Air Kraken Day/St-Pat's at Disneyland Paris
Sam and I had decided that a special celebratory day for St-Patrick’s Day (or la fête de la St-Patrick like the French say, that link is to DLP's special program for that day by the way) was in order. We quite liked the idea of fireworks and celebrations and special characters (that and any excuse to go to Disneyland Paris is a good one).
Of course, apart from St-Pat’s, March 17th is also Air Kraken Day, one of the steampunk holidays (look at the skies in terror people!) so I packed up Cutethulhu in my bag and off we went to Sam’s house to leave for Disney at 6am :)
Traffic wasn’t quite as good as we had hoped for, so it took us quite a while to get there sadly, yet we made it it into the park before 10.
One of the first things we noticed were the Irish banner and the big clover program sign at the entrance to Main Street (at the card dispensers underneath the station). I went to get a picture of the sign and some woman who was behind me (and whom I thus couldn’t see stand there, not having eyes on my back) was making the snarky comment off “yes very nice, getting in my picture” or something along those lines. I think she thought I was French and didn’t understand any English. In any case I told her flat out that I didn’t have eyes on my back. Had I seen her I would have let her take the picture, I don’t purposely go about jumping in others photos after all. Seriously…
Seeing queues for Irish Minnie and Mickey were already building up, we decided to queue for Minnie first. After we had our picture taken with her, we had our picture taken with Mickey.
Then we made our way to Frontierland to get a fast pass for Big Thunder Mountain (I don’t have priority access to rollercoasters) only to discover Thunder was closed due to technical problems.
So we went to Discoveryland instead , where I got a return ticket for Buzz Lightyear whilst Sam hopped into Space Mountain (which I don’t ride). We agreed to meet up in Constellations after Sam got off Space so I took the time to look at the new merchandise and pick up the limited edition (900 pieces) St-Pat’s 2010 pin for my friend Jon.
Seeing we had plenty of time left we went into Star Tours before going into Buzz. Star Tours we basically walked in because the fast pass tickets weren’t available and the handicapped queue (which is the same line as the fast pass queue) was thus pretty much non-existant. I think we had to wait for the whole of 2 minutes, which was awesome.
I ♥ Star Tours!
I also ♥ this cover that looks like the sails from Jabba the Hutt's sand speeder :) I wouldn't object if I could have some to put in my garden :D
They had changed the Buzz handicapped queue (which also used to be the fast pass queue) to making people enter through the exit and _queue_ in the exit corridor. For those that haven’t rode Buzz, the exit corridor is quite narrow, and thus setting up a line of people to wait to enter the ride there whilst others are getting off and getting out in that same area isn’t the best idea. It’s a bit problematic there all around really, as there just isn’t the room to sort something proper out, so Disney really is doing the best they can. I just hope that when they build new rides, they take these things into account.
Sam and I decided that for the ride photo we were going to pretend we were shooting each other rather than the targets, but I leaned back too much and ended not being in the picture, whoops! So obviously we didn’t buy a ride photo.
We went back to Frontierland, where, much to our joy, Thunder had started working so we got a fastpass ticket
and wandered up to Phantom Manor. Only to discover that was broken! Also technical difficulties. I profited of the occasion to take photos of the Manor and of the friendly CM outside. I love the costumes of the Phantom Manor CMs!
Seeing it was nearly lunch time we went to Cowboy Cookout Barbeque for churros.
I also got keylime pie because I had been wanting to try it for ages and lo and behold it is NOM. Sam loved it too, so I gave him half of the pie ^^
We also took some daft photos with Cutethulhu just because you know, it was Air Kraken Day! :)
And there was a country band playing, which was also very cool!
After lunch it was time for Thunder and we basically walked through the entire fast pass queue and didn’t have to wait more than a couple of minutes in total to board, which was most excellent. Thunder is definitely one of my favourite rides in the park. When we were on the ride I noticed (quite the feat seeing that I don’t wear my glasses in the ride and are about as blind as the proverbial bat without them) that Phantom Manor was open because I saw people enter. Although seeing colourful blobs move around the place and entering the bigger house-shaped blob would be a more accurate description of what I saw ^^
So after we got off Thunder we wandered over to Phantom Manor’s disability entrance. The CM opening the door was super friendly and let us in right away. Phantom Manor is a ride that tends to be subjected to stops on occasion due to malfunctions but this time it worked without a glitch.
