Nyanko's Adventures!: Disney

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Our Annual Passports!

On our first trip to Disneyland Paris, we noticed that the majority of the visitors had purchased tickets prior to visiting the park. In fact, we had some difficulties locating the ticket office as it was tucked far away at the end of the entrance gates.

To be honest, it was an impromptu trip and I did not do any prior research on the various ticket types. Back at our familiar Tokyo Disney Resort (TDR), there are 3 ways of purchasing a ticket: (1) advance purchase at one of the authorised travel agencies/ hotels; (2) online; or (3) at the ticket gates. The prices for any of these options are similar. And unless you are staying at the Disney hotels (or have a relevant Disney Vacation Package), you will not be able to buy a ticket that allows you to enter both parks (Disneyland and DisneySea) on the same 1st day. Selected overseas travel agencies (e.g. JTB in Singapore) sell park tickets with a validity period but without a fixed date. This means that you can have the flexibility to change the date of visit (without notifying anyone or making any payment) even until the very last minute. Otherwise, there are no clear advantages to make advance purchase of the park tickets.

At Disneyland Paris however, there are a myriad of tickets with different prices and options. Naturally, advance purchases online give you the maximum cost savings.

There are 4 categories of tickets, namely MINI, MAGIC, SUPER MAGIC, and MAGIC FLEX (in accordance to price). For each category, there are two options: one park only or two parks. The only tickets available at the ticket gates are MAGIC FLEX. Sometimes, they are special offers for the park tickets ~~which makes things even more confusing~~. For example, there is the summer offer till 28 Sep 2016 where you can get a MINI, MAGIC, or SUPER MAGIC ticket that allows you to enter both parks at the usual price for one.

Confusing enough yet? Perhaps the table below will help to clarify:

Tickets	1 Day 1 Park	1 Day 2 Parks
MINI	€47	€62
MAGIC	€59	€74
SUPER MAGIC	€69	€84
MAGIC FLEX	€75	€90

Prices per Adult obtained from official website valid till 31 Jan 2017.
MAGIC FLEX tickets are the only tickets you can purchase at the ticket gates.

Of course, i didn't know all these on my first visit, and was shocked that the ticket prices indicated on the bill board was some €90? In comparison, the most "pocket-friendly" annual pass available was only €135 and it allows you to enter both parks on the same day!

On closer inspection, there are 85 blackout days for the cheapest Annual Passport Classic. The day when we visited the park happened to be one of those days. It is hardly surprising that most of these blackout days fall on the weekends. (The validity periods can be found here.) This option also doesn't provide complimentary parking (which is €20 per entry).

The next upgrade of annual pass would be €179 for the Annual Passport Fantasy, with complimentary parking and Extra Magic Hours, but still a blackout of 45 days. At this point, I should probably mention that the Extra Magic Hours meant that you can start enjoying Disneyland Park up to 2 hours before the official opening hours (not applicable to Walt Disney Studios).

It wasn't as though we were fanatic, but with the man's schedule being hectic and unpredictable, we thought it is safer to choose the Annual Passport Dream which has no blackout so that we could literally go any time we wanted. And that, ate into our wallets by an additional €44. *horrors* To make the deal slightly sweeter, you get an additional perk of 20% off purchases at the shops (as compared to only 10% for the other passports). Accordingly, you will also get invitation to special events (though we have not received any yet), and get some miscellaneous discounts which the other two passports doesn't provide.

A quick summary for the annual passports below:

Price & Benefits	Classic	Fantasy	Dream
Price	€135	€179	€223
Total number of days available for visit in a year	280	320	365
Discounts at shops in Disneyland Paris	10%	10%	20%
Discounts at restaurants in Disneyland Paris, Hotels and Disney Village	10%
Complimentary parking at Disneyland (*)	No	Yes	Yes
Extra Magic Hours (Enjoy 2 hours before park opening)	No	Yes	Yes
Discounts for Hotels	Yes	Yes	Additional Discount
Discounts for Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, Golf Disneyland, The Disney Store in France, free non-alcoholic drink at restaurants in Disneyland Paris (table service only), discounts at PanoraMagique, cinema at Disney Village and Aquarium Sea Life etc	Partial	Partial	All
Discounts for daily park tickets for friends	No	10%	20%

Prices listed per adult. Information obtained from official website.
(*) Complimentary parking available for Classic Passport holder by making additional one time payment of €30

Therefore, if you are visiting Disneyland Paris for 2 times or more, and unless you are visiting only on days with MINI or MAGIC prices, it is probably worthwhile to apply for an annual pass.

