Feasts of Fools: a live-ish Trip Report from Paris + DLP (December 2024)

Ok! All checked in to our room at Newport Bay and taking a bit of a rest before dinner. So let’s recap how we got here :grin:

This morning, we slept in until 10 or so before packing up all our gear, checking out of our Paris hotel, and then storing bags while we went to Christmas brunch at the Shangri-La hotel which was super fancy:



After that, we grabbed our bags and headed down the metro, took a train 4 stops to the Etoile station and then bought our tickets for the RER A train, and found our way to the correct platform and train, which are all helpfully labeled with Mickeys!


The train wasn’t crowded at all, and we had plenty of room for us and our luggage. Once we made it to the correct stop, we hopped off but couldn’t immediately find the Disney Express luggage service - you have to go back into the heart of the station where the shops are and then go to the very top level to get to the luggage drop.

But, once we found it, we handed off our bags and received our magic pass cards and a photo pass voucher - I think this must be a recent change as others have said they were able to get their photo pass right then. But it was no bother, as we just popped into World of Disney to grab it on our way into the parks.

Once we made it inside, all the decorations were truly lovely, though it is absolutely a 10/10 crowd day!



Hmmm, the forum is giving me errors trying to upload more pics to this post, so I’ll start a new one…

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After we made it past Main Street USA, we stopped by the champagne cart to toast the castle, then headed in to meet the dragon.


We then were a bit blocked trying to see the upstairs of the castle as a princess mini show was going on and the crowd for it was massive. But no bother as we happened to run into these festive fellas making our way to Discoveryland:


As well as one villain…

We then did the walkthrough of the Nautilus…



And Aladdin’s Enchanted Passge…

Before we went to grab a spot in the reserved area for the parade that we had booked. We got there 40 minutes early, and got right up on the railing just behind the stairs for the left hand stage, which was a great spot bc you had unimpeded views of each float with the backdrop of the castle. Unfortunately, maybe because it was a little misty? The characters didn’t stop and do the stage show portion. So I’m not sure the reserved space was really worthwhile.





However, once the parade had passed us, we booked it down the arcade to the side of Main Street USA and made it to the entry plaza in time to see most of the floats go by a second time, and it was much less crowded here.

Then, we headed over to Newport Bay to do our Compass Club Check In.

Our room is fine, but pretty dated. It will be both the most expensive and least nice of the hotels we’ll stay at this trip to Paris, lol. But we’re just reminding ourselves that we’re doing it for the Early Magic Hour tomorrow :smiley:

Up next: dinner at the Manhattan Restaurant and then a visit to the “secret” DeadpoolxWolverine bar - which will be interesting as I still haven’t seen it yet!

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This sounds like some kind of 19th-century opium euphemism! :laughing:

Looks like you’re having a lovely trip!

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Whew- checking back in from our customary mid-day break, and I’m beat. But I’m getting ahead of myself - let’s go back to dinner last night.

For dinner, we booked the Manhattan restaurant at the Marvel hotel. The hotel was fun and had a giant tree out front, great for pics.


The restaurant…well. I knew going in not to expect much, and yet this still somehow failed to meet expectations. The service was pretty bad - they forgot our appetizer entirely, and rather than offer to get us something else or even still bring it out, they just said they’d leave it off the bill. The food was below even Olive Garden quality Italian. I got the eggplant Parmesan and it was oddly sweet and all the same texture. The hubby got the suckling pig and said it tasted like sort of dry pork chops, nothing special. And then we split the tiramisu which was fine.


Afterwards, though, we were able to check out the Deadpool x Wolverine bar, which…um…I need to make a confession: I’ve never actually seen the movie lol. The secret bar was fun though, even if you’re not a diehard marvel person.

In terms of getting in, I just went to the lineberty site (just google it) and requested to join the queue - they had four same day reservations available when I looked just before dinner, so snagged one. After that…well, I won’t spoil the fun but I will just say that it’s an adventure, and the cast members are amazing. Keep in mind that the whole thing is done in that flippant Deadpool style, so if being mildly insulted will severely offend you, maybe this isn’t the experience for you.



The next day, I had us up at 6:30, in order to take advantage of a quick 7am compass club breakfast, and be at tap by 7:30 for an 8 am early magic hour - all times that seemed entirely reasonable, based on the research I’d done.

But almost nothing this morning worked in the way most Internet articles said it would.

