Disneyland part 3

 So from the Storybook boats and Casey Jr we headed for some food but first decided to have a quick walk through Alice's Curious Labyrinth, not recommended if you are hungry and have sore feet lol but it was fun:

You could walk to thetop of the towers of the Castle and take pics out over the park as well.

Once we managed to get out of the maze we tried Toad Hall for food:

It was chaos in there and when the seat I was about to take was taken by another rudey I just took my travelling partner out of the queue and we went to Pinocchio's Village house instead where it was alot quieter and more comfortable in general than Toad Hall:

Sticking with the Pinocchio theme once we had our food we went on Les Voyage de Pinocchio:

After that we headed back towards the front of the castle as it was nearing parade time. Maybe it's built in from Florida but generally I arrive at least half and hour before the parade and shows when I can so I can get the seat or view I want. So parade was about to start and we let two smaller kids that had arrived after us stand in front of us. Next thing a woman at the back started shouting in French at the girls beside us how dare there be adults at the front when there was children at the back that couldn't see. She had just arrived when the parade started and if it was me I would have let the children stand in front of me right up until she started screaming so rudely. Needless to say the girls beside us didn't let her children stand in front of them either. The parade was cute as Disney parades are with some cool floats from Toy Story and the Lion King.

Then it wouldn't be a Disney parade without an appearance from the main mouse:

and much to my delight Duffy appeared in the parade as well:

After the parade we headed back to Fantasyland and went on the Snow White ride:

 We took a quick stroll through Adventureland just because we hadn't left Fantasyland all day and we walked through the Aladdin Passage way which had the story of Aladdin in glass window displays:

 

After that we went to Casey's to try use a voucher for a hot drink that we had got earlier in the day on our meal receipt. I got the cutest Duffy mug:

After that it was goodbye for now to the Castle and Christmas tree:

We headed for the Disney Village and did a bit of shopping before heading towards Lake Disney for Mickey's Magical Fireworks and Bonfire night. That was an amazing show. They had fireworks, fire, lasers and Mickey and Minnie travelling across the lake on a little boat just for good measure!

If the fireworks, lasers and fire weren't enough they even projected images onto the Characters in Flight balloon as well:

 

 After a fantastic show we went back through the Disney Village towards the bus stops we were ready for bed after a long but enjoyable day in Disneyland.

Disneyland part 2

So once the train pulled off we turned around and headed up a little path to the side of the castle:

and into this little cave:

Inside the cave was a massive dragon, who woke up while we were in there and started puffing smoke out at everyone.

We ran up some nearby stairs to get away before he started to breathe fire as well as smoke and came out inside the castle so we went to explore the shops in the castle. This was in one of the shops.

I think I need a fireplace like that in my house.  After a quick look around the shops we went upstairs to explore the castle some more. In this castle when you go upstairs the story of Sleeping Beauty is told through stained glass windows, tapestries and other displays:

                                               

I loved the details on some of the pillars as well:

Then when you went outside there was great views of Fantasyland:

I like this about the Paris castle. I know in WDW they have the restaurant upstairs in the castle but I think it would be nicer if there was something like this that people could go up and explore. So castle fully explored it was time to go out into Fantasyland. We walked around taking in what rides and shops there were first for a while and taking many pictures:

Then we headed to our favourite ride Small World. Small World was done up for Christmas as well:

Inside some of the dolls had presents and decorations on them. I will have more on them on a later blog. I love the fact that Ireland is included in Small World:

                                                  

I also loved this guy because I don't think they have him in the WDW version. I liked the slight differences in the ride:
                                                   

Then of course since it was decorated for Christmas there was a little Santa doll just near the end:
                                                         

Small World itself was as good as it always is. I liked the fact that as well as the dolls being decorated for Christmas the music was also changed so it rotated between the traditional Small World song and Jingle Bells. What I was disgusted about though was just at the little doll on the gondola in the Italy section there was two empty drink bottles that some guest had obviously finished using and decided it would be ok to throw them over the side of the boat. I could not believe that anyone would have that little respect for the park. When I think of Disney parks I think clean as I have never seen rubbish thrown about like that in Disney before. That little rant aside we continued on our way and this time it was to try something new. There's two rides in Disneyland Paris that WDW doesn't have so I was excited to try them out. The first was the Storybook boats. This was little scenes from various fairy tales and Disney movies:

                                      
The next one was Casey Jr.

We came across more rudeys in the Casey Jr. line a family attempting to skip the queue. I really don't understand why people do that at all but sure.

Continued in next blog post  

Disneyland part 1

So when in Paris it would be rude not to pay a visit to Disneyland! I'd been to Disneyland Paris twice before but hadn't been since 2003 and it was also the 20th Anniversary this time so I was excited to see the changes and celebrations. We started the morning early getting up about 6.30 and taking in the view from our hotel room:

It reminded me of the Sound of Music or something from Austria, it was pretty. We had breakfast in the hotel and then got the shuttle bus to the parks area. Today we would visit Disneyland and I was super excited to be getting back to a Disney park.

The Christmas season was starting during our visit so they seemed to be putting decorations up slowly but surely over the few days we were there. The first day the entrance was already decorated for Christmas. 

The entrance to Disneyland Paris is alot different from WDW. In Paris you go under the Disneyland Hotel to get to the entrance. In WDW the nearest hotel is a monorail ride away from any of the parks. Anyway once through the entrance we landed in a somewhat familiar Main Street USA:

They had their Christmas tree up on the entrance hub but there was a green fence around it. You could still get a good picture of the top half though:
                                            
Then once we went around the Christmas tree that familiar excitement struck with the first view of Chateau de la Mickey! It's never a Princess castle it's Mickey's House!

We hung around Main Street for a while admiring the shop windows and shops themselves which already had their Christmas decorations up as well:

We waited at the hub for a few minutes as the 20th Anniversary Train was due to start. While I was waiting I took pictures of the castle and a cute Christmas Winnie the Pooh who had come out to greet guests.

Soon enough the 20th Anniversary Train came by. This was similar to the Villains Mix and Mingle in WDW in one sense. The train comes along stops in front of the castle and all the characters get off and guests can go meet them and attempt to get their picture taken and what not. Villains Mix and Mingle, villains come out do their show and then guests form an orderly queue to meet and greet their favourite villain.

So having five visits to WDW behind me I picked a character at random and went to queue for a picture, except there was no queue. There was a system that can only be described as a mob circling the character with a CM shouting stay back and Goofy will come to you when he is ready. Goofy picked children under the age of ten the whole time and there was no system of first come first served. People pushed in from the back and skipped and it was in general a complete and utter disastrous way to meet a character and complete waste of time because unless you were under ten it was clear Goofy didn't want to know. I eventually just gave up and snapped this picture before leaving.

After about ten or fifteen minutes of the "mob" sessions the characters get back on the train and everyone continues on their merry way.

Continued in next blog post