All checked-in to our hotel at our favourite Disney resort – Sequoia Lodge, we were ready for our next adventure. It had been a very long day of travelling by every method possible and if you haven’t read all about it yet you can read my first diary entry here:

Our next adventure was to involve the brand new ‘Disney Adventure World’! Boy was I excited to head into the parks again even if it was pushing 9pm!

Disney Adventure World is the new name for Walt Disney Studios Park. If you read my diary entries from my last trip to Disneyland Paris in 2025, you’ll notice I reference this. The park changed names in March 2026 after it expanded to include the World of Frozen. The park has increased in size majorly and will continue to expand with the addition of Lion King themed land coming in the near future too. If ever there was a reason to keep visiting Disney parks – This is it! You can read more about this in my previous post here.

So with the expansion in mind I knew that I didn’t want to see the new park for the first time this late at night. I’d be saving that for tomorrow! However, according to the Disney website of ride closures i’d read that the ‘Cars: ROADTRIP’ ride was operating today only and due to close tomorrow for the rest of the week! Now this wouldn’t be a big deal normally except it’s one of the few rides we can go on as a family and we didn’t do it last year because funnily enough – it was closed for maintenance! This ride is one of the few rides I have never been on despite visiting Disneyland Paris a few times before. It opened in 2021 and was previously called ‘Studio Tram Tour: Behind the Magic’. I remember enjoying this ride when it was called that but I haven’t ridden it since 2009 and it has been ‘re-imagined’ since then. I knew we could reach this ride without actually seeing any of the new parts of the park.

So with a clear plan in mind, we put our best Pixar outfits on and headed for our road trip! (For you none Disney buffs, Pixar is the studio that made Cars and a bundle of other awesome films like Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc and Up!). Our daughter, Hilda, had her new Cars shoes and Slinky socks on especially and couldn’t wait to show these off.

The walk to Disney Adventure World from Sequoia Lodge is a nice 15-20 minute stroll through Disney Village. This time we were staying in a room close to facilities which meant we only had to go down in the lift to be right at the entrance of our hotel! So as soon as we walked out of the back we were right in front of the glorious Disney Village balloon. Great site to start our holiday – Yet we’ve still never actually been on it.

We wandered through Disney Village heading straight to Adventure World to use our park hopper ticket for the first time. Wildly different from last year, there is a new show taking place here every evening now. The show starts at 10:40pm meaning the park stays open late! Last year it closed at 9pm so it was very weird being able to enter the park so late this time. What we couldn’t get over was how quiet the park was once we entered! I was super excited to be one of the first (of thousands) to enter the newly renamed park! I had to grab a photo of this moment of course.

Once inside I had a clear plan. Head to Cars: ROADTRIP directly through Toy Story Playland. I knew this would mean we didn’t see any of the expansion and spoil the surprise. I also knew it would still take us a while to reach the ride because our 2 year old Toy Story lover is not going to walk through a land full of Toy Story figures and attractions without being distracted!

We have watched the Toy Story movies many many times as a family. In fact, Toy Story was the first film I ever saw in the cinema! Showing my age there a little… Well my daughter Hilda is a fan of all the characters and she lights up everytime she sees Buzz. She is so amazed by him and it’s probably due to his incredible size! He towers over you from above and really sets the tone for entering Toy Story Playland. It is probably one of my favourite areas in all of the Disney parks i’ve visited.

It was clear we wouldn’t be walking through here quickly! I knew this wouldn’t be the only time we came here (little did I know just how many times we would actually visit throughout the trip). So we kept walking and headed in to Cars territory.

At first, we hit the section where Crush’s Coaster is. This ride always has a long queue, even for single rider and because Hilda isn’t tall enough for it we usually skip it. It’s a shame because I’ve only ever done it once and my husband has never done it! Perhaps next time will be our time? Opposite this ride is the last ride we went on last year – Cars Quatre Roues Rallye. It’s a lot of fun this ride and as we walked past we saw there was just a 5 minute wait – So we joined the queue!

Last year we loved this ride, it span way faster than we were expecting and it’s not surprising they tell you to put your phones away! This year it was our first ride so I don’t think Hilda was quite ready for it. She may have been half asleep or just confused – I can’t imagine rides on the whole make a whole lot of sense to two year olds. Either way we were in and out within minutes, one ride down already!

Adventure World was super quiet and it was great being in such a quiet park. I imagine most people were grabbing their spots for the new show Cascade of Lights on the other side of the park. But tonight was not the night we’d be watching it so we headed across to Cars: ROADTRIP. As we walked, we passed the Toy Story drawings we’d seen last year on our final day at Disney. It was unusual because last year the park stopped at this part but now we were able to finally carry on walking and see what lies ahead. It was a sign of things to come and just how large this park was going to be..

