Disneyland Paris

We just got back from a weekend at Disneyland Paris and whew, I am pooped. Josh just informed me that he is going to lay me down for a nap as I'm grumpy. I think I'm grumpy because I am so tired from our weekend! After our one day at Disney I could see how small children have frequent meltdowns while at the park. Despite my being tired (and apparently grumpy), it was an awesome trip.

I had Friday off, which is a rare thing for me. It was actually nice - I was able to run a bunch of errands, I got some laundry and other "weekend chores" done, and then was ready to go when Josh got off work. As soon as he got home and changed clothes, we were off! Being able to leave like that definitely makes it possible for us to go to farther away destinations - if I work I don't get home until about 6 or 6:30... so we arrive at our destinations late. We did encounter a traffic jam when we entered France, which slowed us down a bit, but once we got past the jam the rest of our drive was pretty easy. The hotel I booked for us I had picked out because there was a deal I had found online. It was a hotel which was close to the park, offered a free breakfast, free parking, and a free shuttle to the park each day. Perfect. The hotel was called The Disneyland Dream Castle - the interior looked like a castle and Disney threw up all over the interior. There was even a small Disney merchandise store in the lobby of the hotel! I couldn't quite decide if I thought the decor was fun, funny, or obnoxious.

There was also and extremely creepy looking manikin "king" in the lobby. I took a picture of it, but it didn't seem to do it justice. There was also a pool and multiple game rooms in the hotel - clearly a hotel made for families coming to Disneyland Paris. The hotel was great and worked well for us, but I could see how in the summer it could be packed and crazy with families.

Saturday morning we got up, had some breakfast, and took the shuttle over to the park. The park opened at 10. We got in line to get tickets at 9 and had to stand in line for a half hour, so I'm glad we got there as early as we did. After we got our tickets we killed some time looking in one of the many Disney stores outside of the park - it was better than standing in line at the gates like everyone else.

The gates finally opened and everyone swarmed into the park. At Disneyland Paris there are two parks - Disneyland Park and Walt Disney Studios. You can get a ticket for just one park or for both - we got tickets for both. We went to Walt Disney Studios first. The reason we started there was this: I was dying to ride the Aerosmith roller coaster. I have heard about it from other people, and I figured if I had waited this long to go to Disney anything, this would HAVE to be the first thing I rode. We made our way to the roller coaster and waited in line.

At this point I was getting excited, but nervous. I have a bit of a history of getting sick on rides. Well, correction, I got sick on a ride ONCE and my family has NEVER EVER let me forget it. That, and getting sick once seemed to open up this door in my brain where now I do get some motion sickness at certain things when I never did before. I have never actually gotten sick on a ride since that one time when I was about 10, but I certainly worry about it happening. I can ride roller coasters with no problem, I have a hard time with things that spin in circles. I knew I would be okay riding this, but I did get nervous.

The line moved quickly and we were suddenly inside getting on the ride. I have to say this... everyone told me this roller coaster was awesome. It was. There are speakers built into the headrest, so you can hear music, but all the people waiting in line can't. The roller coaster cars move slowly to the "start" line, and you can hear some music playing. Then you hear Steven Tyler's voice in your ear say, "Are you ready?!" Then he counts down "3, 2, 1..." and then lets loose one of his famous screams as the roller coaster shoots you forward - I read somewhere you go from zero to 60. Anyways, you get shot through this roller coaster, the entire time Aerosmith is blaring in your ears. I was in some sort of adrenaline filled heaven. The ride itself is short and fast - I think it is over with in a minute. We got done and decided to go back in for another ride. It was early in the day, and the way the coaster is built allows for a lot of people to be moved through quickly. We rode it twice in 40 minutes. The second ride my adrenaline was already going, so I was mainly rocking out the whole ride. I could have easily stayed here for the rest of the day, but we moved on.