To buy one, you just have to approach the ticket office (where they also sell the daily tickets) with your passports. On the day of purchase, we only had our driving licenses with us which they would not accept. Eventually, they allowed us to proceed when we showed them a photo of our passports. You will then receive a paper ticket that will allow you to enter the park. Thereafter, you will need to go to the Annual Passport Office inside Disneyland Park to register and get the real plastic card. We were there about 10am park opening time and the whole process took only about 10 mins. Do note that the parking charges on the same day before the purchase of the annual pass cannot be refunded.

So on our very first weekend living in France, we decided to drive to Disneyland!

Hi Ho!

Disneyland Paris is about a 40 mins drive or train ride to the east of Paris. The direct train departs regularly from Paris Gare de Lyon and the park just seems too accessible compared to the airports (ironically). The opening hours vary by day but the parks are typically open at 10:00.

Sleeping Beauty Castle holds the fort here at Paris Disneyland

We took some time settling our tickets/ annual passes (check out my next post on why we decided to get the annual pass!) and even so, the crowd wasn't all too bad. We walked towards Discoveryland, and yahoo! the first ride we saw is one of the man's favourite: Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast.

Mr Buzz giving instructions on what to do!

This is a very family-friendly ride where you use the toy laser guns to shoot the baddies. Depending on the number and type of targets shot, you accumulate points. At the end of the ride, you can check your score and will be ranked accordingly. For the competitive young ones out there, this is a ride not to be missed!

As you can see, i'm not a very good shooter :(

Since we are in the area, the next ride up is Autopia.

Vrrrrrrmmmm!

This is definitely one of the best similar genre rides i've taken. For one, the cars can go at reasonably fast speeds, and there are several daytona-like turns and slopes that actually give you a bit of the thrill without any compromises on safety. There is a similar ride in Tokyo Disneyland, but it is a lot milder there. The plus side is that the Japanese crew are so adorable and came up with their own hand gestures and loud cheers to flag you off you feel like really part of a race. And yes they did it for each and every car that i'm rather concerned about their throats *ahem*...

When we were there there are still working on upgrading the Star Tours ride. Having been to upgraded one in Tokyo Disney Resort (TDR), we kind of expect them to do the same modifications. It's another very fun 3D motion ride and we would most definitely like to take it again when it reopens here. I'll let you know again if they are any different!

C3PO giving the commands at TDR.

In the same zone, there is the Discoveryland Theatre hosting the Disney & Pixar Short Film Festival. They edited the short films and made them into 4D (i.e. 3D with the glasses and the 4th dimension being some seat movements/jets of air/sprinkles of water). In the theatre, 3 short films are played and we watched Get a Horse, For the Birds, and La Luna. I've watched the earlier two before, and while i love the animation, i wouldn't say that the 4th dimension effect was any where near amazing. There are much better 4D rides out there, and if you've been or are going to Universal Studios Singapore (USS), their Shrek 4D Adventure is so much better (even though personally i do not like Shrek). Anyways, i'm glad i ticked a "new" ride off the list!

Next, we had lunch at Cafe Hyperion. Coincidentally, they had a live show of the Jedi Training Academy at that time and we caught the performance while having lunch! There is a separate seating area for those who are eating (and hence entered through the restaurant) and for those who are just catching the show (and entered through Videopolis).

Our lunch. A half attempt at making something "disney". That's a "Yoda Cupcake" by the way.

The Jedi Training Academy.

Young Padawans, pick up your light sabers!

Aspiring young padawans aged 7 to 12 years old can register to join the training academy. A senior Jedi will train and guide them on the usage of the sabers and practise some moves. All because the big bad wolf will arrive shortly and duel with them one on one!

"Give yourself to the dark side!"

Even Duffy got into the dark side :(

Please tell me you are just cos-playing!!!

After we had enough of the dark side, it's time to return to the light at Fantasyland:

But it's still a small world after all!

Here in Paris Disneyland Park, there actually IS a queue for It's a Small World! o-O The ride was integrated perfectly with the railway and that made it look like a little toy town by itself!

How nice is that!

The sights in the ride varies slightly from the one in TDR. Now having been to several places in Europe, the sights reminded me of my earlier trips to several countries. They just look so much more meaningful when you've been there yourself!

