Monday 11 February 2013

Walt Disney Studios and Disney Dreams

So after exploring Toy Story Playland for a while we went for food. I tried the 20th Anniversary meal. A Burger with 20th burnt into the bun, fries, a drink and dessert. It was 14.99 and not worth it. The sauce on the burger was horrible and the dessert was rotten. I do love how the food comes in boxes with characters on them though rather than just a Disney parks box.
 
 So while we were eating they announced the next show would be on half an hour earlier and would be the last show for the day of Moteurs... Action! Stunt Show Spectacular. We headed down to the stadium taking pics along the way:


We ended up sitting pretty high up but from there we got a great view of the whole of Disneyland you really got an idea of how small and contained the whole area is. Look to the right and can see the Walt Disney Studios Tower: 
 And to the left there's the Castle and Thunder Mountain from the main park.
 Lightening McQueen made an appearance in the stunt show.
 And it all ended with a big Kaboom:

After the Stunt show we went to the Art of Disney Animation show before making our way towards the exit taking pictures and browsing the shops along the way. Around the parks and village there was various scenes set up for the Christmas season as photo ops. One of the was a little bridge with some of the Dalmatians on it:
                                                                                      
     Once we finished browsing the shops we headed towards the Disneyland park.


We wandered over towards Adventureland for a while. I was pin trading and again had a strange experience not only did the CM have a lanyard with three of the exact same pin on it which I always thought wasn't meant to happen but they also asked if they were getting a choice in what pin I gave them when I asked them to trade again this doesn't happen in WDW so it always shocked me a little. I saw this and thought it was funny:
                                         
 After that we went out to the Castle hub to grab a spot for the Disney Dreams show. Paris know how to do night-time shows. Disney Dreams had castle projections, water projections, water fountains, fireworks, lasers and fire to a Disney soundtrack.


   Once we were amazed by another Disney show we said goodbye to Disneyland for the night and headed towards the Disney Village to try avoid such a crowd at the bus:
We went into the Christmas shop and the Disney Store and just browsed what merchandise we might like to buy:


Afterwards we headed back to the hotel after another fun Disney day.                                                    

Monday 4 February 2013

Walt Disney Studios part 2


 So after we left the Studio Tram Tour it was nearly parade time. We made our way up to the parade route and soon the Stars 'n' cars parade started:




When we turned around I noticed a row of little statues. I read recently that these statuettes are models that are used by the Disney Animators when drawing the different characters. They help them get the proportions right when moving the characters around and positioning them in the space that is available. I thought that they could have done with a bit of a cleaning. Mickey Mouse had a zillion little flies swarming around him:


We had a quick pre-packed snack after the parade before heading over to the other side of the park. We didn't chance Crushes coaster. I'm not a big thrill seeker and didn't fancy speeding around a little track in a turtle shell:
                                                   
I did however spot a few friends over in Toontown and decided to get pictures. It was almost heavenly. There was actually a proper queue with no skipping and more importantly NO MOB to meet the characters: 

We continued on our way taking in the Cars theming as we went:


Then we went off to explore Toy Story Playland. They don't have this in WDW so it was all new and I thought it was cool how it had an Alice in Wonderland feel to it, that you were shrunken down and all the toys were giant. I loved the lighting and fences as well:










Continued in next blog.

Saturday 2 February 2013

Walt Disney Studios part 1


 So we couldn't visit Disneyland Paris and not visit Walt Disney Studios as well. We started the morning with a quick look around the World of Disney before making our way into the Studios. On the way in there were stars on the ground with the opening dates of Disney parks around the World. Oh Florida how I miss you:
We made our way through the gates taking pictures as we went:

They had started to put up their Christmas decorations in the Studios as well:
Goofy was out greeting guests. I decided to skip the mob that morning and just snapped this instead:
We took a quick look in one of the nearby shops:

before we headed to the first show of the day which was:
This is a cute show featuring Donald and Mickey and a host of catchy songs! Before the show as well I did a little pin trading. I normally trade in Florida so I'm used to the idea of pin trading. In Florida I go to CM's see a pin I like and ask them to trade, so long as they don't have a green lanyard it's fine and I choose what pin I give to them. The trade I did outside Animagique the CM told me which pin of mine he was choosing to trade for. It was a little unexpected but I didn't mind at that stage as I only had my traders on.
Anyway after Animagique we just wandered around for a while taking in the sights of Walt Disney Studios and taking many pictures:




We wandered over towards Stitch Live but the English version was not working that day:
Instead we went to Cinemagique a show in simple terms about movies:

                                              
After Cinemagique we headed down Hollywood Blvd towards the next ride we wanted to do:

 The next ride was the Studio Tram tour. This was similar to the Backlot Express in Florida except it went straight to the tram and had an extra London disaster set at the end:











Continued in the next blog.