The Lurkyloos Do Disneyland Paris in the Snow! UPDATED 10/18 - How to Get to Paris from Disneyland!

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We then spent 20 minutes attempting to get one great shot of the dragon in action, which resulted in seven just OK photos and roughly 637 bazillion blurry ones…

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I halfheartedly tried to get a video of the dragon in action, but as I suspected even then, there are tons of actually good videos of La Tanière du Dragon online. Here is just one!




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We walked out the exit closest to the castle bridge, which gave us a neat perspective for more photos.

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Here’s what it looks like from above….

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OK, this shot’s from the other exit, but still…

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You won’t believe what we did next! Get ready… Are you sitting down…? We took even MORE photos of the castle!!!

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Are these two photos identical? Probably… But neither of us could stop shooting!

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Eventually we tore ourselves away and headed toward Auberge de Cendrillon in Fantasyland. Prepare yourself for…. The Backside of Sleeping Beauty Castle!



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So the Sword in the Stone is only hard to remove when it’s sunny out…?

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Finally it was 1pm and we could check in for our lunch reservation! That was easy, and we barely had to wait much longer than a pit stop takes. You know how Disney used to design queue entrances that made it look like the line was short from the outside, but once you got in them, you realized they were super-crowded and snaked on forever? The lobby of Auberge de Cendrillon is like that kind of queue entrance…



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“Oh, this place doesn’t look so crowded…”



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“HOLY MOLY!!!”

Sleeping Beauty must be charging Cinderella astronomical rent for this building, because the place is wall-to-wall tables. There’s barely enough room between them for your average French sylph to slip by—lord knows how a princess in a pouffy ballgown negotiates them…. Or the giant mice!

Now when I look at this shot of the unusually spacious lobby, I wonder why they didn’t just cram a couple more tables in here too. Think how many more meals they could be selling!

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The message on the tapestry roughly translates as “Abandon hope of personal space all ye who enter here. Also give us your wallet.”

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How do you like this stained glass window?

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Not as much as Patrick, I bet….

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Patrick LOVES this window!

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“Table for two on the patio, please!”


The hostess grabbed a person-sized shoehorn and, at Patrick’s request, a coloring sheet, then showed us to our postage stamp-sized table.

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For someone as humble and unassuming as Cinderella supposedly is, she sure has a lot of paintings of herself hanging around the inn!

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Like… really? She had an intricate tapestry woven to commemorate her debasement at the hands of her stepmother and stepsisters?

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Although if I were Cinderella, I would definitely commemorate this moment with a ginormous painting….

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“Ya burnt, step-monsters!”



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Inexplicably, the deeper you got into the restaurant, the less crowded it was.

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How could there be an entire empty room when we were practically sitting in our neighbors’ laps?!

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She looks so mopey in this one, for a moment I thought that was Eeyore in the corner!

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The coveted garage-view dining section…

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There was a regular menu and a special 25th anniversary set menu, so I got the latter and Patrick ordered a la carte.



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They started us off with some cheese gougeres, which are like cream-less cream puffs covered in hardened cheese shards instead of chocolate.

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Cream of Pumpkin and cep (mushroom) soup—with a big ol’ puff pastry hat on top!



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Scallops on leeks fondue with Champagne sauce



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Grilled beef fillet with star-shaped polenta and truffled jus



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Chicken fricassee with morel mushrooms








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Praline chocolate crunch with milk chocolate ganache



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Cinderella’s Dessert: I don’t remember what the pillow part was, but I’m betting it was just a reconfiguration of the ingredients in the other dessert.





Maybe it’s because Cinderella’s Royal Table had set my expectations so low, but I found our Auberge de Cendrillon meal surprisingly good. My steak was actually cooked to the requested medium rare! The scallops weren’t rubbery or fishy! The puff pastry wasn’t tough and chewy! The dessert… well, all those desserts just taste like “sweet,” don’t they?