We enjoyed pretending to be toys and I even had my husband wear his new t-shirt to match! Ooohh

As we danced towards the Roadtrip we moved slowly because our daughter was enjoying the music. She stopped on every bench and danced to every song along the way. It was one of those real holiday moments where you don’t ever want to leave.

After our very slow journey from hotel to Cars: ROADTRIP we had finally made it to the ride we’d planned our whole evening around! You know exactly what is coming don’t you?

We rolled up to the ride and as we did, the car pulled into the station letting all the guests off. It was of course, the last ride of the week. We’d missed it by minutes. We’d missed it by the time it took to ride the other ride. Or the time it took to take photos with Buzz. Or even the time it took to dance all the way to the ride… Will we ever ride this ride!?

I was so annoyed at myself. But in fairness to me, I had checked the app which said it was open and specified no closing time so I couldn’t have possibly known. I guess it gives us a reason to return if we ever need one..

After failing to jump on this ride I didn’t have a back-up plan but since it was so quiet I suggested we head back the way we came. This time we walked through the barrel of monkeys and towards the land of Ratatouille. We’d been here last year during the heat wave and played in the fountain to cool down, but we’d never eaten at the restaurant or ridden the ride. Now was finally our chance!

With a 25 minute wait for the ride it wasn’t ideal but I figured it might be our best chance to ride. The queues for this one get really high during the day so we took the gamble and jumped in the line.

The queuing area for this was pretty cool, it spiralled around until you entered the indoor section feeling like you were on the rooftops of Paris with the rats. We finally made it to Gusteau’s and boarded a rat – Yes you heard that right. This ride used to be in 3D and i’ve not ridden it since 2018 so I barely remember it. It changed to 2D only last year and I remember it being better. Hilda was a little frightened on this one, it moves fast and there is a little too much going on with the Imax style screens. It’s very loud and a little scary for toddlers. We weren’t a big fan! In fact even now nearly 2 weeks after returning she often says to me when talking about Disneyland – I didn’t like the rat one. Lesson learnt – No more scary rat rides!

We did however see the inside of Bistrot Chez Remi restaurant when dismounting the ride and that gave us an idea of what we had to look forward to over the coming days.

It was getting dark once we finally left the ride but I thought we’d have time to squeeze one more ride in! I love quiet nights like this, especially when you have no real plan and nowhere you need to be.

We decided to walk back through Toy Story Playland and head to a ride none of us had been on before – Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop.

Hilda was finally tall enough to pass the 81cm height limit they impose. We didn’t think twice about going on this as the wait was down to 5 minutes and we knew we’d only have time for this ride and no others before park close. So we joined the ‘queue’ and met some toy soldiers along the way..

Clearly we had one very tired little girly and perhaps this wouldn’t be the best idea. Moments later we were about to see why.

I think sometimes it’s important to use common sense. Just because someone is tall enough for a ride doesn’t mean they are old enough for it. It’s safe to say our two year old was absolutely terrified on this ride. In fact, writing this fills me with guilt but also makes me want to laugh which in turn makes me feel more guilty! If you’ve not seen this ride before, it’s one of those tall ones that rises slowly then drops from a height. It’s slightly smaller than the usual ones as it’s aimed at kids but it has the same effect even at less of a height.

You drop from the top in little parachutes like the toy soldiers. Genius. Now you explain that to my toddler.. Because I could tell by the grip of her hand on mine that she thought she was falling to her death and I was clearly the worst mum in the world for letting her on it. *Insert hiding face emoji here*.

I must admit, even me and my husband shared a moment in the sky where we looked at each other and thought – This is far higher than we expected. It was pretty stomach curling and I can only imagine what it was like for a half asleep two year old. Oops!

After the ride, we gave her a cuddle and said “Did you like that?”

She said… “I was scared”.

But don’t worry this story has a happy ending. If we fast forward to a week after our trip, in the comfort of our living room, I asked my daughter – What was your favourite ride? Now I’ll give you one guess what she said.

Toddlers… You just never know what they are thinking ey!

Three rides down, we ended the night with a sleepy and slightly shocked toddler. We enjoyed some late night window shopping and seeing Toy Story Playland lit up at night with nobody around.

It was an incredible first night to our trip and a great start to our Disney days. We set off walking to our on-site hotel feeling thankful for not needing to use transportation other than our own two feet. Narrowly missing the closing time of Earl Of Sandwich this left us with dinner at McDonalds – The only food place open unfortunately but it kept us fed and watered whilst our little one slept and it was a pleasant way to end our first night.

Tomorrow was sure to bring even more adventure..

~Visited Disneyland Paris in June 2026 ~