At Last I See The Light - DLP August 2020 Day 2 Tuesday 11th August 2020

[Goldia]

Day 2 – Tuesday 11th August 2020

I actually slept pretty well and managed a whole 5 and a half hours sleep last night . I woke up just before 6am and figured that was good going for a first night in a new bed.

We wanted to get a good early start to get to extra magic time at Disney Studios as we knew it would be our best opportunity to get on Crush as that was one of the rides that had been posting 40 minute wait times. Now, 40 minutes for Crush is pretty good, but we had realised that we needn’t wait longer than 20 minutes for any ride on this trip as the high wait times were just temporary and we knew they would come back down again later, but that Crush was probably the exception to this rule.

We also knew it was going to be another hot day with a high of 34 degrees and the risk of a storm in the afternoon and evening. So, proper Florida weather then .

We left the room at 8am to make sure we had plenty of time to get to the parks for extra magic.

We had planned on picking up breakfast from NY Style Bakery in the Village as Kate had loved their breakfasts when we’d been previously, but we were disappointed to find out they had reduced their hours and didn’t open until 11.30am .

Rather than stopping at Starbucks, which had a long line, we figured we would carry on to the parks and have a QS breakfast in the park. At first we struggled to find anywhere open in the Studios but in the end this turned out to be a blessing as we stumbled upon a fab breakfast, but I’m getting ahead of myself as there were a few rides before breakfast why eat when there are rides to be done .

We got to the studios at 8.18am.

The lines looked pretty long and I think it does look busy from the photo, but people were well spaced out and staying between the markers on the floor.

We guessed that if everyone in the queue outside went straight to Crush the longest the line could be was 20 minutes.

The turnstiles were opened up a couple of minutes early at 8.28am.

Ah, I love the sight of the Sorcerer Mickey hat. Beautiful.

But we were on a mission so we were not wanting to stop for photos at the moment. Onwards to Crush.

Now the posted time was 5 minutes and we did walk through a lot of the line, stopping just before the indoor section of the line starts.

The spacing inside was pretty good, this blurry photo shows the people queueing on the steps down to the ride.

In the end we only waited 15 minutes. The ride was fab, it really is a clever ride, we were the only people in our vehicle and we really enjoyed whizzing along.

Next up we wanted to go on Tower of Terror.

The wait was posted as 5 minutes.

The entrance to the ride was empty.

The TV room was empty and we just walked straight through. We had a very short wait in the boiler room before being allocated to a lift.

It was such a super ride. We were on the back row. There was new part to the story with the little girl who is usually in the video given more of a role, or maybe it’s not new and just a story we’ve not seen before. Whatever, we really enjoyed it and it felt like a new ride to us.

We wandered over to Ratatouille.

Still there were no people around. I guess they were all still in the queue for Crush as that was now posting as 40 minutes.

I love the beautiful blue sky in these photos.

This is such a fab ride. Is it a carbon copy that’s being put into World Showcase? If so then that’s going to be great as I really enjoy this ride. We had the ride vehicle to ourselves as it’s just two rows so it’s one party per car.

We wanted to have a look around Toy Story Land.

RC Racers was up to a 40 minute wait, which to be perfectly honest I was quite happy about as I did not like that ride when we went on it previously . So, I was secretly very pleased that the wait was too long to tempt Kate.

The parachute drop ride was only showing a short wait and that was one that we hadn’t done on our other trip as it’s very popular.

I suppose it’s a baby version of Tower of Terror, but I have to say I much prefer TOT to this ride.

I hate the fact that you’re dangling in mid air, I have this irrational fear on this sort of ride that we will slide through the seat restraints, or that the ride will go tech and plunge us to the ground and we end up breaking our ankles. I know it’s crazy.

Kate loved it, I didn’t!

And that was enough for the studios for us, we’d done 4 rides in a little over an hour. There were actually only a handful of other options as the number of attractions in this park is greatly reduced with the construction that was going on. It’s a shame that Rock and Roller isn’t there anymore, or the Armageddon attraction as we loved that too. But as we weren’t interested in character meets, plus our tummies were grumbling we decided to go to Disneyland Park for breakfast.

