Festive Fun at Disneyland Paris: Day 1 – The Parks & Hotel Santa Fe

[Stewboy]

Saturday 25th November 2023

Despite having set the alarm for 6:30am Jo and I didn’t actually wake up until 7:30am. We were annoyed at first but decided that having a slower start for the children would probably be beneficial for the rest of the day! We left the children sleeping while we showered and got ready and then got them up and ready for breakfast.


Hotel Reception


Epcot–esque




Lobby

We made the short walk from our room to the Beef Club & Steakhouse restaurant in the hotel where they served a continental buffet breakfast. In keeping with the rest of the hotel, it’s a really lovely restaurant. We were seated and then helped ourselves to a mixture of coffee, croissants, bread, pain au chocolat, cured meats, cheese, yoghurt etc.

Once we were finished, we returned to the room, quickly repacked, checked out, loaded the car and made our way to Disney's Hotel Santa Fe.






Breakfast

The drive took about 25 minutes and it was about 10:10am when we arrived. After a quick check of our reservation and the car boot by the security staff we drove into the hotel. The reception car park was very busy so we drove round to one of the hotel buildings’ (Luigi) car parks, parked up, and headed to reception in order to pick up our park tickets - obviously very important!




Arriving at Hotel Santa Fe


Remember where we parked!

We knew our room wouldn’t be ready till this afternoon so we decided to just leave the luggage in the car. They do have a luggage store which, judging by the queue, was also very busy.

Reception was also busy, while Jo and Isabella queued to get the tickets, Caleb and I joined a queue to meet Pluto, and also took in the Cars theming - Caleb loves Cars and was happy to see Mater, Lightning McQueen, Sally and the rest.




Hotel Santa Fe Reception

Jo and Isabella’s queue moved quicker, so we left Pluto (Caleb didn’t seem to mind) and made our way back outside.

The hotel would send Jo an SMS and email when our room was ready, but for now we had our tickets (which we would also use for hotel room entry) and it was time to hit the parks!

It was now about 10:40am and we decided to make our way along the river to Disneyland. It was a beautiful but cold morning and as we walked along the river a duck and her ducklings came to say hello - Caleb loved that!








River walk


Lake Disney & PanoraMagique


Captain Marvel outside Disney Hotel New York - The Art of Marvel


Lake Disney & Disney Newport Bay Club


Disney VIllage

It took about 15 minutes to get to the bag check and then a few more minutes to walk through a very Christmassy Disney village to the Disneyland Park entrance; all in all about 20 minutes from Santa Fe to park entry.

That first walk down Main Street, no matter what Disney park it is, is always magical, and Disneyland Paris is beautiful - the castle looks amazing.




Entering Disneyland Park








On Main Street




The castle


Excited to see the castle!

[Stewboy]

At the end of Main Street they have installed 10 ‘Gardens of Wonder’ sculptures in celebration of the Disneyland Paris 30th anniversary. They are great! They are situated around the hub in front of the castle, and each spinning sculpture garden is themed and features different Disney and Pixar characters:

Disney Classics Garden

• Cheshire Cat
• Winnie the Pooh and Tigger
• Dumbo, Timothy Q. Mouse, and the Crows

Forest Garden

• Meeko and Flit
• Thumper
• Pascal

Jungle Garden

• Kaa
• Kevin
• Timon and Pumbaa

Magic Garden

• Tinker Bell
• Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather
• Genie

Villains Garden

• Ursula
• Jafar
• Maleficent

Disney Princesses Garden

• Section 1

• Merida
• Belle
• Tiana

• Section 2

• Snow White
• Cinderella and Birds
• Aurora and Forest Animals as Prince Phillip

Space Garden

• Little Green Men
• EVE
• Stitch

Water Garden

• Moana and the Ocean
• Ariel
• Nemo, Dory, Marlin, Tad, Sheldon, Pearl, Bubbles, Peach, Jacques, and Gurgle

Asia Garden

• Baymax
• Sisu
• Mushu

As expected the park was very busy today and, after spending a few minutes enjoying the sculptures, we made our way to Phantom Manor which was only posting a 20 minute wait on the Disneyland Paris app - which we found out wasn’t always reliable!

Caleb was hungry and had a snack in the queue, and when it came to the ride he sat with me. He really enjoyed it and we talked about ‘the laughing man’ (The Phantom) a lot afterwards; we still do in fact - Caleb does a great impression!


