Paris: Day 4 - DiSNEYLAND pt. 4

After wandering thru Adventureland (and riding the Indiana Jones ride), I suddenly realized that I hadn't taken a good look at the castle! I was expecting very good things for this castle (Hello! We're in Europe! We can go see 'real' castles! Step it up, Disney!)




Look! Tinkerbell on the top of the castle! Although watch out! This pixie's dust will CUT you!

I thought the castle was BEAUTIFUL! It was everything I wanted in a castle AND you could even walk around the "battlements" or the second floor (which we meant to do but, kept forgetting to do. Oh well! Guess we have to go back!). But, what truly made this castle special was the dark secret hiding in it's belly, something so fierce and frightening none would dare attempt to plunder THIS castle. What could it be, you ask?

A DRAGON!!




Running in fear of our lives (and coughing from the 'dragon fire') we arrived, happily in Fantasyland! The Fantasyland for DLRP felt ENORMOUS! I feel like we missed tons of stuff in it because it was so spacious and, just like Disneyland, Fantasyland was the most crowded part of the park. Le sigh.

The hat shop:

The CEILING of the hat shop:

The Teacups:

Small World:



There were more restaurants than you could shake a stick at! We were still full from our tasty lunch at Walt's so we just walking and snapping pictures, some of which even came out!



Up Next: TOMORROWLAND

Paris: Day 4 - DISNEYLAND pt. 3

Off we went to Adventureland! I fell in love with the entrance to this section of the park! It reminded me of Morocco in Epcot! Once we entered, it suddenly reminded me of Animal Kingdom. It blew my mind!!




Doesn't this remind you of the jeeps in Animal Kingdom?! Crazy!


We only rode ONE ride in this section (actually, we only hit TWO rides in the entire park! The hell is wrong with us?!). This one was a 'can't miss' ride for us! We didn't realize this sucka pulled a loop-de-loop on it and we therefore completely unprepared for it when it occurred. This mean that I jammed my neck a little on that loop. I was really worried that I'd have a HUGE headache for the rest of the day. Luckily, this was not the case (I think the hot cocoa we had later cured my ouchy neck).




We didn't actually eat here (sorry). I just thought the building looked really great! I had to snap some photos of it.



When I saw the awesome pirate ship, I got all excited thinking DLRP had a Chicken of the Sea restaurant in a boat near Skull Rock. Nope. It's just a fun playland for your wee ones. Is it wrong that I was disappointed?

Up next: Fantasyland!

Paris: Day 4 pt. 2

After our tasty lunch, we forged into Frontierland, in order to ride The Phantom Manor (DLRP's Haunted Mansion). I'd heard great things about this ride and couldn't WAIT to try it out!





The line was long - it's a popular attraction. Luckily, we got to skip said line (thanks, City Hall!) and head right in. Almost immediately, we were beset with "spooks" that disrupted the ride. I believe we had to stop 6 times on the ride! Too many to truly enjoy it. The biggest difference we could see (since we were stopped so often) was that the Phantom Manor went for truly scary stuff! Not terrifying! Just more classically scary. It was nice. Their graveyard scene was spectacular and we thought going "underneath" the graveyard was neat and kinda creepy! It was over too quickly. We discussed going on it again and just never got around to it.



After the ride, we wandered a bit in Frontierland:






Up next: Adventure(land)!

Paris: Day 4 - DISNEYLAND!

For our 4 day playing in Paris, we decided to skip town and venture to Disneyland Resort - Paris (DLRP). We had a couple of free passes to this resort and figured; 'why not?' Our only cost was the RER train, which wasn't too terrible.

It was May Day on our chosen DLRP visit - another reason to skip outta Paris, as I'd heard most of the cool stuff in the City was shut down for the Holiday. Better not to risk it! Our lovely hotel gave me a May Day flower bundle to tote around.


(Fits right in at the resort, don't it?)

This little flower came in quite handy for our jaunt to the Metro and RER stations. It felt like there were guys hawking flowers every three inches!! I waved my flowers in their faces and they left us alone (thanks, La Manufacture!).





The first thing we did at the park was eat lunch! Hello!



We ordered from the Prix Fix menu:
A creamy lobster bisque to start:

With GBD (Golden Brown & Delicious) crinkle cut fries and perfectly charred steak:


Hard to believe that I'm finding such yumminess at a Disney park but, I am! Here's the proof:


From our seat near the window we could see the little "All-Star Express" train come by:





After gorging ourselves, we headed deeper into the park on a quest to snap photos of restaurant menus (seriously! It's a project for a pal), and ride a few rides.

Paris: Day 3 pt. 2

Hopping off the RER we walked about a block to the Eiffel tower.



it was kind of hard to miss!



We went off to buy tickets, pushing through the massive throng of people to the ticket counter - which barely had a line! The hell? All the people hovering around the tower were there to sell you stuff, beg for money, or possibly - pick your pocket. Huh. The sea of humanity at the tower was the busiest we'd seen any location in Paris, to date. It was intimidating! The 'salesmen' were really pushy - trying to get you to buy cheap scarves or Eiffel Tower key chains. I just walked as fast as I could and said "No" a lot.


We made it to the first floor (really, the second) and jumped in line for the top.




You can see the shadow of the tower here.


Heading for the top!


The gears for the elevators! Cool!



So, the Mister and I are standing in this crazy line, which lasted about an hour, to get to the top of tower. While we were waiting, we snapped a lot of pics - as you do when you are on vacation. Now, keep in mind that there are FOUR elevators dumping people onto the platform and only ONE elevator to take you to the top. This means that the line gets a little insane! There are two types of tickets you can buy, one for the 1st platform and one that takes you to the top - so there were folks who just wanted to take pictures from the safety of the first platform mingling in with people pushing to get in the crazy line. I just tried to ignore the hassle and enjoy the location. Unfortunately, this crazy system allowed some people to step in front of us. Normally, this would drive me to scream at people but, I was attempting to take deep breaths and acknowledge that we're all shuffling off to the same place. The fellow behind me, however, couldn't let it go. He took to bitching about the Mister and I snapping pics and "allowing" people to cut. I thought he was complaining in Spanish as I understood him perfectly, so I turned around and chewed him out in Spanish - basically telling him "hey, I'm on Vacation and when you are on vacation, you take some pictures. If it's a HUGE problem for you, step in front of me!". He did but, his wife was FURIOUS! She wouldn't even talk to him, she was so embarrassed. Jeff whispered ' so much for a romantic trip to the top of the Eiffel Tower for that guy'- which cracked me up!


At last we made it! There's a champagne bar at the top that we HAD to sample! Not a bad way to end the day, sipping champagne at the top of the Eiffel Tower!