EPIC France Trip Feb 2009 *Day Two video up*

[peep]

Monday 16th February 2009


On Sunday Patrick and Mike came to mine, as we would have to wake up about 3am we decided on staying up the entire evening. We surfed the net and watched French film 8 Women and some South Park episodes to pass the time. Mike, Patrick, my sister Sam and I left the house just before 5am. We got to Grove Park station where we purchased the train tickets and waited for our train. We got on our Southeastern train and arrived at London Bridge station about 15 minutes later. We then headed to the underground to catch a Northern line train to St. Pancras station.

At St. Pancras we went straight to check in and we bumped into Benin and Kara.

*Waves hello*

This was jolly amusing. We were all uber tired due to the time of day (and our lack of sleepy time) but we were all excited and geared up for the trip ahead. Benin and Kara’s train began boarding 10 mins before ours so we had time to discuss our excitement etc. We then parted for our separate trains.

A couple of hours later and our train arrived at Paris Gare du Nord station. We then lugged ourselves and our luggage down to the Metro/RER ticket counter where a long queue of peeps had already formed. It took time but we finally got our ticket to Marne la valee chessy (Disney). The journey on the RER wasn’t too bad, about 20 mins or so. We encountered two beggars on this part of our journey. The first one played an instrument which was actually entertaining and the other handed out cards with a message in French and English. The card guy was not impressed when we didn’t give him any moneys, was quite awkward.

We finally arrived at the Disneyland Resort about lunchtime. We first placed our luggage in the Disneyland concierge and headed straight into the park. Typically stopping at the toilets first . Our first ride would be in Frontierland. The legendry Phantom Manor. Patrick and I love this attraction, it has amazing theming and some great scenes. The previous week Disney had installed new projections for Leota and updated her scene. I don’t think Sam was that impressed but it’s probably an attraction that grows on you over time.

We had noticed that Big Thunder Mountain had broken down (a train stuck at the bottom of one of its lift hills). So we walked straight past and headed to the Cowboy Cookout Barbeque. It was slightly busy but we didn’t have to wait too long for food. It was tasty and satisfied our appetite.

We then entered Adventureland and went straight into the queue for Pirates of the Caribbean. We queued about 25 minutes. This is also one of my favourite attractions in the resort but our ride was kinda ruined by someone’s insistence of taking photos with probably the brightest flash you could find. Bern.

Mike wanted a coaster credit and Sam was getting bored with dark rides so we headed to the back of Fantasyland for Casey Jr. Unfortunately it was closed so we continued round to it’s a small World. I was expected Sam to despise this ride but she enjoyed it because it had a catchy tune.

I think we all wanted something a bit more exciting so we went round to Discoveryland for Space Mountain: Mission 2. We didn’t have to queue long and we had sound on the ride! It was awesome and we all loved it, joyous moment.

After all that excitement we went back to Fantasyland to watch the Once Upon a Dream Parade. I had split from the others between Space and the parade to do some filming and ended up watching the parade from the castle. I believe Mike, Patrick and Sam grabbed their free hot drink as it was after 3pm (special offer they were doing in the resort if you purchased food or drink in the morning). The parade was running well and they had lots of characters and performers out, good atmosphere.

We then went back to see if we could get on Casey Jr and we could! We were very happy; it is such a fun little coaster with a great catchy tune. We then went back to Adventureland for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril. It is a great coaster which packs some punches with a really intense loop. However Patrick didn’t ride due to not really feeling in the mood for it. Fair dos, Mike, Sam and I loved it though

We then exited the park, collected our luggage from concierge and checked in at the hotel in Val d’Europe. The staff were friendly and so check in was nice and quick. After dropping our luggage off in our rooms we got back on the RER to get back into Disney. This time it was so we could go to the Village for dinner. After ages trying to choose which busy restaurant to eat in we decided upon the Rainforest Cafe. Our food was really nice and extremely filling.

MONKEY!


There was a lizard trying to get at our food!