We then to the Studios Park
to check out the line for Crush (45 minutes X_x) only to decide it was too long.
So I queued with Sam for Tower of Terror
(which only had a 15 minute queue) because the queuing area is brilliant, I love how well done it is. I also wanted to take photos in it again (I had only been in it once prior and that was back in December 2007 on the very first preview day).
Of course I didn’t ride Tower so I took the time to take photos in the hallway to the ride’s gift shop and look at the merchandise in the shop whilst waiting for Sam to come out :) When he arrived he told me his arm nearly got mushed by the girl sitting next to him who gripped his arm out of FEAR the first drop. I thought that was kindda funny :D
After Tower we went to Blockbuster Café to get a drink and wait for the Jack Sparrow meet and greet. There were hardly any people in the Pirates area so we grabbed the table right at the door Jack Sparrow would come out of. The nice weather (it was glorious) made lots of people sit outside (can’t really blame them after the horrendous winter we’ve had) and as usual the HORRID high school musical area was the preferred seating location for those that did choose to sit outside. Why anyone would want to sit there is beyond me as it is DIRE and UGLY (I’m not a HSM fan at all, can you tell?).
We played with Cutethulhu whilst waiting for Captain Jack to appear :)
Air kraken day pictures on Air Kraken Day are mandatory!
Sitting at the table we were sitting at turned out to be a brilliant plan, because I saw Jack come out and hopped off my chair to start bantering with him right away. Which was awesome because it meant Sam and I had NO issue at all getting our picture taken with him. Sam was thrilled, because he had wanted his picture taken with captain Jack for ages but never managed due to crowds mobbing the captain.
I remembered that we had Cutethulhu with us, so called out to Captain Jack reminding him about air kraken day. Which he thought was amusing and he posed with Cutethulhu. Good times :)
After that we went to Aerosmith Coaster, which was only a 5 minute queue, so Sam could ride that. I walked through the waiting line with him and then waited for him whilst he rode. We then looked at the shop and Sam bought an Aerosmith hoodie. The same one that my friend Charlotte got back in November 2008 :)
We went to check out Crush again, but the line hadn’t gotten any shorter so we decided to go back to the Disneyland Park. With some delay because we noticed the cars from the Stars ‘n Cars parade driving up.
After that we did indeed go back to the Disneyland Park where we noticed several characters (Robin Hood, the Tweedles and Tigger) being surrounded by a heap of people (and not a CM in sight) so we decided to give them a miss and go to Nautilus instead.
Can’t not go to Nautilus on a steampunk holiday (can’t not go to Nautilus in any case in my opinion but due to it’s odd opening hours it’s sadly not always doable on a visit, sniff). They had adjusted the lighting so I could take pictures of the Kraken (normally only video works), which pleased me greatly :)
After Nautilus we went through Discovery Arcade for the pre-parade. We were sitting outside of the photography shop and had a good view. Sitting there also meant we could easily get up and leave before the actual parade started (not getting caught in the crowd and stuck).
After the pre-parade we went to look at the photos of us with Mickey and I bought two :)
And then we went to Fantasyland. The castle bridge is still closed off due to refurbishments
so we went through La Tanière du Dragon.
I loved the dragon (as usual) but I HATED the fucking annoying brats that were trying to get in front of me (whilst there was HEAPS) of room no less. I was telling Sam I was tempted to toss them in the dragon pit and after looking at my photos of the dragon and noticing one of the little mongrels had stretched an arm into my photo I wish I could get my hands on it to give it a good spanking. Seriously I wish parents would look after their fucking spawn!
(I can’t stand people ruining my photos, can you tell? It seriously enrages me.) Good thing I always take more than one dragon picture!