Amsterdam (Netherlands)

London (England)

Venice and Rome (Italy)

The official Disneyland brochure indicate several rides/shows as "Not to be Missed" on the map. Right next to this ride are two of those "Not to be Missed": Le Pays des Contes de Fees and Casey Jr. - le Petit Train du Cirque. These two rides are not available in TDR. Since it's recommended, we need to check it out, right?

The circus train's from Casey Jr. and the boat's from Le Pays des Contes

Just like "It's a small world" and the railway train, Disneyland Paris has done a great job blending the two rides into one another. Le Pays des Contes de Fees is truly beautiful and memorable. You cruise down river into the miniature worlds of the fairy tales!

Hansel and Gretel

The little Mermaid

And my personal favourite:

Beauty and the Beast

I love it that they actually created the entire "poor provincial town" and Beast's castle in the far distance!! It is just amazingly beautiful...

The queue for Casey Jr. - le Petit Train du Cirque was slightly longer but now i fully understand why! You sit on board the circus train which Dumbo and his mom ride on as the cruise tours around. And of course, you get to enjoy the beautiful views from Le Pays while enjoying the mildly thrilling semi-coaster. It is now one of my favourite rides from Disneyland Park!

Cruising near to Beast's castle!

Next up is Alice's Curious Labyrinth. Right whack in the middle of the self-guided maze is the huge face of the Cheshire Cat which everyone clamors to take photographs with. But there are a lot more things to see such as the angry Queen of Hearts and her foot soldiers etc. Beware that some of the figurines are motion-sensitive so they may pop out and give you a nice surprise when you walk past!

See? I told you everyone just wants to take photo with Cheshire.

One of the Cards (opps i mean, Guards) who came after us!

Minus the Cards/Guards, it's a pretty nice view up the Queen's castle!

Then off we go to another strangely crowded ride: Peter Pan's Flight. By the word "strange", i don't mean to say that it's not worth the time, but that the queue here is 50 mins for the ride when really, it's one of the shortest queues in TDR with an average of 20 mins maximum? I've come to appreciate that the French and the Japanese have very varied preferences. Hmm...

Admiring Wendy's house to kill time...

And there we go! All ready to fly!

Since several rides were closed for renovation, the last rides we took for the day were Pirates of the Caribbean at Adventureland and Phantom Manor at Frontierland. The Pirates of the Carribbean has some splash action while Phantom Manor is a very mild ride that basically just taunts your mind with the "restless spirits". Both of them are also available at TDR.

The Phantom Manor. Not so scary with Mickey around right? :D

If you have some time to kill while waiting for a show (like us), you can also visit the Le Passage Enhante d'Aladdin at Advenureland or Les Mysteres du Nautilus at Discoveryland. Both of them are self-guided attractions where you walk around to take a look at the display.

As it started to drizzle after that, we took a coffee break while waiting for the La Magie Disney en Parade ! (Disney Magic on Parade) at 17:30. Since we have our annual passes and will most definitely be back again, we decided to catch the show from the window seat in the cafe. Lazy us!

I spy Geppetto!

The Lion King

Bad Boy Captain Hook

Best Friend Mickey

Boisterous Chip & Dale

And that ends our day at Disneyland Park. Don't worry, we'll be back!!!

See you soon!

To find out more about the Walt Disney Studios, read here!

Mickey in action!

And so, we went on our second drive to Disneyland Paris last Sunday, 4 Sep 2016! This time round, we decided to spend most of our time at the second and newer park: Walt Disney Studios.

As implied by the name, this park offers a lot more entertainment and shows than the older sister, Disneyland Park. Strictly speaking, there are only 10 rides (as compared to more than 20 at Disneyland Park) and I've heard people say that 3 hours is more than enough to explore the entire park. That is most definitely not true!!!

Old american styled streets with the Hollywood Tower.

I've been to Tokyo Disney Resort (both Disneyland and DisneySea) not fewer than 5 times over the years and I'm surprised to experience a rather different aspect of Disney here at the Walt Disney Studios.

If you are going there, you have to check out the Animagique Theater. The theater was closed for refurbishment and was only reopened Summer 2016. And yes! We caught the splendid Mickey et le Magicien nouveau spectacle (Mickey and the Magician)!! Unfortunately, we were not allowed to film or take photographs during the show...