First, I’d read that compass club expects that guests would be trying to get over to the parks asap- but we weren’t allowed to get coffee to go, told we had to sit down at a table with a waiter to even get coffee at all. Which we did, only to be brought two very adorable - but very weak - cappuccinos. We downed them as quickly as we could and, while walking out the door at 7:30, was chided by the hostess for being too “rapidé”. :roll_eyes:

But perhaps she knew better than me after all, because once we made it through the security checkpoint and over towards the hotel, only to be held at the gate far before the hotel entrance.

And while we’d read that early magic hour guests often get let by about 7:45am (15 minutes early), we weren’t even allowed to leave the gate until 7:50a, and then got held at tap until 8:05 before they started letting anyone in.

We’d also heard that EMH tap was usually to the left of the main entrance, but today it was to the right. And unlike the US, there’s no cast members helping direct you anywhere through this whole process.

Anyhoo, we finally got in, only to find that only 3 rides were even open during EMH: Peter Pan, Buzz, and Dumbo. We quickly knocked out the first two (and had no plans to ride Dumbo) only to find still nothing else was open. So we grabbed a coffee from a stand and dawdled for a while, but by 7:30, still nothing else was open, and so we decided to just go ahead and queue for Hyperspace Mountain, since it was starting to get a line. I did see that Pinocchio opened around 7:45, as did the Carousel, but by that point we were already committed to HSM. And that was the full extent of EMH today, on a complete park sellout - 5 minor rides, 2 for less than 15 minutes. So frustrating!

After HSM, we knocked out Star Tours while we were already over there, with just about a 5 minute wait. Then headed back to Fantasyland via Small World, which also only had a 5 minute wait.

But from there, lines were already really building. We did Pinocchio, which had a 35 minute wait posted, in 27 minutes. Then the carousel and teacups both took us about 10 minutes each. After that, we tried to go to Storybook Boats, because the app was showing a 5 minute wait, whereas the gate sign said 20.

Since we had a lunch reservation at Agrabah Cafe at 11:30, we bailed and headed over there - only to find they didn’t open Agrabah until 11:35 and it took us another 10 minutes queuing at the restaurant to get to our table. The food here was pretty good by Disney standards though - I especially liked the tabbouleh - and it was a quiet and peaceful place to recharge for a bit.

After lunch, we had to queue yet again - this time for the restrooms, which were at least a 10 minute wait on the women’s side, but the hubby reported there were several women in his restroom since the women’s line was so long, and no one really seemed concerned by that at all. So just be prepared it’s something you might encounter here in France, fellas!

Next up, we had reserved seating for the Lion King show, and it was truly great. I liked it better than the one in AK, for sure. My favorite part was that, leaning into the rich tradition of clown culture in France, Pumba and Timon were re-imagined as clown figures which was hilarious!

After the show, we knocked out BTMRR using Premier pass - the app was showing 70 wait time in the normal queue, it was 7 for premeire pass. Then we tried to visit Phantom Mantor, but found they’d just shut it down for a bit.

As such, we headed back to Fantasyland by way of the castle, queuing up for the only Photopass photog we’d seen all day, then completed Stoybooks boats and Alice’s labirynth before heading back for a quick rest and recharge. More to come soon!

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And just like that, we’re back in Paris!

Since my last post, we headed over to Royal Banquet at the Disneyland Hotel, took in the view of the gorgeous lobby chandelier, then headed to our dinner.

The results were mixed - the characters were great and we got lots of interaction with them (they each came around 2-3 times per table) but the difficulty actually getting food from the buffet was a nightmare. The cast members working were trying to navigate people standing in line to get food along with people being shown past the food tables to where they would be sitting, all with the characters trying to navigate it as well. It just wasn’t enough space for all of that.

As such, I never even got to try the hot food - the queue for it was always at least 20+ people long, and so I just stuck with the seafood, enjoying lobster, crab claws, and a few other things on offer, which were all fine but not particularly well executed. The lobster, for example, had clearly been boiled about 3x as long as necessary and was tough as a pencil eraser.





After that we headed back to the park to knock out the last three rides on our list, Pirates, Indiana Jones, and Phantom Manor and really enjoyed the French versions of all three, though IJ probably would have been better during the day so you could see all the statues.

Up next, we headed to our “reserved viewing area” for fireworks. We were literally dead on center of the castle. Only thing to note was just that we couldn’t see much of the drone show from that spot - would’ve needed to be further back for that.



And once the show was done, we got back to our room as quickly as possible but still didn’t hit the sack until closer to midnight - that 1 mile walk to/from the hotels is killer!

Still, that didn’t prevent us from being up again at 6:30am today, and since we were checking out today, packed up all our stuff and then (since we were Compass Club using Magical Express) just left our bags in the room when we went to breakfast. Easy-peasy.

