On June 2nd Disneyland Paris held its first FanDaze event
which saw the Walt Disney Studios Park taken over with around 100 characters,
new and exclusive shows as well as one off conferences. With it being the first
event there were obviously going to be teething issues but it was an evening I
thoroughly enjoyed. Some compared this to a European D23 event but my
experience was it was closer to a Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas party or
Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. It was also priced at a similar level.
Our tickets cost £70 each with our Infinity Annual Pass discount plus £22 for
the Imagineering conference. The main ticket include entrance to the party
(including access to all the character meets, parade and shows), a FanDaze pin
and lanyard. The only conference we didn’t have access to was Duffy and friends
which was an additional cost.
The Negative
Let’s get the negative out of the way, with the event just 6
hours long and the character meet only open for 3 hours 20 minutes, there was
too to do in this short space of time. Characters switched over every 30
minutes so character queues were often closed early. These appeared to be
managed in a better way in the second half of the evening though if you wanted
to meet as many as possible you would have to miss out on most of the shows.
At the start of the evening everyone was packed in
Production Courtyard making it very crowded, uncomfortably at points. The same
happened again once they allowed people to spread out as queues were opened
meaning that big cramped crowds gathered by the entrance.
We had personal issues at the start of the night as we
needed to hire a wheelchair. Having spoken to guest relations in the park that
morning, we had been told the rentals would be available from when we entered
the park. We were in at about 7:45 but it was shut, we were then told it would
open at 8:15. This was after the opening ceremony and after the character lines
had opening. When we went back we found that they had no wheelchairs as they
were all over at Disneyland Park. We eventually got a chair at around 9pm as we
attempted to do a couple of things while they retrieved one. This was a
frustrating oversight but didn’t detract from the evening as a whole. On a side
note, you could not use green or orange disabled cards to reserve a character
meet time. Once we had the wheelchair this wasn’t an issue for us.
Heroes and Villains Alley
I really liked the concept of Heroes and Villains alley.
Seeing each pair face off against each other was great and an opportunity to
see some rare characters. What happened in practice was a small number were
taken from main group at a time to join the queue for the first character. You
could queue up for every character in turn or skip them when you wanted but
once you passed a character you couldn’t go back. Characters switched every 30
minutes meaning you could miss out on characters you thought you were waiting
for. The line moved very slowly so later in the evening they had people meeting
pairs of characters rather than one at a time. We were held up for a while as
Hades had left early meaning the final meet area was empty causing a big tail
back. The overall queue also became very long.
It was worth the queue though. In our time walking through
we were able to meet Hiro and Yokai from Big Hero 6; Robin Hood and Prince John
from Robin Hood; Phoebus from Hunchback of Notre Dame; Li Shang and Shan Yu
from Mulan. There were no Photopass photographers in this area and pictures
were restricted to a couple per group, we skipped meeting Peter Pan and Hook
but were able to get pictures of them while queuing for others.
It was a positive experience overall but could use some
refining for next year.
Jumba & Pleakly’s Mission Stitch
There were just four shows of Mission Stitch throughout the
evening; two in French and two in English. If you’ve experienced Stitch Live
then this was virtual identical but with the addition of both Jumba and Pleakly
joining the host. They didn’t speak but were very involved. For those that
haven’t seen Stitch Live it is like Crush’s Turtle Talk where you interact as
an audience with the main character on screen. In this how you are trying to
help Stitch escape Captain Gantu as he has stolen Gantu’s ship.
A little extra
at the end was that each family group was able to take one picture with Jumba
and Pleakly. This meant that the Cast Members were able to clear the room very
quickly. If character meets had been managed more like this elsewhere in the
evening then everyone would have been able to see a lot more characters and I
think there would have been more positivity around the meet and greets.
Dance Your Ducktales Parade
I was really looking forward to this parade as Ducktales is
a big part of my childhood and I remember then appearing in some of the first
floats in Disneyland Paris’ original parades. In reality I was a little
disappointed. Rather than using full parade floats (I was really hoping for
some of the originals from 25 years ago) they used small tricycle based floats.
They used these for the 25th Anniversary and at Halloween last year.
They can be effective but compared to some of the other offerings on the night
it felt a little cheap. On the plus side I’m hoping they be able to re-theme
these each year and bring a different parade as this parade isn’t one I’d come
back to see year on year. A Tale Spin of Gummi Bears would be high on my list.
Max Live
Even before talk of FanDaze being back next year, seeing
this show already seemed to make it a certainty. It seems a lot of the expense
went on this show, the stage was possible the biggest in the parks history,
there was a huge cast and a mix of songs almost never heard in the parks. Too
much time, effort and money went into this for it to be for one night.
You can still see the show on YouTube now but in case you
haven’t yet it included Stitch and Angel, Goofy and Max, Judy Hops and Nick
Wilde, Kuzko and Yzma as well as the Three Caballeros (minus Donald).
Original projections were used on Tower of Terror
throughout, and it was truly a spectacular show. If anything draws in the
crowds at the next event, this show is it.
Character Meet and Greets
Character meets were open for a little under two hours
initially and then another hour and a half later. After going to Heroes and
Villains alley first, we were only able to see one character meet before 10pm,
George Sanderson & Needleman. We managed to join another queue before it
closed, Baloo and King Louie in Tail Spin outfits, but we had to leave it to
make our Imagineering Conference.
After seeing Mission Stitch we managed to see Wasabi, Honey
Lemon and Gogo Tomago. These queues moved a lot more quickly than others we had
been in and the Cast Members managed them really well. We also managed to meet
some of the roaming characters, Lewis, Wilbur and Bowler Hat from Meet the
Robinsons.
We also took the opportunity to use the photo spots. This is
characters briefly pose between meets so people can walk up and take some quick
pictures of the characters in their photo spot. There were no queues for these
and although we weren’t in the pictures it did mean we got some pictures of
some very rare characters. This seems to have been a very popular feature at
FanDaze and one many would like to see introduced for all character meets in
the parks.
Oh my Ortensia! And Oswald’s Sing-A-Long
Unfortunately these were two shows we weren’t able to get to
see as there wasn’t enough time. We chose to prioritise seeing some rare
characters. These were both streamed live and are available on YouTube to watch
thanks to FanDaze filming and posting them so we haven’t had to miss out
entirely.
Imagineering Conference
I was really looking forward this this conference, which
required an extra paid for ticket to attend (£22). I was hoping to hear
insights into the designing of the park and a few secrets that hadn’t been
revealed before. It wasn’t quite that but it was interesting to hear about life
as an Imagineer and Tom Fitzgerald is very easy to listen to. We heard a bit
about the current teams working on Disneyland Paris and Epcot which he heads up
as well as a little about each of the main designers of the Disneyland Park in
Paris. The conference was also the first to be told about the original
recordings of Vincent Price returning to Phantom Manor though he wouldn’t say
where. There was also the news that they will finally reveal who the phantom
is.
Farewell Street Party
If you’ve watched any videos of the actually 25th
Anniversary day in park you’ll have seen a huge parade of characters making
their way down Main Street. This was on a similar scale but with the addition
of some of the Stars in Cars parade cars being used. Around 100 characters
including almost every character appearing in some form from the night. The
exception was those in Max Live. It allowed everyone to get video, pictures or
every rare character that had been out.
By this time it was already 2am. It was
late and we were tired but we’d have gone on longer if we could. If you get a
chance to go in the future I’d highly recommend it.
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