And speaking of dessert… The family in whose laps we’d been sitting was celebrating a birthday with Disneyland Paris’ version of WDW’s Mickey Mouse Celebration Cake, and they offered us a leftover piece! Apparently my obsession with Disney cakes runs so deep that I can now spontaneously materialize them…

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…Although I may need to further develop my powers, because the cake turned out to have a layer of orange marmalade in it—gross!
 
Another thing I was impressed by was how friendly all the princesses were! Granted, I’ve only ever been to one other princess meal in my life, and it’s not like those ones were stubbing out cigarettes on my forehead. But after a few days of bungling our way through interactions with people in my terrible French, it felt like such a relief to have a conversation in English! (And by conversation I mean, “May we take your picture, Princess? Sorry I jabbed you in the corset with my elbow! Watch out—your skirt is being trampled by a stroller!”)

Perhaps the princesses were a little too friendly…

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Paws off my prince, Belle!



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You too, Rapunzel! You don’t see me fondling Flynn!



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I’ll allow it, Aurora….



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Our Hostess With the Mostest!



My favorite was Suzy—mostly because she got super-excited when we correctly called her “Suzy” and not “Perla.”

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Despite the cramped quarters and the high prices, it was overall a fun experience. But it’s definitely a full experience. Once again, we lost more than 2 hours of our day to a meal. If I had it to do over again, I’d definitely schedule all my sit-down meals for outside of park hours on at least the first visit to Disneyland Paris. Maybe I’d keep Walt’s…

Up Next: Meeting the Parisian Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings Team!
 


Wow, what a cool (oops didn't mean the pun) morning. And Cinderella had much nicer digs and better looking food in Paris than in Florida! The picture of Patrick with the hostess herself had me giggling. He should audition... :laughing:

I loved the dragon photos!!! And the Mickey dome cake. I know you're a non-fruit-eater but the orange filling sounds pretty good. That cross section looks amazing!

Great now I'm craving cake again, just like at the end of all of your podcasts! ::yes:: Can't wait to hear about how it went with the DLP wedding people!
 


I missed so much at DLP! Now I need to plan a trip back ASAP. It probably didn't help that our one day the parks were only open from 10am to 6/7pm

Love your photos and commentary as always :)
 
Wow, what a cool (oops didn't mean the pun) morning. And Cinderella had much nicer digs and better looking food in Paris than in Florida! The picture of Patrick with the hostess herself had me giggling. He should audition... :laughing:

I loved the dragon photos!!! And the Mickey dome cake. I know you're a non-fruit-eater but the orange filling sounds pretty good. That cross section looks amazing!

Great now I'm craving cake again, just like at the end of all of your podcasts! ::yes:: Can't wait to hear about how it went with the DLP wedding people!

That's so funny... *I* end up craving cake whenever I edit one of my podcasts! :rotfl2:

I missed so much at DLP! Now I need to plan a trip back ASAP. It probably didn't help that our one day the parks were only open from 10am to 6/7pm

Love your photos and commentary as always :)

Thanks for reading! What a bummer about those park hours—I hereby authorize you to take a do-over trip! pixiedust:
 
Disneyland Paris Wedding Tour + Last Night in the Park!

After lunch at Auberge de Cendrillon, we made our way back up Main Street to meet representatives from Disneyland Paris’ Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings department at the Disneyland Hotel. Originally we were supposed to meet them on the day we arrived, so that we wouldn’t have to break up a full day in the parks, but they rescheduled due to snow. As it turned out, it was probably snowing even harder when we actually did meet them!

Along the way, I got to do a fun little shopping spree for our pals the Roots, who had requested an assortment of Peter Pan, Thumper and/or Muppets-themed baby clothes for their adorable son, Ollie. After scouring every boutique in both parks, I’d discovered that Disneyland Paris sold NONE of those things. Fortunately, they did still have this fabulous ensemble, which made him a LOT of friends when he eventually wore it to Chef Mickey’s!

