gets old. It's just really well done and I like that it is so unique to this park. Cinemagique ended up being my last attraction of the trip. I checked the wait times board for any last minute repeat rides but the queues were pretty mental (140 mins for Ratatouille, 100 mins for Crush) so I decided to call it a day.

With a few hours to kill I had a last look at the shops in the Disney village, had a quick look at the Sequoia Lodge (scoping it out for my next trip in February!), popped in or some lunch at Earl of Sandwich (yummy as always) and watched some Athletics at the Sports Bar before collecting my luggage from the hotel and catching the Eurostar to London via Lille.

So that was my trip! I hope you enjoyed reading it because I had a great time! :grin::grin:. Hopefully I'll be back with another trip report in the new year :spin:.

 

[Dav2205]

In addition to my trip report itself I also put together a video. Apologies the cam is a bit shaky at times (first time I've done this!) but hopefully you enjoy the video .

 

[dhidra]

Great report, I really enjoyed reading it! Thanks for posting! I haven't watched the video yet but I will later this evening.
I agree with you about Cafe Fantasia....it's possibly my favourite place in DLP.

 

[Dav2205]

Great report, I really enjoyed reading it! Thanks for posting! I haven't watched the video yet but I will later this evening.
I agree with you about Cafe Fantasia....it's possibly my favourite place in DLP.

Thanks for the kind words! It really seems to be a hidden gem of sorts (which is weird given it's right across from Inventions!)

 

[Ms Poppins]

Fab trip report - I too agree on Cafe Fantasia and hope to be there in a few weeks time

Love you photos of Discoveryland in the dark, it really does come alive and looks stunning, especially around Orbitron and Space Mountain

You seemed to get lots done despite the poor weather - but being a Scot (like me) I'm sure you're used to tackling the rain

Thanks for posting

 

[markpsych]

Loved reading this report and the pictures are great! Thanks for sharing

 

[BadPinkTink]

great report, and just shows how much you can do on a solo trip.

 

[Jon84]

Great TR!

I love the Frontierland Rope Drop.

Last time we did the little ally at the end of Main St. They walked us out into the main street where we came face to face with the main crowd. Everyone ran, some guy carrying a child knocked over a trash can, it was mad. But, we at least got on the second ride of BTM of the day

 

[Dav2205]

Fab trip report - I too agree on Cafe Fantasia and hope to be there in a few weeks time

Love you photos of Discoveryland in the dark, it really does come alive and looks stunning, especially around Orbitron and Space Mountain

You seemed to get lots done despite the poor weather - but being a Scot (like me) I'm sure you're used to tackling the rain

Thanks for posting

Thanks! Yeah on the Thursday everyone else had such a sad look on their face, and I just thought it was a normal summer's day haha

Loved reading this report and the pictures are great! Thanks for sharing

Thanks

great report, and just shows how much you can do on a solo trip.

Thanks! Yeah I was shocked, imagining how much I could have done if it wasn't the summer holidays too. Could have done everything 10 times probably haha.

Great TR!

I love the Frontierland Rope Drop.

Last time we did the little ally at the end of Main St. They walked us out into the main street where we came face to face with the main crowd. Everyone ran, some guy carrying a child knocked over a trash can, it was mad. But, we at least got on the second ride of BTM of the day

Thanks! Yeah I never realised pushchairs can be used as battering rams until that morning haha. I was taking an almost relaxed approach in getting to the Fastpass line!

 

[Dav2205]

First of all, can't believe it's been two weeks since I finished the trip report already! Time goes so fast when you're back into your normal routine. Anyway I thought I'd just sum up my general highs and lows from the trip which will include some of my general thoughts on DLP.

Highs!

• Travelling solo: I had quite a lot of trepidation about travelling to Disney alone. There was a lot to like about travelling solo though, the biggest advantage being that I could just do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it!