On our way out though we spotted that The Brown Derby was open. We had a fab meal here, with both of us opting for the bacon, cheese and omelette burger, with a croissant and a coffee for me and a hot chocolate for Kate.

We ate these while listening to the Welcome Back song and watching all the people streaming into the park. Mickey and Minnie were out on the floor above waving to everyone and it was a lovely meal, made all the better knowing we’d already done 4 rides and so we had that smug feeling you get when other people are just coming into the park.

After our break we walked over to Disneyland Park, by the time we got there the queues to get in had all gone.

We checked out the app which said that Hyperspace Mountain was only a 10 minute wait so Discoveryland was our first port of call.

By the time we got to the entrance the sign said 15 minutes, but as Kate loves this ride we decided it was worth it and it was!

Such a great ride and we enjoyed saving the galaxy.

Each ride had at least one row of seats empty between each group so it's amazing really that the wait times were so low, given that each ride was running under capacity.

As we came out we saw that Star Tours had a short 20 minute wait posted and we hopped in line.

This ended up being a 35 minute wait and was the longest we waited for anything the whole trip.

We did get called forward through the line as the cast member wanted a party of two. I was quite surprised at this as I didn’t think they were doing that.

It was a good mission though with a mission to a water world where the ship got caught up in the waves so we enjoyed it, but we wanted to do something that had a short wait next and as we were next door to Philharmagic we went there next.

The waiting room is really clever with lots of taped out boxes on the floor for each group to stand in.

They explained that you should leave 2 seats between each group. It’s a lovely show and we really enjoyed it.

Afterwards we wandered around to the hub area and the castle.

We had seen a few people Disney bounding, Snow White was meeting here.

I managed to spy Pooh and Eeyore, I suggested to Kate that we could line up as the queue was short, but she wasn’t interested in meeting the characters.

She was interested in lunch, even after that massive breakfast! Actually what she wanted was ice cream from the ice cream parlour on Main Street, but that didn’t open until 2pm which was a shame, we decided we would come back later. Kate then remembered nachos! In our review of the restaurants last night she’d spotted nachos on a few menus. So we went round to Frontierland to Last Chance Café.

We shared nachos with cheese and chicken wings.

These were pretty tasty actually.

I topped up our water bottles with ice from our cokes! This ice cube was a little big to fit in the bottle so needed to melt a little.

And while eating we decided we were hot and we wanted a break so it was time to go back to the hotel. Looking at the time stamp of the ice melting photo it was 1.04pm.

We wandered through the arcade as that was a little cooler.

We spotted Donald at the front of the park.

It was hot on the walk back.

We went to a couple of the other blocks to see if their ice machines were working, but no luck there. This was a bit of a pain as it was boiling in our room, there was a ceiling fan and a window, but it only opened a few inches. Also, there is no fridge in the room.

I propped the door open to try and get a bit of through flow of air.

In the end I came up with the idea of filling the sink with cold water and putting our cans in there, actually it worked pretty well cooling them down.

I had a nap of nearly an hour and felt much more refreshed. Ah, lovely sleep. Kate watched TV and hadn’t even realised I’d been asleep. It would have been lovely to have dipped our feet in a nice refreshing swimming pool, but still a rest in the room was good.

There was a power cut this afternoon, it only lasted about 20 minutes, but ooh it was hot without the fan going.

We left the hotel just before 5pm. The walk along the canal was very quiet no one else around at all.

We’d decided that we wanted to go back to Disneyland Park as there were more rides there that we hadn’t done yet.

We took our waterproof jackets with us it was pretty cloudy, we heard some thunder on the walk but no rain.

Beautiful flowers!

Kate wanted to do Indiana Jones again, the app said the wait time was 5 minutes so we headed straight over there.

Hurry up Mum! Stop taking photos

In fact Indiana Jones was a walk on.

The more I ride this ride the better I feel about it, the first time is the hardest, but I actually think I enjoyed it this time around!

Kate still fancied some ice cream so we went back over to the hub but the ice cream parlour was closed, we didn’t know if it had been open for a few hours or if it just hadn’t opened at all. In fact we didn’t see it open the whole trip so maybe they decided there wasn’t enough demand for it and it stayed shut?

So, we decided that we would go for hot dogs instead and what do you know Casey’s is just over the road.

