We stayed in Vienna Dream Castle Disneyland Paris. We started from our Paris hotel at 9: 15 hotel and reached the hotel at around 10: 30 by car.
After checking in we kept our bags and took the shuttle bus to Disneyland. It comes every 20 minutes.
Our tickets were booked online by Pathfinders in India. We went and exchanged the voucher for the real park tickets at the ticket counter. This saved us about 15 min as there was a long queue at the ticket buying counter.
We knew there were fast pass tickets and normal tickets, so at the counter we asked whether it was fast pass or normal. The lady told us it was a fast pass ticket and you can visit both places – Disneyland and Disney studios. This was at Disneyland counter. The good thing was that we could get out and go in as many times as we want. We did it twice on both days.
Main Street:
Once you enter, the first place in Disneyland Paris, as in all other Disneylands, is the main street made to look like a small American town of the last century. It has a rail road, horse drawn street cars and even a hair cutting salon.
This street is dotted with a number of shops selling all sorts of Disney merchandise like toys clothes gifts and memorabilia. Kids were going crazy and so were their parents!
This is the place where the much anticipated Disney parade takes place around 5:30 in the evening. There are no rides here, but there are a number of ice-creams, hotdogs and pastry sit-down cafes.
We ate our lunch here in the main street, keep forgetting the name it, they serve American food especially hotdogs for the main course.
For 3 hotdogs, 2 ice-creams popsicles, one French fries and one brownie it came around 45 euros. It was choosing this or the food place in Adventure land where they served Arabian style buffet for 35 euros per person. As we were three, the total amount would have come up to 105 euros. As I didn’t know to read French (as the menu was written in French) I wanted the American place.
There is a central plaza in the main street which connects the other lands in Disneyland Paris. It is also a great place to take the photos of the Disneyland castle.
Discoveryland:
This land is similar to the one in Hong Kong. Even in Hong Kong Disney we never did anything there. The only thing extra from Hong Kong was the addition of star wars rides. We spent hardly 10-15 minutes here. There were rides likes buzz light year, orbitron, videopolios, start tours, starport and many more rides here. All seemed like high speed roller coaster rides and as I wasn’t very much into them, I decided to visit the other places instead of waiting in long queues.
Frontierland:
Immediately after leaving Discoveryland we visited the Frontierland. Our first ride in Disneyland was the thunder mesa riverboat. I wanted to go on the boat as we never went on a river cruise in Paris. It was a boring ride around the big thunder mountain though we got ample place to sit and take photographs. Also the queue was just 5 min long.
Next we did the big mountain ride, I had to go alone as my father was scared and my mom was worried about her back. So I went alone and they waited for me outside. I didn’t know about the fast pass (whether my ticket was valid or not) and I went in the normal queue, which was a mistake. The entire ride was only 5 minutes, while waiting in the queue took around 50 minutes. The ride was good if you are ok with speed. Whenever the ride was reaching a small hill it went slow and then went fast downhill. It was great fun for me along with all the screaming from the other passengers. Though they has said on the net that the speed was 20 miles an hour, I felt it was more than that. Please don’t miss it.
Next we went to the phantom manor, it was fun, not so scary (not as scary as conjuring, as it was fake robotic things) ride. It was set in an old vampire haunted house with a ghostly bride waiting for her groom. Do not get worried it is not scary, even my father who is the most scared person on earth enjoyed this ride. Again do not miss it.
Here we just went through, did nothing much except taking photos of the pirates of the Caribbean boat and the cave. We were getting little hungry due to all the walking. Things we missed were the Robison house perched in a tree, it was to tiring to climb up all the way. Pirate’s beach any way was a good miss as it was for children only. We couldn’t spot the Indiana jones and temple of peril ride, even if we had spotted it I would have gone alone because of the speed factor.
Lunch in mainstreet and back to hotel:
After lunch in MainStreet, we went back to the hotel to keep our bags in the room as the hotel allowed us to do so only at 3 pm.
During this trip we stayed in three different hotels, I would rate the Disney hotel the least among them for both space and convenience. But this place had the best breakfast among the three hotels.
We had two dinners here. One was room service and one was the dinner buffet. Don’t miss the dinner buffet here it was 29 euros per person with one soft drink. The roast chicken and veal dishes were especially good.
Disneyland castle and fantasyland:
After a small break at the hotel we went back and first thing we did was go and see the dragon below the castle. It’s not there at Disneyland Hong Kong.
Then we went to the castle. We didn’t go up as we were tired (it’s quite a walk from the shuttle to the castle) . It was the beauty and the beast castle, it had beautiful stained glass paintings.
In Disneyland Hong Kong there was winnie the pooh ride, it wasn’t here. Instead of that there was a snow white ride. It was similar to the winnie the pooh ride. It is a cute ride for small kids.
Since we were going to Mount Titlis in Switzerland I bought a warm black sweater in this area for 85 euros.
Our last ride of the day was in small world. It was similar to the one in Hong Kong Disney. It was bright and colorful for kids and adults alike.
There were a few rides that not working or not finished yet. I was looking forward to the Dumbo ride but it was under renovation. I wanted to stay for the fireworks, but they said it would be only after 9: 30 pm and as most of the other rides were closed it didn’t make sense to hang around in the cold for more than 2 hours just for the fireworks.