The Differences between Disneyland Paris and the Disney Parks in the United States

In this week's episode, Jared returns from Paris and highlights the differences between the American parks and Disneyland Paris. 

Transcript

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On this weeks episode of a Dryer Dose of Disney, Jared compares the Paris parks to the Parks in the United States. Intro Music Welcome to this week's episode of a Dryer dose of Disney. I'm your host, Jared dryer. And we are back from Paris. So this has been an exciting lead-up over the last few months. Talking about visiting the international Disney parks. And we just completed our first trip to Paris Disneyland, and we have so many fun things to share with you. So we're so excited to do this episode for you, but before we do that, let's do a couple of quick housekeeping items first. And that is if you haven't subscribed to us yet, go ahead and find that pause button. So whether you're listening to us on a podcast or you're out there on YouTube find that subscribe button and smash that. So that way you're going to get this content. Delivered into your inbox each and every time we drop an episode for you guys. And then if there are any tips or tricks that have saved you time or money, we do appreciate the support over at Patreon. You can find that down in the links below in the podcast description and at our highest tier, you're going to get our best tip of trick ever. Which is something we don't want getting out into the public. And it's a really cool one. We use it all the time and it gets us to the front of the line. So it's a really cool opportunity for you to learn the top Disney tip or trick that is out there. So check that out and then over my shoulder here, you can see, we have the, I can do this all day gear. So we've got t-shirts backpacks, water bottles, phone cases, all that cool stuff over on Etsy. We also have that in our description below. And it doesn't talk about our podcast. It's just a really cool logo that we like to use with our, I can do this all day tip of the day and you guys can definitely get that on some of the merch that we've got out there. So few quick updates that we're going to be talking about. Obviously today we're going to be talking about the differences between Disneyland Paris and the American parks, and we've got an extensive list. So this is a really good insightful episode. That's going to tell you the differences between what we saw out at Disneyland Paris and what we've experienced here at both the Anaheim and the Orlando park. We're going to go through an extensive list. On today's episode, we will also in the future be doing an episode on the best practices when traveling internationally to Paris, and I'm going to stay specific to Paris because that's the only European place that we've been to. And we had a lot of cool experiences out there. So we've got an episode coming for you on that in a few weeks. And the reason is we are getting ready. We're packing up. We just got home and we're going to be going right back out the door. To our condo in Orlando, we're going to be staying at the dryer dose of Disney condo. And again, we do have that link in the description below. So if you want to stay where we stay at our condo we do have a VRBO and Airbnb site out there that you can click and stay. If it's available to you, you can stay at our condo out there in Orlando, which is just two exits from the park. So we absolutely love it down there. We spend a few weeks out there every single summer, since my wife's a teacher, my daughter's in school. We like to get away from Denver when the school's not in session. And so we're going to be going for a few weeks this summer. And so I won't be recording when we're out there this year. Typically I do take my laptop with me and we've done other episodes with special guests. Betty says out there in Orlando. But we decided not to do that this year because we just want to do some family time and do some repairs on the condo and just do the general upkeep. So I won't be recording until we get back. So our next episode probably won't drop for a few more weeks. Where we talk about the best practices when traveling to Paris internationally. But we do have this episode for you today, which is the fun one. This is the one that tells you what are the biggest differences between the parks. With that, let's go ahead and dive right into this episode and talk about what we experienced out there. Now I will say I'm wearing a new RSVLTS shirt. That my family got me for father's day. That was just this last weekend. And it is the new Up shirt. Absolutely love it. So if you guys like RSV LTS, check them out. I am not an affiliate. I don't make any money from them at all. I just love their shirts and they're great for the parks. So I wanted to point that out. But going to Disneyland Paris, we learned so many cool things about Disneyland Paris and the two parks that are out there as well as the city of Paris and the country of France in general. That we wanted to share with you guys, because there are some key differences between the American parks and the European parks that are out there. With that, what we're going to talk about today are the noticeable differences. So I've got two lists here. The first list are things that Paris does absolutely better than Anaheim or Orlando. And then we're going to go through the second part of the list, which are the things that the American parks do a lot better than the Paris parks do. If you're not familiar with the Paris Disneyland setup they do have two parks out there. They have a handful of hotels. It is more on par with the Anaheim parks. If you've been out to California. Where they have a Disneyland Paris, and then they have the Walt Disney studios. It is a similar, but a little bit smaller than California adventure on the Walt Disney studio side of it. So if I'm giving a comparison between the two, I would say it's most