Wednesday, October 17, 2007

An American in Paris... Disneyland

Sorry for the long delay, much going on and lots of pictures to sift through. Here are some random thoughts and pictures from Disneyland Paris. Disneyland Paris is a beautiful park, if you are ever in Paris go see it. It's a 45 minute ride from the heart of Paris and the metro literally drops you off on the doorstep of the parks.

Main Street is much larger in scale here and leads to the best castle of any park hands down. Discovery Arcade and Liberty Arcade flank each side Main Street. I'm sure their main purpose is to provide cover/access down Main Street during heavy rain but they are wonderful exhibitions of the Golden Age of Invention and the Statue of Liberty. And they also help tremendously with crowd flow during parades. If there was a way to work this idea into Disneyland Ca, it would be a huge help for this reason alone. Above is Dapper Dan's on Main Street... and yes you can actually get a shave and haircut there.

They also have an old fashioned Paddy Wagon that guests can get locked up in and go for a cruise down MainStreet (forgot to get a picture of that but it was a great idea.)





Frontierland is very spread out and it seems they have left a lot of room there for additions. The entrance to the land is a Pioneer Fort that is themed to the hilt. It was nice to see the Fort since the one in California has since been closed from Tom Sawyers Island - sniff sniff. Phantom Manor is very cool, I really like that it wasn't just a stamped out version of the Haunted Manison. It was done with a great western style but with some of the traditional touches that make the Haunted Mansion so unique.

The Castle! The landscaping is an Eyvind Earle painting come to life... I'll just let some of the pictures do the talking...




I was a little disappointed with Discoveryland to be honest. I really like the Retro Sci-Fi theme, and props for not calling it Tomorrowland. But the layout and feel of the land is really weird. Space Mountain, which is huge, is plopped right in the middle of the land. You have to walk around it to get to any ride. To me it really killed the flow and impact of the style.

Space Mountain Mission 2.0 itself is another story. Mission 2.0 is better compared to Rockin' Roller Coaster than Space Mountain of California or Florida. It is the best version of Space Mountain and all others should immediately be blown up and replaced with this one.

I wish I had time to share every picture and talk about all the little details, but there are just too many. All in all the park is amazing, make sure to see it if you find yourself in Paris. It's mind blowing to see what Imagineering can do with a little cash and a lot of space. My hats off to everyone who was a part of making it come to life.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Drew,

Thanks for the mini-report and the photos.

Please give us more! The pictures you shared were great and I loved the commentary.

Mr. Lincoln said...

Thanks George, It was a really hazy day when we were there, a lot of the pictures are blown out. I'll see what I can salvage and maybe post some more. Glad you liked the commentary, it was a little more rushed and "off the cuff" than usual. -D

Marcelo Vignali said...

This is such a beautiful park, it's good to see that it's performing well and that the Eurpeans have warmed up to their park.