Speaking of parents not looking after their kids, we saw several children crawling up statues with no parent telling them off. Seriously they had NO respect for all the surroundings and décor or other park visitors. Which is disgusting really. No wonder society is going to pot.
But I digress…
After the dragon we went to get a return ticket for Peter Pan’s Flight. The CMs there were quite grumpy sadly but we at least managed to get the ticket.
Because we had loads of time before Pan we hopped into the labyrinth first.
And either we failed to notice this in the past, or either this was added, but apparently the Dodo’s pedestal can be turned around, making the Dodo turn around as well, which makes for a really fun effect to the caucus race. Had the labyrinth been less crowded then I would have made a film of it.
When we were posing around the card statues, some rude Irish woman made her kid jump in right after Sam.
When I pointed out it was actually my turn she muttered a not at all meant apology and made NO attempt to get her kid back and make it wait her turn. Fabulous example she was setting for her daughter there, absolutely the right way to teach her social values *sarcasm*.
Seeing that the labyrinth was quite crowed and the douchebags seemed to vastly outnumber the nice people we wandered out again.
(Hedge plates at the exit)
I had been wanting to take a video of the dormouse peeking out of the pink teacup (it’s an animatronic) for a while, so I decided to do that.
I had to wait for a bit because there was a family that thought it was hilarious to let their 3 sons wildly climb up and against the teapot. Seriously, I wish CMs would tell off these people.
And of course after they left, whilst it was quite obvious I was waiting for the Dormouse to appear (having the camera pointed at it being a rather dead giveaway), some French cow send in her daughters to go pose next to the teapot, right in my view. Another fine example of parenting *sarcasm*.
I didn’t get quite as nice a video as I would have liked due to fucktards but it’s better than nothing.
We then went into the teacups
and it all went a bit wrong from there on. Whilst having lunch, Sam had remarked that his coke (coca-cola obviously) was rather watery. I never had Nestea ice tea peach from a machine so I thought that it being a bit watery was probably just the drink. Apparently it wasn’t. Either that or there was something wrong with the food. But in any case, my stomach got upset, with my heart rate soon following and my blood pressure adding to the bill. To make a long and boring story short, I ended up spending quite some time at first aid where several lovely people tried to figure out what was wrong with me. I have to say, Disneyland Paris is probably one of the best places to be at when something goes wrong health wise seeing they have properly trained health care professionals around at all times. And they do know what they’re doing (as you may have guessed, I’ve ended up there before).
(I'm fine again now though, so no need to worry!)
When I felt well enough to walk around again we left first aid and went to find dinner. Well Sam went to find dinner, I didn’t quite felt like eating was the way forward yet. Turned out that Sam was feeling nauseous too, which led us to believe that the food or drinks machine had gotten to us and the turning of the cups was just the thing that tipped us over.
We decided to leave before the fireworks because we weren’t feeling 100% and leaving before the crowds seemed like a good plan. We did see bits and pieces of it walking to the parking lot so it wasn’t a complete loss :)
Next time we’re going to be eating at a proper restaurant and avoid drinks machines where we can though! We've never had issues with food at the park before (and we've both been HEAPS of times) but we rather not have a repeat experience even though we both realises chances to that are extremely slim.
Rude people and a trip to the first aid aside, we had a total blast and it was definitely worthwhile seeing the St-Pat’s celebration in Disneyland Paris.
If possible we might do it again next year :)
All photos from the day.
Photo scavenger hunt set.
And the obligatory outfit photos
Tailcoat: my own design, made it myself
Green scarf: made it myself
Green longsleeve: made it myself
Armwarmers: H&M
Hip bag: Eastpak
Bag: vintage, a Christmas present from my sister :)
Skirt: my own design, made it myself
Thigh high socks: Hema
Spats: my own design, made them myself
Boots: Kickers
Umbrella: Lisbeth Dahl (there's silver glittery polkadots on it, but sadly they don't show on the photo)
Point of fashion: casual steampunk for Air Kraken Day/Saint Patrick's Day 2010 :)
Copyright 2010 Sam Van den Bulck (photography) and Hilde Heyvaert (design).