We took a little more time breakfast than yesterday, just based on our experience being held at the gate and so we’re quite surprised when - at 7:40a we rolled up to security check (which we’d cleared no problem at 7:25a the previous day!) only to find it not yet open. They finally allowed us through at 7:45ish, and then we got held at the gate again until 7:55, when they let us all to queue up at tap.

Tap opened a few minutes late again around 8:02am, but this time, as we were doing the Studios Park today, tap signaled the unofficial start of the PowerWalking World Championships! Tap is the start, and Crush’s Coaster is the finish :smile:

Thanks to our long legs we managed pretty well in the power walking and only waited a few minutes at Crush’s. Also - throwing this out there for any fellow Pooh sized guests - I’m 5’9” and a size 20 US, and I didn’t have any trouble with Crush’s Coaster at all! That seems to be the one most folks worry about in DLP and I didn’t even have to have the cast member help push the restraint or anything.

After we finished Crush’s, we also knocked out Ratatouille, ToT, and Web Slingers, which were the only four rides open during EMH. I did see they opened Cars Quatre Race Royale (or whatever it’s called) at about 8:55a, but otherwise that’s it. But, it took us the full hour to do those four rides, so that experience was fine by us.

And let me just say - the Paris Tower of Terror - omg it’s way scarier than the original! My stomach was a bit up and down from all the G forces for hours after! :woozy_face:

Once 9am rolled around, we knocked out Avengers Flight Force, then went back to Toy Story land and did Toy Soldier Parachutes, Slinky Dog Dash, and RC Racer. Also somewhere in there, I happened to see that the virtual queue for Marvel Heroic Experience was open, so nabbed a spot for that as well.

But then…it was about 10:30a, we’d finished all the rides we wanted to do except for Cars Road Trip (which hadn’t opened yet), our shows weren’t until the afternoon, and we were kind of out of stuff to do at that park? That new expansion will definitely be a good thing for them.

Anyhoo, we checked out the L’Hiver Gourmand stalls that were just opening and took some pics in Toy Story land, and then eventually found our way into Minnie’s Musical Moment (which was cute, but very clearly geared at the pre-school set!) before our virtual queue for Hero Training Academy came up.

And let me preface: as evidenced by my earlier post about Deadpool, we’re not huge Marvel people. We’ve probably seen about 1/3 of those movies, but it’s just not what gets me excited. But I figured if we could get a pic with Thor or Iron Man or Captain America - that’d still be cool. And it was, I suppose, but I didn’t even know who our super hero was supposed to be. I guess it was Shuri? (Female black panther?) anyhoo, we got our pic, but we’re sort of bummed it wasn’t a more recognizable one. To each their own!

After that, it was time for our lunch at Pym’s Kitchen, which after eating so many rich meals this trip, it was actually pretty nice to just down some French fries and a slice of the giant burger! We also had a window seat, and could see “The Wasp” walking around on the WEB building across from us. Thor and Loki also walked around the crowd at some point, and were immediately mobbed by kids.

After lunch, we had reserved seating for Mickey and the Magician so headed over and enjoyed that very cute show before heading back out to Cars land to finish off our final ride.

But at that point - we were both getting pretty tired and my feet had that familiar “dead stump” feeling, so we decided to skip sticking around for Onward Together and take the RER A back to Paris.

The Magical Express luggage transfer was smooth and easy, and we only had to wait a couple minutes for a train. I will say the train was a LOT busier going into Paris than going to DLP, so we did have to kind of muscle our way off once the right stop came up, but it just goes with the territory.

Now, we’ve just checked in to our next Paris hotel, and are super ready for a nap!

Would you all like me to continue posting what we do through Sunday, or now that the Disney stuff is over, should I just shut up? :smile: Happt to oblige either way.

Also if anyone has any questions let me know, happy to help!

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Yes, please! I’m loving your trip report, and I want all the details!

You mentioned reserved seating a few times. How did you arrange for that?

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DLP currently is offering reserved viewing areas for both the fireworks and the parade. The fireworks viewing you can book in advance, the parade viewing you can only book 7 days out once your magic pass is activated. You do both via the app, but, had I not been going on a day that was a total sell out, one of their top three busiest of the year, I probably wouldn’t have bothered. We did get excellent photos though!

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Well…plot twist!

Today was supposed to be our day trip to Reims in the Champagne region of France, with tastings scheduled at Veuve Cliquot and Pommery.