Sam is happy to be at the Rainforest Cafe


Sam is bored of waiting for food


Patrick loves his cocktail


Mike is also please to be in the cafe


My food


Sam's food


Mike's food


Patrick's food


After our filling meal we headed back to the hotel and into our separate rooms. Sam and I in one room and Mike and Patrick in the other. I attempted to watch Hitman on TV which I found hard considering it was in French, lol, I think it was about a Hitman but I could be wrong. Anyways that was our first day, extremely exhausting with all the travel and lack of sleep but we got on some of my favourite rides and generally had a good day. I was mainly looking forward to the next day though, a day in the Walt Disney Studios.


Video Trip Report Day one

LINK

It's basically a skimmed version of the text trip report with images and an on ride video of Casey Jr!

 

[peep]

Tuesday 17th February 2009

We all met up again in the hotel reception area and decided to have the breakfast that the hotel was serving (basically a buffet which consisted of cereal, breads and yoghurt). The breakfast was good and prepared us for the day ahead. We did the 15 minute walk to the park from the hotel and arrived at the Studios just after opening. The place was packed so we grabbed some fastpass tickets for Tower of Terror for later in the day.

We then queued some time for Rock ‘n’ Rollercoaster. Annoyingly we had no sound, hardly any smoke and lights so the ride was really different. It is still an amazing coaster, I personally love the first inversion and strangely enough it felt more forceful without the majority of the effects.

We were a bit miffed that the effects weren’t really working on RnR but we moved on to Cinemagique. We had a little wait beforehand so we grabbed a small snack and drink. The guy working the food trailer that served us was determined to speak English which was quite amusing. I do love Cinemagique it’s just so well made, so magical and entertaining.

With still some time to go before our Tower fastpasses could be used we decided upon doing Art of Animation. It is a nice little attraction with some great items to look at in the first room. The montage in the second room is great and just reminds you how awesome Disney is. The third room with the animator and that character from Mulan is quite entertaining. I’m still annoyed by the language barrier thing, the headphones either don’t work or not loud enough to hear the translation over the French translation. Oh well, we also spent some time looking at concept art etc in the final room which I also find interesting to look at.

We exited the attraction and headed through Toon Studio (just to waste a few more mins) before going on Tower of Terror. Who do I spot at the entrance of the attraction? Only my favourite Tower cast member Bob, he is such a legend, shame he wasn’t inside operating or showing us the way but at least he is back (I didn't see him in October). We still had some great cast members inside and it was obviously an amazing ride, love it.

After Tower we went on Armageddon. Despite the pre-show this is a good attraction, brilliant effects that no matter how many times you go on it it will still make you jump or you will notice something else.

We headed over to Crush’s coaster but it was annoyingly broken down, on top of that it had a 90 min queue. After seeing this we headed over to the restaurant Rendez-Vous des Stars which is a buffet service opposite Armageddon. The food was superb, a great selection of foods including meats, ratatouille, a range of deserts and salads. Mentioning ratatouille, the star of the film, Remy, now comes out to greet the guests and occasionally dances to music. This was awesome and gave the place a brilliant atmosphere, totally recommended.

Remy!!!!


After filling up on food we wanted to do something where we were sitting down, luckily enough the stunt show was going to start in about 15 mins. Patrick went off and took pics of the park while Mike, Sam and I watched the show. It is longer than it should be but it does have its moments (especially the man on fire stunt).

We met back up with Patrick straight after the show where he informed us of his drama with his shoe (basically the heel fell off). The queue for R’n’R wasn’t too bad so we decided to queue for it. When we were inside the building we realised that we weren’t moving much, we later found out it had broken down for ages. When we finally got on the ride we had loud music (Dude looks like a lady) and it felt like there were more lights on, we could really feel a difference between the two rides we had on it but both rides were awesome.

We noticed on the time board that Crush was running again so we queued for that. We queued for some time but once we were on it it was totally worth it as we got a great spin. The ride overall is fantastic, great theming, good effects and just an enjoyable coaster.