All rights reserved.
No unauthorized use or distribution.
Of course, apart from St-Pat’s, March 17th is also Air Kraken Day, one of the steampunk holidays (look at the skies in terror people!) so I packed up Cutethulhu in my bag and off we went to Sam’s house to leave for Disney at 6am :)
Traffic wasn’t quite as good as we had hoped for, so it took us quite a while to get there sadly, yet we made it it into the park before 10.
One of the first things we noticed were the Irish banner and the big clover program sign at the entrance to Main Street (at the card dispensers underneath the station). I went to get a picture of the sign and some woman who was behind me (and whom I thus couldn’t see stand there, not having eyes on my back) was making the snarky comment off “yes very nice, getting in my picture” or something along those lines. I think she thought I was French and didn’t understand any English. In any case I told her flat out that I didn’t have eyes on my back. Had I seen her I would have let her take the picture, I don’t purposely go about jumping in others photos after all. Seriously…
Seeing queues for Irish Minnie and Mickey were already building up, we decided to queue for Minnie first. After we had our picture taken with her, we had our picture taken with Mickey.
Then we made our way to Frontierland to get a fast pass for Big Thunder Mountain (I don’t have priority access to rollercoasters) only to discover Thunder was closed due to technical problems.
So we went to Discoveryland instead , where I got a return ticket for Buzz Lightyear whilst Sam hopped into Space Mountain (which I don’t ride). We agreed to meet up in Constellations after Sam got off Space so I took the time to look at the new merchandise and pick up the limited edition (900 pieces) St-Pat’s 2010 pin for my friend Jon.
Seeing we had plenty of time left we went into Star Tours before going into Buzz. Star Tours we basically walked in because the fast pass tickets weren’t available and the handicapped queue (which is the same line as the fast pass queue) was thus pretty much non-existant. I think we had to wait for the whole of 2 minutes, which was awesome.
I ♥ Star Tours!
I also ♥ this cover that looks like the sails from Jabba the Hutt's sand speeder :) I wouldn't object if I could have some to put in my garden :D
They had changed the Buzz handicapped queue (which also used to be the fast pass queue) to making people enter through the exit and _queue_ in the exit corridor. For those that haven’t rode Buzz, the exit corridor is quite narrow, and thus setting up a line of people to wait to enter the ride there whilst others are getting off and getting out in that same area isn’t the best idea. It’s a bit problematic there all around really, as there just isn’t the room to sort something proper out, so Disney really is doing the best they can. I just hope that when they build new rides, they take these things into account.
Sam and I decided that for the ride photo we were going to pretend we were shooting each other rather than the targets, but I leaned back too much and ended not being in the picture, whoops! So obviously we didn’t buy a ride photo.
We went back to Frontierland, where, much to our joy, Thunder had started working so we got a fastpass ticket
and wandered up to Phantom Manor. Only to discover that was broken! Also technical difficulties. I profited of the occasion to take photos of the Manor and of the friendly CM outside. I love the costumes of the Phantom Manor CMs!
Seeing it was nearly lunch time we went to Cowboy Cookout Barbeque for churros.
I also got keylime pie because I had been wanting to try it for ages and lo and behold it is NOM. Sam loved it too, so I gave him half of the pie ^^
We also took some daft photos with Cutethulhu just because you know, it was Air Kraken Day! :)
And there was a country band playing, which was also very cool!
After lunch it was time for Thunder and we basically walked through the entire fast pass queue and didn’t have to wait more than a couple of minutes in total to board, which was most excellent. Thunder is definitely one of my favourite rides in the park. When we were on the ride I noticed (quite the feat seeing that I don’t wear my glasses in the ride and are about as blind as the proverbial bat without them) that Phantom Manor was open because I saw people enter. Although seeing colourful blobs move around the place and entering the bigger house-shaped blob would be a more accurate description of what I saw ^^
So after we got off Thunder we wandered over to Phantom Manor’s disability entrance. The CM opening the door was super friendly and let us in right away. Phantom Manor is a ride that tends to be subjected to stops on occasion due to malfunctions but this time it worked without a glitch.