But, shortly after my last update, I went downhill quickly with what seems was likely a nasty bit of food poisoning. (I’m blaming the chicken Caesar salad from PYM’s Kitchen. It was about the only thing I ate that my husband didn’t, and I had thought the chicken tasted a bit under…)

Anyways, I’ll skip the gory details, but suffice it to say that I was in and out of the bathroom all night, terrible headache, alternating chills and sweats, the whole thing. We skipped our dinner reservation for last night and just stayed in (the hubby said after 3 Disney buffets in a row he was more than fine with that, haha) and while I was feeling a little better by this morning, thought I probably needed to just take it easy rather than another go-go-go day.

So that’s what we did. We slept in until 10:30 or so and then finally made it upstairs to our hotel restaurant, which had brunch going until noon because it’s a weekend.

I ordered the avocado toast with a poached egg bc it seemed like that would be the easiest on my stomach, but only managed to get through about 1/3 of it. So far though, I’ve kept it down, so I’m hoping that episode is behind us now.

Going to try to pep up and go exploring here in a bit. The weather in Paris today is gloomy and cold, so it’s hard to really motivate, but we’ll see :slight_smile:

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Yikes! Feel better soon!!

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After our late breakfast yesterday, we decided to head to Montmarte and explore a bit, which was originally planned for the morning of the following day and we decided to just break it up into two easier days.

Except, still being sick, I accidentally misread my itinerary and got us on the wrong metro, oops. But after a few stops I realized the mistake and was able to get us sorted.

We started at the base of Sacre Couer and, being that it was afternoon, the place was already mobbed (this is why I had planned to come in the morning :woman_facepalming:) The line to take the gondola up was huge, so we opted for the stairs instead.

But at the top, we found the line to get into the cathedral was even longer - well over and hour wait. So we decided to skip the interior and explore the other sights of the neighborhood, like the pink house, Dalida, and the windmill at La Moulin de la Galette, and eventually the Moulin Rouge.





We stopped and had some warm drinks nearby (and the hubby had a snack) but I was feeling tired again so headed back to the hotel.

A little later that evening, we walked to our planned dinner which took us by the Place de la Bastille. And dinner itself was at Brasserie Rosie, which was a cute and happening spot for a Saturday night, but with my stomach still not 100% I mainly just nibbled a bit.

Feeling very frustrated about getting sick and ruining all our carefully made plans, though my hubby’s been an absolute angel about it. More to come - tomorrow will be our final day in Paris before flight home.

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That is frustrating! I hope you feel better and can enjoy the final day.

Enjoying the report! Thank you for documenting even the things that were less than stellar. Gorgeous photos!

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Oh no - sorry to hear you’re sick. It looks like you are having a fantastic time! I love the photos of Le dragon :dragon:.

Well we made it home!

Our final day in Paris we had another leisurely breakfast at our hotel, and took a photo from their patio area even if it was too cold to eat outside.

If you squint you can see the Eiffel Tower on the left side and the back of Notre Dame a little more towards the middle, lol.

After breakfast we wandered over to the Grand Palais Imersif where they specialize in digital art. Very interesting and interactive exhibit. But then, our main event for today was the Paris Opera Ballet production of Paquita! And it was absolutely gorgeous - the dancing, costumes, all of it. And it’s neat to see how into it the Parisians gets - they did like 8 chorus calls at the end and were yelling bravo - the whole bit :smile:


After the ballet, we also had tickets to the Jardin des Plantes illuminations show. Every OTHER year, this is apparently Christmas themed but we were apparently in an off year, so for us, it was dinosaur themed! Which we didn’t mind one bit. And we also finally tried the vin chaud (mulled wine) for walking around which was also tasty.



Then for our final dinner we went to Le Train Bleu. So, this place is a known tourist trap, because the inside literally is gorgeous!


But - the food was not good, the service was slow even by French standards, it’s super pricey, and towards the end of the meal the waiter spilled a carrot puree on my husbands back. So…yeah, please skip this place for a meal and just pop in for a photo. We should have!

But, we did still get a lovely view of the Rue Cremieux and Canal Saint Martin on our way back to the hotel. That’s the final image I’ll keep in my mind - not the carrot splattered sweater lol :joy:


Yesterday we were up at 5:45am to begin making our way back home. Our hotel called us a taxi, and between leaving our hotel and walking into the lounge past security and passport control, only 1 hour and 10 minutes had past, so very efficient. (We did have Sky Priority though, which likely helped.)

The flight back was also more enjoyable to me than the flight there - way less turbulence, so I actually managed to get a few hours of sleep.

