Disneyland Paris Part 1: Frontierland, Adventureland & Discoveryland

We are exhausted today after spending all day yesterday at Disneyland Paris (DLP).  We had bought cheaper advance tickets through FNAC, a local ticket vendor (like Ticketmaster).  But the ticket taker at the gate acted as though he had never seen them before.  After a prolonged discussion (in French! I am improving) he finally let us through and we were in!

Disneyland Paris is a bit of a departure from Disneyland Anaheim.  While there are a lot of similarities, it is also very different.  The layout of the park is not at all the same -- it has only five "lands", and I think there are fewer rides overall.  You still enter through Main Street, U.S.A.  Then to the left is Frontierland, the upper left is Adventureland.  The upper right is Fantasyland, and the lower right is Discoveryland (what we call "Tomorrowland").  Main Street looks pretty much the same.

At the center of everything is Sleeping Beauty's Castle (in French it is Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant).  It has a different look compared to the one in California.

Our first stop was the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad in Frontierland.  There were some differences we noticed right away.  Mainly, that the entire ride was on an island, but the entrance to the ride was on the shore.

The music and spiel you hear as you wait in line is pretty much verbatim from the original ride "This here's the wildest ride in the wilderness!".  The ride itself was very different.  First, it seemed longer than the ride in California.  Secondly, in order to get back and forth from the island the ride goes under the riverboat ride, which plunges you into total darkness at the beginning and end.  Very fun!

The other main attraction in Frontierland is the Phantom Manor.

From the outside it looks nothing like the Haunted Mansion in CA.  The ride is a little different too...not drastically different but enough that you notice it.  But the elevator gimmick at the beginning is similar.  And there is a "Boot Hill" cemetery at the end, although the gravestones are different.

Other attractions in Frontierland include a couple of kiddie playgrounds.  Pocohantas Indian Village is for very young children.

The other play area was Woody's Village.  Actually in hindsight it may not be a playground; I think it is where you can get character autographs but it was completely deserted when we wandered over.  That's okay, we made our own fun.

The Thunder Mesa Riverboat Landing is also in Frontierland, so we took a ride on the Molly Brown steamboat.

The boat makes a circuit around the lagoon, giving some great views of the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride.

We did feel the lack of some of the key CA attractions...no "Critter Country" meant that there was no Splash Mountain or Winnie the Pooh ride.  Anyway, having exhausted all possible attractions in Frontierland (although we did go back later for seconds on Big Thunder RR), we moved on to Adventureland.

We made a beeline for the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril ride.

But we were in for a surprise, since this ride is totally different than the one in California.  For one thing, it is a true rollercoaster as opposed to the jeep-concept of the CA ride.

For another thing, it goes upside-down (as you can tell by this inverted section of track).

Also in Adventureland was Pirates of the Caribbean (there is no New Orleans Square in DLP, so they gave it a new home).

Funny, I can't really recall what the California version of the ride looks like from the outside, but I am pretty sure if it was a castle/fort I would remember it.

The scenes inside the ride are pretty much the same or very similar to those in California (including a fine dining restaurant), except there's no animatronic Jack Sparrow.  They do still sing "Yo ho!" and the haunting "Dead men tell no tales" (in English) is also part of the soundtrack.  Just outside the ride is a play area for young children called Pirates' Beach.

A large part of Adventureland consists of Adventure Isle, which is the DLP answer to Tom Sawyer's Island.

The Swiss Family Robinson treehouse (La Cabane des Robinson) was closed so I could only take a photo from the outside.

From the outside, Le Passage Enchanté d'Aladdin looked promising.  But it turned out to not be a ride at all, just a walk through with miniature dioramas.  Meh.

Overall Adventureland had a very different look and feel than the California park.  There was no Jungle Cruise or Enchanted Tiki Room, so it was a little less jungle-adventurey and a little more pirate/middle eastern adventurey.  We took a quick break for lunch, then headed over to Discoveryland.

While waiting for our Space Mountain fastpass to kick in we went inside the Mystères du Nautilus, which turned out to be another "non-ride".  You walk through a series of rooms inspired by Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.  It took us all of 5 minutes to walk through.

So we still had time to kill before we could get in line at Space Mountain.  We decided to just get in line for the Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast, which turned out to be the longest, slowest-moving line of the day.  (Next time we would use a fast pass).  The ride is probably pretty much the same; I wasn't paying too close attention to anything other than trying to ZAP! the targets.  Kevin always wins in Anaheim but this time I had the higher score.

Here are a few more scenes from Discoveryland...

Finally!  It was time to ride Space Mountain.  Actually the name here at DLP is Space Mountain: Mission 2.

Definitely some changes compared to the ride in CA -- the loading zone is outside, the rollercoaster goes upside down (which came as a complete surprise to us mid-ride!) and there are some neat laser effects (although they might have those in CA now as well...can't remember).  Anyway, we had a blast!

We then took a ride in the "way back machine".  Is that a ride?  No.  I am referring to the much-hyped return of the Captain EO attraction.  Remember when Michael Jackson used to look like this?

Most of the Disney parks brought the film back after Michael Jackson's death -- I think it's showing in Anaheim, Orlando, and Tokyo as well as DLP.  I have to say that the film is just as cheesy now as it was in 1986, and I kind of wished we hadn't wasted an hour of time in the line and in the theater.  Lesson learned: Captain Eo, unlike a fine wine, does not age well.

Due to time constraints we skipped Autopia and the Orbitron.  But we had fast passes for Star Tours, so we were able to avoid the long line.

The attraction is pretty much the same, using the same film and same "Endor Express" concept.  Although the robot/driver speaks only French, so I suppose that was a slight change!  The ride signage was also in French: "Que la Force soit avec vous!".  Standing just outside the ride were Darth Vader and Chewbacca, posing for photos.  The castmember playing Vader really hammed things up, grabbing kids' shirt collars while posing, and doing the "choke" move on everyone. 

We waited what seemed forever for the Disneyland Railroad.  Three trains came and went but for some reason no one got off at Discoveryland.

While standing in line we had a bird's eye view of Chewbacca being hounded through the streets for autographs and photos.  One woman was literally running after him with her camera.

Finally it was our turn to board the train.  We rode it all the way around to Fantasyland.  It passed through the Grand Canyon diorama, just as it does in Anaheim.  But it also passed through the Pirates of the Caribbean, which was something new to us.  We didn't ride the full circuit so I'm not sure if there are dinosaurs along the track anywhere.

I am going to stop here because there are something like 34 photos left, so I will write up the rest in tomorrow's post.  Stay tuned!