Our Avalon package officially ended and we checked out of the Paris Marriott. Most people were headed home and I have to admit after 10 days of an Active vacation I think they might have the right idea but there is no way I could go to Paris and not visit Disneyland Paris. Adding on a visit to the parks was one of other main reasons I chose this itinerary. I looked up the different transportation options but the train is by far the cheapest and seemed like it would be very easy. We rolled our luggage about 2 blocks from our hotel to the main station where we easily bought our ticket (7 euro each) that would take us right to Disney Village. There were 15 stops along the way but the nice thing is Disneyland Paris is very last stop so you can’t miss your stop. When they say the train stops right at Disney Village they really do mean it. You could walk just a few steps and be headed into one of the parks. Right now though we are headed to our Disney Hotel.
There are 7 hotels that are considered Disney property. One of which, the Hotel New York is under a complete refurbishment to made made over to be the Art of Marvel Hotel due to open June 2020. From the looks of things I think it will be pretty amazing when it is finished and also the second closest to the parks. The closest to the parks is the Disneyland Hotel, which you cannot get any closer since it is technically inside the Disneyland Paris gates and looks right up Main Street. That wasn’t quite in my budget this time though so we chose the Newport Bay Club (if you have been to Disney World it is pretty much a copy of the Yacht Club resort except painted yellow outside). Newport Bay would be considered a Deluxe resort like the Yacht Club and you can easily walk to the parks or if you preferred take the Disney bus. We planned to use that bus that runs from Disney Village to the resorts when we came out of the train station. I admit we had a pretty laughable experience trying to find our bus because in typical French style the directions were not very clear. After a bit of wrong choices we found our bus and were on the way to the resort. We were surprised to find when getting off the bus our luggage needed to be put through security before we could go into the hotel. Check in was like any Disney resort and as we were too early for our room to be ready we stowed our bags with bell services and headed over to the parks. In case you are wondering the other 4 resorts are – Sequoia Lodge (think Wilderness Lodge in FL), Hotel Santa Fe and Hotel Cheyenne (these are a bit further of a walk and might be considered a Value to Moderate type resort), lastly is Davy Crockett Ranch (think cabins at Fort Wilderness in WDW).
By staying in a Disney resort we do get to take advantage of an extra hour in the park each morning. Since Walt Disney Studios has a lot of rides we do not have here in FL we knew we wanted to make sure and hit that with the early hour. Walt Disney Studios is broken into 4 sections – Front Lot, Backlot, Production Courtyard, and Toon Studio. I already knew I wanted to head straight to Toon Studio for Crush’s Coaster since this one doesn’t offer fastpass and is a very popular one. While they let us line up they didn’t let us into the attraction right away so we lost a bit of our early hour. However we found out later it was good that we rode it when we did because it seemed to be down a lot the rest of that day. It was worth the wait as it was a fun coaster ride where you got to feel what it might be like riding the EAC. I would love it if they brought this over to the US! Next stop was Ratatouille, which will be opening here in Epcot soon. This one is going to be very popular here as it is really a great ride for the whole family. You really get to feel like what it would be like to be a rat in the movie. Chez Remy is a sit down restaurant that looks totally adorable and I hope they bring that to Epcot as well even if we didn’t eat there. After that we headed to the Toy Story section of Toon Studios. Sorry FL but I prefer the Paris version of Toy Storyland. We rode RC Racer, which looks the half circle from a matchbox car track and RC from Toy Story is riding it back and forth. Even though it is a quick ride with no surprises it is a lot of fun. We were heading to Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop but at that time it was stuck in the up position with guests on it so we decided maybe we didn’t want to do that one. A couple attractions were closed for refurbishment in this section so we missed out on Slinky Dog Zigzag spin and then also Cars Quatre Rouse Rallye. Next up was Production Courtyard where we found the classic backlot tour – Studio Tram Tour Behind the Magic. Like we used to have here in FL you board the tram which takes you by some large movie props and cars before heading into Catastrophe Canyon. I do miss this even if it is a bit cheesy. There isn’t a working Studio here so that part of the tram tour isn’t here but there was another movie set replica we drove through before the end. Tower of Terror is also in this section so we grabbed fastpass for that to come back later. We walked over to the Backlot section where you can find all your favorite Marvel characters doing different shows throughout the day as part of the Marvel Summer of Super Heroes event. We watched a little and then headed to Rockin Rollar Coaster. it was pretty similar to what we have here in FL but without the limo theme and you are not riding through the CA streets. Honestly I am not really sure what the theme was supposed to be except that it was a roller coaster with music. This section also has another attraction that used to be here in FL but didn’t last too long – Moteurs…Action (or as we called it Lights, Motors, Action). We headed back to Tower of Terror for our fastpass return time. Even though it was pretty much the same as here in FL the cast members here were excellent and really made the experience so much better than any other attraction. That was pretty much everything so as you can see even if all attractions where open you could most likely do this all in a day, especially with the early hour to help. I guess that is why this park closed at 7 pm each night while Disneyland stayed open until 11 pm each night we were here.
We were ready to say goodbye to Mickey and head over to the airport. It was super quick and easy as there is a non-stop high speed train from the Disney station right to the airport that took only about 10 minutes. I guess if we had a later flight we easily could have stayed in Disney and gone right to our flight pretty quickly and easily. Instead we were staying the night at an airport hotel and I am glad we did as the Paris airport is huge! Since we didn’t fly into this airport it was our first time here and I can see why people are not a fan of having a connecting flight here. Even from our hotel it took 30 minutes to walk and take the airport shuttle system to get to our check in gate. The nice part of an early flight though was the airport was still pretty empty so check in and security went pretty quick. We then were on our plane to Atlanta before making our way back to home sweet home in Orlando! We really lucked out and ended up with an empty seat in our row of 3 so we got to spread out and get comfy for the 9 hours. I have to say I was really happy with the food Delta offered during this flight. Just give me warm cookies and a magnum ice cream bar on a plane any day and you will have a happy flier! Connecting in Atlanta wasn’t bad and customs was unusually empty. Happily no summer storms to delay us so we made it home pretty quick. After 2 weeks of pretty much non stop action I was happy to be home sleeping in my own bed and not having to get up early (of course being still a bit on France time I was awake before sun up).
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