closely related to the California parks. But there are a lot of similarities to magic kingdom and Disneyland Paris as well. But overall Paris does a handful of things better than the American parks. And at the top of that list, if you've ever heard about Disneyland Paris, you're probably already aware that their space mountain is hands down better than either the space mountains at the American parks. And this is without a shadow of a doubt. A hundred percent true. We rode that ride multiple times and it is amazing. Their space mountain is very much. At the look and feel of it is more out of a Jules Vern type novel. They do have the submarines over there from 20,000 leagues under the sea that you can go check out as well. But they design their tomorrow land. Their future land around this Jules Verne. Approach. So it's very steam, punk oriented. But they've got an amazing space mountain. So when you get on this ride, it actually starts with a launch. You do have the full harnessed coaster in there because there are loops and corkscrews inside of space, mountain. And when we were there, it was themed as hyperspace mountain, which they've done a few times out in Anaheim. And we've had the privilege of experiencing that. Absolutely awesome. I'm a big star wars fan. You could see me Grogu and R2D2 over my shoulder here. So it was really cool to see hyperspace mountain. We absolutely loved it. It is a much better ride than what you've got at the American parks. Not only with the launch, but with the inversions and the corkscrews in there. It's similar, but a little bit different than like rock and roller coaster. If you'd done that out in Orlando. But it is a much better ride overall. Now on top of that, the wait times at space mountain were much shorter than what we see here in the states, which is surprising. In fact, most of the wait times were lower than what we saw here in the states. And there's a key reason why. And we'll talk about that here in just a few minutes, but. The biggest difference right out of the gates is space. Mountain is much, much better out at Disneyland Paris. The second thing that really caught my attention was their haunted mansion, which they call Phantom Manor is a lot more spooky than what in the states. I don't know why this is, I don't know if there's a cultural difference where they embrace fear and that side of the macabre a little bit more than what we do here in the United States. But it was definitely spookier. They focus more on the bride. So if you're familiar with the rides here in the states you know that when you get into the attic and Orlando or different part of the ride in Anaheim, you're going to meet the bride who has killed her husbands multiple times. Usually by beheading them. But the bride is the central focus of Phantom Manor and she's being controlled by the Phantom, which is a really cool add on to their park there. The Phantom is not too far off from the hatbox ghost that we see here in the states. I do believe that the hatbox ghost is a little bit of a better character and the way that they do the. Special effects with him is a lot cooler here in the states, but the Phantom and the bride are the focal points of their ride because of that, there are, like I said, it is a little bit more spooky. They have a lot more skeletons when you go through the graveyard scene. In fact, they've got this quirky. Old west style graveyard that you're going to run into down there. But overall I will say Phantom Manor is a lot spookier there. They do use a replica of the house from psycho. So if you're familiar with the old Alfred Hitchcock films they do replicate that house as their Phantom manner. It, like I said, it's spooky. It looks a lot creepier than the mansions that you're going to see an Anaheim or Orlando. So that was something that was really cool. I really liked it. I enjoyed it. I can't say that I liked it better just because of the nostalgia of the two parks here in the states and how much I love them. But I did like that spookiness factor of Phantom Manor, and I thought that was really cool. The third thing that was really different than Paris does better is their food quality is better. And I don't know if this has to do with their food regulations in this, in the country of France or whatnot. But at multiple different restaurants that we went to, we found that the food quality was better than what we have here in the states. Now. I'm going to talk a little bit more about food here in a few minutes and how the states do some things better, but as to the quality of food, meaning the quality of the specifically like chicken that was in one of the burritos that we ate. It was just much, much better out there in France than what we get here in the states. That was something that was a little bit different. My next one is one that I like to rant and rave about. I talk about it on a lot of different episodes. And that is single rider. I think single rider is something that's very important to theme parks. I think that every single theme park should have more single rider lines. In fact, if you've listened to our single rider episode, I will tell you that I believe the universal parks do it 10 times better than Disney because they offer a single rider on almost every single ride, which is awesome. So if you don't want to wait the full hour or so. Wait time. That's out there posted. You can jump into a single rider and break up your group and get on usually really quick in most cases. And that's something my family and I like to take advantage of. So we really like single rider lines. Especially if there's a ride that not everybody in our group wants to ride. So single rider is key at the Orlando parks. They only have four rides between all four parks that have single rider. What we saw in Paris is that there were multiple rides that every single park that had it. So that is something that they've done a little better. And let's go back to space mountain for