Paris – Day 2 – Unknown Longitude

Paris – Day 1 can be found here.

Up at 7:20 am this morning – we have an Ultimate Access Pass at Disney Paris, and we want to make the most of it.

For those not familiar – as I wasn’t, before we booked our stay at Disney Paris – the Ultimate Access Pass is essentially a ‘skip the line pass’ for each of the ‘fast-passable’ rides, with the exception of Orbitron.

Guests can also order Premier Access passes on an ‘a la carte’ basis, but they can cost as much as 13 Euro per ride. So the Ultimate Access Pass is a considerably better deal at the 90 Euro per person we paid almost a year earlier. (The pass increases in price depending on demand – it was closer to 190 Euro the day before we arrived.)

We dressed quickly and went down to breakfast at the Compass Club Lounge. It’s just a simple buffet, but they had a good selection of items and everything was well done. I opted for some hash browns, eggs, bacon and my long-standing favourite – buffet pineapple.

Drink service is done by servers and it’s all relatively quick. There are times when I wished I could just get my own cappuccino, but we never really waited for very long.

Plus their cappuccino machine prints pictures of Stitch and other Disney creations… how cute is that?

I was also reunited with a familiar foe:

And no, I was not responsible for the 30 pancakes currently printing from the machine.

The gates open for ‘early access’ for Disney hotel guests at 8:30 am, so we headed off around 8 am in the hope of beating the line.

And they’re off…

We ended up waiting about 20 minutes and were among the first to enter – only to get lost when the Disney Paris app tried to send us through construction. So I’d say that the real time savings comes from knowing where you’re going, rather than lining up in advance. Regardless, we were able to walk on to Ratatouille so our strategy seemed to work well enough.

Ratatouille was very well done, and made use of a combination of physical sets and massive screens to create a strong sense of immersion. The ride changes slightly depending on what car you’re in – different twists and turns, slightly different paths – but the story remains fundamentally identical.

We had a look at the Cars Road Trip, but it wasn’t due to open until 10 am. Ah, well. We just did Ratatouille again, as it was still a walk-on.

We then went to use our Ultimate Pass on Tower of Terror, only to discover that the passes can’t be used until 9:30 am – and at this stage Tower of Terror was already up to an 85 minute wait time (!!!).

Spiderman Web Adventure was up to 30 minutes, so Gran took the kids on Cars 4 Roues Rallye while my wife and I went on Avengers Assemble: Flight Force, which ended up being her favourite ride of the park.

It’s an intense rollercoaster with loops and corkscrews in the dark, augmented with Avengers visual effects. Very well done.

It was 9:30 am at this point so we used our premium passes to go on the Spiderman Web Adventure, in which you gesture with your arms to shoot webs at replicating spider-bots that have taken over the Spiderman campus. Similar concept to the Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast, but with updated visuals and technology.

We all enjoyed it, but we were glad we didn’t have to wait long in line.

After, we again used our premium passes to go on Tower of Terror.

I had been expecting it to be a single large drop, while it ended up being quite a few smaller drops instead. There was also a holographic ghost that was particularly spooky. The kids found it too intense, but my wife and I both enjoyed it.

My only complaint was that someone was attempting to film during – despite multiple notices that filming was not permitted – and they had to make an announcement mid-ride, breaking the immersion. But that’s certainly not Disney’s fault.

The Cars Road Trip ride had opened at 10 am, so we went to try that. It said it was essentially a walk-on, but we still used our premium pass to try to get on sooner. I’m glad we did as the regular line was much longer than expected. Even with the premium pass we still waited at least 10 minutes.

The ride itself was very similar to Backlot Studios at the Disney Hollywood Studios – a basic tour followed by an unexpected disaster that soon gets resolved. It was a nice palette cleanser after Tower of Terror.

Plus we got to see the “I-fuel” tower…

At that point we’d pretty much done the Walt Disney Studios section of the park, so we went back to Disneyland Park. We arrived in the middle of a parade, which made it easy for us to slip on to Snow White and the 7 Dwarves – which lived up to the promised 10 minute wait time, despite seeming much longer.

