Disneyland Paris: Frontierland

My Disneyland Paris, land by land descriptions continues with:

Frontierland

One of the things that is a bit unique about DLP is that the main entrances to  most of the lands have an interactive element.  Frontierland,the first one to your left as you walk towards the castle from Main Street is a prime example of this--you enter by walking through a fort full of ramps, stairs and hidden passages fr kids of all ages to explore and run around on.  It is similar to the forest on Tom Sawyer Island in the US, but a lot easier to get to, and without the smell of stale urine lurking in hidden corner.  Buffalo Bill and his companions can also be seen hanging out within.

If you are on a limited time frame, I rate this a medium priority (it can be easily seen in 5 minutes and has no wait time):

Once through the fort, your attention is immediately drawn to the central attraction:  Big Thunder Mountain.  At Disneyland Paris, Big Thunder Mountain is an island, bordering for the roller coaster takes place to your right after entering this land, and you ride underground to emerge on the island for the majority of the ride.  The ride is longer, more intricate and than its US counterparts and one of my favourites at the park.  Unfortunately it is currently under MAJOR renovations and closed for an entire year.  However, if you are here once it reopens and you are on a limited time frame, I rate this a high priority to see if possible:

Heading to the left after you enter Frontierlandand you will pass a row of eateries: The Lucky Nugget Saloon which is counter service quality but sort of a hybrid experience--you order before being seated, then food is brought out to your table, and a band comes out to ply for 20 or so minutes about once an hour.  We had lunch there yesterday, and enjoyed it.  (note: this is probably the only "counter service" in the park at which you can order wine--it is not on the menu but you can order it by the glass if you'd like)

Beyond the Lucky Nugget is the Last Chance Cafe, serving standard counter service meals, but with no indoor seating at all it was too cold yesterday to be doing much of any business (it was about 4-6 C or 38-43 F and overcast, which is not terrible but not pleasant for sitting out of doors to eat your meal either).  

and beyond that is a sit down steak house:

There are also two rides in this section of Frontierland:  Phantom Manor and the Riverboat.

Phantom Manor is DLP's version of the Haunted Mansion--brilliantly set up as the mansion of a rich merchant in the wild west, they have done a great job of keeping the original feel/theme alive while putting on a unique twist which really work.  It sits high on a hill and the view of it dominates this portion of the park (and the view from the entry looking out over Bog Thunder and the river boat area is normally lovely as well---right now it offers a fascinating and rare glimpse at the major rehab work going on with those rides).  When not blocked off any construction walls, the Boot Hill graveyard area after you exit to a fabulous place to slow down and spend 5 minutes or so exploring.  If you are on a limited time frame, I rate this not to be missed!

Near Phantom Manor is the dock for the Riverboat.  When it is up and running, this is a very nice ride--a lot of work went into creating interesting themeing all the way around.  It is currently closed, the river drained, as part of the Big Thunder rehab (see below)  Currently Tiana and Prince Naveen are doing photo ops at the landing (I hope to manage to get a photo later this week).  If you are on a limited time frame, I rate this a medium priority

(this is usually full of water and the river the boat "sails" on)

If you head right after entering Frontierland, you first pass the ride queue for Big Thunder Mountain and then the land stretches on for quite a way, long and skinny.  There are two additional counter service restaurants:  Feunte del Oro which serves Tex Mex, and even further down Cowboy Cookout (also currently closed--DLP is undergoing extensive renovations this year to prepare for the 25th anniversary next year).  Cowboy cookout had a live band playing when we ate there at Christmas, which was nice:

There is a meet and greet area further in (right now with Merida), a large theatre which is currently showing a forest themed show (at Christmas it was forest themed--we have found the shows to be well done overall) and a train depot for the railway which circles the park.  The train is nice, with U shaped bench seating which is roomier than the WDW benches, and nice views of the area behind Big Thunder Mountain, inside Pirates of the Caribbean, etc. (though the announcements are played at a very loud level which can be irritating)  If you are on a limited time frame, I rate this a medium priority :

Here are just a couple extra photos of the theming in Frontierland as well as some of the land specific merchandise (by request, I will do a post of just DLP merchandise at some point, but thought I would stick the land specific items here):

