Eurotrip 2019 - Disneyland Paris
Back in 2016, we went to Disneyland Paris, and I wasn’t planning on going again this time around (you might not believe me, but it’s the truth!!). Buuuut it was literally on the way between Verdun and Paris, so…we went again.
Be warned that if you’re driving to the Disneyland Hotel using Google maps, it may take you to the backside of the hotel where you’re not supposed to go. Once you start seeing road signs for the parks and hotels, follow those and ditch the GPS. This happened to us in Florida a couple years ago, too! The fun thing about it is you get to see odd views of the backside of the park that you’re probably not supposed to see. The bad thing is that you’re not technically supposed to be there…oops!
I decided to splurge and we stayed two nights at the Disneyland Hotel, which was GORGEOUS. It had Grand Floridian vibes inside and is literally above the entrance to the Disneyland park, so, while expensive, it was a great place to stay. I also booked through hotels.com because booking directly through the Disney website wouldn’t allow me to do it without choosing a package, and I just wanted the hotel so I could choose the right tickets once we got there.
We checked in and went to our room. As with any Disney hotel, there were fun Disney touches all around the room. The wallpaper had several characters, the bathroom had Snow White and the Seven Dwarves carved around the mirror, and the headboard had the castle on it, to name a few.
Nathaniel was fighting off a cold, so he took a nap while I went to the pool. The pool is inside a glass room and there’s lots of outdoor space with lawn chairs. I didn’t actually end up going in the water at all - I just chilled in a shady spot in my polka dot swimsuit and Minnie ears 😉 It was nice to take a rest - we don’t often spend a lot of time on vacation sitting still.
I headed back up to our room and got ready for dinner. While getting ready, Nathaniel popped open one of the bottles of wine we got in Alsace, and we shared that before heading to Disney Village - their version of Downtown Disney.
Disney Village is much smaller than Downtown Disney, but still has some fun places to stop by. We ended up having dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, but they didn’t have coconut shrimp on the menu! Nathaniel was bummed, but the elephant next to our table was there to console him 😂 He got short ribs and I got a curry. I think the blue drinks were called snake bites? After dinner we wandered into a few shops, including the Lego store.
The funniest tombstones 😂
The next morning we took advantage of their Extra Magic Time before the park opened, and got some great pictures in front of the castle while hardly anyone was there yet! We spent the day in Disneyland Park. Our first ride was Thunder Mountain, which I was super excited about since it was closed the last time we went! I think it’s the most intense of the three I’ve now been on, and I would highly recommend hitting it if you have the opportunity. Next was Phantom Manor, their Haunted Mansion, which is differently themed and has a different story behind it than the ones in the US. They also have some cheeky tombstones outside to look at…
We hit Pirates and Indiana Jones next, then wandered through Adventureland. We did a little Aladdin walkthrough which was closed last time we went - I’m glad I got to experience a few new things this time around!
We had lunch at Bella Notte, where I was able to snag a Mickey shaped pizza by ordering off the kid’s menu (thanks for the tip, @happiestvlogs!), then we headed to Hyperspace Mountain. Since the last time we went, they themed Space Mountain to Star Wars, which was a lot of fun! Also, they still have some paper FastPass kiosks, which I actually love, because it means you can do things a bit more on the fly. I’m not the biggest fan of how Disney World is doing their book-in-advance FastPasses because I don’t like to have every second of every day of my trip planned out months in advance.
We rode Pinocchio, wandered back through some of the walkthroughs in Adventureland (Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse, pirate ship, caves) and shopped while we waited for our FastPass time on Buzz Lightyear. After Buzz, Nathaniel decided to go back to to the room to rest - he was still fighting off his cold, plus we were there during the heatwave, and that day’s high was 103! It was so nice how close our hotel was to the park. This made going back super easy for him, and I knew I could join any time I felt like it or stay out as long as I wanted.
On my own I shopped, went on Snow White, Star Tours and it’s a small world, watched Philharmagic, wandered through the Alice in Wonderland maze, went through the castle, under the castle to see the dragon, and found Cinderella’s carriage. I was back at the hotel around 5:30 pm, and I had accomplished all I wanted for the day in the park! I was disgustingly sweaty, but I was pretty happy.
I showered, changed and went to make a dinner reservation - we had drinks at Cafe Fantasia (which has beautiful music note wallpaper!), then we ate at the California Grill in our hotel (nothing like the California Grill at the Contemporary 😂). It’s pretty fancy - we shared a bottle fo wine, and we got pork tenderloin with truffled potatoes and lobster mac and cheese. The sun set while we ate, then we headed back into the park.
I had been hoping for some cute pictures of me in front of the castle in another handmade dress, but there were hundreds of people sitting on the ground in front of the castle waiting for the show. Luckily Nathaniel found a cute little spot on the way to Adventureland and got a couple. It was hard, though, because it was getting dark and we were only using my iPhone at this point. I’ll take what I can get, though. While I LOVE having good content for my blog, I also have to balance that with actually enjoying myself and not nagging Nathaniel too much to take my picture.
There was still a little time before the evening show, so we went and rode Pirates one more time, then grabbed a spot where Nathaniel had taken my picture earlier. The view was actually pretty great, but Adventureland does not turn down their speakers so we had conflicting music happening which was super annoying. Who do I get in touch with at DLP to get this taken care of??
We headed back to the hotel and slept like rocks. The next day I definitely wore my ears as we left, but we didn’t do anything else in Disneyland. I decided to only do one park this time around because it would be much less to try to cram into one day, it was cheaper, and the other park only has a couple rides that are different which we got to do back in 2016. Plus it was SO HOT, so I don’t know how much our bodies would have been up for if we even had tried going to the other park.
I am so thankful that Nathaniel wasn’t too grouchy about doing Disney again - he knew what he got into when he decided to commit to me 😉 Can’t wait to plan more Disney trips around the world!