The park had closed by the time we got off so we took some pics and footage and headed to the Disneyland Park. As Big Thunder was closed the day before we decided to just go for that no matter what the size of the queue. The queue was quite long but it didn’t take as long as we expected. We had a fantastic ride and because they were closing the ride by the time we got back into the station they allowed us to go round for a second time, that was awesome.

We then headed for the exit taking pictures of the nicely lit castle on our way out.


Mickey was also at the back of the Main Street station to say goodnight, which was nice. We then had a small evening snack in the Sandwich place in the Disney Village. Mike and Patrick went to the Santa Fe hotel to use the internet to get some more directions for the next day and Sam and I walked back to the hotel.

It was a great day, meh weather in the evening but we got some great rides in and got on almost everything we wanted to do in the Studios done. The next day was to be a very interesting one.

Video Trip Report of day two will either appear this evening or tomorrow at some point.

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

Reasonably scary how similar our days were so far...

We also had a dodgy train on RnR first time for example...

I always enjoy reading your TRs John, and this one is no different bar a seemingly lack of antics

 

[peep]

I always enjoy reading your TRs John, and this one is no different bar a seemingly lack of antics

Thank you for your kind words mister. Yeah, there was a distinct lack of antics. I'm sure the reports of Wednesday and Friday are much more enjoyable for you. Patrick's dismay over a missing heel isn't really a good enough antic, if you can call it that.

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

More of the videos as well please... It was rather epic...

 

[peep]

Wednesday 18th February 2009

We began the day by having breakfast at our Etap hotel at a silly time in the morning. We then got on the RER to Disney with our luggage. Off the RER train and nearly straight on to our TGV train. Where would this train be taking us? I hear you ask, to Futuroscope of course!

Our train journey was a couple of hours long; I forgot how far apart these parks were. After finding a staff member at the Futuroscope station we somehow got directions to our hotel as it wasn’t on site. After walking 15 minutes down this road we were finally at our hotel. A friendly guy greeted us at the hotel and already guessed who I was, I felt special After our quick check in we dropped our luggage off in our hotel room and went to the park.

I thought our online tickets would be nice and quick, nope, it took ages and the staff seemed new and didn’t know much English, however they were kind and friendly. We finally got our tickets (which were massive pieces of paper) and language radio thingy so we could listen to the films in English.

We entered the park by Dancing with robots so we did that first. Such an awesome attraction and it is definitely one of the highlights of the park. If you don’t know what it is, it is basically a robot arm with two seats attached, the arm then swings you round and about everywhere with the music. You can have it on one of three different levels. We all went for level 3 which I think we slightly regretted

After our fun but painful dance with robots we went on a short simulator attraction called Ecodingo. It is basically a race set in the future, it is rough, very bouncy and just weird. The beginning slightly reminded us of the race in Star Wars Episode 1.

After walking round to the other side of the park we noticed that Voyageurs du ciel et de la mer was about to begin. This gigantic building houses not one IMAX screen, but two!

It was insane to watch, one in front as normal and one below you which you could watch through a glass floor. It was incredible, it is basically a wildlife film but with a scope never seen before, the film is also an exclusive for Futuroscope. It was such an experience but very hard to keep concentrating as there was so much to look at.

We needed a break as we were feeling strained already and we had only been in the park for just under two hours. We found a small food place so we decided on having lunch here. It was really nice food and once again the staff were very friendly. We also had entertainment when we were having our lunch in the form of a stray cat. It was cute and everyone was giving it bits of bread from their sarnies/baguettes.

We then went round to watch Fly me to the moon 3D. I never caught this at the cinema last year and I believe this is a cut down version but it was brilliant. I loved it, so original and just enjoyable for all ages. If we had gone for a second day I think I would have suggested that we saw this again.

Building that houses Fly me to the moon 3D


The Gyrotour was next to the building showing Fly me to the moon so we went on that next. It’s interesting just to see the scale of this park and its hotels. After we came off though we found out we could have listened to the ‘tour’ in English, oh well it is interesting enough to look at the view.

