Tuesday 24 August 2010

Disney Land Paris...

We sat, we thought, we decided we couldn't drive through France without going with 4 Disney fluent children! So, we got in the car on Friday afternoon after tidying up that morning (ok, Guilt ridden here wasn't able to do much in the way of tidying on account of the back spasms from Hell!) and we drove to Mike's Aunt Meg's house near Paris. Somehow we managed to end up driving all but through Paris so there was much excitement in the car when we saw The Eiffel Tower, we attempted to point this sighting out to the children but they were oblivious to the excitement (curse you in car DVD players!). We arrived at Meg's house and it was glorious... un-finished but a totally beautiful collection of taste and style! She had some fabulous smoked trout, cheeses and a gorgeous apple tart waiting for us once we had poured the children into bed!

The next morning we got up early and finally revealed to the children what "The Big Treat" was... well you don't think we actually TOLD them in advance did you?! It was brilliant:



Worth it a thousand times over for their faces!
Then we piled into the car and drove around Paris to find the park itself. Once again we were able to see The Eiffel Tower, this time we were more successful at pointing it out to the kids, possibly it had something to do with the addition of "from Ratatouille" into the description of it! Ah well... it was a Disney day!

It was a bit of an arse to find, we aren't quite sure how it was but it was! And a hell of a trek from the carpark but we made it! Took a while getting into the park too... note to self, book tickets online next time! Once we made it in it was like a different world! We happened to get there just in time for a mini parade and a car with some of the new characters came out (Clara has just run up to tell me for the millionth time about "the biggest Wall.e in the world on the car!"). There was much cheering and waving from the kids. Then we got them to do the traditional line in front of the castle:


After that I think it is better to go into What We Learned That Day:

Rides with a ! next to them are scary (Pinnochio and Snow White and the 7 dwarves, great for 7 yr old boys, will scare shit out of the average 5 and under girl... oops). The Carousel and Teacups were much more preferred by the girlies, even if the music near the tea cups nearly sent the parents round the bend! Oh and and I haven't lost my fishwifely abilities after I lost it on our second go (later in the day I should add) when an adult pushed in front of Rowan on the ride meaning we had to get off as there were no more seats for us all. Thank heavens for Lexi's fast pass meaning we didn't have to queue up again, oh and the staff were suddenly very helpful to me getting 4 children seated together on the carousel!


The Parade will keep all 4 children spell bound (and cripple the mothers!) There is a bad guy float... Lexi was thrilled, his favourite disney character is Chernabog (the Devil at the end of Fantasia), the girls were less than thrilled and there was a lot of covering of eyes!


Captain Hook does a very good line in girly wussing when you shout TICK TOCK at him!


The Princess float was much admired by the girls, Cinders waved at Clara... she was thrilled. Cinders is her favourite Princess!


The Mummies may have started welling up upon seeing how thrilled their children were to see their heros and heroines!

We invented rules on purchases. We told the kids that it was the rule there that as soon as you bought a teddy then you had to leave. And they believed it too!

And finally... even Mummies can get lost! Jane and I went on a (noble) search for either DVDs or something with Chernabog on it for Lexi and then we (by which I mean all 4 adults...) got muddled as to where we were reconvening. Meaning Paul, Mike and the kids were in one location and Jane and I were in another... without a phone! The payphones wouldn't take the money we had and declined the credit cards (no idea why!) and in the end I had to ask a soldier (btw, why on earth are there armed guards at EuroDisney?! Stop the characters getting out?!) if we could borrow his phone to quickly call the other half of our party to let them know where we were. Oops!

Still it was a fabulous day and I think Lexi's last words before passing out in bed sum it up nicely

"I went to Disneyland today.... it was the best day EVER!"

2 comments:

Mrs M said...

That sounds like one of those days you'll remember forever. Hopefully for the right reasons!

Muddling Along said...

Loving the reveal - priceless!