Our last morning at Disneyland Paris came with the warmest, sunniest weather we’d had yet, so we spent it running around taking as many photos as we could. Patrick was particularly keen on detail shots, including an inordinate number of spires and turrets, so I’m subtitling this installment “Tour of Towers”!
We got to sleep in till 8am, then we packed up and ambled over to the Castle Club for free breakfast. We arrived late enough that this time the characters were actually there! We got to meet Mickey, Minnie, Pluto and a random penguin (always the best kind of penguin)!
Apparently Mickey was just as thrilled to see us as we were to see him.
…Orrrrrr he was looking past us at Pluto.
Proof that you really can meet characters at breakfast in the Castle Club.
I have no idea what this penguin was doing (stain removal? one-armed pushups?) but it sure was cute!
After breakfast, we decided to really get our money’s worth out of Club Level by giving the concierges a Sisyphean task to accomplish for us. We piled all our souvenirs into a wheelbarrow, pushed them down the hall, dumped them out onto our favorite concierge’s desk, and asked her to make them magically reappear at our house. How much could it possibly cost? How much indeed…
The Disneyland Paris app showed that the Disneyland Railroad AND Alice’s Curious Labyrinth AND Toad Hall were all finally OPEN! So we bounded downstairs to enjoy the heck outta Disneyland Paris for the last couple of hours before we headed to real Paris.
…And then we were FOILED! The Disneyland Railroad was NOT open, despite what the app said.
So closed….
So very closed….
A cast member sweeping up snow said she thought it might be open over in Fantasyland, so off we ran toward the back of the park!
Hiya, Discoveryland! Can’t stop now—we’re trying to catch a train!
The park’s been open 7 minutes, and that guy is bored already?!
I love that this photo has snow drifts AND ginormous icicles in it!
I think this shot might be out of order, but that’s the Fantasyland Train Station in the back. And it is very, very closed.
FOILED AGAIN!
In addition to the train station, Alice’s Curious Labyrinth was ALSO still closed, despite what the app said! These are the most photos Patrick could get of it from the outside.
And, because Toad Hall doesn’t actually exist and is just a flat backlot-style setpiece that we will never ever be able to go inside, that was still closed too! I don’t even have a photo of the outside, we were that disappointed.
Instead, we went on Peter Pan a few more times…
Patrick has GOT to lay off the acid!!!
This one perfectly captures how I was feeling about our frustrating last few hours in the park…
At this point we went back to Main Street Station and were told that the Disneyland Railroad *might* be opening soon, so we decided to wait. Patrick wandered around Main Street, U.S.A. taking photos while I melted all the snow around me by stewing over whether we were wasting out last few minutes inside the park.
After 20 minutes, I just couldn’t take it anymore, and we agreed to spend our remaining time wandering around, soaking up the atmosphere and taking phtos.
No Tour of Towers would be complete without the Eiffel Tower!
Patrick loooooved Sir Mickey’s Boutique! The way the beanstalk continues from the outside to the inside is genius!
At last, it was time to bid Disneyland Paris farewell. As we headed back to the hotel to get our luggage, we got a call from the concierge letting us know how much it was going to cost to ship our souvenirs back to the US. Are you sitting down? Please, go sit down. Even I am sitting down… OK, get ready: €546! On Feb 10, 2018 that was $673!!! To ship $75 worth of tchotchkes!!! Even the shippping prices in Tokyo hadn’t been that high.
Patrick had an alternative solution…
If you can fit it into a Disney post box, they have to ship it for you for free, right?!
Instead, we took this beautifully packed box that the concierge had so lovingly assembled up to Paris with us on the train, so Patrick could carefully dissassemble it that night and integrate our souvenirs into our luggage.