(most costumes for sale at this time of year are warmer, or come with capes, etc to help keep the kiddos toasty)

--Hadley

Disneyland Paris: Main Street USA

I am hoping that on this current trip to the parks, I will have time to get good photos and provide a bit of a"tour" of each section--to help people plan future trips etc.  With that goal in mind, here is the first installment:

Main Street USA

Prior to going through the ticket and turnstile area, the primary view is of the Disneyland Hotel (which has its own entrance directly into the park):

Like its American counterparts, Disneyland Paris uses an elevated train station as a "curtain" to block the view of the castle and park to come and help build excitement as you fist go through the turnstiles:

Just like in the US, as you head through the train station there are posters of "coming attractions"  As an aside, you can currently buy a set of high quality prints (about 11 x 14 or so in size) of many of these posters--I have a set I bought at Christmas and plan to frame several of them for the bedroom in the new condo; they are definitely one of the best souvenir values in my opinion.  

And then, BOOM, you come out on Main Street, with the gazebo down at the base and castle at the top:

Main Street is very wide, and also has some deep, inlets -- it feels much less "flat" than in Florida or California (and many of the buildings have functional upper floors as well).  It is lined with shops, and places to grab a bite to eat including a pastry shop, Casey's Corner hot dog stand, an ice cream store and Walt's Restaurant:

Coca Cola truck in one of the inlets

Character meet and greet area at the bast of Main Street

My favourite shop is Lilly's Boutique, which is themed as if it is in Lillian Disney's home---I love the mantel with photos of her and Walt set out, etc:  

Next door to Lilly's is Walt's Restaurant.  We've not eaten there (nothing on the menu is appealing enough to all of us to encourage us to pay the high prices), but I have heard great things about it.  The dining room is on the upper level, with a ground level entry full of photos of Walt and with some fun little details (like a small animitronic bird in a cage among the decor--like the one which inspired Walt's first foray into animitronics, with the Tiki Room):

Main Street is home to a main parade each day and often to several "mini parades" or other events---at Christmas time it was a horse drawn carriage pulling Anna and Elsa and a short Christmas parade--both of which occurred several times per day.  There is currently a short spring themed parade, and a spring "train" which also both go through several times per day.  Here is the Train, which was going by as I took photos today:

One of my favourite features, which is unique to the Paris park, are the arcades on either side of Main Street.  

These wide, indoor walkways run all the way from the base of the street to the top and allow you to bypass both the weather and many crowds (this is especially useful when a parade or other special event is happening out on the street) and they are just pleasant: both are lit by real gas lanterns, have clean restrooms which see less use than most in the parks, allow "backdoor" entry into most shops on that side, and have benches.  On the left, as you enter the park, is the Liberty Arcade, with a stature of Liberty theme and even a small attraction you can go into, which gives the feel of pulling up to Ellis Island by night (it feels like something Walt would really approve of and reminds me of the Lincoln display on Main Street in California).  To the right is Discovery Arcade with a vintage look at the future, including replicas of posters originally designed for the World's Fair in Chicago, and little display cases:

--Hadley

Annual passes to Disneyland Paris and a belated report on a Christmas Week trip

It's been a particularly busy year--which is both my excuse for letting this poor blog lie fallow for 3 months, and is one of the reasons that for Christmas we decided to forgo our usual long drive to Spain or Croatia and spend the holiday closer to home, with a week long trip to Disneyland Paris.  Another reason was finances:  with one kid in US university and all the expenses associated with buying a condo here in Germany (where the purchase price does not include a kitchen, or many of the finishing details, meaning none of that gets rolled int a loan) we are even more intent on finding travel bargains than usual this year.

Disneyland Paris, or DLP as I will refer to it from here on out, may not be a bargain as an add on for a day or two to a European vacation, but longer trips, especially with an annual pass can be a great deal for those of us living more locally.  The top tier, Dream, annual pass costs 223€ for a full year of park admission with no black out dates, free parking (nothing to sneeze at, given that it is normally 15€ per day), 10% off at on all on site dining (sit down, buffets and counter service), 20% off in the shops, hotel deals, etc.
For a week's stay that brings the park entrance down to 31€ a day, plus all of those other benefits--so if you are someone who can happily play in 2 Disney Parks for days on end (or if we lived really local and just wanted to go on the weekend once a month or so) it is a fabulous deal.

