Dad and I took a quick ride on Tower of Terror (same as Anaheim but still awesome), and then rode Rock N' Roller Coaster (different story line but same ride as Orlando). After that, we realized that we had pretty much seen the entire park. While Studios is a nice place to spend a few hours, it really needs to be looked at as another land of Parc Disneyland, there is not nearly enough to do to spend an entire day. We spent some time in the store, and started to realize that almost every store on property carried almost exactly the same things.
Next, we headed across the esplanade to Disneyland and headed straight for Discoveryland and Space Mountain. This ride is way different then in the US parks. It has an accelerated uphill launch and inversions. I would say it is a lot closer to Rock N' Roller Coaster then Space Mountain. Once we finished Space Mountain, we took a ride on Buzz Lightyear, and I vastly improved my score from the day before. Once we had finished our ride, we set off in search of lunch. We had seen some cool restaurants in Adventureland and Frontierland, so we headed over there to check out menus. All of the restaurants in Disneyland are absolutely beautiful, they went to great effort to build these restaurants. At least one restaurant in each land is table service, and some restaurants even had live entertainment (American country band playing in the barbecue restaurant). However, after checking several menus, and observing a very odd buffet, we noticed on the map that the new Pizza Planet restaurant offered a Pizza, Pasta, and Salad buffet. We headed back to Discoveryland where we started, and made one of the greatest discoveries of our trip, an all you could eat buffet for 16euro. YAY!
We headed inside and had a great conversation with the person at the register. She wanted to know all about Disney World, and how it compared to Disneyland Paris, as she had not had an opportunity to visit the US parks. We had a fantastic meal that even included a self serve soda fountain, I had a line of cups to prove it. With how much food we ate, I am sure that Americans will no longer be allowed in that restaurant, lol. From Pizza Planet we headed to the train station to take a ride to Frontierland but we found out that it was closed. This would become a trend throughout the evening, that everything started closing down well before the park, but there was nothing on the map or the schedule to tell you when something would be closing.
We started the hike back across the park to Pirates, and took another ride. Then, we explored Discovery Island, the pirate equivalent of Tom Sawyer's Island. Dad and I took a ride on the scariest ride ever, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril. I definitely felt in peril, but not in the good we designed this ride well kind of way. I felt peril in the this rickety thing is going to fall apart and boy does it hurt to ride this kind of way. And they tell me this thing use to go backwards, that would have been a nightmare.
After Dad and I escaped peril we headed into Fantasyland to ride some more rides there, but alas, everything we wanted to try was either closed for the night or closed for maintenance. We then headed back to Frontierland (lots of walking in this park) and took a ride on Big Thunder Mountain and Phantom Manor. Interestingly, we were the last group to ride Phantom Manor before it closed, even though the park didn't close for another hour. From there, we stopped by Casey's Corner to use our free soda coupons that came with lunch. The line was ridiculously long, so I ran to the deli where I was able to get our drinks in no time. We then decided to grab some ice cream, which turned out to be an excellent decision since it was Ben and Jerry's. We took a stroll through the Emporium and checked out the Liberty Arcade that runs behind the Main Street stores to help protect people from the French winters.
Once we were done in the Emporium, it was time to say goodbye to Parc Disneyland. We stopped in the Disneyland Hotel to check it out. It was probably the most Disneyesque of any of the hotels and was very fancy, but not quite my kind of place. We made a quick stop by the train station to buy our tickets for the following morning and then moved onto Disney Village and stopped in the Disney Store to buy all of our souvenirs. I really wanted a t-shirt, but adult males must not wear t-shirts in Europe because I could not find a single one.
We finished up our shopping and then quickly toured the rest of the hotels. We thought our hotel was weird, but it only got weirder. Our first stop was Hotel New York. This was where we had originally asked to stay. It was very nice, similar to the Swan or Dolphin, but not quite a Disney hotel. It was more what you would expect of a hotel in a big city. Then we went over to Hotel Cheyenne and Hotel Santa Fe, the two budget hotels. Hotel Cheyenne was like an old western town, and it was weird beyond belief. I can't even begin to describe it. We then went past Hotel Santa Fe, which resembled an old broken down apartment complex. Finally we arrived at Sequoia Lodge, which was the coolest, and most Disney like of all the hotels. Sequoia had a beautiful pool with a slide, and most of the rooms were in lodge buildings making it the only one of the six hotels to have grounds to explore. The lobby and the restaurants were beautiful. Well done Disney, I guess 1 out of 6 isn't bad.
Back at Newport Bay, we stopped by the store to grab the last few items we wanted, and then Mom and I went downstairs to check out the pool. As I mentioned earlier, we were staying on the Admiral's Floor. We were supposed to have a bunch of benefits such as a private dining room for breakfast, but all we really got was a special check-in desk, free pool towels (why do they charge for these anyways), a kettle (to appease the Brits), and a really nifty sign by the elevator telling everyone how special we are. The pool was a very nice indoor/outdoor pool, the outdoor part was closed until summer, with a giant ship and steering wheel. There was also an arcade and a fitness center located right by the pool. The one odd thing about the pool, arcade, fitness center area, was that it was down a long hallway on the first floor by a bunch of rooms. It was not connected to a public area. Also, there were only two doors in and out of the hotel, both from the main lobby. If you were staying at the end of a wing (the wings are really long) on the first floor, you had to go up to the second floor, all the way to the lobby, back down to the first floor, and out. I really don't know how Disney forgot their many years of experience when they were building this hotel.
After we finished exploring our unique hotel, we stopped by the front desk to exchange all of our euro coins for notes, and to ask what time the buses started running to the train station, since we had to leave very early. Then we did some packing, and went to bed.
Up Next Day 18: The Journey Home
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