We then to the Studios Park
to check out the line for Crush (45 minutes X_x) only to decide it was too long.
So I queued with Sam for Tower of Terror
(which only had a 15 minute queue) because the queuing area is brilliant, I love how well done it is. I also wanted to take photos in it again (I had only been in it once prior and that was back in December 2007 on the very first preview day).
Of course I didn’t ride Tower so I took the time to take photos in the hallway to the ride’s gift shop and look at the merchandise in the shop whilst waiting for Sam to come out :) When he arrived he told me his arm nearly got mushed by the girl sitting next to him who gripped his arm out of FEAR the first drop. I thought that was kindda funny :D
After Tower we went to Blockbuster Café to get a drink and wait for the Jack Sparrow meet and greet. There were hardly any people in the Pirates area so we grabbed the table right at the door Jack Sparrow would come out of. The nice weather (it was glorious) made lots of people sit outside (can’t really blame them after the horrendous winter we’ve had) and as usual the HORRID high school musical area was the preferred seating location for those that did choose to sit outside. Why anyone would want to sit there is beyond me as it is DIRE and UGLY (I’m not a HSM fan at all, can you tell?).
We played with Cutethulhu whilst waiting for Captain Jack to appear :)
Air kraken day pictures on Air Kraken Day are mandatory!
Sitting at the table we were sitting at turned out to be a brilliant plan, because I saw Jack come out and hopped off my chair to start bantering with him right away. Which was awesome because it meant Sam and I had NO issue at all getting our picture taken with him. Sam was thrilled, because he had wanted his picture taken with captain Jack for ages but never managed due to crowds mobbing the captain.
I remembered that we had Cutethulhu with us, so called out to Captain Jack reminding him about air kraken day. Which he thought was amusing and he posed with Cutethulhu. Good times :)
After that we went to Aerosmith Coaster, which was only a 5 minute queue, so Sam could ride that. I walked through the waiting line with him and then waited for him whilst he rode. We then looked at the shop and Sam bought an Aerosmith hoodie. The same one that my friend Charlotte got back in November 2008 :)
We went to check out Crush again, but the line hadn’t gotten any shorter so we decided to go back to the Disneyland Park. With some delay because we noticed the cars from the Stars ‘n Cars parade driving up.
After that we did indeed go back to the Disneyland Park where we noticed several characters (Robin Hood, the Tweedles and Tigger) being surrounded by a heap of people (and not a CM in sight) so we decided to give them a miss and go to Nautilus instead.
Can’t not go to Nautilus on a steampunk holiday (can’t not go to Nautilus in any case in my opinion but due to it’s odd opening hours it’s sadly not always doable on a visit, sniff). They had adjusted the lighting so I could take pictures of the Kraken (normally only video works), which pleased me greatly :)
After Nautilus we went through Discovery Arcade for the pre-parade. We were sitting outside of the photography shop and had a good view. Sitting there also meant we could easily get up and leave before the actual parade started (not getting caught in the crowd and stuck).
After the pre-parade we went to look at the photos of us with Mickey and I bought two :)
And then we went to Fantasyland. The castle bridge is still closed off due to refurbishments
so we went through La Tanière du Dragon.
I loved the dragon (as usual) but I HATED the fucking annoying brats that were trying to get in front of me (whilst there was HEAPS) of room no less. I was telling Sam I was tempted to toss them in the dragon pit and after looking at my photos of the dragon and noticing one of the little mongrels had stretched an arm into my photo I wish I could get my hands on it to give it a good spanking. Seriously I wish parents would look after their fucking spawn!
(I can’t stand people ruining my photos, can you tell? It seriously enrages me.) Good thing I always take more than one dragon picture!
Speaking of parents not looking after their kids, we saw several children crawling up statues with no parent telling them off. Seriously they had NO respect for all the surroundings and décor or other park visitors. Which is disgusting really. No wonder society is going to pot.