Views from the Gyrotour






Next up was another random simulator, Best of dynamic cinema. This was just bizarre and I think all four of us were laughing for about 20 mins after riding. Basically on this one (uses the same system as Ecodingo) you are riding something (never find out what) which is attached via a bungee cord to a grand piano where some crazy dude is playing a tune and then riding this piano down a steep hill. There are just not enough words to describe how strange this ride was but I so want to go on it again.

We then came across the large children’s area (has its own map on the back of the large map). This area was so much fun, we started off by making a racket on this music making building, yeah, and we got some odd looks lol. We then did the maze which Patrick found an exit of in about 1 minute. Couldn’t find Sam for ages then see her on a bridge, turns out there were loads of exits


After having some great fun in the children’s area we headed to the main shop which was huge. This park has some amazing merchandise and we all ended up getting something lol.

We then went to watch a film on another IMAX screen called Dinosaurs which was in the building next to the funky dancing robots. It was an interesting documentary but you could really tell that it was cut down from the original version. Considering it lasts for 20 mins it really didn’t feel like it, must show how enjoyable it was.

We then entered the colossal mirror building to watch Mystery of the Nile on another IMAX screen.

I have a feeling this one was bigger than the others. Let’s put it this way, Patrick attempted to take a pic of the screen and failed to even get half of it in. Annoyingly the English sound things weren’t working on this film so we just had to watch the massive beautiful images on the screen. I’m sure it was a very educational film about the Nile and these peeps travelling down it exploring specific landmark areas on their way down. To us though, it was just beautiful images with a nice soundtrack

We were getting peckish and it was ages till the next film started so we went into the crepe restaurant for a lovely French crepe. Ah, was so lovely, it looked like it had recently been done up too with some cool stuff on the walls etc. All the crepes came with some form of sweet on top, mine had four chocolate fingers, yumm.

Mike and Patrick


Me and Sam


Restaurant


The next film that started was Deep Sea 3D (which I believe starts in London soon). We weren’t too excited about seeing this but wow. With English commentary by Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet and music by Danny Elfman it was like a dream film. The 3D was excellent and was funny when some dude stood up near the front at the end and it looked like the fish swam around him. The commentary was also informative and funny, we all had happy smiles when exiting.

It was getting dark and the attractions were closing up. We decided to grab some seats for the evening show, The blue note mystery. Before the show began they had a woman walk around the audience with a mic. From what we could gather she was asking the audience questions and then everyone went insane so they could answer the question. We don’t think they even won anything. I’ve not seen an audience go so insane over this sort of interaction since going to America, was fun though.

Arena seating


Then the show began, it was amazing, the effects are just superb. They use fans of spraying water for projections, fireworks, lasers, lots of lighting, smoke, fire and a cool tune. They have put a lot of effort into this show and it really shows, I reckon they even use the effects better than Disney :O

After the show it was time to leave the park premises, taking the audio things back on our way out. We then dropped our merchandise purchases off at the hotel before finding somewhere for our evening meal. After ages of bickering and being fussy we ended up at a lovely local pizzeria. The staff couldn’t speak English (why should they?) but they put up with us and served a lovely pizza. We then went back to the hotel for the night.


Video Trip report of both day two and three will be ready hopefully by the weekend.

 

[spicy]

Good PTR's, I have never heard of the Futuroscope before looks really good.

Random question, how did you find the prices? I went to the Rainforest in December and it was 25 euros for a rack of BBQ ribs which is like £25 obviously! Is it still that expensive?

 

[peep]

Places like Rainforest cafe are generally expensive but you get a decent meal that fills you up. I think a burger (with the usual chips on the side) was an average cost. I don't eat ribs but I assume they generally cost a bit more like steak. I don't reckon the cost has changed much since December though

You can find prices for most of the Disneyland Resort eateries on THIS SITE. Prices are probably a little out of date but it gives you a rough idea.


Hehe, not many peeps have heard of Futuroscope but it's a massive attraction for the French, the park doesn't seem to advertise outside of France apart from schools (how I found out about it a couple years back).

