Boundless Horizons

Day 8 – Our first full day at Disneyland Paris

After a good night’s sleep at the ibis Marne la Vallée Val d’Europe, we hopped on the RER train one stop to Marne la Vallée / Chessy. Breakfast was at Brasserie Rosalie which opened last year in Disney Village and has become a firm favourite. At their takeaway window, Le Comptoir, breakfast is €4,50 for a coffee and either a croissant or a pain au chocolat. Their pasties are fresh and tasty, and their coffee is better than the machines in the parks!

French sale periods are set at a national level, and there are two main sale periods in the year, each lasting four weeks. Winter sales usually start the 2^nd Wednesday of January, while summer sales usually start the last Wednesday of June. So conveniently, our visit fell right in the summer sale period! As Rosalie is at the bottom of Disney Village, we strolled through the shops to see what was on offer. There was a good selection of items at 50% off, and annual pass discount is applied on top of the sale price. We didn’t want to carry items around all day so we took note of a few things we might like to buy and carried on to the parks.

Starting with Disneyland Park, we hopped on the EuroDisneyland Rail Road for a grand circle tour around the park. We had a look at the sales in the Emporium to see what was available, then our next stop was Frontierland for a ride on the Molly Brown Riverboat.

By this point it was time for lunch, as summer crowds meant the lines were fairly long so it made sense to wait them out elsewhere. After breakfast at Rosalie’s takeaway window… we ended up in the actual restaurant for lunch. This isn’t unusual, we either ate or drank there every day on our January trip – that’s how good it is! The food is some of the best on property and it’s nice to enjoy some French food while in France (previously difficult to find at the resort!). The price is pretty reasonable, and it’s also nice and quiet, which makes for a good place to take a break.

The lunch menu is served 11:30am-5pm and costs €19,50 for two courses. The menu changes seasonally as the dishes were different from our previous visit, which is great because it means repeat visitors can try a variety of dishes and still take advantage of the lunch deal. I opted for the fresh pea and mint soup, followed by the blanquette-style vegetable casserole with rice. Rhys had the label rouge royans ravioli followed by the Lorraine quiche. We both loved these dishes.

With the parks open 13.5 hours and lines peaking in the middle of the day, our preferred approach is to do rides in the morning and evening when the lines are shortest and relax in the middle of the day. This was actually our tenth visit to DLP (six with annual passes), so there’s less of an urgency to do everything. Since we were really full from lunch (too full for dessert!), we picked up some shopping and headed back to the hotel for a quick nap.

A couple of hours later, wait times had dropped considerably so we took the train back to the parks. One of our favourite things to do is to grab Mickey waffles in Victoria’s, though their opening hours can be a bit strange. On this trip, we were pleased to see the app said it was open 12pm-6pm, giving us a good window to aim for! The downside is that there were no waffles on the menu, they’d been replaced with milkshakes. I’m happy to report that the milkshakes were delicious! We both opted for Mickey’s Marvellous Milkshake, a chocolate shake with a Mickey-shaped brownie on top.

Our next stop was Fantasyland, which closes an hour before the rest of the park due to the fireworks. On this trip that was less of a problem as it was still open until 10pm, and we had the chance to take some gorgeous golden hour photos. “it’s a small world” is generally a low wait because it’s a continual load so we set off on the happiest cruise that ever set sail.

One of our goals on this trip was to visit places that we hadn’t been before. Pizzeria Bella Notte was on that list! We’d heard it was pretty busy given its location, and as we try to eat outside of peak meal times, it’d been closed when we’ve tried to go before. I love DLP, but it has some operational quirks like that! We’d had such a big lunch that all we really wanted was a drink and some garlic bread to snack on, rather than a full meal. The decor in here is beautiful, the new Luca area was closed off but we were able to peek in.

Next up on our tour of Fantasyland was the Mad Hatter’s Tea Cups, which isn’t new to us, but we’ve not done it often. It’s a classic spinner, but not one for after a full meal. Since each individual cup spins based on how fast you turn the disc in the centre, we’ve learned over the years to resist the urge to spin as fast as we can! With the ability to control our spin, we decided the queue was short enough to go for it. Even when we don’t ride the Tea Cups, the canopy over the ride is so beautiful lit up at night that we make a point of passing for some photos.

Dumbo, amazingly, was also on the list of things we’ve never done. In fact, it was the only ride in either park that we’ve never been on! I’ve been on Dumbo in other parks, but not in Paris. The line is always long and there’s no Premier Access so the only option is to wait. But tonight the line was 20 minutes, which might be the shortest I’ve ever seen it. It was a lovely way to see Fantasyland at sunset.

Star Tours was our next stop, as there had been new scenes added. I miss the original, but I like the freshness that comes from the updates. According to Wikipedia, there’s now 26 random segments of the film: five opening segments, five primary destination segments, ten hologram message segments, and six ending destination segments. Combined, they allow for 1500 different possible ride experiences. We haven’t ridden 1500 times, but I’m pretty sure we’ve seen all 26 segments! We were able to ride a couple of times with a low wait as people were starting to gather for the fireworks.

Our extra Star Tours ride meant we only caught the last minute of the Electrical Sky Parade! We were glad we had a good view last night for the whole show because it took the pressure off getting to see it tonight. We opted not to stick around for Disney Illuminations, and instead headed down Discovery Arcade to beat the rush to the train station!