Disneyland Paris - July 2006 - Sequoia Lodge
So here it is, the trip report you’ve all been waiting for! I’m not very good at writing these, and I can’t remember exactly what I did on what day and stuff (I didn’t write it down or anything) but I’ll try my best
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Here are the 7 pages of photos! Yes, there are a few lol...
Ok, so we left on the morning of the 13th, and arrived at our hotel late morning. We were staying at Disney’s Hotel Sequoia Lodge, which is themed around America’s National Parks. We have stayed there before, and really liked it, and we recommend it to anyone! As soon as we had dumped our stuff in our room, off we went to Disneyland! When we got there, we jumped on the Disneyland Railroad, and did the full circuit. Unfortunately, while riding, we realised how hot it was (I was wearing jeans!) and we went back to the hotel to cool down for a bit. My mom stayed in the room for the rest of the night (has a bad back) but me and my dad went back to the park. The first thing we rode…Pirates! It had to be done
Well obviously, there’s no Jack Sparrow AAs *sigh*…but anyway, one thing I noticed was this…There is a stone archway near the beginning of the ride, and in the archway there are projected silhouettes of English soldiers firing cannons at the pirates. To the left of this and up, there is a pirate hanging from a rope, (not a dead pirate!) and he swings over your heads as you pass him. Another thing there is: cats. Yes, cats floating round and round in the water on boxes, kinda cute! After that, you enter the jail scene (yes, it’s sorta back to front, I know!) Instead of three pirates and a dog, there are three pirates either side of you and the dog on the right, then there’s the first drop. The pirate on the Wicked Wench has bows tied to his beardEverything after that is pretty much the same as the other rides. Although, you have the treasure scene and the skeleton in bed at the end of the ride, and that skeleton that says ‘Dead Men Tell No Tales’…he’s at the end of the ride telling you to remain seated lol. Oh, you get your photo taken on this POTC, but I didn’t buy one…
Also, met Jack Sparrow outside! But most of you already know that, hehe...
The next day we went to Walt Disney Studios, or, the ‘half day’ park. We did the Moteurs Action stunt show, which was cool. We did Armageddon Special Effects, very cool! Also did Cinmagique, which is quite neat, and finally, the Studio Tram Tour. Doing all that didn’t take us too long, so we headed back to Disneyland. Oh yeah, by the way, it was Bastille Day on Friday 14th, so it was very busy! We tried to do as many rides as we could…all the Fast Passes seemed to be gone though. One more mention of a ride with a lot of differences is the Phantom Manor or Haunted Mansion, if you prefer.
On boarding your Doom Buggy, there is a large (looks like a cardboard cutout) staircase behind you. Now, I have to mention, there are a lot more brides in here than there are in the HMs in WDW and DL. There are portraits of her as you walk in, and inside there are at least 3 AAs, one hologram, and one or two skeletons wearing wedding dresses. I also noticed that Madame Leota mentions something about ‘a ravishing bride, a vanishing groom’; does she do this in the HM? Another very different scene in the ride is the Wild West scene. There is a dead cowboy shooting at you, a man lifting has hat to you, (but instead of just lifting his hat, his whole head comes off!) a saloon, including a dead Wild West girl, a dead guy playing snooker or something, and a dead bartender. You also seem to go ‘underground’ where there are a lot of skeletons, the singing busts, and a swinging noose…One other thing, there’s no hitchhiking ghosts…*sniff*. Overall, the Phantom Manor tells the story of the bride much better than the Haunted Mansion does.
Anyway, on the night time, we waited to watch Fantillusion. This is DLRP’s ELP or it’s Spectromagic. When I say we waited, we really did wait…for about an hour, in the heat, surrounded by ignorant people! But let’s not get into that. As I was stuck on a corner, my photos aren’t brilliant, but you can get the idea. As soon as the parade was finished, everyone spilled onto Main Street, filling every available space. Bastille Day fireworks were supposed to be ‘special’, or so I’d heard. I just came away wishing I’d done some more rides while it was quiet, or done some shopping. It was quite disappointing, as it lasted less than 10 minutes, and my legs and feet were killing after standing for so long! In the words of my dad, ‘I guess it’s a French thing’.
On Saturday we went into Paris, but on the night we watched ‘Wishes’. It was very different from the Wishes at DL. That big purple thing in front of the castle on my photos with ‘Wishes’ written on it, was the projector for the show. If you look closely at a couple of my photos, you can see the blue fairy on the castle, and lots of colours. There were a lot of things projected onto the castle such as Aladdin’s lamp, Jafar, the brooms from Fantasia, the slave in the magic mirror etc. This made up for the Bastille Day fireworks in my opinion! Before watching wishes we had dinner at the Blue Lagoon, basically the Blue Bayou but with slightly better lighting! Good meal, no mint juleps there though!
Sunday was just another day at the park, rode loads of stuff, and took lots of photos! In the evening we watched the Princess Parade, which is what it was called, but was actually just a repeat of the 4 o’ clock parade. You know, like your afternoon parades at WDW and DL. Some of the floats were really big for this parade, as you can see from the photos. On the night time, we had a reservation at Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show in Disney Village. If you go to DLRP, you have to go see this, it’s great! There are Buffalo (obviously!) horses, cows, and lots of shooting! Oh, and everyone gets a free straw hat!
On Monday it was hotter than ever, it was in the 90s again and we were sizzling. We went over to the studios to do Animagique, (think Mickey’s Philharmagic on stage, with people in pink elephant costumes) The Art of Disney Animation, and Flying Carpets over Agrabah. We then headed over to Disneyland again to do things we’d left out like the Storybookland Canal boats, Casey Junior, Alice’s Curious Labyrinth, and another round of POTC; gyarrr! Me and my dad then braved it and went on Space Mountain. I would just like to point out that this is the fastest SM of them all, and it has a loop and a corkscrew. We found the SMs in WDW and DL very tame, but this one? Pfft. The best bit of the whole ride was getting shot out of the gun, (as you can see on my photos) and I’d bashed my head before I even got to there! You got rattled around like a crazy thing, and I had a big headache when I got off! Then, for something a little tamer, we went into the Nautilus, my dad’s faveThe day before this, a CM told me it was closed for good, but he obviously didn’t understand what I was asking, because to our delight, we walked straight in. Not much to say about this really, it’s very nice, just look at my photos, I know we have some sub geeks on the boards!
For dinner, we went to Caf Mickey in Disney Village. A character meal, of course, I met Mickey, Goofy, Eeyore and King John (who made me kiss his hand) It was our last night, so into the park for some shopping and a couple of rides, then back to the hotel.
Now onto Tuesday, our last day. Time for all those last minute things you need to buy, pressies for the folks back home etc, and the rides you wanna do again. Of course, we had to go another round of POTC
Anyway, thanks for reading…I wrote more than I thought, so I’m gonna shut up now, I just hope someone reads it!
Originally Posted by geoffa
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