We spent the next few days going to Disney Paris. They have two parks, Disneyland Park (the Magic Kingdom) and Walt Disney Studios Park, plus downtown Disney. Ryan and I are complete and total Disney freaks and we are not ashamed. We have read some reports and heard rumours about how the Paris location has faced financial trouble and isn’t on par with the other parks around the world.  We are, without question, devotees of Walt Disney World in Florida.  This was certainly fun but does not compare to World. It just didn’t seem as polished and spectacular as Disney World. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still Disney and therefore completely fab, but it’s not as perfect and amazing as World. The parks are only open to 8 (Disneyland) and 6 (Studios) which was such a surprise to me, we didn’t see any fireworks. The other thing I really noticed was the lack of characters and I mostly missed Mickey. It just didn’t seem to have the same feeling or incredible detail as our other experiences.

One thing that was really great was that it was Halloween season and we have never been there for that decor.

The floral at Disney is always so gorgeous and well done.

They have this thing there called “Alice’s Curious Labyrinth” which is basically an Alice in Wonderland maze that takes you to the Queen of Hearts palace. We really enjoyed it, it seems like it’s for kids at first but it’s really well done.

Matching Disney sweaters, and I’m not even a little bit embarassed!

Their Main Street is really nice and you can walk behind the stores in back hall type atrium/arcade. We also went to lunch at a restaurant on Main Street called Walt’s where we got a window seat that looked over the street and we were able to watch the parade from there.

We also really enjoyed their Space Mountain, it’s really different then the ones at Land and World, much faster and scarier!

The next day we went to the Walt Disney Studios Park and spent some time in Downtown Disney. We had real issues figuring out the metro to get there, both days. You have to take two different types of trains and everything is in FRENCH!

Waiting, waiting for the trains.

They have some of the big rides here that you find in other parks; the Tower of Terror (where we found the cast members to be the best in the whole place), Rock and Roller Coaster, and they have two really cool new rides here that we had never experienced.  Ratatouille:The Adventure – a 3D ride where you’re “shrunk down” to the size of a rat and fly through the kitchen at remy’s level. Ryan loved it but the 3D made me feel really nauseous and dizzy.

As well as a roller coaster called Crush’s Coaster that is Finding Nemo themed, it has really unique shell style cars that turn 360 degrees.

They also have an animation studio that shows the steps of animating a movie and different sketches from classic movies. They have these types of attractions at all the parks we have been to but we still really like visiting them. The parks are much smaller here, particularly Walt Disney Studios compared to Hollywood Studios in Florida.

We did a little bit of shopping at Downtown Disney, which they actually call the Disney Village, we ate a late lunch at Earl of Sandwich, a sandwich place we love! If you have never been to one, go! They have them around the states, we always go at Disney and they have them in Vegas too.

I’m glad we went to Disney while we were there, what kind of Disney freaks would we be if we didn’t? But we felt like it takes you out of the charming feel of Paris, and we didn’t love it as much as our other magical Disney experiences. If it were just Ryan going to Paris again, I don’t think we would go. We love Disney so much and therefore love Disney Paris, we definitely had a fun time but it’s no Walt Disney World!

We headed back to the city around dinner time and had a pretty romatic walk around our neighbourhood and the surrounding. It’s a really neat feel walking the city at night. We also went for dessert at a restaurant called La Cote Sauvage. We went to this place three times when we were in Paris, it was about a 15 minute walk from our apartment and the lady who owns it spoke great English and was so sweet and helpful. They make mostly crepes, buckwheat gluten free savory type crepes and dessert crepes. I had one that was tomato compote, goat cheese and chorizo sausage for lunch and this day after Disney I had a melted toblerone crepe….so good! I would recommend going there if you plan to go to Paris. It’s on Boulevard Montparnasse.

Wine at every meal and basically every time we sat down somewhere!

Only two more days left on the trip at this point! One more installment of Paris adventures then some fun in Vegas. Have a great weekend!