Eurodisney – At last, it was raining but we decided that there would be enough to do in the rain and what we couldn’t do would do the next day we came. Up and out the door to catch the RER (Regional Express Railway – this is faster than the metro as it goes across Paris and out to the suburbs with not many stops,) first we had to use the Metro to get to one of the stops and change trains. It takes about an hour to get to Disneyland but the park starts straight at the station exit!
We had already purchased our tickets so this made it slightly quicker, we queued and when we got to the scanner the lady informed us we did have to swap the tickets so they could go through the machines in the park to get a “Fastpass”.
The whole park was decorated in Halloween fashion – pumpkin heads and bizarre things.It looked great, you really did step into a Fantasyland. Very authentic and extremely captivating.
Like anywhere new it took us a bit of orientation time to read the maps and understand the Fastpass system.
This is when on certain rides (tend to be the busiest) you can obtain a fastpass and it gives you a time (30 minutes) in which to return and go straight to the front of the queue. The time however could be hours away as we discovered on one of the rides. We got the fast pass at 4:00pm and our turn wasn’t until 8:40 pm!
We also discovered once you have 1 fastpass you cannot get another until you use it or 2 hours have passed. So you can’t race around and get all your times in the first hour and then wait. All the rides you can just wait in the line if you choose and waiting times are digitally displayed as you enter. For example 90mins waiting time.
We arrived as the park opened -10am and went straight to one of the ‘Lands’ – Discoveryland and ended up going on the best rollercoaster first. Space Mountain Mission 2. We collected a fast pass and on the coaster within 5 minutes. It was great, dark and thrilling with sudden launches, twists, turns stops and 360 degree inversions. Seph wasn’t very happy after this as it was very dark and very intense. I was worried that it would ruin her for future rides as you don’t know what they do until you are on them. We had no warning it would be like this.
We then continued to move around the different areas – Fantasyland, Adventureland, Frontierland, and Main Street.
The queues were long and it started raining again and this put a dampener on things. We headed into lunch in one of the huge amphitheatres and then you sat and could watch a live show –The Lion King for 1 hour (adaptation). This was great.
We sent Nev to get a fastpass for one of the rides while we joined the queue for “Pirates of the Carribean” a boat ride. The plan was for him to join us in the queue, as we got closer and closer still no Nev. So we pulled aside and let others go and still no sign. Finally we decided to just go and hope he was at the other end waiting. Seph was not happy about this arrangement as she was still nervous about the ride and what would happen after the mornings experience. However on we went (had been about 1 hour) ride was fine and thankfully Nev was at the end waiting. He thought we wouldn’t have waited and just went straight to end – note to everyone make contingency plans for missing/lost people!
Nev and Hermione went to another roller coaster ride (Seph about 5 cm too short – the only ride she was too short for, I think however she was very relieved!) they got nearly to the front and their was a ‘technical problem’ which Nev thinks was a derailment – and the ride was closed! Not sure for how long as we never went back.
Main street parade at 5:00 was terrific – girls were in the front row and were absorbed in the whole atmosphere.
After this many people with smaller children disappeared home and we then went into Fantasyland – Pinocchio, Dumbo, Snow White, Teacups, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty Castle, It’s A Small World etc…This was great hardly any queues and many rides we did twice.
We headed to our last Fast Pass at 8:40 and this rollercoaster was great –Big Thunder Mountain, we cured Seph of her nervousness about rides by the end of the day and she turned into an adrenaline junkie! It was just a shame that the first ride wasn’t the last as she would have built up in intensity throughout the day!
The park shut at 10:00pm so 12 hours was very exhausting, train home and in bed at 11:30!
Overall a fantastic day – well worth it. Magical!
No comments:
Post a Comment