Walt Disney Studios Park part 1
I may have mentioned before that people had told us not to expect too much from Disneyland Paris. We had one friend tell us she was afraid we'd be disappointed in it, and even our longtime Disneyland associate Gaston told us we'd only need half a day to visit both of the Disney parks in Paris. (Or near Paris, rather, just like Tokyo Disneyland isn't actually in Tokyo and California Disneyland isn't actually in Los Angeles. I think Florida Disney World isn't actually in Orlando, either.)
They may have been trying to make sure not to over-hype the place, but in all honesty, our expectations weren't super high to begin with, because we've been increasingly unimpressed with our own Disneyland, as anyone who has read our reports on the more recent iterations of Fantasmic can attest. Our plan was to go to the parks and see for ourselves what they were like, and really just not expect anything one way or another.
France has two Disney parks--Disneyland and Walt Disney Studios. We chose to go to Walt Disney Studios first, partly because what little we knew about it gave it more of a California Adventure vibe (making it slightly less magical; sorry, California Adventure), but mostly because it closed earlier, and we were going to have to come back to our hotel and work on a simulpub.
We managed to make it all the way there without getting lost. The train stop for the parks isn't emblazoned with Disneyland posters all over the walls like at Tokyo Disneyland, but it is the final stop on that line, so it's really hard to miss. XD The day was rainy and cold, but that was okay, because it was also uncrowded, and the queue areas at Disneyland Paris are a lot less exposed than the ones in California, so we didn't spend a whole lot of time out in the wet.
The entrance to the park was very subdued compared to a Disneyland with a castle or DisneySea with Mount Prometheus, but it did have a very cute statue of Sorcerer Mickey. The first area we came to was the Production Courtyard, which is mostly theaters for shows. None of the shows had started yet, so we went on to Avengers Campus, where the first ride we went on was...the first ride we go on whenever we go to our Disney parks these days: WEB Slingers, or the Spider-man WEB Adventure, as it's called in France.
It was an interesting experience, seeing it in France. This turned out to be true of pretty much every attraction, but it seems like they all have two characters that help you through the adventure (sometimes just giving the safety spiel), and one of them speaks French, and the other one speaks English. In this case, the characters are Peter Parker/Spider-Man, and Sharin. Sharin's a little unique in that she speaks both English and French, and what we found to be especially curious is that the English voice of Sharin is not the same English voice of Sharin as in California. Maybe it's the same actress doing both English and French. Spider-man spoke all in French, but for the pre-show, where they explain the story of the ride and how it works, he has a real-time translation device to help all us non-French-speaking tourists.
And this is where we ran into our occupational hazard. In the pre-show, Peter Parker introduces the spider-bots and mentions their self-replicating feature, which doesn't really seem to serve a purpose, but does cause the problem that we need to solve by going on this ride. In the original English version of the show, Peter says, "And look! They have this cool self-replicating feature!" Sharin goes, "Because...?" And Peter replies, "Uh, because it's awesome?", with a tone of voice that says, "Why would you even ask that?"
This was the ride designers way of saying, "Yes, we understand. The self-replication feature serves no purpose but to make this ride a thing." So they gave a reason for it to exist, which is that Peter thought it would be awesome, and that's a good enough explanation for the two of us. We like it when storytellers acknowledge that someone might have a question about something instead of just plopping it in and hoping no one notices that it's kind of silly.
In the Paris version of the show, Peter says, "Look, they can duplicate themselves!" and Sharin replies, "They can duplicate themselves?" She sounds kind of impressed, but maybe it's French sarcasm, I don't know. And Peter adds, "Because it's awesome." So it sounded like the bit where the ride designers were acknowledging the silliness of it got lost in translation, and that made us a little sad. But maybe there's some French cultural context we're missing that makes it more obvious to French speakers.
Anyway, that's the kind of thing we tend to geek out about; sorry. The ride itself was very much like the one in California. We thiiiink there might be some elements in the animation that are different, but to be honest, whenever we go on that ride, we're so busy slinging webs there's a large chance we're missing stuff. In both parks, the ride is unreasonably fun, in that it's a heck of a lot of fun, but I'm not sure it warrants it? I'm not sure how to explain it.
When we got out of the Spider-man WEB Adventure, we ran smack into a filming of what appeared to be MasterChef Junior for some European country. All we know is that it didn't have the American hosts. Athena says she kind of feels like the people were speaking Italian, but she wasn't actually listening, so we don't know. I did see the camera swing our way, so if someone in Europe happens to see us in the background of MasterChef Junior when they take the kids to Avengers Campus, then you're not imagining it. It's really us. We were wearing our GachiAkuta shirts, if that helps.
Our strategy for new Disney parks is to pick a direction and just keep going until we've seen everything over that way, so next we went to Avengers Assemble: Flight Force. There was a warning sign that said it had loops, so we noped out of that one. Maybe if we had boyfriends we would go on it, but we don't, so.
There is a lot more to say about this park, but we kind of have a lot going on right now, a session of General Conference coming up, a flight to catch tomorrow... So this report will have to continue...in the unspecified future.