Then, our connection in Houston went smoothly and we made it home around 7pm last night, took showers, and basically immediately hit the sack. 10+ hours of sleep later and I feel fully refreshed!

I’ll write up one more post with some key tips and takeaways I have, but if anyone has questions please do let me know.

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Ok, so some tips and takeaways as promised, most specific to DLP. Here’s what I wish someone would’ve told me as I planned our trip!

1. Layers are key!
I knew that Paris in winter would be cold. But I failed to anticipate how HOT it would be inside most establishments. I’d packed a lot of sweaters and things, which were great while we were outside walking around, but often I found myself sweating in a restaurant or cafe while wearing one, wishing i had a t-shirt or something underneath so I could take the sweater off.

2. Hothands packets are great too
I saw a tip about this in a FB group I’d joined, and as a last minute addition, through a pack of Hot Hands in our luggage - and these were great especially in the parks for when you’re queuing outside. Just one packet lasts 18 hours, and if you can have it in the breast pocket of your jacket or something, it’s like having your own personal space heater.

3. Don’t be afraid of the Paris metro/train to DLP
I’d read some contradictory things about the metro and train to DLP - some folks saying that it was too crowded, too confusing, too filled with beggars and pickpockets - and so they just preferred to take Ubers everywhere. We tried the Metro and found it clean, efficient, and fairly straightforward to navigate - we used Google Maps to tell us which lines and stops to take. There were some crowding issues on a few lines, and I could see how if I had small kids with me that might be difficult, but if your kids are say - seven or older? I think they’d handle the Metro just fine. (The French kids certainly do.) A few notes though: the metro is NOT ADA friendly - at all. Most stops don’t have any sort of elevator or escalator option to get you to the platform. And so, it’d be a pain for strollers for the same reason. Second, get the app for your phone - you just have to tap your phone on the turnstiles to get in, which is a lot easier than dealing with paper tickets (though again, may be more difficult if you have young kids without phones). Third, keep in mind that on some of the older trains, the doors don’t open automatically at every stop - you have to push them or you’ll be left on the other side. And finally, re: pickpockets - I didn’t see any, and we obviously didn’t have any issues, but always a good idea to just keep your wits about you.

4. Preferred Viewing/Premiere Pass Ultimate is probably only necessary on Huge Crowd Days
DLP is at its absolute busiest from about 12/22 - 1/2, followed by weekends in the Summer (especially UK bank holiday weekends and Bastille Day). If you’re there at one of these times, then you may need these extras, but even at its busiest, I’m not sure we got a ton of value out of them. For example - since we had extra magic hour, the only ride we used our Premier Pass Ultimate on during our Studios Days was Cars Road Trip. On our Parc Disneyland day we used it more - about 6 rides, I think, but if we’d been able to get more done in our EMH, we may not have needed it at all. The shows and parades - as long as you queue up at least 45 minutes or so early - you’ll be able to get in and get a good enough spot without the reserved stuff, unless you’re really trying for the absolute perfect photos or something.

5. I’d skip Photopass
We found ONE Photopass photographer at Parc Disneyland the whole time we were there, and we were really looking. So unless you plan to queue for a lot of character meet and greets, photopass will really only get you ride photos. Up to you where that’s worthwhile for your group.

6. Be ready to go with the flow
DLP is much less likely to “nanny” you than the parks in the states, where you constantly have smiling cast members directing you where to go and help you out with any issues. It’s not that they’re not friendly, or not polite, it’s just a different culture. Similarly, don’t be surprised if the way things work one day are completely different another day - again, that’s just the culture. If you have a go with the flow attitude, you’ll be fine.

7. Avoid the caesar salad at PYM’s Kitchen
Self explanatory I think, if you read my full trip report :slight_smile:

One other general note about shoes - I found that the issue at DLP wasn’t WALKING as much as it was shoes that are comfortable for STANDING - you have to stand to wait for fireworks, parades, shows, in lines, etc. I did clock 5+ miles of walking each day we were there, but it’s nothing compared to a day at Epcot, for example. As such, I regret having packed my running sneakers, which have great padding along the front of the foot (since you tend to run on your front and mid-foot) but not as much padding in the heel. It was my heels that were killing me at the end of the day. So either get some heel inserts or look for shoes specifically with a really cushy heel, rather than running shoes, and you’ll probably be better off. On our second day, I actually switched over to my Doc Marten boots, and found those more comfortable than my sneakers :joy:

Hope that’s helpful! We have a Disney cruise on the Treasure and subsequent days in the world coming up this May, so you’ll probably hear back from me around then. Thanks all!

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