Disneyland Paris 2018 seasons

[peep]

For those that don't know, I have an annual pass to Disneyland Paris. Throughout the year they kept on adding exciting events so we found ourselves just going back more than usual. We visited 6 times in total which I think pushed our limit and it'll be drastically reduced the next year or two while things are under construction. However as I don't really type up reports after each trip I decided to create an overview of the events the resort hosted this year (that we attended).


Christmas in January

Our first trip was actually meant to be for late 2017 but we ran out of weekends to attend the Christmas event so we ended up going the first weekend of the year to catch the last bit of Disney Christmas. Something the whole weekend felt weird due to already having Christmas and yet constantly hearing songs about Santa being on his way. The lower crowds were nice so we got to relax and enjoy rides and shows easily but I don't think we were able to quite appreciate the whole Christmas atmosphere.

A queue for a limited edition pin

First weekend of Jan also marks a European tradition with this sweet pastry thing which comes with a small gift

A trip to Walts means a free juice cocktail...

...And fancy food

One of the highlights was a new Big Band show fronted by Mickey and friends. The finale has Mickey mouse actually playing a drum kit really well. The whole show is just fun with great performers.

Another new show was in the Studios park which was more like a "sing-along" with a couple of original songs thrown in. It was an amusing show but extremely cheesy.

Also in the Studios is the evening finale show on Tower of Terror which is fun and full of projections all over the place.

 

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Season of the Force

For the second year running Feb-April was Season of the Force in the Studios. They added a fair bit this time round including lots of models of the vehicles found in the Star Wars films. The highlight was still the evening show on Tower of Terror. The weather was lovely but very cold.

 

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Pirates and Princesses

A last minute edition to the seasonal line up was Pirates vs Princesses which we laughed at when announced and yet it became one of the best things the resort has ever done. To the point where fans were very vocal about it's return... so it is! The concept is still weird but the show made for the season is such a joyous, energetic spectacle that is also interactive (dance routines to learn and dance along), it never failed to put a smile on our faces. The show took place on Central plaza with a mini parade before and after with a show stop in Fantasyland and Main Street USA. I was #TeamPirates because they were more fun, even if their dance was much harder to learn compared to the Princess side. They created two new characters to host the show Jimmy Ocean (Pirates) and Betty Rose (Princesses), they proved to be super popular with the fanbase to the point where Paris surprised us later in the year. The weather was excellent all weekend too which was great seeing as we spent most of it in Central Plaza dancing along.

We also had a meal at Bistrot chez Remy which was tasty...

Special snacks were also on offer. No idea what was in the Princess cake that Patrick got.

There was also a little interactive kids show by the boat in Adventureland with Jack Sparrow. Unfortunately this was popular and there isn't really any viewing areas for the performance space so it was a bit of a cluster but it looked like the kids involved had fun.

Looking forward to doing this festival again next year... in March. Fingers crossed the weather is at least dry.

 

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Marvelous Summer

Over the August Bank holiday weekend Patrick and I checked out the new Marvel Summer of Heroes season. We were excited to see the new mega expensive show that replaced Cinemagique (one of our favourite shows in a Disney park). Along with the Marvel event they also expanded their Food and Wine festival in the Studios. The event now included huts with offerings from several areas of France but also Germany, Belgium and Italy. Before getting to Disney we also popped into le Jardin d'Acclimatation in Central Paris. The new cred was fun for kids but prob the worst Gerst bob out there. The theming everywhere was fantastic, it was always a great city park with not many attractions but now its so much more. We also checked out the new interactive show which was good fun.

Lots of new areas to eat for the food fest

This coconut pastry thing was a bit sad.

It was hard to get into a performance of the new stunt show

So the big highlight was to be the new stunt show but honestly it was hot garbage. There was the occasional cool effect but half of the effects don't work (as in, during half of the shows season the big drone thing didn't turn on or the car didn't appear/hover). The updates to the theatre are good but they need to go back to the drawing board with this show. Even the outside show was disappointing, it made us both nervous about the upcoming attractions and shows in the next few years.

Food wise there was a new Spiderman burger which was awesome! Had this grilled cheese thing in the middle which was super tasty. There were also several Groot themed items.

We were so disappointed by the Marvel event we've decided to skip it next year. I hope for people going that they seriously improve the big show.

 

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Spooky Halloween

Halloween is always a great season in Paris, the decorations are everywhere, lots of entertainment and food offerings. It was also the start of the park celebrating 90 years of Mickey Mouse. In each land of the park there was a giant cupcake themed to the land along with a "cupcake girl" who had a whole backstory etc and would hand out a button with her character on. We saw a lot of people collecting the whole set of badges.

Main Street USA

Frontierland

Adventureland

Fantasyland

Discoveryland

The park actually added a new semi-permanent show in October, they imported the popular Mickey's Philharmagic. I'm not the biggest fan, especially as the CG versions of the characters are horrible and dated. Still it's a nice random addition to the park.

The best thing about Halloween this year was the massive upgrade to the Halloween cavalcade which was to also coincide with Mickey's 90th. They added a new float inspired by Phantom Manor with a magical touch, Mickey would randomly appear out of different doors in different costumes. It was awesome. To add to that there was a huge show stop in Central Plaza inspired by the Pirates vs Princess show. It was great fun and I think we all got a kick out of the Phantom touches.

 

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Christmas again

We ended the year with another Christmas trip, this time on the right side of the big day. One thing I hadn't mentioned is how ridiculous crowds were getting with each trip, I think this was the actual worst we'd ever seen it, we got barely any rides in as everything just had stupid queues - especially the restaurants. This was also the worst weather of the year where it was stupidly cold and pretty wet on the Saturday night. This meant the Goofy Christmas show on Tower of Terror was a bit of a let down as it was the wet version (so no live performers). Still there were several new highlights.

After our lunch in the Cowboy Cookout we came out to the beginning of madness as most of the "Fab 5" just randomly appeared to greet guests and they were in a playful mood. We hadn't seen this much character interaction in a while so it was a great surprise.

One of the new things this year was a show in the Studios for Mickey's 90th called Surprise Mickey. It was AMAZING. They even brought back Jimmy Ocean and Betty Rose from the Pirates and Princess festival. The songs were super catchy, the dancers were awesome and just overall left us with huge grins and covered in streamers.

Returning from the Summer was the new Winter food and wine festival in the Studios which had some festive treats on offer. The whole Ratatouille area was done up for the season and it looked great.

Other festive treats in the park included this apple mouse with apple compote, I thought it was tasty

Other entertainment updates were the Big Band show moved to the Studios into the Animagique theatre which was a much better home. The performers this year were also incredible. In the Studio Theatre they added a new show last minute which was essentially sing-along Frozen with an appearance from Olaf and Donald Duck? It was random but we appreciated the great live band.

So that's been it, a pretty ridiculous year full of great entertainment (and some not so great), tasty snacks and good laughs.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Hixee]

Quite the year of Disney! This is a good topic for reference actually - the sort of thing we'd have had on the old site with all the Park Guides!

Quality. I'd like to get back to DLP, actually. Plans fell through this year, so hopefully can make it happen in 2019.