 

[peep]

Sorry for the double post.

Thursday 19th February 2009

We started the day at our Futuroscope hotel. We started the day as normal by having some breakfast at the hotel. We then packed everything back into our bags and headed to the train station.

Upon arrival at the station the screen told us our TGV was delayed by 30 minutes, great. We killed time by reading the history of Futuroscope boards and wandering around the station. Eventually the train arrived, a whole 50 minutes after it was meant to. This was slightly annoying as we wanted to make the most of our last day at Disney. The train did seem to get to Disney quickly but still not on time.



We dropped off our luggage at the Disneyland concierge and headed into the Studios.

As we had just missed a performance of Animagique we went for a snack at the Backlot Express. We seemed to have timed it well as a band was playing some music in there as we were eating. After our small snack we went over to Animagique. It is such a great show and it kept all four of us entertained.

We all wanted to get on Tower of Terror again before we left so we went and queued 30 minutes which was nice and quick. It was a great ride and it was a shame we couldn’t get another quick go on it. We then split so Patrick went off to take photos in the Resort while Mike, Sam and I went to Val d’Europe shopping centre. This place is massive, it just seemed to go on forever and then there is the village area outside too. The main purpose for this small trip was so Sam and I could get Yelle and Superbus CDs. We succeeded and got them cheaper than anticipated. We then grabbed Frappacinos from the village Starbucks, yumm.





We walked back to the Resort getting to Main Street just in time for the Once Upon Dream parade. We got a good spot considering we arrived so late.



















Patrick was only standing opposite us so it was easy to grab him so we could check in at the hotel (after picking our bags up at the concierge of course). We were back at the Etap at Val d’Europe and it felt like we had never left

We walked back to the Resort and went straight into the Disneyland park. We then went to Discoveryland hoping to get on Space Mountain but it had quite a queue so we walked straight on Star Tours. It’s still a great attraction but it is really bouncy and the seats were quite worn out.

After our Star Tour Sam and Patrick went to get a spot for Candleabration and Mike joined me on a small adventure to get some more video footage in Frontierland. We then all watched Candleabration which feels weird without them using the stage and having a dance with the flags. The castle did look amazing with all the Christmas lights as well and Mickey and Minnie on the castle works better than I expected.

We then joined the mass hoards of peeps leaving the park, spotting Mickey waving goodnight at the back of the Main Street station. How did he get there so quickly? We went into the Disney Village for our evening meal. As what seems to be becoming a tradition I had to go to Annettes. It was a lovely meal when it finally arrived. It took ages for our food to come and we saw several people come and go before we got served. The waitress was really apologetic though and the food was great.

We browsed the shops for a little bit before walking back to our hotel for the night.

It was a strange day overall with all the travelling everywhere and the random mix of the different areas but it was still enjoyable. Our last day in France was to be very random.

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

Animagique is awesome... Did it the first time on Thursday as well and loved it excessively :lol:

I also think Mickey and Minnie on the castle is much cooler, even though us with eagle eyes spot them crouching along getting to their spots...

Annettes however I didn't like for some reason... Just seemed to not have the atmosphere it once did in my eyes I guess... A shame

 

[jokerman]

I loved futuroscope when I went there a few years back, but from the look of it its changed a bit. The buildings are incredible, and the water show thing was breathtaking.

Oh, and I loved that video.

 

[peep]

^^Shame you didn't have a good time at Annettes.

^Thanks jokerman for your comments. The evening show has actually changed for this year. You should get a glimse of the show in the video trip report coming soon.

Last day of the trip report and the videos will follow shortly (day two at the bottom of this post).


Friday 20th February 2009

Our last day at the Val d’Europe Etap hotel started with breakfast (of course, what else?). We then collected our luggage and left the hotel for the RER. We then had a 20-30 minute journey to Gare du Nord station where we left our luggage in this locker evil facility.

We then caught the RER and Metro to Notre Dame.

