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[sarah08]

Disney Studios

We visited Disneyland Paris in Easter 2015 and didn't really get to see much of the studios as we were in a large group that couldn't decide what to do and our children were only 2 and 4, so we were excited this time round to do more of the park. Here are some reviews of the things we did:

Mickey the Magician Show
I've started writing about this first because this was one of the biggest highlights of our whole holiday! It is a truly magical show... so much so we actually went twice. We queued outside the turnstiles for about 10 minutes before being hearded into a pen. On both occasions this was not a pleasant experience; The first time a lady passed out from the heat (we were penned for 35 minutes), and the second time the show was delayed so we were kept waiting for a very long time (50 mintues) and we were stood next to a horrible lady who was extremely abusive to her young son. When the doors finally opened, on both occasions, people swarmed towards the doors pushing and fighting to get in first. It was really quite unsafe for small children so I held me three year old son... this did not deter people from pushing us. However, once we were seated in the large auditorium, we had plenty of room and a great view thanks to the well tiered stand. The show is all about Mickey Mouse, a janitor, who wants to be a world famous magician. As he is cleaning the attic for a magician he is visited by Disney characters who teach him about magic. The show includes the Fairy Godmother and Cinderella, Lumiere, Belle and Beast, The Genie, Animals from the Lion King (similar to the West End Musical), Olaf and Elsa. Mickey himself speaks French for the duration of the show but all of the other characters speak in English or dual language. If you are able to, try to get a seat near to the barriers at the front of the second tiered section as the animals from Lion King interact with the audience there. This show is a must see, but is only scheduled to run until early January.

Motorcar Stunt show
The queue for this is easy to miss as it starts right round the back of the stand in the backlot area, this does mean that it is nicely shaded from the sun though, which was very welcome! We queued for approximately half an hour before entering the grandstand, and waited about another 20 minutes once seated. The grandstand is enormous, and again quite steeply tiered so I would imagine a good view from pretty much anywhere. I was expecting this show to be more of a stunt performance but it turned out to be more of an explanation of how the stunts are performed and put together to create movie clips. There is a lot of talking between stunts and the children got a bit bored. The show did feature Lightning Macqueen from Cars, which the children LOVED! But he was only in approximately 5 minutes of a 50 minute show. There are shoot-outs between goodie and baddies which meant loud bangs and the children didn't like the noise. At the end there is also a massive explosion and a blast of heat hits the audience so if you have young children I would advise you not to sit too close to the front. We sat about 10 rows back and the blast was uncomfortably hot. I do not regret going to see the show but I wouldn't go again.

Spiderman Meet and Greet
The Spiderman meet is inside, but the queue starts outside. It is a slow moving queue, we had a 40 minute wait in total, but once inside it only takes about 10-15 minutes. My 3 year old son had been really shy about meeting the characters and had refused to go near any of them without me if at all for the first couple of days so we were crossing our fingers he would respond positively. When we got to the front of the queue spiderman jumped up on the railing from behind a curtain and immediately caught my son's attention by pointing himself out on his t-shirt. He was so friendly and gentle with him. David was captivated immediately and thoroughly enjoyed himself. The photopass photographer took lots of photos of our children both individually and together and some family shots. I was really impressed with the whole experience. From that point on David's fear of the characters had gone and he was much more responsive and excited to meet them.

Ratatouille
The ratatouille ride was always very busy and as the studios park is not open for early magic hours, we kept our fast passes for this ride. Even with the fast pass it was a 20 minute wait. When we entered the building to queue my son immediately said he didn't want to go on the ride, possibly because it was very dimly lit. I tried to calm him and reassure him that it was like the buzz ride but with special glasses instead of a gun. He wasn't convinced. As we got to the front and stood in front of the little mouse shape cart he burst into tears so I took him out and let me husband take our daughter, who was also a little shaky but trying to be brave, on by themselves. When they came off my husband was full of how fantastic the special effects were, my daughter spoke about it enthusiastically to her brother but them came and whispered to me that it was really scary and she didn't want to go on again.

Slinky Dog
The queue for this ride went really quickly and was mostly under cover. I took my daughter on this ride by herself as my son had seen it going round and thought it was too fast... he was probably right, it did charge round pretty quickly and we were sliding around in the big booth quite a bit. My daughter LOVED this ride though and if it hadn't been the last ride of our last day she would definitely have gone on it more than once. Whilst we were on the ride my husband showed David around toyland and took his photo in the RC Racer photo booth.

The Incredibles Meet and Greet
It is a bit cheeky of Disney to list this as a meet and greet because you don't actually get to meet, speak or take photos with the characters. At the scheduled time Mr and Mrs Incredible come out on those round scooter things and parade around dancing to the theme tune from the movie. They cannot wave as they are not allowed to let go of the handle bars. My daughter asked where the girl and boy were and I said the girl is invisible and the boy is so fast you cant even see him. We saw this a couple of times as we were moving around the park but it isn't really something you need to wait for or schedule in. On one occasion they were followed out by Cruella De Ville, who quite rudely pushed her way through the adults in the crowd (in character), which was fun to see.

Other character meets in the studios
At about 11:45 on our first visit to the studios, we were lucky to be in the right place at the right time as a group of random characters came out to sign autographs and take photos. We managed to meet King Louis, Rabbit from Winnie the Pooh, The two mice from Cinderella (my daughter could tell you there names) and Mr Smee. Eeyore and Donald Duck were also there but we ran out of time as the characters only stayed for 15 mins. It must have been so hot in those costumes!! On our second visit, Mary Poppins, Bert and the Penguins were by the entrance/exit, as we were leaving and we met the penguins as this was the shortest wait and we had to get to the station for our train back to London.

There are character meeting spots for Woody and Buzz, and Sully from Monsters Inc, but every time we went past them there were long queues and no characters; They must have been on a rotation break. There were other rides and attractions in the park that we would have loved to do but with the heat, and two young children, we didn't get to do them. Overall I preferred the main Disney Park but I think for adults and older children the Studios had lots to offer that we didn't get to explore.

[magicianlondon.co.uk]

Great review Sarah - I am hoping to go there early 2017!