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After getting such a lovely VIP tour of wedding locations at Tokyo Disneyland, I was excited to be able to do the same in Paris. We were also interested in learning about the new options for weddings and vow renewals at Disneyland Paris for a possible future anniversary celebration. Until now, Disneyland Paris hasn’t really been in the wedding business due to France’s stringent residency requirements for legal marriage (you have to be married in a civil ceremony at the French county office where you live, and you need to have been living there for at least 30 days). Even the couple I interviewed on my Disney Wedding Podcast who won a Disneyland Paris wedding had to arrange for a special ceremony at their country’s consulate in Paris.

But Disney finally figured out that they can sell weddings to foreigners if they are technically vow renewals—you just have to get legally married at home before your trip. So they’re building up their wedding department and partnering with Disneyland’s Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings team to create a new set of offerings. One of the folks we met with is actually from San Diego, but she’s been in France for three years and now has the dream job of living in Paris and planning Disney weddings!

We met the DFTW representatives at Cafe Fantasia, the bar inside the Disneyland Hotel. They were super-friendly and so enthusiastic about planning a fantastic event for us. I was excited too, but I couldn’t seem to pin them down on specific pricing. Unlike Walt Disney World, where there are flat-rate packages or at least minimum expenditure requirements for each type of wedding, Disneyland Paris appears to treat every wedding as a bespoke event with completely customized pricing. So you can have whatever you want almost wherever you want it, but they won’t be able to tell you how much anything will cost until you actually start planning.

Eventually I was able to pry out an estimated starting price for an event of any size, and—hang on to your butts—it’s €19,000! There’s no budget vow renewal package like the Memories Collection here, folks! They do have a PDF of sample wedding ideas, so if your eyes aren’t watering at that number, this is a good way to see what you might get at various price points. But, again, these are all just suggestions.

Due to the weather, we weren’t able to visit more than one wedding venue, but one of the DFTW reps gamely hoofed all the way out to the Newport Bay Club with us in the snowstorm to inspect the wedding gazebo.

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Huh! I guess instead of a Unity Candle ceremony, in France they have a Unity Cigarette ceremony, and then you stub out the butt in the ashtray atop this trash can!

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View from the gazebo toward the hotel



Granted, we were seeing the venue at what you might consider its worst—nobody’s actually going to get married out here in the freezing snow!—but I couldn’t believe anyone would want to hold a wedding at this glorified bus shelter even in the best weather! Brides sometimes complain that Walt Disney’s World’s Sea Breeze Point is too close to the path from BoardWalk Inn to Epcot, but this place doesn’t have a lawn or hedges or even a step separating it from the main walkway to Disney Village and the parks.

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Here, maybe this Google Street View will show you what I mean…

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Which is all to say that if we ever stumble on 21 grand and want to blow it on a Disneyland Paris vow renewal, it ain’t gonna be at the Newport Bay Club!

The resort itself seemed pretty nice. After thanking our DFTW guide profusely for venturing out in the blizzard with us, we poked around in the lobby briefly.

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We thought about taking a resort bus back to the park but decided we’d better at least take some photos of Disney Village, so we walked back that way.

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WHOA… Is this the World’s Largest Earl of Sandwich? I’m saying that it is. No lines for a Holiday Turkey sammich here, I’ll bet!

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Let me consult my notes to see what we thought of Disney Village…. Ah yes, here it is: “Disney Village looks like GARBAGE!”



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“It is a very bland, with huge empty restaurants and ugly shops.”

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Apparently these pillars are remnants of a Frank Gehry fever-dream involving America’s railway-adjacent power stations (always great inspiration for an inviting entertainment district!).

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I guess they used to have 3,600 low-wattage bulbs strung between them to create a starry sky effect, which sounds gorgeous! Now they just seem like a vaguely sinister physical manifestation of the ’90s looming overhead, reminding you of all your bad fashion decisions.

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“Why did I wear Zubaz—why?!!!”



Starbucks is like, “Yeah, I don’t know these guys. I’m just here doing my own thing…”



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The snow was working overtime trying to pretty up Disney Village.

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We stepped into the Disney Store, hoping it would sell a different assortment of merchandise the way ours and Japan’s Disney Stores do. No such luck—it was all the same stuff we’d found in every gift shop in the parks.

