Midwestern Girl in Paris: Disneyland Paris and Other Burnell Family Adventures

There are two reasons why I'm really excited for this post: one, IT'S MOSTLY ABOUT DISNEYLAND PARIS. And two, it's also about my family visiting me in Paris!

My dad, aunt, and grandmother all came to visit me the first full week of October (in fact, they got in to Paris about an hour after my train left for Brussels that Saturday, so they had to survive in Paris on their own for about 36 hours before I got back). Over the course of their trip, they went to the D-Day beaches in Normandy for a day (I had class, so I'm going on my own next week). We went together to the Louvre, on a river cruise on the Seine, and to the top of the Eiffel Tower. In the middle of their stay, my aunt and my grandmother went to Versailles for the day, and my dad and I went to Disneyland Paris.

Unfortunately, my digital camera broke mid-way through our adventures at Disney. TRAGIC. I was so sad. That thing has served me well since about freshman year of high school. I didn't want to spend the money on a new one over here, so fortunately my dad let me have his camera for the rest of the semester. So all of the pictures of Disneyland Paris are from his camera, and are therefore almost exclusively pictures of me, haha.

My parents first took me to Disney World in Florida when I was about three and a half years old, and to date I've been ten times. It is my absolutely favorite place in all the world, and I knew that Disneyland Paris wouldn't be anywhere near as good, but it was still AMAZING. It helps that I haven't been to Disney World in almost four years, which is the longest I have ever gone in my LIFE without a trip to the parks, so I was seriously craving any semblance of Disney at all. Which would explain why, when Dad and I walked through the entryway into the main park and began walking down Main Street, U.S.A., I started to tear up just a little. (Also why I was singing along and dancing like an idiot to the queue music in "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "it's a small world"...)

Disneyland Paris is composed of two parks: Disneyland Park (their version of the Magic Kingdom) and Walt Disney Studios Park (their version of MGM (now Hollywood, I know) Studios). It's all much smaller overall than Disney World (which covers 43 square miles), and offers much less, but it was wonderful, nonetheless. Many of the same attractions are here, like Big Thunder Mountain and Space Mountain, Star Tours, Tower of Terror, etc.

There was hardly anyone in the parks. I mean, granted, it was a Wednesday at the beginning of October, but still. Even on the least-crowded day at the World it's still crowded by objective standards. Dad and I never waited more than 25 minutes for a ride, which was wonderful. We squeezed in both parks in the same day (it takes five minutes to walk from the entrance of one park to the entrance of the other), and began our morning at the Disney Village (their version of Downtown Disney) because they have a Starbucks. Of course.

World of Disney! So many things to buy...

Did I mention it's also Disneyland Paris' 20th Anniversary? :)

I've seen Disney World all decorated for Christmas before, but I've never seen Disney do Halloween. I'm not a big fan of Halloween, but it was fun to see all the pumpkins and stuff. (Also they had "It's Halloween" from "Nightmare Before Christmas" playing all the time, and I really like that song, which was nice.)

Can you tell we're related?

FAVORITE RIDE. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was both our first and last ride of the day. It's interesting because here, the actual mountain is in the middle of the artificial river built into the park, but you get on the ride right on the river bank. So the beginning and the ending of the ride is in total pitch blackness because you're going back and forth under the river to get to the actual mountain, which I enjoyed very much.

My new pumpkin friends...

The Haunted Mansion! (Called "Phantom Manor" here.)

The Phantom awaits!

So instead of Tom Sawyer Island at the Magic Kindgom, here they have "Adventure Isle," which holds a similar Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse to explore like in Florida, but the rest of it is basically Neverland, with caves and bridges and Captain Hook's pirate ship and Skull Rock and everything! It's AWESOME. Dad had to drag me away, otherwise I probably would've played around for like an hour.

The Mad Tea Party in Fantasyland.

I don't care what anyone thinks, I LOVE IT'S A SMALL WORLD. Also they have an America section here, with the Statue of Liberty, the Hollywood sign, and the Golden Gate Bridge, which I think is hilarious.

STAR TOURS. MY OTHER FAVORITE RIDE. It's still the original version here, not the updated version they have in Orlando. Which I haven't been on yet, but apparently there are a variety of scenarios you could experience, so you have a different ride every time. I don't see how it can compare to the original. I mean, what other scenario could I possibly want to experience than flying down the exact same route as Luke Skywalker on the Death Star from "A New Hope" in order to save the galaxy? Certainly not the landspeeder race from Phantom Menace or whatever else the new version incorporates.

After lunch we went over to the other park, which consists more of shows than it does rides.

The mandatory "Partners" statue of Walt and Mickey and one ride I will most definitely NOT go on, Tower of Terror (I let Dad ride that one--and Space Mountain, which goes upside down here--by himself. Neither took more than about 20-25 minutes since there were so few people!)

The giant Buzz Lightyear outside of Toy Story Playland. He talks!

Pretending to get eaten by Rex. He doesn't talk.

After doing just a handful of things at the other park, we went back to Disneyland Park to have dinner, ride Pirates and Big Thunder and Star Tours one more time, and do some shopping on Main Street as the sun went down while we waited for the fireworks.

Dad's camera is not the best at taking pictures at night, so none of my nighttime castle pictures turned out very well, unfortunately. But you get the idea. Disneyland Paris' end of the day fireworks/light show is new this year for the 20th anniversary, and is called "Disney Dreams." It doesn't use fireworks so much as light and animation projected onto the castle and more animation projected onto sheets of water from the fountains in front of the castle. It's absolutely incredible. I highly recommend that you take a few minutes out of your day and watch it on Youtube.

Towards the end of their visit we all went up into the Eiffel Tower together. There are three levels to which you may ascend in the Eiffel Tower. The lowest is the restaurant, which is being largely renovated at the moment. The second is the main observation level, and the third is the very, very top. We had tickets to take us all the way up to the top, but only my dad and my grandmother went that far. I'm not a big fan of heights, and when you're in the elevator going from the ground floor to the second level, you can see out all around you just how far up you're rising. The result of which being that by the time we walked off the elevator on the second level (which is almost 400 feet in the air), the thought of getting on the other elevator to go almost another 700 feet straight up to the top had me on the verge of a panic attack. Fortunately my aunt had somewhat similar feelings, and we stayed on the second level together for about half an hour while my dad and my grandmother went all the way up to the top. Which they said was incredible, but I'm content to just take their word for it.