These were good hot dogs.

Kate had onions on hers and I had chilli and cheese on mine. It’s a veggie chilli and it was really tasty.

After our dinner we decided we needed slow rides and opted for the Fairy Tales ride and Casey Junior. Both of these are great, a nice gentle boat ride and a baby train ride. Both of them were walk on. Just perfect!

Most of the boats were going with just one group per boat so that was also pretty special.

We both enjoy the fairy tales and spotting all the little details, lots of photos for you here.

Then Casey Junior, I really like the music here too, the train puff’s “I think I can, I think I can” at the start of the ride and then it’s the lovely song.

We were in the lion cage.

Carrying on the gentle ride theme we wandered over to It’s a small world.

We hadn’t done this ride yet and boy is it a good ride.

It’s just fantastic. Again there was no wait and we were straight onto a boat. Kate likes saying all the countries as you pass them. I also liked spotting the Disney movies. Loads of photos here for you!

Next up we wandered through the labyrinth, which is another great attraction at Disneyland Paris.

It’s such good fun.

Kate was brilliant at finding her way to the centre, we only went round in circles a few times .

The view of the park from the top is also really good and we enjoyed looking out over Fantasyland.

Next up Dumbo was showing a reasonable wait of 15 minutes, this had been posted at 40 minutes at points throughout the day, I guess it’s a popular ride for all heights.

We did only wait 10 minutes so that was good. I wanted to get a photo of Kate in the elephant, but she was all ‘hurry up and get in Mum’.

So, when I took a ride selfie of us she was not impressed!

Ha ha, I love this photo!

We wanted to do the Carousel next, but it was temporarily closed for cleaning. We didn’t realise this until we had lapped it though! LOL!

As we were nearby and couldn’t be bothered to walk further we decided to go on Pinocchio, it was showing as a 20 minute wait.

It was about 10 minutes in the end.

Then we fancied Peter Pan, which was showing as 15 minutes but was half that actually.

It was coming up for park close, but we spotted that the Carousel was going round and there were people were on it. So we headed over there just before they closed the line.

We ended up as the last ride of the night. I love the Carousel with the lights on. It’s so pretty.

It was now time to leave the park and as we had failed in our attempt at ice cream twice so far today we decided we would not accept a third fail! We knew the Ben and Jerrys stand at the end of the Village was open and we stopped there on the walk back to the hotel. We both went for three scoops, mint choc chunk, cookie dough and vanilla pecan blondie for Kate, and for me peanut butter cup, cookie dough and vanilla pecan blondie.

This was yummy. We really enjoyed that ice cream.

We slowly wandered back to the hotel, our feet, well my feet, were really starting to ache.

Kate found a pretty seed pod that she liked.

It was 9pm by the time we got back.

We watched a bit of TV, phoned home for a chat with the boys and then it was time for bed.

I believe I’ve totted it up correctly and we managed a whopping 16 attractions today. What a fantastic day. Apart from the strategy of doing Crush first thing in extra magic time we didn’t have a strategy other than avoid rides that say the wait is longer than 20 minutes because at some point it will come down again! It worked really well for us and we enjoyed the day.

I was starting to think that we might need to come up with a better plan for food though as clearly not all the restaurants were open and we’d had burgers for dinner the first night and hot dogs for dinner today. This was when I reached out to Dibbers and asked for some QS recommendations.

Attractions: 16
Step Count: 30,005 (I knew I would feel stiff the next morning!)

Next up tomorrow, day 3 we go to Disneyland Park for extra magic time and Mickey waffles with chocolate, in the evening we went to Disney Studios and had dinner at Annette’s diner in Disney Village.

[MrsSilverStar]

Another great day, you got so much done!
Can’t believe you didn’t have to sprint for Crush 😄 surely that takes away the fun of it, haha!

We struggled with food back in Feb 2018 too...so I’m not sure DLP can even use Covid as an excuse!

[mrsdjh]

A fab day - lots of rides done and nice to get your own ride vehicles sometimes. Glad you got your ice cream in the end - looks like a very hot day.