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The camera thinks that railing is the most interesting part of this photo….

I do like how unafraid of color they were in the ’90s!

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I have absolutely NO idea what is supposed to be happening in these decorative vignettes, but I love how bonkers they are! At least they shout (in an Ed Wynn kind of voice) “Disney!!!” Meanwhile, the recent drab, factory-chic makeovers of the World of Disney stores at Disneyland and Walt Disney World make it seem like the company is trying to trick customers into thinking they’re anyplace BUT at Disney!

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I mean, of COURSE Daisy and Minnie hang out with Launchpad McQuack in space!



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They’re trying to stop maniacal Mickey from exterminating the world’s population remotely from The Moonraker!



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Meanwhile, Uncle Donald has a foolproof plan for avoiding nuclear winter involving hot air balloons and way too much luggage….



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And Clarabelle Cow is too busy laughing her patootie off at Frank Gehry’s plans for Disney Village to even care!



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At this point, Goofy may be humanity’s only hope!



Back we went, out into the theme roulette that is Disney Village: Put a castle next to a mural of Hollywood Boulevard? Sure, why not?

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I’m guessing that adding the Jonas Brothers and the stars of Twilight to this mural was somebody’s idea of a Disney Village renovation back in, like, 2009.

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These guys were having more fun than anybody else at Disney Village that day!

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“Alors j’ai dit, ‘Manger? I hardly know her!’ Ha hahahahaaaa!”



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When we got back to the Disneyland Hotel, Patrick ran out and took a bazillion photos of one of the other wedding venues for me while I took a break in the room. I don’t remember what I did, but it was probably “sit on the balcony drinking hot chocolate and looking at Disneyland to get my $$$$ worth of that room”!

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This little courtyard off the hotel is another place where you can have a wedding at Disneyland Paris. I feel bad now that I made Patrick take so many photos of it because no couple is ever actually going to have a ceremony there in the snow, so these give you no idea what the venue would look like for a wedding. But he took ’em, so by golly, I’m gonna post ’em!

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Way to go, Elsa! It’s like a crime scene out here…

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Snow Mickey!!!



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The hotel’s pool is in this greenhouse, so I guess that means you’ll have lots of little princesses in soggy bathing suits pressing their noses against the glass to get a look at your wedding.

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Come closer…



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Closer…



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Too close!!!



At last, we went back inside Disneyland Parc!

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We dashed to the back of the park to take some photos inside Toad Hall before it closed, but when we got there (just before 5pm) it was already closed! A nearby cast member said he thought it might’ve been closed all day. I sure hope so, cuz otherwise I’ll feel even worse about missing our chance to see inside this place!

Alice’s Curious Labyrinth was also still closed, but Patrick somehow managed to get these photos over the hedge—perhaps by launching himself off a bench a few times?

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This one’s blurry, but look! Even snow can’t keep the caterpillar from indulging in the national pastime!

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Something we didn’t notice yesterday….

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Next we were scheduled to have dinner at Chez Remy. But it was our last full day at Disneyland Paris and we couldn’t bring ourselves to hike all the way back to the furthest reaches of Walt Disney Studios to waste 2+ hours sitting in a restaurant. I apologize, Dear Reader, that I do not have a Chez Remy review for you. But I’m pretty sure it would have gone something like this…

[35 dark, blurry photos of the interior]

“Chez Remy has great decor!”

[Seven flash-blitzed photos of various gray and brown lumps]

“The food was just OK.”

[Photo of Patrick looking grumpily at his watch]

“It took forever to get the bill.”

[Photo of me having the vapors while Patrick fans me with the bill]

“It was really expensive!”

Instead, we decided to spend every last second of the remaining park hours in Disneyland riding whatever was open. Of the attractions that we’d been able to go on, Big Thunder was our favorite. It was so beautiful in the snow, and it’s such a long ride that you really feel like you get your money’s worth, so to speak. So we rode it four times in a row!