a second. Because space mountain in Anaheim used to have it where you'd go in through the exit. I've heard that's now gone. And then in Orlando they have it, but only when you get into the final queuing section. And when we've done it, they've been very confused about it. Meaning that the cast members don't know how to do it. They don't know how it works. We've asked multiple cast members. Hey, we would like to do single rider. And they tell us, go talk to that cast member. We talked to that one and they send us somewhere else. Space mountain is one that definitely needs it at both parks and they have it in Paris. So we were impressed with the single rider setup that they had there. It definitely move lines long, a lot quicker. And then it gave us an opportunity if we ever wanted to jet back in and ride one of those rides again we could do it really quickly with single rider because not many people used it. So single rider is definitely better in Paris than what we see here in the states for Disney. Again, universal does it so much better that the universal parks in the states is much better than what we even. It's not Disneyland Paris. The next thing is something that was unique to the Paris parks that we've not seen here in the U S maybe with animal kingdom, you could say you see it there. But that is the interactive lands. That you can walk through and spend time in what I mean by that is Disneyland Paris. They have two sections of their park that you can roam freely and go exploring in and go check out that will burn up some of your time during the day. These are they have a hedge maze over at Alison Wonderland and fantasy land where you can walk through and get to the queen of hearts, castle, and go see the different parts of Alice in Wonderland, the cartoon. They also have adventure aisle, which is a. Throwback to both. Pirates of the Caribbean. So they've got this really cool set up there, but also Peter pan. Cause they have skull rock in there. You can walk through there's a pirate ship, unfortunately, that was roped off the day that we were there. But you can go through all these different caves and wander around this area and explore. And we had a great time doing that. We think this is something Disney should probably do more of because it definitely occupies some of your time and it gets people out of some of the queues and they can self pace through some of these areas without a wait time, which was really cool. So that is definitely something Disneyland. Paris does better. When I say we have that at animal kingdom, you do have the safari trucks that you can walk out on and go see some of the animals. So it's similar in nature to that if you're familiar with animal kingdom, but if you think about it at the Disneyland park in Anaheim or magic kingdom, we don't have that kind of stuff that they do at Disneyland Paris. So that is one thing that they did much, better. Next at Disneyland Paris, they have, instead of genie plus, or the old lightning lane, they have what's called premier access. I can't say that they do it better, but what was better about the Disneyland Paris parks is no one uses it. So premier access is, something that people aren't willing to pay for. It's not caught on very well. There, it's not something that is going to slow down the lines, which is why I like it. If you've listened to our other episodes, you do know that we do not like genie. Plus we do not think that it's worth it. In most cases. There are a few isolated times depending on your schedule and which parks you're going to, that you may want to use it. But for the most part, we go to the parks with our annual passes. We're there very often, and we can still knock out the majority of the parks before two or three in the afternoon without ever paying for it. So for example, in April, this year, we went back to the parks for my daughter's birthday. We were able to do a two parks in one day and never had to pay for Genie plus, and we were able to ride all the rides that we wanted to. So to do that at two different parks in the same day without genie plus is pretty impressive, but it goes to show you that if you have a plan and you go into your day organized and what's rights to hit and you can stay ahead of the crowds just a little bit, you don't need to pay for Jeannie plus, and you can still ride pretty much everything that you want to. Now let's go back to Disneyland Paris. So they have premier access. This is available just like Genie plus on most of the rides that are out there. But like I said, you didn't see people using it, which means that when you're in the general queue, waiting for the ride, your line is continually moving and it doesn't get stopped to take the premier access customers onto the right now don't get me wrong. There were a couple people here or there, but when they would stop the line to take them, they were taking two people. They were taking maybe four people. They weren't taking what you see here in the states, which if you're familiar with say magic kingdom in Orlando, when you go to get on the buzz light year, ride over and tomorrow land, there are so many people going through the genie plus lightning lane over there. That basically, if you're in the general queue, you could not move for 15 or 20 minutes and just stand still because they're taking thousands of people through the lightning lane over there that is frustrating and annoying for people that aren't willing to pay for genie. Plus. And it turns the parks into a pay to play type atmosphere, which I don't like. I think that's a cruel trick. I think that takes away. The fun of the parks by saying that you have to pay to do these things quicker. I liked the old lightning lane fast pass style where everyone could get it. You could go get the little tickets that they had if they want to keep it digital, that's fine. And go digital. But everyone had access to it. You may get a couple a day, but you didn't have to pay for it. The