Patrick outside the Metro station








Sam outside Notre


Patrick and Mike




It is such a large building. The architecture and stain glass windows are amazing and inspirational. We only wandered around the ground floor and we didn’t pay to go to the top. As we exited the building the bells began to ring, that was good timing. We took loads of pics of Notre Dame before getting back on to the Metro to the Eiffel Tower.









We weren’t too sure if we wanted to go up the tower or not and with one of the corners closed for refurbishment the queues were massive. We were also getting strained for cash so we decided not to in the end. Instead we spend ages taking photos and walking around the general area.















We then grabbed another Metro train to Arc de Triumph. We spent some time staring at it but we then got sidetracked by the French traffic. No offence to anyone but not only is this roundabout badly designed (no clearly marked lanes) but the drivers just seemed to do what they wanted, some even stopped for no apparent reason just in the middle of this fast moving traffic. Fools.













We then walked down The Avenue des Champs-Élysées which was really, really long. We stopped off at McDonalds (yeah I know, eww, but tight for money meant extremes) for lunch. I was a lot better than we anticipated and tasted so much better than in the UK, they even have beer on tap, this amused me. The meat in the burgers actually tasted of meat and were satisfying.

On our way down this avenue we stopped off at a cool looking Peugeot showroom as they showcase futuristic cars. It was really cool and one of the cars was shiny.







Our next stop was Virgin Megastore, yay, it lives! It was a really large store and we took our time looking through the vast choices of CDs and DVDs.



We then spotted the Disney store which we decided to enter, we didn’t see any merchandise we hadn’t seen before but the decorations were amazing. The store not only had a chandelier but some beautiful paintings of classic Disney animations around the top border of the shop interior. It was a bit of a quick in and out because it felt like a sauna inside.

We continued down the Avenue as Patrick said that the Luvre museum was at the end. We saw a lovely building on the way which housed a pastry making tutorial place. It was tempting to enter, but we didn’t





Sam and I also started to get a bit bored so we began to make silly conversation which was anything but making sense which confused Patrick and Mike. What were we discussing? The contours of the pathway and how it goes up and down, yeah it doesn’t get much more thrilling than that.

The next thing we came across was Cleopatra’s needle. The area was really nice, some awesome fountains and some cool buildings. We spent some time here just taking pictures and making up silly stories as to what the hieroglyphics say. I believe it is something to do with birds eating other birds.





A little further and we had entered the gardens that join on to the Louvre. We saw benches so we decided to take a break in our lengthy walk. We then discussed the nature of the bench and the difference between ponds and lakes. Yeah, we must have been really bored.

Once again we didn’t actually enter the Louvre but we just stared at it and it’s glass pyramid.



We went through a walkway and not only did we find the Metro system but we also found some locals on rollerblades playing football. It was odd but satisfying to watch, they were all really good but after a while they started to pack up, so we headed for the metro.



We went back to Gare du Nord because we were exhausted and just generally too tired to come up with any good ideas on what the hell we should do. After ages we decided that a cafe would be a good idea but instead of actually going to a cafe we ended up walking around the area for ages. It isn’t exactly the greatest area of Paris and does beg the question as to why Eurostar chose this as their Paris terminal.

For some bizarre reason we ended up in the McDonalds opposite the station. We just grabbed a drink (and a McFlurry for moi ) and sat down upstairs. After a little while some French girls sat down next to us and were eating their meal. I went to use the loo and when I came back they were having a discussion with Mike, Patrick and Sam. That was an odd moment, turns out the conversation was even more peculiar. Not only could we speak minimal French but only one of them could speak some broken English. It was a massive lol moment for all six of us. We did get to understand most of it like where we were staying (Val d’Europe) was the same area they lived in and the university they are going to come September is near Patrick in the UK. It was such a surreal discussion but it really the made the day.

After sitting in McDs for ages we headed back into the station to grab our luggage. We then got on our Eurostar back to the UK, au revoir France!

It was a good day, very random and lots of walking but it was just sad that it was the end of the trip.

Hope you enjoyed reading my trip report!

The video trip report of day two is now available HERE

I advise that all my videos from this trip are watched in HD (if poss).