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But before we could do that, we had to slog all the way from the exit—which yesterday had been the FASTPASS entrance—to the regular entrance on the opposite side of this huge mountain, because at 5:35 pm on February 8, 2018 FASTPASS was being combined with the regular line. After our first ride, FASTPASS was magically being accepted at the exit again! You know, because it was 5:43 pm now!

Patrick wasn’t complaining, though, because it was his first trip through the main queue, which meant new photo ops!

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Yes, but where do we return our Darth Mauls?



On our third and fourth rides, Patrick was emboldened to try taking photos on the train. They didn’t all turn out, but they definitely capture the feeling of being whipped around a snowy mountain at 35 mph!

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Blurry cacti…

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Blurry burros…. (which, BTW, would be an awesome name for a band!)

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Pretend this is a shot of me and Patrick snuggling on Big Thunder. Cuz we totally were!

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Bad show, Walt Disney Studios! Bad show!

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Dang it, Patrick! ANOTHER acid trip?!!

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WHOA! Break out the Dramamine!

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Even the mountain is feeling a little woozy in this one!

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Shall we go again…?

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Let’s go again!!!

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I cannot get enough of these bright green cacti in the snow! Here are 734 more photos of them…

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Awesome possum.

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As we lurched off our last ride on Big Thunder, we saw that the Lucky Nugget Saloon was finally open and took a peek. It is so crazy-detailed in there, it makes Disneyland’s Golden Horseshoe look like a Claim Jumper!

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Next we enjoyed using our FASTPASS on Star Tours, where there’s a whole separate FASTPASS queue, not just three steps inside the front door before they merge you with the regular line. And we got to see all the new clips again, which made Patrick very happy.



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At the end of the night, we skipped the IllumiNations: Projections ‘n’ Stuff Laser Light Show to ride Pirates of the Caribbean one last time. It was so dead in there that when our boat got back to the dock, we asked to go again. They actually let us! And we were the only people on the ride! It was a really wonderful way to end our last night in Disneyland Paris.

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After that we collapsed in our room and ordered what tasted like THE BEST THING I’D EVER TASTED because it was THE ONLY THING I’d tasted in more than eight hours. We went halvsies on French Onion Soup, Burrata & Tomato Salad and Spaghetti with Meat Sauce. Oh, and the celebration cake that our travel agent had added to our reservation finally showed up. But instead of being the vanilla I’d asked for, it was the SAME chocolate-orange cake our neighbors had shared with us at Auberge de Cendrillon that afternoon!

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“Just yer average ordinary spaghetti with meat sau—OMG THIS IS AMAZING!!!!”

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“Ant-covered bread? Yes, PLEASE!”

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I sincerely hope that one of us bounced a tomato and/or a cheese ball off that plastic wrap on the soup before we removed it.

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No, camera, the messy bowl is NOT the most interesting part of this photo!

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The cake was presented very nicely. At least it didn’t say “Happy Anniversary, Carrie” on it!

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Regular photo…

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Creepy American Apparel Photo…

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There’s something almost macabre about this shot… The cake’s missing an eye and its guts are spilled everywhere….
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Bleaaaargggggh!

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After dinner it was straight to bed so we could get up and pack for our move to Paris! I guess I was pretty sad about leaving Disneyland, because the last thing I wrote in my journal was, “I know a lot of adults would be excited about this next leg of our trip because Paris to them is like Disneyland to us, so I’ll have to remember that.” That’s right, me: Grit your teeth and remember to enjoy Paris!

Up Next: Farewell, Disneyland Paris! Hello, Real Paris!
 
WHOA… Is this the World’s Largest Earl of Sandwich? I’m saying that it is. No lines for a Holiday Turkey sammich here, I’ll bet!

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Unfortunately, they didn't even have the Holiday Turkey! Or the Caprese or the French Dip! So I was stuck with their "special" Disney Village: Ham and brie, which was pretty meh!

Let me consult my notes to see what we thought of Disney Village…. Ah yes, here it is: “Disney Village looks like GARBAGE!”
Got to walk this one at least 2x daily and it never gave me that special Disney feel. At least at night the neon looked somewhat cool...