way that the parks in the states now are, is really, it is a pay to play, but that's not how it is in Paris. And again, those general queues. I moved very quickly because not everybody was doing the premier access. So I really liked that about the parks out in Paris. So that would be a tip is if you go to Paris, do not pay for premier access. You don't need to the lines move very quickly without it, because the line aren't being clogged up with all the premier access people. The next thing was something that was really interesting to us. Something that definitely stood out. A lot and really made our days very interesting. And that is at the Disneyland Paris parks. They do not have mobility scooters. I don't know what it is about Disneyland Paris that makes it different than the Disney parks here in the states. But we did not see any mobility scooters now. Don't get me wrong. We did see a couple people with like broken legs or maybe they were in a boot. And they had a wheelchair, or we did see some handicap people that were in wheelchair. So they do obviously allow that into the parks. We did see those people that had those mobility devices, like a wheelchair or the children that were disabled. They were able to go through the exits of the line, which is something that they used to do quite a bit at Disney land in Anaheim. But what we noticed, where there were no mobility carts and all honesty. A lot of the queue were very narrow. In fact I'm not a big guy. I'm. Arguably Husky. And there are some rides and some queues out there that were even tight for me. So I can say that people that are severely overweight or in a mobility cart probably couldn't navigate the queues just because they're so narrow. And that's probably why they don't allow them, but there were no mobility carts in the park, which means that when you're walking through the park, it was quicker and easier to walk through the parks. The crowds, weren't getting clogged up with mobility scooters, and though in the states thousands of them in the parks and I know people need them. And maybe wonder a, why does Paris do that? And B can that happen in the states or would there just be complete revolt? At our parks here. So I can't say which way is better because I definitely believe some people do need them and should have access to them. But it was a noticeable difference. I can say in Paris, like I said, the crowds moved a lot quicker. The queues were moving a lot quicker and there were no mobility carts out there at all. So that was a big difference. The last thing is actually something that was small. But it was definitely something worth bringing up. And that is all of their bottled drinks in Paris. The lid stay attached to the bottle. They have a thicker piece of plastic around the lid. So when you break it off and unscrew it, it stays on the bottle. That was something that stood out to us. And we said, why don't they do this in the states? It makes it 10 times easier. You're not going to lose or drop your lid. And it just keeps it right there with the bottle. So something that should probably happen here in the states. I don't know why it's happened in Paris and not here. But that was something that we liked. We like to get a lot of bottled water throughout the day. We drink a lot of water in the parks, and that was a nice factor to have the lid attached to the bottle, something small, but let's talk about what the parks in the states do better. Because there were some things that we do better here in the states than what they do in Paris. And these were worth calling out. So a few minutes ago, we talked about the quality of food being better in Paris. Specifically we ate at the Coco restaurant in magic kingdom over there at their Disneyland Paris, and I got a chicken burrito and it was phenomenal. It was so good. The ingredients tasted. Amazing. It was just one of the best burritos I've ever had. And like I said, the quality of food there is better, but we have a lot more variety of food in our parks. Meaning that when you go to magic kingdom in Orlando, you can get everything from popcorn to pretzels. To even the cream cheese pretzels, two egg rolls over in adventure land. We just have a lot of variety of food throughout the parks. Their parks only have a couple of snacks available at the different stands, so they have crepes. Obviously everywhere and we love the crepes and the Nutella crepes were awesome. But they have crepes and popcorn and that's really about it. They do have some of the frozen Mickey treats, like the Mickey had ice cream stuff like that. But they didn't have the large variety of snacks. So when you'd go to different carts, I'm going to try different foods. It was very much the same at every single cart. So that was something that stood out to us. We're big foodies. We like the different foods at the different parks. And that was something that we do better here in the states is the variety of food. I'm not even going to go into the fact that Epcot has thousands of different foods. You can eat there. Let's just talk general Disneyland Paris against Disneyland, Anaheim, or magic kingdom. Our state's parks have more variety of food than they're parked in. The second thing was actually something that was puzzling to me. Considering that Disney has tried to build these parks very similar to one another. So if you're familiar with the layout of the parks they have a very much a spoke and hub. Mentality to the Disney parks. If you pull up a Disney. Map, especially the magic kingdom and Disney land Anaheim. You can see the spoken hub, meaning that the hub is the center of the park, where the castle is, and that center area that you're going to watch the fireworks from the spokes are those that stick out into the rest of the land. So tomorrow land fantasy land, adventure, land frontier land. All of those different areas of the park. In Paris, they have the same kind of layout. So there's that same spoke and hub. However, it's