Gran then took the kids to do Small World while my wife and I attempted Hyperspace Mountain – which was unfortunately closed. So we did the Nautilus walk through – which was fine, but not terribly exciting – and then went to Star Tours to wait for Gran and the kids.

At least we got to see a steampunk bunkbed… try saying that 10 times fast

Star Tours Part Deux – and yes, we can confirm that the ride seems to change each time you ride it. This time we were attacked by a droid instead of Darth Vader, and we then went to a water world instead of Endor, followed by an ice world. Different in every way from our first tour!

We then stopped for lunch at the Hyperion Lounge, where we grabbed some 9 Euro burger combos for the kids and some 18 Euro burger combos for the adults. We asked for some without cheese and others without ketchup – which wasn’t an issue, though they told us it would be 20 minutes for a custom order. Thankfully it was ready in only about 5 minutes. Not cheap, but quite good.

At this point, Hyperspace Mountain had reopened so we left the kids with Gran and went off to use our premium pass. The premium pass for this ride is way off to the side, but we found it after some trial and error.

The ride itself is quite similar to the Avengers rollercoaster – in the dark with lots of visual effects. I enjoyed the initial launch – which is done at an angle – as well as all the visual effects. My wife preferred Avengers, while I like them both equally.

We then collected the kids and went to Autotopia, which is essentially a go-kart track with rails beneath the cars to ensure they don’t crash into walls.

The kids are also supposed to avoid bumping into the car in front of them, but that’s more difficult than it sounds – the controls are sensitive and the gas pedal is more of an on / off switch than an actual throttle. They really enjoyed it, however, so that was a plus.

We also got to see how they handle a vehicle breakdown on the track:

From here we then went to La Taniere du Dragon – a walk through attraction in which you get to see an animatronic dragon go from slumbering to threatening and back to slumbering again. Perhaps a bit spooky for little kids, but still fun to see.

Next up was Peter Pan – which was another ride that we could access via the premier pass. This is a Disney classic with some very minor updates in terms of projected visual effects. Quick to get on, and definitely worthwhile.

Then we went back to Pirates of the Caribbean once more, and then off to the Haunted Mansion.

Unfortunately, the ride was disrupted by a family that didn’t seem to understand that their 7 and 4 year olds couldn’t ride alone in their cart – and also that they couldn’t have the kids ride on their shoulders during the ride. Good thing Disney has such stringent safety protocols. And patient staff.

Thankfully, this meant I got some more time to watch the spooky, shadowy figure play piano – such a creepy visual effect, and it made me not mind the delay. And again, there are minor updates to Haunted Mansion which make it different from the Haunted Mansions in other parks. So well worth the visit.

It was around this time that Jafar paid us an unexpected visit – I wasn’t able to capture the entirety of it, sadly, but he snuck right up on my wife, shushing our kids so that he could make it a surprise. We all had quite the start – and I was too slow with my camera to catch anything more than his departure.

The whole experience felt that much more fitting given we’d just found a magic lamp in Morocco…

The kids then took some time to explore the Swiss Family Treehouse and the Frontierland Playground before we decided to take in one of the Lion King shows.

We stopped in for popcorn first – which ended up taking much longer than expected (more than 20 min) – but still managed to find fairly decent seats on the left side of the theatre.

The show basically consists of all the hit songs from the movie. The pyrotechnics, costumes, singing, dancing, and music were all top notch – highly recommended.

We had debated whether we’d attempt to take the kids to fireworks while we’re here, but eventually decided it would be too disruptive to their sleep schedules when we’re already moving at such a frantic pace. So instead we took in a Disney All Stars parade:

If you look closely, you can se the person whose job it is to drive the dragon…

We left just as it was winding down, and managed to beat the rush.

From here we went out for dinner at Vapiano, which is located just outside the village. The food was decent and reasonably priced, but the ordering process was confusing. Everything was ordered via QR code – including dessert.

Main courses were delivered to the table, while dessert had to be requested from the counter. Took us about 10 minutes to figure out the QR code, and another 10 minutes to figure out dessert…

We had requests for another round of Spiderman Web Adventures and Ratatouille the following day, but it’ll also be check-out time – so we’ll just have to see what we’re able to swing.

At that point we were done, so we went back to the room and off to bed.