The broadway style entertainment gave credits to several famous Disney movies (and of course their beloved songs) as Mickey, the inspiring magician, goes about ~~as usual~~ playing with his magic. There were 5 well-timed showtimes daily and yet the session which we went to was almost fully packed! It's definitely a great way to start or end the trip to the park. According to the official website, the show will be available till 8 Jan 2017. I can barely wait to see what will come up next!!

While we did attempt to schedule all the shows perfectly, it was impossible as it took time for the crowd to vacate the huge theaters and we still had to walk to the next venue. So we took a break for lunch instead after the show ended.

Rather disappointingly, there are only 3 places that offers a quick meal in the park and viola~! They all sell sandwiches/ burgers. The burgers were actually not too bad, but after a magical show, one would expect for some magic to rub off on the food too, right? Perhaps we have been too pampered by Tokyo Disney Resort (TDR) which offers such creative and amazing meals/ snacks. One of our all time favorite is this:

Three flavored mochi Aliens. YUM!!

And this:

Hamburger steak with gravy and Mickey shaped hard-boiled egg??

What sorcery is this?!! How do you make a mickey mouse shaped egg yolk inside a regular shaped hard-boiled egg??! Oh well, i guess now you can understand why we were disappointed with the food at Walt Disney Studios... (If you would like to read more about our adventures at TDR, stay tuned!)

After lunch, we saw a queue outside Armageddon: les Effets Speciaux. The official description on the map says "An avalanche of sounds, bumps and special effects guaranteed!" and there was symbols which says that expectant mothers may not ride and that the attraction may frighten younger guests. As the ride is hidden in a building, there is no telling what exactly it is about and we decided to join the queue. Turns out that we are all transformed into the filming cast of the 1998 movie Armageddon (wiki link here) and well, basically get to experience the special effects in making of the movie. It is rather like the competitor Universal Studios' Backdraft! Things were happening quite fast that again, we could not snap any photos. On a side note, it's rather difficult to comprehend why an expectant mother is not allowed to take this ride (or strictly speaking, the show)? Hmm...

We then sprinted to catch the second showtime of Moteurs... Action ! Stunt Show Spectacular presente Flash McQueen. There are only 3 showtimes on weekends and 2 on weekdays and i can totally understand why. The spectators are brought to a movie set and the whole show felt as though you are watching the live filming of a typical motors show. There were scenes of car chase and shooting, all well peppered with a sense of humor. They were explicit in showing you how certain stunts are performed, how they modify the engines/vehicles, and how certain shots are taken in the movies to create the thrill and rush. You don't have to be a car/bike enthusiast to love the show!

The amazing crew behind the show.

And of course, just to remind you that you are in Walt Disney Studios and nowhere else, Flash McQueen has to come out to say hi!

Hellowww McQueen~!

Unfortunately, we forgot that the forecast predicated rain and came to the Studios. Shortly after the show, the skies broke into a rather heavy drizzle and we had to run to seek shelter. Along the way, we spotted CineMagique and decided to take this opportunity to enjoy yet another show while praying that the rain will subside.

The rather cheesy looking exterior of CineMagique ended up somewhat fitting for the hilarious show that was played inside. Unlike the earlier shows described, the one here is in a movie format. Essentially, the movie uses the protagonist to chain together movies from ages ago to the present. One of which is:

And of course:

All well and good for a rainy day indoors though honestly I'm not sure if I will enjoy it on a second or subsequent run...

Now that the rain had slightly subsided we went to Toon Studio zone to check out Ratatouille. And though I do know that the cartoon is based in France, it still amazed me that they decided to create a french village area for it (as opposed to having the lovely Beauty and the Beast town):

It was such a gloomy cloudy day.

Even Duffy is "Ratatouille-fied"!

We've heard that Ratatouille is the most memorable ride here, and it definitely seems like the truth as the waiting time was about 100 mins?? To be honest, that is not too long a wait for a good ride and i'm sure we've joined a queue for 180 mins before at TDR. However, since we have bought annual passes to Disneyland Paris, we will be back another day!! :D Besides, there were several other interesting looking rides such as the Crush's Coaster, Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop and RC Racer which we have yet to explore. So, that ended our day at Walt Disney Studios and it's back to our warm and comfy apartment <3. I'll drop in another review on those rides during our next visit!

Buzz Lightyear with the Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop.

You can also read more on our review of the Paris Disneyland Park here!

Nyanko's Adventures!

Getting a Disneyland Paris Annual Pass

Paris Disneyland Park

Walt Disney Studios Park

Our Adventures!

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Nyanko
(otherwise known as Fay)

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