not easy to navigate and you have difficulty finding your way around. Meaning, and this is the best example I can give you. If you've been to Disneyland in Anaheim or magic kingdom in Orlando, you know that when you're over in the land close to frontier land and adventure land. Usually you have that lake area, the water where the old Steamboat is running, that you can go ride. They have that there as well in that same kind of area. The differences is when you're in the states, you can see around the lake, you can see where splash mountain is. You can see where thunder mountain is. You can see where the haunted mansion or pirates is. In Paris, you can't. And the reason is, that they have large hedges. They have a large bushes. That prevents you from seeing around the area, which means when you want to find where to go or where, how to get to some of these rides. You actually had to pull up a map or follow signs to get there because it wasn't intuitive. You couldn't just see it and walk towards it. So that was one big difference that we noticed was in the layout and the navigating the parks and finding your way around. The next one is in the states. We do shops a lot better. So we have more shops. They're definitely theme to all the rides. And they had some shops throughout the parks, but they didn't have as many meaning at the exits of the rides. There may be one for that whole land. They didn't have a many tried where they would have the merchandise for that ride. They had a few throughout the different lands through the parks. But we have more shops in the states and they are all definitely themed to those rides. Where, for example, if you want to get star wars stuff, you can go to the black Spire outpost. Or you can go to star tours and go to those exits of those rides. And you're going to find that stuff. Over in Paris, you're not going to find that. So you're going to go into the shops. You're going to see a lot of the general park merchandise in all of the shops. And then yes. And the tomorrow land one, you're going to find some star wars stuff. But it's not going to be the same as, in the states where you can go to a specific ride and get it all. So that was a little bit different and something that I feel we do a little bit better here in the U S again in the U S we're heavy consumers. And so we're always looking for an opportunity to shop. Next is the show. So Paris yes, they have their fireworks show at the end of the night, that projects up on the castle, just like the happily ever after show that we have here in the states, they also have the new drone show, which is really cool. We did get a chance to see that. But one of the things that. Surprised us was how late. The show started.

So the shows didn't start till 11: 23:30

00 PM. That's much later than here in the states. Now, granted, there's a reason for that. And it's because it doesn't get dark until about 11:00 PM in Paris. And that's in June here in this year, 2024. And that's because we looked it up online as far as their latitude is they're further north than all of the United States. Basically they're up close to a Winnipeg. Canada is about the closest parallel line that you can find out there. So because they're so far north. North during the summer, it gets darker there later. And so their shows don't start till about 11:00 PM. So obviously if you have kids you've been going all day, which we did that. We went all day and stayed. It was very, late. We were very tired. The crowd was very much the same as what you'd get here in the states. So it was packed in that central circle area. Tons of people. It was really tough to navigate getting out like normal. But it was very, late in the evening before the show even started. So that's something that caught my attention was just how late it was. I can say that. Probably during the winter. They're going to be able to start at much earlier than at 11:00 PM, but it was a very, late show. So I feel like here in the states, we do that just a little bit better because we're able to, I don't think it's any fault of anyone other than where the park is located. The next one is one that I talk about on many episodes and that is mobile ordering. I think that is a huge advantage in the parks is when you're waiting in line in the queue is to complete a mobile order. For whatever meal you want to eat. So that way it's ready to go. When you come off of the ride and you can go pick that up. So you're not waiting in line in there. The mobile ordering is not better in Paris now it works. So granted we did use it. It worked well. I will say, take advantage of it if you go to Disneyland Paris. Because when we went into the restaurants, the queues were very long. Lots of people were trying to eat there and it would have taken us forever to get through the queue over there. So we did a mobile order, but what happens is, when you go to do a mobile order, it takes you out of the app. It takes you to a website. You go through and you have to pay through there that sends you an email. It's a lot more cumbersome than what you get at the parks here in the state. Where it's a little bit easier. It stays in the app. It's just going to calculate it for you. You can go right into the app and show your mobile or receipt. So that's one thing that we do better here. Now. I'm guessing in time, that's something that they will improve on out there. But it was a little bit more difficult to get through, navigate than what we do here in the states, but it still works. It worked really well for us. We went, like you said to Coco's restaurant and it worked perfectly there. Just know that we just do that a little bit better here in the states. Next. You can tell from my bald head here. I like to wear hats in the park. It's something that I do every time that we go. So if you're ever looking for me in the park, you're not going to see this bald head, you're going to see me wearing a baseball cap. But if you didn't know