2004
Coaster Trips: 2004: Disneyland Paris (#2), Disneyland Paris Studios, Fete a Neu-Neu
Monday August 30th
Introduction
Our meal last night was accompanied by some very good champagne, and this coupled with a very late arrival back at the hostel made getting out of bed a challenge. However, we still managed to leave at 8:30am to take the RER out to the Disneyland Paris Resort. I had arranged to meet up with my friend Jacques for the day, and with some quick mobile phone use we located each other. We arrived at the parks just before 10:00am and purchased tickets which allowed us to enter both parks, at €49 each. Both George and I had visited Disneyland Paris earlier in the year; me with St Bartholomew's Choir and George on his own as a birthday present to himself. Jacques, though living in Paris, had never been to the parks.
Disneyland Paris Studios
As I had not been into the Walt Disney Studios park, we entered it first. The first impression one gets from the park is that the designers ran out of money half way through construction. There are a total of ten major attractions here, and while they are all substantial, the park really isn't big enough to justify the gate price on its own. I would be intrigued to know how many visitors it gets who are not also visiting the main Disneyland park; I would be surprised if it was very many.
The single coaster in the park is the Rock'n'Roller Coaster (#355), a launched indoor coaster built by Vekoma. Disney efficiency is once again in evidence, with the ride dispatching trains at the maximum throughput of the ride. The coaster itself is great fun; it rides very smoothly with no jarring, and the lighting and ride soundtrack very much add to the experience. Though the two rides are similar, it is actually somewhat less intense than Space Mountain in the main park; the entire trip is taken at a reasonable speed with no jarring. Vekoma have really learnt how to build good coasters in the last few years. Why can't they fix the SLC?
George suggested doing the Studio Tram Tour - Behind the Magic before the queue built up. This is, as the name implies, a trip around some film sets, with action scenes that are really rather good. I won't spoil the details of the show for potential park visitors, but I will say that it is well worth doing if only for the scene with the Oil Tanker. We also did the Armageddon special effects show. Loosely based around the movie, this involves re-enacting a scene in the Russian spacecraft. Once again, this was particularly good and well worth doing.
We did a second circuit on the Rock'n'Roller Coaster before moving across to the main Disneyland park.
Disneyland Paris
George had missed out on Big Thunder Mountain on his previous visit, but since the wait was three quarters of an hour we picked up a fast pass for later and went over to the Phantom Manor. It is still the sort of ghost train every park should aspire to, though for me I felt it had lost something in comparison to the larger version in Disneyland California.
We collected a fast pass for Space Mountain, but as the wait was only fifteen minutes we elected to ride anyway, and then used our fast pass for a second circuit in quick succession. I have to admit that I really like Space Mountain; it can be jarring from time to time, but I think the way the orchestral soundtrack has been worked around the ride really makes for a fun experience. Unfortunately, the sound system was not working properly on the train we got the second time round. I have wondered before how these sound systems work; are there batteries on the trains that get charged overnight? If a Disney cast member is reading this, do let me know.
George wanted to ride the Casey Jr powered coaster. The wait of three quarters of an hour turned out to be the longest wait of the day but was partially made up for by the fact that we got the only seats on the train facing backwards, making the ride a somewhat different experience to my previous visit. I could have done without the soundtrack though; as I type this the tune is still stuck in my head and will not go away!
At this point it was time to use our fast passes for Big Thunder Mountain. This ride has what I think must be the noisiest chain lift of any coaster I have ever been on. It makes an incredible racket, so loud that you cannot hear the person right next to you talking. However, this is the only minor gripe I can make about what is actually a surprisingly good coaster. The ride of just under four minutes is punctuated by three lift hills which break things up quite nicely. During my California trip in June I remember thinking that the Paris version was the poor cousin of the American model, but now I'm not so sure at all; I had forgotten the entire second half. I'd like to ride them both again to compare, though who knows when I'll be out in Los Angeles again.
We got over to Indiana Jones just as it went down for technical difficulties, so we collected fast pass tickets and went to Pirates of the Caribbean instead. Indiana Jones was working again by the time we were clear, so we used our fast passes and were able to board quickly enough. The ride is by far the most intense of any in the park, and is badly in need of some extra padding on the headrests; it is impossible to ride without ending up with sore ears. I hope the trains will get new padding in the off season.
We finished up our time in Disneyland with a slew of dark rides; Blanch-Neige et les Sept Nains, Pinnochio's Fantastic Journey, Peter Pan's Flight, and the obligatory It's a Small World. On the way out we caught a few games in the Arcade.
Fete a Neu-Neu
While Jacques made his way home, George and I decided to continue across Paris to look at the Fete a Neu-Neu, a fair that had opened on August 28th. Neither of us had heard about this in advance; I had spotted an advertisement for it on a billboard and noted the details. I had asked a few friends to look up information on it for me on the Internet, but nobody could find anything. I'd even looked myself and found nothing. Rather than wonder if we'd missed anything really cool (after all, the Foire du Trone, held in April, is well worth visiting) we decided to make the journey.
During our journey across the city, a mentally disenfranchised individual boarded the train and started complaining loudly in French. I could pick up a few words here and there, but not enough to figure out what on earth he was talking about. I commented to George that it probably made better sense if you spoke French. At this, a local businessman sitting across from us burst into silent laughter and uttered one word of English: No.
The nearest Metro station to the fair, located in Bois du Boulogne, was a full twenty minutes walk from the fairground and was not clearly marked. However, we did find it and had a look around. There were, unfortunately, no Roller Coasters this time; just a small selection of flat rides and a number of arcade machines, gambling machines, and food stalls. Nothing looked particularly exciting, so we took a series of photos and headed back to the hostel, arriving shortly before 10:00pm. I have since posted the photographs so that anyone who may be researching the Fete a Neu-Neu in future will be able to find out something about it!