The next day dawned cold and drizzling. We had decided not to pay 6.50 Euro each for breakfast at the hotel, so checked out and went down to Les Halles, the huge covered market, to buy 20 Euro worth of delicious pastries to eat instead!! Not only were the undercover markets full, but despite the rain stalls were set out everywhere outside, including the nearby square - it was very busy. As always, there was so much at the markets we'd like to buy - seafood, veggies, meat - but instead we just bought more cheese to stink out our car :-) So much fabulous cheese, it's very hard to chose! I'd booked us into a walking tour of the city for just 11 Euros (with the free museum, I think Dijon was one of the best value cities we've visited!!) which was conducted in French and English. Our guide would speak to the French group, then repeat it all for us - a group of six Aussies. The other couple, Michelle and Alan, were from Toowoomba and were thrilled to hang out with some fellow Aussies for a while! We enjoyed their company too. As the tour started, the rain stopped, the skies cleared, and our guide had lots of interesting information about Dijon. The tour ended at 2pm and we immediately got into the car, and I prepared our car picnic lunch as we drove to Chanteloup-en-Brie. Isn't that a gorgeous sounding name?? Its the place you stay when you want to visit EuroDisney but don't want to pay the high prices of Disney hotels!! Our hotel, Hotel Chanteloup, is about 10 minutes drive from the park. Quite basic, but clean, and each room sleeps five - they are used to families here!! As we arrived the kids were in a high state of excitement to be so near Eurodisney.
I looked up trip advisor and found a restaurant "Le B28" in nearby Lagny-sur-Marne. Unfortunately the address on trip advisor turned out to be someone's house... while we were pondering what to do, a French woman zoomed in and parked nearby. Although she spoke no English, I showed her the restaurant's details I'd written on my iphone and she was able to type in the correct address! We found a park and the kids were thrilled to see a gaggle of swans in the river. They went down to see them and the swans seemed very friendly - Greg promised the kids we'd get some bread to feed them after dinner. He then raced back to the car to get his wallet - and the largest rat we'd ever seen came out of the water. He was HUGE - bigger than Cody!!! Eeek! Greg thought it was a musk rat. Whatever it was, none of us wanted to get close to it!! We found "Le B28" which had the most delicious fresh oysters, yum, and had another good meal. We returned to feed the swans as promised and luckily did not see the rat, but we were very cautious just in case it popped up!
The next day was EuroDisney day. It was very cold, and drizzly, and we congratulated ourselves that it would make for a quiet day at the park. Well, it turns out that Parisians are made of sterner stuff, and that combined with the fact that it was a SATURDAY (rats, so easy to forget what day it is when you are on holidays, and also Happy Birthday Mum!) meant it was so crazily busy we could not believe it. There was thousands and thousands and thousands of people there; a lot of families with young children, where the parents wielded their prams like space clearing weapons as they charged down the boulevards! We were quite over awed. We thought we'd start with the Flying Dumbo ride, which looked about my speed. The line was 25 minutes and the park had just opened! The kids wanted to move onto Peter Pan but by the time we had our one minute on Dumbo it was a 45 minutes wait, so we moved onto Discoveryland. The wait for Space Mountain was also 45 minutes but the kids thought they could stand that. Well, 45 minutes turned out to be TWO HOURS. Two hours waiting in very, very cold weather - it was torturous. But you reach the point where you have waited so long it would be a waste to pull out. Luckily we had two lovely girls behind us, one French and one Spanish, who both spoke English, so we passed the time chatting to them. Isabella also worked out the Fast Pass system. It turns out that you can get a Fast Pass ticket for the ride of your choice, which gives you a set time to come back; you then join a considerably shorter "Fast Pass" queue to get into the ride. This is free, but you can only get it for one ride at a time. We got very, very cold waiting in the line for Space Mountain, and we weren't the only ones - all around us people were shivering and jumping around to warm up! When you spend two hours waiting in the cold your thoughts turn to going to the loo. It really was tough, and - I don't even like roller coasters. It's fair to say that I did my share of thrill seeking rides in my youth and don't feel the desire to ever get on one ever again! Eventually we made it to the end of the line, and the ride was over in about 30 seconds!!!! I wasn't even that scared, probably because they made me take off my glasses, it was quite gloomy and I really couldn't see a thing. Bella immediately raced over to get a Fast Pass for Buzz Lightyear while I joined yet another queue, this time for the toilet. While I was half way along in the long line, a Jamaican woman came in and stood alongside me, then deftly stepped in front of me and into the line! I challenged her, but she shrugged her shoulders and turned her back on me. Part of me felt admiration. I wish I had the guts to do that, instead of meekly waiting!
Our Buzz Lightyear Fast Pass was for 5.30pm, and it was about 2pm by this time, so we had some lunch (more long queues!) then joined the hour wait for Big Thunder Mountain. We were about half way through our wait when we were unexpectedly all led outside. Apparently there were some technical issues! It's fair to say by this point we weren't really having the good time we had expected to have. We went to Indiana Jones and the line was 75 minutes! This would have meant we missed Buzz. We decided to join the line to see Mickey instead. This was a good move as it was inside, which was warm, and they were playing continuous Mickey cartoons which we really enjoyed. While we were waiting I looked at the Fast Pass tickets and saw that actually, we were eligible to get a second one at 3.40pm - nearly an hour and a half earlier! So I left Greg and in the kids to see Mickey (it was still doubtful that they'd make it in time) and set off to get us Fast Pass tickets to Indiana. I was relieved to see the crowd had reduced slightly in Adventure Land, but the bad news was that the last Fast Pass tickets are released at 4pm. I wish all the sites I'd read on Disney had more information on these damn passes. I met the family (who had indeed met Mickey and then had run fast to meet me) at the Buzz ride. It was still a wait, but not so bad, and Bella and Liam felt it was the best ride ever, so well worth it. After Buzz, we went back to Indiana Jones where the wait was only 35 minutes, which seemed like nothing comparatively! The kids loved that it was dark, which made the ride more atmospheric. Again, I couldn't wear my glasses but I wasn't impressed to go upside down in a loop, but managed not to add to the cacophony of screams! We had dinner at a Pizza place which smelled delicious. Greg says beware of pizza places selling garlic bread. The smell lures you into disappointment! We then did Pirates of the Caribbean (only getting a little wet), and back to Big Thunder Mountain. Still a one hour wait!! This meant we'd risk missing the show right at the end of the night, so we ended up going back to Indiana Jones. The wait was FIVE MINUTES. Amazing. Greg and the kids did it three times (I felt I'd really done my share of roller coasters). The end show was spectacular, lights, music and movies projected onto the castle with fireworks and water spouts, but Greg was a bit stressed about being stuck in the car park (there was still a HUGE crowd at the park) and we started to try and wend out way out before the show ended - not very successfully, as we ended up stuck in the crowd and getting in the way of their viewing pleasure, which was not well received. However despite the crowd we exited quite easily and there was no drama driving out, so that was easy. Overall I have to say that while we had some good times, EuroDisney did not live up to our expectations. The lines were too long, there were no characters walking around and the food was average to bad. But the kids had fun! We were all absolutely exhausted from all the standing and walking!!
Cathy, I'm so loving reading about you adventures. Can't wait till you hit the UK !! Love Jane x
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