The Phantom Awaits


Lunch awaits

The time was now 12pm so we thought it would be a good idea to get some lunch. We decided to head to Cowboy Cookout Barbecue. It was very busy inside - long queues for ordering food and no tables to sit at inside. Eventually I took Caleb outside to find a table (there is lots of outside seating) while Jo and Isabella waited.

As Caleb was exploring outside we saw Santa Goofy heading back from character meet - Caleb immediately ran over to him (he’s a big Goofy fan), and he stopped to give him a high five!








Caleb and Santa Goofy

After about 40 minutes, Jo eventually had our food. Although it was pretty cold outside, it wasn’t so cold that we couldn’t sit and enjoy our food.

Jo and I had a Sheriff's BBQ each (Smoked Pork Ribs, Smoked Chicken, Grilled Pork Sausage, French Fries, San Pellegrino sparkling water) which we shared with Caleb. Isabella had a Little Chicken Burger with Fries, organic mini BabyBel cheese (x2) and milk from the kids menu.

As part of the meal deal we got desserts too - we ordered a Dessert Mickey (Chocolate Mousse & sponge cake), and a Pecan Pie which we all shared.

The food was really good, although mine did get cold due to Caleb needing two nappy changes during lunch!




Lunch

After lunch we made our way back to the castle and went inside - or rather, underneath - to see the Dragon’s Lair.

We emerged from the darkness of the lair and headed into Fantasyland where we went for a little spin in the Mad Hatter's Tea Cups - I was in charge of the spinning to ensure it didn’t get out of control!


Family selfie


Heading into the Dragon’s Lair


Christmassy door


Teacups


Castle backside

We headed out of Fantasyland back through the castle and onto Main Street where we caught Mickey, Minnie and Père Noël (Father Christmas) dancing and waving to guests from the Disneyland Railroad Main Street Station.


Bonjour Père Noël


Cute

Once the parade was over we made our way out of the Disneyland Park and over to Walt Disney Studios Park. I do love that about Disneyland - both Paris and California - that you can get from one park to another so easily.

Once inside Walt Disney Studios Park, Jo and Isabella recreated a photo that we took on our last visit 10 years ago!


Then & Now

As we walked through Disney Studio 1 to enter the main area of the park I realised that this is probably about the only part of Disneyland Paris that I remembered from our previous brief visit.

Once through, we made our way over to the Worlds of Pixar area to ride Cars Quatre Roues Rallye (Cars Race Rally).The queue area was Radiator Springs themed and very reminiscent of Radiator Springs Racers in Cars Land at Disney California Adventure - Caleb loved it. The ride was also fun and similar to Mater's Junkyard Jamboree, also at Cars Land.














Cars Quatre Roues Rallye



Staying in Worlds of Pixar, we went into Toy Story Playland to ride Slinky Dog Zigzag Spin - another fun ride that we could all do together.

Walking back through Toy Story Playland we encountered a couple of Green Army Men who were interacting with other guests: stealing hats, food, photobombing pictures etc. - the sort of stuff that’s funny to see happen to others!

At the entrance to Toy Story Playland are sculptures of various Toy Story characters - another of Caleb’s favourite films - including a large Buzz Lightyear which acts as an entrance. He loved it and every time he saw it he would say “woodyandbuzzwoodyandbuzz” and sometimes just “buzz”.


Slinky Dog Zigzag Spin


Loved this


Woodyandbuzzwoodyandbuzz


Isabella Lightyear


”The claw”

The final attraction to do over this side of the park was Cars Road Trip - which is a basically a heavily cut down and rethemed version of the old Studio Tram Tour (similar to the old Studio Backlot Tour at WDW).

The trams feature Sally Carrera and Cruz Ramirez from Cars giving a voice over in the carriages as you drive past three underwhelming attractions:

• World’s Largest Lugnut
• Cars-Tastrophe Canyon (rethemed version of Catastrophe Canyon)
• I-Fuel Tower (Mater’s version of the Eiffel Tower)

Cars Road Trip

After exiting the ride Jo and Isabella decided to ride Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop single rider; I took Caleb off in the pram hoping that he might have a nap but unfortunately for the second day running he refused.

We met up again by Disney Studio 1 and headed over to the Marvel Avengers Campus where we saw Spider-Man fighting bad guys on the roof of one of the buildings, Iron Man hanging about on another rooftop with the Avengers Quinjet, and Loki & Thor interacting with the crowd (in French and English).