Today I'm thankful for getting to see the Paris Disney parks, sheltered queue areas, clear signage, getting to hear the French dub of WEB Slingers, and our super cool GachiAkuta shirts.
They may have been trying to make sure not to over-hype the place, but in all honesty, our expectations weren't super high to begin with, because we've been increasingly unimpressed with our own Disneyland, as anyone who has read our reports on the more recent iterations of Fantasmic can attest. Our plan was to go to the parks and see for ourselves what they were like, and really just not expect anything one way or another.
France has two Disney parks--Disneyland and Walt Disney Studios. We chose to go to Walt Disney Studios first, partly because what little we knew about it gave it more of a California Adventure vibe (making it slightly less magical; sorry, California Adventure), but mostly because it closed earlier, and we were going to have to come back to our hotel and work on a simulpub.
We managed to make it all the way there without getting lost. The train stop for the parks isn't emblazoned with Disneyland posters all over the walls like at Tokyo Disneyland, but it is the final stop on that line, so it's really hard to miss. XD The day was rainy and cold, but that was okay, because it was also uncrowded, and the queue areas at Disneyland Paris are a lot less exposed than the ones in California, so we didn't spend a whole lot of time out in the wet.
The entrance to the park was very subdued compared to a Disneyland with a castle or DisneySea with Mount Prometheus, but it did have a very cute statue of Sorcerer Mickey. The first area we came to was the Production Courtyard, which is mostly theaters for shows. None of the shows had started yet, so we went on to Avengers Campus, where the first ride we went on was...the first ride we go on whenever we go to our Disney parks these days: WEB Slingers, or the Spider-man WEB Adventure, as it's called in France.
It was an interesting experience, seeing it in France. This turned out to be true of pretty much every attraction, but it seems like they all have two characters that help you through the adventure (sometimes just giving the safety spiel), and one of them speaks French, and the other one speaks English. In this case, the characters are Peter Parker/Spider-Man, and Sharin. Sharin's a little unique in that she speaks both English and French, and what we found to be especially curious is that the English voice of Sharin is not the same English voice of Sharin as in California. Maybe it's the same actress doing both English and French. Spider-man spoke all in French, but for the pre-show, where they explain the story of the ride and how it works, he has a real-time translation device to help all us non-French-speaking tourists.
And this is where we ran into our occupational hazard. In the pre-show, Peter Parker introduces the spider-bots and mentions their self-replicating feature, which doesn't really seem to serve a purpose, but does cause the problem that we need to solve by going on this ride. In the original English version of the show, Peter says, "And look! They have this cool self-replicating feature!" Sharin goes, "Because...?" And Peter replies, "Uh, because it's awesome?", with a tone of voice that says, "Why would you even ask that?"
This was the ride designers way of saying, "Yes, we understand. The self-replication feature serves no purpose but to make this ride a thing." So they gave a reason for it to exist, which is that Peter thought it would be awesome, and that's a good enough explanation for the two of us. We like it when storytellers acknowledge that someone might have a question about something instead of just plopping it in and hoping no one notices that it's kind of silly.
In the Paris version of the show, Peter says, "Look, they can duplicate themselves!" and Sharin replies, "They can duplicate themselves?" She sounds kind of impressed, but maybe it's French sarcasm, I don't know. And Peter adds, "Because it's awesome." So it sounded like the bit where the ride designers were acknowledging the silliness of it got lost in translation, and that made us a little sad. But maybe there's some French cultural context we're missing that makes it more obvious to French speakers.
Anyway, that's the kind of thing we tend to geek out about; sorry. The ride itself was very much like the one in California. We thiiiink there might be some elements in the animation that are different, but to be honest, whenever we go on that ride, we're so busy slinging webs there's a large chance we're missing stuff. In both parks, the ride is unreasonably fun, in that it's a heck of a lot of fun, but I'm not sure it warrants it? I'm not sure how to explain it.
When we got out of the Spider-man WEB Adventure, we ran smack into a filming of what appeared to be MasterChef Junior for some European country. All we know is that it didn't have the American hosts. Athena says she kind of feels like the people were speaking Italian, but she wasn't actually listening, so we don't know. I did see the camera swing our way, so if someone in Europe happens to see us in the background of MasterChef Junior when they take the kids to Avengers Campus, then you're not imagining it. It's really us. We were wearing our GachiAkuta shirts, if that helps.
Our strategy for new Disney parks is to pick a direction and just keep going until we've seen everything over that way, so next we went to Avengers Assemble: Flight Force. There was a warning sign that said it had loops, so we noped out of that one. Maybe if we had boyfriends we would go on it, but we don't, so.
There is a lot more to say about this park, but we kind of have a lot going on right now, a session of General Conference coming up, a flight to catch tomorrow... So this report will have to continue...in the unspecified future.
Today I'm thankful for getting to see the Paris Disney parks, sheltered queue areas, clear signage, getting to hear the French dub of WEB Slingers, and our super cool GachiAkuta shirts.