• Dreams: Fantasmic will always have a special place in my heart, but Dreams runs it a close second. Don't think I could ever tire of watching it.

• Ratatouille: I'd already done the ride in May but on this trip I had a bit more time to look around the area. This is what happens when you let imagineers do what they do best. If only the rest of the Studios park could have been done with the same attention to detail.

• Magic on Parade: Not sure if this makes it a high or a low, but I'm still singing the song all the time. My girlfriend would probably call it a low...

• Tour of Disneyland Park: I really enjoyed this. At 25 Euros I thought it was a bargain and it really helps bring the story of the park together. I'll never rush through Main Street again, and it's made me appreciate the imagineering of Frontierland in particular so much more! If you even have a passing interest in the park I'd recommend checking this out. I thought about the Studios tour but I wasn't sure I wanted to hear about where they got all the concrete and chain linked fence...(bitter much)

• Fast Food: I always remembered DLP fast food being absolutely shocking, but honestly didn't have a bad meal this time. Not sure if I got lucky but it all gets a thumbs up from me!

• Disneyland Park: It never ceases to amaze me how gorgeous and well themed this park is. In my opinion Magic Kingdom doesn't hold a candle to it and it really is the crown jewel of the resort

• Pirates of the Caribbean: Best ride ever.

• Fantasy Annual Pass: The annual passes at DLP are an absolute bargain. I paid £135 for my Fantasy Annual Pass and given I intend to go twice next year it's going to be a brilliant deal.

• Tower of Terror: Scares the bejeezus out of me but what a ride!

Lows!

• People sitting on the grass: I know this is a common complaint of DLP but it doesn't cease to wind me up. It's not a cultural thing it's just a case of bad manners. It isn't like it's ambiguous where you can sit, there's fences all around it! Thankfully the Cast Members were making people move before Dreams, despite some people's best attempts to pretend they didn't hear anything!

• A lot of Walt Disney studios: I know they're working on this park blah blah blah, and it does have a few good attractions now, but overall I still think it's an absolute shambles in many ways.
  
  In my opinion Studio 1 is an eyesore and it really needs a proper entrance. I understand they want it to be covered but why not take a few notes from Tokyo and have an entrance similar to Hollywood Studios but with a glass ceiling over the top?
  The walk from Studio 1 to Rock n Roller Coaster is about as joyful as my walk to work every morning.
  I know they're updating the Tram Tour but I wish they'd just bulldoze the whole thing and put something good in there.
  Ironically Armageddon makes me wish for the world to end.
  They need to get some clearly defined lands in there. Just change the whole right side of the park to be Pixar themed rather than lots of concrete walkways and random pixar attractions. It feels all muddled up at the moment.
  
  Don't get me wrong I don't HATE the park, it just all feels very clumsy. I always get the feeling that it needs something absolutely massive to get it up to par, but I can't see that happening until Disney fully own the property. Even at that point it needs California Adventure levels of investment and in my opinion would need one of (or both) a Star Wars and Cars land to bring it up to where it needs to be.

I thought my lows would be longer but to be honest I had a great time and a lot of it would be nit picking. I'm pretty sure everyone has bits of Disneyland Paris that annoy them and they wish were different but to me the good will always outweigh the bad and I'll happily hand over my cash to go there next year!

I'm definitely done now. Thanks to anyone who read along and watched my trip video. Hope to be doing this again in February.

 

[Ms Poppins]

I agree with a lot of your highs and lows. We did the tour of the Disneyland Park and loved it so did the Studios tour too. We really, really enjoyed it and it made us look at the Studios differently. There isn't obvious theming, but I think that's because it's supposed to be like a real working studio with separate buildings etc. We did find out lots of really interesting things, I'd definitely recommend it

 

[Anemone]

Really enjoyed your report - thanks for sharing. I did Disneyland solo earlier this year and loved it too. Have yet to do DLP on my own but that day will come too. I am definitely going to do a park tour as well.