I guess they used to have 3,600 low-wattage bulbs strung between them to create a starry sky effect, which sounds gorgeous!
That could actually look pretty cool!

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Snow Mickey!!!
Cute!

I apologize, Dear Reader, that I do not have a Chez Remy review for you. But I’m pretty sure it would have gone something like this…

[35 dark, blurry photos of the interior]

“Chez Remy has great decor!”

[Seven flash-blitzed photos of various gray and brown lumps]

“The food was just OK.”

[Photo of Patrick looking grumpily at his watch]

“It took forever to get the bill.”

[Photo of me having the vapors while Patrick fans me with the bill]

“It was really expensive!”
Sounds about right based on my experience!

On our third and fourth rides, Patrick was emboldened to try taking photos on the train. They didn’t all turn out, but they definitely capture the feeling of being whipped around a snowy mountain at 35 mph!

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It's like a cross between Big Thunder and Matterhorn!
 
It sounds gorgeous, but there were too many and too bright lights, so it basically lit everything. And as an added bonus, it created a Faraday's cage, so no cell phone reception in the entire village. I wasn't sad to see it go

:rotfl2:Of course! How silly of me to think that place ever actually worked!


Unfortunately, they didn't even have the Holiday Turkey! Or the Caprese or the French Dip! So I was stuck with their "special" Disney Village: Ham and brie, which was pretty meh!

WHAT?! NO!!!! :faint: It isn't an Earl of Sandwich without the Holiday Turkey Sandwich!



It's like a cross between Big Thunder and Matterhorn!

I love this! That is EXACTLY what it is! But with less spinal damage... :teeth:
 
I'm glad you will bring back some good memories from my home park :) but I do hope you will be able to come back one day in Spring or early summer for some sunny days and less snow ;-)

I knew that weddings in DLP were difficult due to the regulations, but I didn't know that it was now possible as a 'vow renewal'. Only those price tags! What were the other wedding venues you would have visited if the weather was better?
 
I'm glad you will bring back some good memories from my home park :) but I do hope you will be able to come back one day in Spring or early summer for some sunny days and less snow ;-)

Yes! We are dying to go back during decent weather. When would you recommend as the best time to go for good weather + lower crowds?

I knew that weddings in DLP were difficult due to the regulations, but I didn't know that it was now possible as a 'vow renewal'. Only those price tags! What were the other wedding venues you would have visited if the weather was better?

Well the big one for us was Toad Hall. I know it's normally open for anyone to visit, but its being closed for our whole trip just made us want to see it more! And of all the pricey options in the wedding brochure, it's definitely the most appealing to us because it's more interesting than a hotel suite or a gazebo.
 
Yes! We are dying to go back during decent weather. When would you recommend as the best time to go for good weather + lower crowds?



Well the big one for us was Toad Hall. I know it's normally open for anyone to visit, but its being closed for our whole trip just made us want to see it more! And of all the pricey options in the wedding brochure, it's definitely the most appealing to us because it's more interesting than a hotel suite or a gazebo.

Toad Hall? I'd love to have an in-park wedding reception, but Im not sure if I would put Toad Hall on the list. The Auberge maybe, Colonel Hathi, Captain Jacks, the restaurants that are really well-themed. Toad Hall really feels as a quick service restaurant, with small rooms.

If you ever have the chance, go in Spring, April or May. France is just gorgeous this time of year. I've spend many family holidays in the Loire Valley region in the Spring Break and I still remember how beautiful it is when everything is in bloom. The weather is usually good, not a lot of rain.

For low crowds.
You do have to look into school holidays, France has 2 weeks in April usually, but it differs which region has their break when. Region C is the Paris region which is the most important to keep an eye on. Less important, but more European countries have a Spring Break in April/May, look for the UK, Germany and Spain as the biggest contributors. They will elevate the crowds a bit, but not to the same extend as France. There are no major France holidays in these periods.
 

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