Final day in Disneyland Paris, and the last day of our European vacation. Tomorrow morning we board a plane for long trip home. Since we've already done all the major attractions, we were able to just take our time and stroll about.
First order of business was lunch at Bistro Chez Remy. Probably (next to Father's Day at Walt's) the meal to which we were the most looking forward. I was assigned to be the "runner" this time and go get FastPasses for Ratatouille. But despite getting there "reasonably" early, they were already gone for the day. The wait increased by fifteen minutes just in the time it took Marsha and Madison to arrive.
Lunch was excellent! My favorite meal of all at Disneyland Paris. The menu is pretty limited: there's only three entrees and the menus are all prix-fix, so all three of us got steak frites and salad, but the food was excellent and the decor even better.
You're "shrunk down" to the size of a rat and dining in Remy's cafe at the end of the movie, so the chairs are bottle caps and wire, the booths are fashioned from giant plates, and there's a colander in the ceiling. Amazing dedication to theming. They really raised the bar. Again, I really hope we get this at Epcot.
Afterwards, we hopped in the single rider again for another ride. We liked it so much, we jumped right back in line and rode it again.
We thought about riding Crush's Coaster again, but even the single rider line is 45 minutes. We expected smaller crowds today since it's a weekday, but this is the most crowded we've seen it yet. We wondered if today is the start of a French holiday. It's a good thing we've already done most everything we wanted.
Marsha really wanted to ride the Cars Quatre Roues Rallye (Cars Race Rally), a little spinning ride for kids, which probably has the smallest footprint of any Disney attraction I've ever seen. It's really tiny. I misunderstood the cast member directions because they were in French (only two adults per car), but another one came behind and straightened me out in English.
Next we did the Art of Disney Animation, which is somewhat similar to the version at Hollywood Studios. There were a couple of things I like better, though: the lobby, which has exhibits on the history of animation, and the intro video on Disney animation (though the picture quality was really bad). Like DHS, they had drawing classes and a presentation with Mushu on how characters are created. This one actually had head phones so that you could listen in another language, but I found that annoying, so I just listened to it in French. I'd seen it enough in FL to know what they were saying. We also saw a promo for Big Hero 6 which featured the U.S. voice actors, which I found odd because the French hear a completely different set of voice actors. (Update: After getting home, we learned that this attraction is closing in FL.)
We also did the Backlot Tour (recently closed in FL), which is a lot like the FL version, but shorter. They don't have the Pearl Harbor part where guests get to participate (John and I got picked once years ago), the boneyard has different vehicles, and you don't go through the studio part because there was never an actual studio there. The Catastrophe Canyon part is the same (and the tram was really shaky like it was in need of repair), but they do have one thing extra: the "set" for Reign of Fire, a Christian Bale movie about dragons that destroy modern day London. It looked really cool and reminded me I really wanted to see that movie. I think if they released it now (it was made pre-Batman), it might do better.
We explored the other side of the park to see what we'd missed on our first day. It didn't take long because, as I said before, this park is pretty small and everything is close together. The only attraction that halfway interested us was Armageddon: Les Effects Speciaux, which featured Michael Clark Duncan as the host (really miss him). We were thinking it might be like the Pearl Harbor part of the recently closed DHS Backlot Tour, but it was more like Twister at Universal Florida. It was all in French with video screens that provided hard-to-read subtitles.
We really wanted to do CineMagique, but it was closed for refurb. So, that was it for the Studios. (Update: We watched CineMagique on YouTube and it's really amazing. So wish they'd put it in Hollywood Studios.)
We went back over to Magic Kingdom for the rest of the day. We wanted to ride the train, but the line was too long. This is
definitely not WDW, where you can pretty much hop right on the train at any time. Not only is it much more popular here, but hardly anyone gets off until they've ridden it all the way around.
We walked over to Frontierland and figured the train might be less crowded over there. We found some great Phantom Manor shirts on a cart. The salesgirl thought I was French based on how I said "Bonjour." So, apparently I can say one word convincingly. I've learned to quickly follow it up with "How are you?" to make it clear I speak English. The first thing anyone wants to know is which language you speak.
We rode Phantom Manor again (because it's awesome) and realized that we weren't fully comprehending the story because the "Ghost Host" dialogue (which is shorter, but more a part of the story) is all in French. Madison looked up the story last night. We just love this version and are so excited about our new shirts.
Afterwards, we rode the River Boat (the Molly Brown) and then picked up the train in Frontierland. Turns out we were wrong about it being less crowded. We still had to wait quite a bit because hardly anyone would disembark.
We got off in Discoveryland and were surprised to learn that this park has four stops. The U.S. parks have only three. We also saw more need for maintenance:
very loose cement tiles on walkway (lawsuit waiting to happen), plus faded, peeling paint and mildew on Small World. This was disappointing, yet other areas are pristine and beautiful.
We also popped back over to Adventureland, where we did the Swiss Family Robinson Tree House (which needed some cleaning). It offered great views of the park, and we even spotted Carl and Russel from Up nearby.
Finally, we were ready to call it a day. We have to get up really, really early tomorrow to begin the long trek home. We did some last-minute shopping and got to see the processional with Anna and Elsa. They played "Let It Go" performed in about five different languages. Disney did an amazing job matching the different singers. They all sounded very similar to Adele Dazeem.
When we left the park, there were some teenage girls singing it as loud as they could. That's what Disney magic is all about.
Our final stop was dinner at Earl of Sandwich. Just like the Serpentine in London, it was both our first and last meal at Disneyland Paris. Great way to end our trip.
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