But I digress…
After the dragon we went to get a return ticket for Peter Pan’s Flight. The CMs there were quite grumpy sadly but we at least managed to get the ticket.
Because we had loads of time before Pan we hopped into the labyrinth first.
And either we failed to notice this in the past, or either this was added, but apparently the Dodo’s pedestal can be turned around, making the Dodo turn around as well, which makes for a really fun effect to the caucus race. Had the labyrinth been less crowded then I would have made a film of it.
When we were posing around the card statues, some rude Irish woman made her kid jump in right after Sam.
When I pointed out it was actually my turn she muttered a not at all meant apology and made NO attempt to get her kid back and make it wait her turn. Fabulous example she was setting for her daughter there, absolutely the right way to teach her social values *sarcasm*.
Seeing that the labyrinth was quite crowed and the douchebags seemed to vastly outnumber the nice people we wandered out again.
(Hedge plates at the exit)
I had been wanting to take a video of the dormouse peeking out of the pink teacup (it’s an animatronic) for a while, so I decided to do that.
I had to wait for a bit because there was a family that thought it was hilarious to let their 3 sons wildly climb up and against the teapot. Seriously, I wish CMs would tell off these people.
And of course after they left, whilst it was quite obvious I was waiting for the Dormouse to appear (having the camera pointed at it being a rather dead giveaway), some French cow send in her daughters to go pose next to the teapot, right in my view. Another fine example of parenting *sarcasm*.
I didn’t get quite as nice a video as I would have liked due to fucktards but it’s better than nothing.
We then went into the teacups
and it all went a bit wrong from there on. Whilst having lunch, Sam had remarked that his coke (coca-cola obviously) was rather watery. I never had Nestea ice tea peach from a machine so I thought that it being a bit watery was probably just the drink. Apparently it wasn’t. Either that or there was something wrong with the food. But in any case, my stomach got upset, with my heart rate soon following and my blood pressure adding to the bill. To make a long and boring story short, I ended up spending quite some time at first aid where several lovely people tried to figure out what was wrong with me. I have to say, Disneyland Paris is probably one of the best places to be at when something goes wrong health wise seeing they have properly trained health care professionals around at all times. And they do know what they’re doing (as you may have guessed, I’ve ended up there before).
(I'm fine again now though, so no need to worry!)
When I felt well enough to walk around again we left first aid and went to find dinner. Well Sam went to find dinner, I didn’t quite felt like eating was the way forward yet. Turned out that Sam was feeling nauseous too, which led us to believe that the food or drinks machine had gotten to us and the turning of the cups was just the thing that tipped us over.
We decided to leave before the fireworks because we weren’t feeling 100% and leaving before the crowds seemed like a good plan. We did see bits and pieces of it walking to the parking lot so it wasn’t a complete loss :)
Next time we’re going to be eating at a proper restaurant and avoid drinks machines where we can though! We've never had issues with food at the park before (and we've both been HEAPS of times) but we rather not have a repeat experience even though we both realises chances to that are extremely slim.
Rude people and a trip to the first aid aside, we had a total blast and it was definitely worthwhile seeing the St-Pat’s celebration in Disneyland Paris.
If possible we might do it again next year :)
All photos from the day.
Photo scavenger hunt set.
And the obligatory outfit photos
Tailcoat: my own design, made it myself
Green scarf: made it myself
Green longsleeve: made it myself
Armwarmers: H&M
Hip bag: Eastpak
Bag: vintage, a Christmas present from my sister :)
Skirt: my own design, made it myself
Thigh high socks: Hema
Spats: my own design, made them myself
Boots: Kickers
Umbrella: Lisbeth Dahl (there's silver glittery polkadots on it, but sadly they don't show on the photo)
Point of fashion: casual steampunk for Air Kraken Day/Saint Patrick's Day 2010 :)
Copyright 2010 Sam Van den Bulck (photography) and Hilde Heyvaert (design).
All rights reserved.
No unauthorized use or distribution.