Iron Man & the Qunijet


Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man

Caleb had burned off some energy running around for a bit until it was time for our dinner reservation at PYM Kitchen.

[Stewboy]

PYM Kitchen is a buffet inspired by Ant-Man and they feature large and small versions of many of the dishes including the burgers, hot dogs and some of the desserts.

Jo decided to try the Blue Spritz and Goji Berries cocktail (Sparkling Blue Chardonnay, White Vermouth, Perrier and Goji Berries) served in a lab beaker, but wasn’t very impressed, and I had a beer - a rather boring Kronenbourg 1664 Premium.

Caleb occupied himself doing some colouring (well, sort of!) while Jo got him a selection from the buffet. He particularly enjoyed the small burger - the part of it that didn’t end up on the floor anyway!


















PYM kitchen

We all made a few trips but I have to say I wasn’t particularly impressed by any of it - I feel like it’s style over substance. Isabella enjoyed it though and Jo thought it was ok - don’t think it’s one I’d bother with again though. Oh, and we didn’t even get a giant pretzel!

It was almost time to head back to the hotel - Jo had received an SMS earlier in the day to say our room was ready: Luigi Block 14 Room 31 - not far from where we’d parked.

We decided to try and squeeze in a ride on Ratatouille: The Adventure before we went as the app said the wait time was 15 minutes. When we arrived at the ride though it had increased to 25 minutes and we decided that was too long to wait especially as Caleb was tired - I think we all were by this point.



We made our way to the park exit and walked back past Hotel New York - The Art of Marvel, along the river past Sequoia Lodge, and then into Hotel Santa Fe. Our room was close to the river path, and actually the closest building to the parks, which was really useful. The theming was fun - it was all Cars related and Caleb loved it as he’s a big Cars fan.

While Jo and the children got into the room I moved the car to park outside our block, and then took all the luggage into the room where I put the travel cot up.

While Jo unpacked and Isabella showered, Caleb and I played with his Duplo (Lightning McQueen and Mater) and read a book.




Luigi


Carpet








Our room


Playing

Using our key cards we were able to get free coffee from the machine down the hall so I went and got us all hot chocolates.

Caleb had his bath and went to bed as he was very tired. Isabella wanted to read for a little bit and sat on the top bunk using the handy reading light before eventually going to sleep in the bottom bunk.

Meanwhile, Jo and I showered and got ready for bed and I finished the day by writing up my notes, and Jo posted some Instagram stories from the day.

We finally went to sleep at around 10:30pm - the end of a fun filled day at Disneyland Paris.

[Cutiepie]

Lovely day

[Lisa_Lollipop]

What a fab day, the most perfect bright winter weather... that sky made for the most beautiful castle photos!

Such a shame you weren't too impressed with PYM, we really enjoyed it when we went in November (although that said, I am very easily pleased when it comes to eating food I haven't had to prepare myself... and we did get the giant pretzel!)

Loved the recreation photo in Studios... Jo has barely changed in 10 years (Isabella absolutely has!)

Loved reading this and seeing the theming at Santa Fe, it looks fab!

[Stewboy]

Originally Posted by Cutiepie

Lovely day

See more...

Thank you

Originally Posted by Lisa_Lollipop

What a fab day, the most perfect bright winter weather... that sky made for the most beautiful castle photos!

Such a shame you weren't too impressed with PYM, we really enjoyed it when we went in November (although that said, I am very easily pleased when it comes to eating food I haven't had to prepare myself... and we did get the giant pretzel!)

Loved the recreation photo in Studios... Jo has barely changed in 10 years (Isabella absolutely has!)

Loved reading this and seeing the theming at Santa Fe, it looks fab!

See more...

Jo and (especially) Isabella enjoyed it - so maybe it was just me?!

Thanks for reading

[Pumba75]

What a great first day. Cute photos of Goofy and Caleb. Loved the recreate photo. Jo you haven’t changed!

We’ve only ever stayed at Santa Fe. Always been a great base.

M x

[Stewboy]

Originally Posted by Pumba75

What a great first day. Cute photos of Goofy and Caleb. Loved the recreate photo. Jo you haven’t changed!

We’ve only ever stayed at Santa Fe. Always been a great base.

M x

See more...

Caleb loves Goofy - that was a really cute moment!

TFR