baseball caps are a very American thing, it's something that you don't see. And other countries around the world now don't get me wrong. They have them, people do wear them. But it is very much an American thing. And I read all kinds of blogs and watched all kinds of videos that if you're wearing a ball cap in Europe, people automatically believe that you're an American, because that's something that's very close to our culture and something that we do here. Likewise. If you saw someone wearing a beret. You'd probably think that they were French. So it goes hand in hand with ball caps. I'm always on the lookout for new baseball caps that I could wear to the parks. I like to get a variety of them. Just so that I have something different I can wear every single day when I go in. And so I'm always looking for hats now they're in the shops. They didn't have many ball caps. They did for the little kids, but not for the adults. They had a lot of bucket hats. So if you're familiar with the bucket hat style that has a brim all the way around. They had a lot of those, but they didn't have a lot of baseball caps. They had a couple here and there, but not a lot. So that was something that I think we do better here in the states. We have ball caps in every single park in every single shop. So if you want to protect your head or get the sun out of your eyes, you're able to buy a baseball cap here in the states. Next is something that's very important to a lot of people. So it's important to talk about on here and that is your character meets and greets. So if you're familiar with the meet and greets in the states you have a lot of different options, so you can do character dining. You can get into a queue to go meet your favorite character, or maybe you see them around in the park and you can go meet them and greet them over there. In Paris. They only had characters by queue a, so you'd have to go get lined up. And we saw over in fantasy land over three hours to meet the princesses over there. They typically did not have the characters walking through the parks, though. We did see a couple. We saw Cinderella. We cross paths with her. We saw Jafar once and cross paths with him. But for the most part, the characters are only going to be available in queue. They're not going to be out in the parks very much, and that is going to really be your best chance, an opportunity to see them. So that means that if you want to meet and greet characters, you're going to have to wait in line. The other thing we noticed is I did see a couple autograph books while we were waiting in line. And kids were opening them up and looking at the autographs. They did not look anything like they do here in the states. These look like people just scribbled names out on pages, where in the states, they're very particular about the autographs that the characters get. They have to be very consistent. If you get goofy, so it'll look the same, regardless of who's in the suit out there, it just look hodgepodge. It looked very random. It looked like it didn't quite match and didn't quite have that same level of expectation that we have here in the states for quality. So that is something worth pointing out as well. So if you're going to get the autographs, I would do it here in the states. You're going to get a better quality autograph. And you're going to get more of them probably here in the states. So that was a big difference. Next, if you listen to our episode a few weeks ago, about the best places to go to the restroom. Their toilet paper in France is it comes out like pulling Kleenex. So it's not on a roll in the parks where you can take as little or as much as you want. You are pulling out individual sheets every time that you're using the restroom. So you may have to pile together a handful of sheets and they're not very big. So if you're used to using quite a bit of toilet paper, that is going to be a challenge for you out there in Paris, because they definitely try to conserve and you have very small amounts of toilet paper out there. I wish you good luck. When you're out there in Paris but definitely the toilet paper is different. We do it better here on the states. Next is something that's a pet peeve of mine. I am the kind of person that when I go out to eat, especially when I like to go sit down and eat in a restaurant, I like to be able to get free refills on my soda. Now I know that is something significant in the American culture. We drink a lot of soda. In fact, if you ever watch videos and I love these videos of other people coming to the United States. Every single person says the same thing that we drink. A lot of soda. We have really big sodas. And we have free refills everywhere we go. In Paris, they don't. So in Paris you're going to get a bottle and you never get free refills. If you go to a restaurant, they're going to fill up your cup once and you don't get free refills on it. So you're not going to be able to do enjoy the soda as much out there as you do in the states. The other thing worth noting is I. Like to drink diet soda when I'm in the parks, especially, and they do have Coke zero, but they don't have diet Coke. And there is a difference between the taste. I believe I do diet Coke better than Coke, zero but do know that they don't have diet sodas out there at all. It's all the zero products. That they have both Pepsi and Coke. So it's Pepsi zero and Coke, zero. Everywhere you go. And no diet. So that is one thing worth calling out that I think we do better here in the states. The last thing on my list before we get to our, I can do this all day tip of the day is people at the resorts. This is surprising. And I didn't know whether to put this on the advantages of Paris or the advantages of the states because it really fits both buckets. But one of the biggest differences where the people at the resorts out there weren't readily aware of the fact that they get early park entry. The parks. Give you their hours online.