Being the Disney fiends we are, and having so much vacation time to use (yay Germany!) we are not limiting ourselves to just the one trip either.  Rio, David and I will be back for a second full week next week, ending on Easter---and we have a long weekend booked in May as well.  We are going to squeeze a lot of value out of the passes!

Better yet, DLP has a "pass sponsorship" program in which current passholders can "sponsor" others when they get their first passes.  The new passholders get a 10% discount, and the current passholder gets an extra 6 months added to their pass if they sponsor 3 people in 6 months.  We found someone via a DLP forum who was going to be at the parks the day we arrived and wanted to sponsor people, which saved us an additional 100€ for our family of four and got the man who met us an extra 6 months on his pass, and his son 1/3 of the way to an extra 6 months as well.  The savings was absolutely worth the "hassle" of communicating online and planning when to meet at the annual pass center during the day (you buy a one day park ticket in the morning, go into the parks and then have to go to the AP center to exchange it for a pass--and pay the difference, so you can still tour until time to meet up).

The whole process was very smooth and easy, even on a very crowded day--which the days leading up to Christmas, predictably, were.  We arrived on the 20th to relatively heavy crowds and wait times of about 45 minutes to an hour for most rides, most of the day, the crowds ramped up more on the 21st and 22nd (though that day we went at "rope drop" and could loop through virtually every thrill ride in both parks in the first 2 hours before lines began to build----not counting Crush's Coaster, which always seems to have a huge line--more on that in a later post though).  The morning of the 23rd was also insanely busy.

We got these photos on the morning of the 23rd, when crowd levels were the highest we had seen;  we waited 90 minutes for it---but EVERYTHING had a wait that long or more, so we figured we might as well go for a photo op we cannot normally get:

We headed off site for lunch after that photo was taken, and went back a few hours later to a rapidly emptying park--by dinner time we could walk on to virtually anything with no wait at all.  Christmas Eve proved to be one of the quietest park days we have ever had at any Disney park--we had the places practically to ourselves--heavenly.  We rode lots of rides:

Christmas Day was slightly more crowded but still very low level crowds overall and after that the crowds remained just medium through the end of our week long trip.

We only decided we wanted to eat in the parks for Christmas Day about 5 days before and had no problems at all getting a reservation for a Christmas Day buffet that late in the game---amazing when compared to dining at Walt Disney World in Florida!  We even saw walk ups accommodated with a 30 minute wait.   Overall the food situation was vastly improved from our past trips---more places were open and serving through the day and the quality has gone up a bit (it is still crazy given the prices, but not nearly so bad as before, and you can actually GET food at more normal times and without insane waits to do so--we hope this trend continues.

One thing I was surprised by was that only Main Street, the Castle Area and the main entry area at The Studios was decorated for the holidays---the other lands had no indication at all that it was any particular season.  

I did take several photos of the decor, and of the holiday parade (a short parade which ran four times per day), but am currently having trouble accessing them---I hope to make a second post soon--which will be nearly all photos of the holiday theming.  Otherwise, this being some of the minimal time I had with Marika now that she is off attending school in the US, I did not spend a lot of time taking photos--we will be back next week and I plan to take many more general park photos then and write more specifically about the parks, ride, shows, etc., after.  We will also be staying onsite next time, at the Hotel Santa Fe---where the AP discount resulted in a room for three with breakfast for 80€ a night--really a great price for anything near Paris or DLP Easter week.  So, there will be a post on the hotel as well.

In the mean time, the summary from this post could be:

1. If you plan to spend 4 or more days at DLP in a full year then an AP is a great deal.  Here is a link to more information:

http://www.dlpguide.com/planning/booking/annual-passports/

2. The AP is an even better deal if you have a sponsor.  This can be found on online forums (or message me, if we will be there when you will we would love to sponsor you--it is a win-win situation)

3. Unlike in the US parks, while the days leading up to Christmas are PEAK crowds, Christmas Eve and Day are very quiet and nice in the parks and the days following that are moderate crowd levels.

4. The dining situation is improving.

--Hadley