[Buggles94]

Wow - you certainly don't waste any time - 4 rides before breakfast - very impressive We should have been arriving as the thunder started! So glad there was no rain for you

[Michyloulou]

Impressive attraction-ride & step counts, especially in that heat! I’m glad you both got your ice creams in the end!
Just on the heat point- does DLP have any of those ‘mister/sprays’ like WDW? I appreciate France doesn’t quite have the same year-round climate like Florida, but it can get v hot still in summer, so was just wondering. (Can’t remember if they do as my previous DLP visit was back in 2008).

[DisneyDaffodil]

16 rides in one day, that’s incredible. Over 30000 steps is impressive too.

I’m so pleased Kate got her ice cream in the end, you both deserved 3 scoops after such a long day

[Rac20]

I’m really enjoying reading your report and looking at the fab photos!

[Goldia]

Originally Posted by MrsSilverStar

Another great day, you got so much done!
Can’t believe you didn’t have to sprint for Crush 😄 surely that takes away the fun of it, haha!

We struggled with food back in Feb 2018 too...so I’m not sure DLP can even use Covid as an excuse!

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I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised that lots of QS places were closed, or had reduced opening hours. It felt like they wanted us out of the parks and in the Village with most places closing at 5pm, but we are pretty well and we didn't eat at the same place twice so that's good too. Although I've just realised we did get Starbucks a few times, and we had ice cream from Ben and Jerry twice. But I'm not counting that

Originally Posted by mrsdjh

A fab day - lots of rides done and nice to get your own ride vehicles sometimes. Glad you got your ice cream in the end - looks like a very hot day.

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It always feels like a treat when you get your own boat on a ride. We really enjoyed that ice cream it was great. We'd been hoping to get ice Cream sundaes in the parks but unfortunately that didn't happen, nevermind it wasn't like we went without.

Originally Posted by Buggles94

Wow - you certainly don't waste any time - 4 rides before breakfast - very impressive We should have been arriving as the thunder started! So glad there was no rain for you

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Kate did have a Mr Kipling lemon cake slice for breakfast in the crush queue so she had eaten something, but I was still stuffed from the burgers the night before. We were really lucky the storms just missed us for the whole trip. I'm still sad you didn't make it out there. I'm sure there will be a next time for you though.

Originally Posted by Michyloulou

Impressive attraction-ride & step counts, especially in that heat! I’m glad you both got your ice creams in the end!
Just on the heat point- does DLP have any of those ‘mister/sprays’ like WDW? I appreciate France doesn’t quite have the same year-round climate like Florida, but it can get v hot still in summer, so was just wondering. (Can’t remember if they do as my previous DLP visit was back in 2008).

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I really felt those steps the next day. I ached and was quite stiff the next morning, but I still got up when the alarm went off (as you do on a Disney holiday). I didn't notice any misters or sprays. In the parks the heat wasn't so bad really as it's much cooler in the attractions, restaurants and shops so you don't notice it as much. The hotel room was really hot though and they don't have air con at Santa Fe it's just a ceiling fan. I'm not sure about the other Disney hotels, Santa Fe is the budget option so maybe there is aircon elsewhere? But that would have been nicer to go back to in the afternoon and overnight.

Originally Posted by DisneyDaffodil

16 rides in one day, that’s incredible. Over 30000 steps is impressive too.

I’m so pleased Kate got her ice cream in the end, you both deserved 3 scoops after such a long day

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We didn't feel like we rushed and we had a long break in the afternoon with a nap for me! So 16 rides is pretty good isn't it? We could have reduced the step count by getting the bus to and from the parks, those 4 trips added a fair few steps.

Originally Posted by Rac20

I’m really enjoying reading your report and looking at the fab photos!

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I found it really difficult to cut down on the photos! In the end I only discarded the truly awful, blurry ones so I'm glad you're enjoying them all.

[Fuellady]

Well, that was a very impressive day. Four rides before breakfast and loads after! You definitely deserved your ice cream at the end of the day.

[Goldia]

Originally Posted by Fuellady

Well, that was a very impressive day. Four rides before breakfast and loads after! You definitely deserved your ice cream at the end of the day.

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We did really well with the rides today and it made us realise there was no point in joining a queue for a ride if it was a long wait as there would be another just round the corner with a much shorter wait. That ice cream was delicious and helped our weary feet find their way back to the hotel.