Which were 9: 31:39

00 AM. Most of the days that we were there, but you do get early entry, just like you do here in the states. If you stay on resort, which we did. And that is one hour.

So we were able to get in at 8: 31:48

00 AM. We showed up early, over there. And we're there ready for rope drop at early park entry. And there was hardly anyone there. So when we did our early entry, we are able to go on multiple rides. All within the first 30, 40 minutes and knock out the majority of our big rides for the day, without any cues whatsoever. Because the park didn't fill up very quickly with that early park admission. Now here in the states, that's something that everybody knows about. And everybody that stays on resort takes advantage of. Like I said, I don't know if this should go in which bucket, because the advantage of going to Disneyland Paris is no one's going to be out there and you're going to be able to go and do all the rides as quickly as you want, if you get early entry. So that is an advantage of going to Paris. The advantage here in the U S is people know about it. I makes me feel like we take advantage of the system and we use the system a little bit better here, which is to our benefit. So you can put it into either bucket on either side, but that was something that was noticeably different was early park admission out there in Paris. Hardly anyone did it. Now we did have one day right when we were coming home because we had a long day of travel. That we decided to sleep in a little bit have a little bit of a slower start that morning. Get all packed and get our suitcases dropped off so that we could. Be ready for the airport. And then we went into the park a little bit later and I can say that the turnstiles getting into the park, the queing was chaotic. There were millions of people there. It was very backed up. And we went after the normal park opening hours were, and there were tons of people there. So I can say in Europe they're a little more relaxed. They're not in a hurry. Like we are here in the states, so they do take a little bit longer to get their day going. And that's probably why there's the big difference between the rope drop in the early entry. Versus coming, everyone coming in at 10 30 in the morning. So one of the biggest differences there. So that leads me to our, I can do this all day tip of the day and today's tip of the day is a big one. And that is, if you go to Disneyland Paris. Do not whatever you do not buy PhotoPass. If you're familiar here in the states with using PhotoPass that there are photographers wearing green vests all throughout the park. And they will take your picture everywhere. You can use your photo, pass that, or go onto your app. You get a prolonged period of time to download those photos, add them to your albums and you get access to all those. And those include the magic photos and all that. We said, yeah, we like to get those photos. And we like to use them on Christmas cards and things of that nature. So we said this year when we go to Paris, let's get PhotoPass and let's get all the cool pictures in Paris. And so we bought it. It was like $80 for our week out there. And when we bought it, we got a little card when we checked into use PhotoPass it's not tied to their app the same way it is tied to ours here in the states. So you do have a little plastic, like credit card you can use in tap. To use PhotoPass. So we went into the parks, looking for PhotoPass opportunities. And there were none. In fact, we only found one in the entire stay that we were out there and they were doing a little section over by the castle. They were doing some magic photos. Where they were put a little animation into it or something like that. And by the time we got into line, which we had just found it, we got into line, they shut it down. So it was only open for a very short amount of time. And we went back to that spot multiple times to see if it ever reopened. And it never did. We did not use PhotoPass at all zero times. In Paris. So I will tell you and encourage you do not buy it. It is not worth it. They do not have the photographers out there. They have no way of you to redeem it. So definitely it's not worth it, do not buy it. And that is our, I can do this all day tip of the day. Thank you so much for joining us this week. We hope you have a magical week as you plan your next vacation. Like I said, we're planning our time out in Orlando now, so we're going to have some cool episodes coming for you in the future. But I am going to take a break for a few weeks while we're out there in Orlando, and I'm not going to be recording until we get back. But do tune into us in a few weeks. And I will tell you some tips and tricks for traveling to Paris on our next episode. So we'll talk to you next time. Bye. Bye. Exit Music