Think of Disneyland Paris landmarks and several things immediately
spring to mind. There's the Castle which can be seen from almost
everywhere in the park. In recent years the Earful Tower at Walt
Disney Studios has been added to the skyline. By next year it
will be accompanied by the finished Tower of Terror. Then of
course there is Big
Thunder Mountain - both the mountain and the ride, which was where
we headed at the end of the Lion King show.
Big Thunder Mountain is in Frontierland
The first view - it looks huge
The queue for Big Thunder Mountain was over an hour
long
We opted for collecting a FastPass and coming back
later ... much later.
Lunchtime at the Cowboy Cookout Barbeque - yee hah!
There was even a band playing whilst we ate - Disney
going way beyond the call of duty in their attention to detail.
A real magic moment.
After lunch we planned to ride Indiana
Jones and the Temple of Peril, but the queue was again in excess
of an hour. We collected yet another FastPass and headed deeper
into Adventureland in search of ...
Pirates!
... of the Caribbean no less.
Pirates of the Caribbean is one of the staple rides in each of the
Disney resorts across the world. Whilst blockbuster movies
usually spawn theme park attractions, this attraction has spawned a
whole movie franchise based on the ride.
We started on our boat tour through the coastal town that had just
been invaded by pirates when suddenly the sky erupted with
light. At first I thought it must have been Armageddon
(postponed from the previous day), but then I realised it was the
house lights. Announcements in a huge range of languages were
played throughout the building telling everybody what had happened and
that the ride would be back in operation soon.
For some reason, broken down boat rides have a tendency to drift
slowly backwards until they encounter another boat, then float
forwards again. Seeing part of the ride in reverse with the
house lights on lent itself to an excellent opportunity to take some
unique photos:
Inside Pirates of the Caribbean
Save the poor women!
None of the pirates came to help us
A long line of boats behind us
After a while the pirates went back to work, although it took ages
for the boats to get back to the station because so many had backed
up. It might not sound like a good part of the day, but it was
actually very relaxing and made for a nice sit down!
Eventually we disembarked and headed back through
Adventureland for our appointment with Indiana Jones.
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