Our Eurostar from London St Pancras arrived at Marne La-Vallee Chessy (Parc Disneyland) at about 1:30pm on Monday March 21. We decided not to use the Disney Express baggage service inbound and went straight to lunch at Annette's Diner where we had hot dogs and fries. I have to say, I was disappointed in the service there - we were made to wait by the entrance until a table was clear for us however no Cast Member was around to explain the wait or apologise. Such a shame, not a very good start to our trip and only a taster of the 'laid-back' approach by Paris Cast Members.
By the time we'd relaxed, adjusted and finished our food we headed for the bus to the Hotel Cheyenne. The bus didn't really take that long, which kind of shocked me but I knew the hotels were so close to the parks you could actually work to them so really I shouldn't have been so surprised. Checking in at the Cheyenne was very quick and without any queues, we also managed to get the very decent breakfast slots of 7am everyday - that seems early but we had a choice of 7am, or 10am and we knew we wanted early slots. After dropping our bags in our room we found the walkway from the hotel to the Disney Village and the parks. Our first stop was the main park, Disneyland Park.
The weather was amazing, the sun was shining and it was a very perfect day to be outdoors, so the walk from the Hotel Cheyenne through the Village towards the park was great. One of the first 'attractions' you see on the walk is the ParnoraMagique balloon. There is a similar feature at Downtown Disney in Florida, it's a tethered balloon 'ride' that takes you high into the sky and straight back down again. We never took a ride on it in Florida, and we didn't this time in Paris either - although it would've been a great view on such clear days.
After walking through the Disney Village, where all the shops and restaurants are, we finally got to the park entrance. It looks and feels just like Florida as soon as you walk in.
The castle is beautiful, especially against the bright blue sky! When we'd got over the awe of the place we looked at the current wait times on the rides and they didn't seem too bad at all - it really is a quiet time of year. The first ride we went for was Phantom Manor (the Paris version of the Haunted Mansion). For years I'd been too afraid to ride the Haunted Mansion in Florida and finally gave it a go when James and I visited in September 2009 - we jumped the queue on a special behind the scenes tour of the Magic Kingdom park. It turned out to be pretty fun and not scary at all, so I was happy (although still slightly nervous) about riding the Phantom Manor.
After the Phantom Manor we were happy just walking around Adventureland and Frontierland, appreciating the differences and similarities to Walt Disney World in Florida. We soon ended up in Fantasyland and wandered right to the back where we went on the ride Le Pays des Contes de Fees - it's a really sweet boat ride through mini model 'towns' of well known fairy tales, as told by Disney. We really enjoyed the, obviously, new addition of the Rapunzel tower to the attraction. I also thought the Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast models were great!
Next, while still in Fantasyland, we saw that there was practically no wait at all for It's a Small World - as one of the lead attractions in the park this really surprised me so we decided to take advantage and jump on! It's such an iconic Disneyland attraction in pretty much every park around the world, so to see it be quite run down and in need of a refurb was quite sad. The movement of the animatronics was slow, stuttered or non existant, there was an open roof so you could see all the beams, metal work and lights and the paint was rubbed off, peeling or faded on a lot of the displays. Definitely not what I expected of such a popular ride, it could definitely use some downtime and TLC!
To complete the full circle of all the 'lands' within the park we ended up in Discoveryland, the home of all things futuristic! The first ride we did here, Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast! By far my favourite ride, it's very much like it's WDW equivilant - apart from a French speaking Buzz! That was actually quite amusing, especially after in Toy Story 3 Buzz is reset to speak Spanish - it reminded me of that. I think we had to queue for about 15 minutes, which isn't too bad and James was really excited to have his first Hidden Mickey pointed out. I'd read and seen pictures of three tiny dots representing stars on the Buzz ride we printed so close together that they resembled a Mickey Mouse head - coincidence? I think not, Disney have hundreds of these little wonders 'hidden' all over their parks. My score on the Buzz Lightyear ride was alright, but I could always do better - maybe I need to ride it again?
The wait on Space Mountain is really short, so James jumped on there while I waited outside. After this we walked back to the main hub in front of the castle and debated some ideas for dinner - we settled on quick service from Casey's Corner. The sun was starting to set so we made our way to the park exit for the walk back through the Village to our hotel. We stopped in a couple of shops to browse the merchandise as we walked through the Village, lots of cute ornaments, pictures and, of course, pins I wanted to buy!
Back at Hotel Cheyenne, we kicked off our shoes to rest our tired feet and relaxed listening to some English radio that was set as a channel on the TV and I worked out our plan of action for our first full day in the Disneyland Park.
I've always found it a little nerve wracking going to a new salon and getting my hair done, but this morning I had an appointment in the city and went for it. I didn't have a dramatic change to my hair style, just a really good cut and refresh to the shape.
I completely adore the show 'The Biggest Loser' - the American version - so really wanted to use it as inspiration to start losing weight.