We walked through the rest of Walt Disney Studios to see what was there. This park has a lot more simulations/demonstrations, which we didn't want to see. Well, correction, I think it would be interesting to go see/do if we had more time/days. But for our one day there, I was willing to skip over it. There were also quite a few kid-friendly rides, which we weren't interested in. There were a few things we wanted to check out, but the lines were already starting to grow. So we made our way over to Disneyland Park. The park was still decorated for Christmas, and it was beautiful. Anything anyone has ever told me about Disney was true - it is amazing, beautiful, breathtaking, and magical.

To sum up our day I will say we wandered around, went on the rides which interested us, and just took in the magic of Disneyland. We had a late lunch at the park. I have heard countless stories of how expensive it is to eat/snack at Disney. At Disneyland Paris you are allowed to bring in a backpack and your own food. If we were going to be there for multiple days, I would have done that to save money. However, for the one day I didn't want to mess with hauling around a backpack. As it was, we found that there were many places were you could get food that wasn't a sit-down restaurant and it was cheaper. For lunch I had a grilled cheese sandwich, Josh had a flatbead pizza thing (for lack of a better descriptive word), I had a Coke, and he had a bottle of water for 23 Euros (about 30ish dollars). Expensive, yes. As expensive as what I have heard from other people? No. I figured it was the cost of doing business, so to speak.

After lunch we went to ride Space Mountain, a Disney staple. I have heard the Space Mountain in the states doesn't go upside down, but I assure you, this one did. It did a LOT of whirling and loop-de-loops in the dark. In fact, after riding it I did feel a bit sick - but I think I would have felt sick even if it hadn't been so close to lunch time. I think it was all the spinning in the dark which got me. After that ride we were going to do some "quieter" rides to give me a break - so we went to a Star Wars ride for Josh, which was a mistake as it only made me feel sicker... but after a few real quieter rides and a Coke I was feeling better. We went on "It's a Small World" figuring it was something we "had to" do since it is a Disney staple... I found the entire thing to be creepy. And tired - the dancing/singing manikins and puppets look like they haven't been updated since the 1990s. There was a duck (which was clearly broken) whose head was spinning around in circles as it sang. Josh's comment was, "Wow. That's messed up."

We also took some "quiet time" (AKA let Kirsten's stomach settle time) to look through the castle. I believe at Disney World it is Cinderella's castle, but at Disneyland Paris they say it is Sleeping Beauty's castle. Whatever. You can go up one level to look around. There are beautiful stained glass windows depicting the story of Sleeping Beauty.

The advantage of going to Disneyland in the winter - there were less people there, even for a Saturday. The disadvantage was it started to get dark around 4. We found a spot to watch the Disney parade, which started at 5. We went up on the train station platform to get a bird's eye-view of the parade.

While we watched people gathering to watch the parade, all I could think was how much shorter the lines would be (which was a tip I had read online - to go to popular rides during the parade for a shorter line). We watched the first part of the parade... but decided to skip out on the end half of it. If we had more time I would have stayed for all of it - a reason to go back. I liked what I saw.

So instead of watching the parade we went back to Walt Disney Studios to get in line for Crush's Coaster. The line had been too long for us earlier in the day, but during the parade it was more manageable. It is a roller coaster based on Crush, the turtle from Finding Nemo. I'm glad we went back to do this ride as it turned out to be one of our favorites! After we finished our ride it was 6:30, completely dark outside, and quite cold. We decided to find some dinner, and then went back to the hotel. We got back around 8 and were ready for bed! The park stayed open until 9, and originally I thought we would be there from open to close... but we were too tired to keep going. Even after a full night's sleep we were both tired.

Conclusion : Disney was everything I had hoped it would be. We loved it. We definitely want to go back. There were some rides we didn't get a chance to go on because they were being repaired, and we want a chance to experience those. I would love a chance to go back to re-ride some rides and to have time to see shows and the parade. A fun, successful yet crazy weekend we are still recovering from. I will be ready to repeat it.

I recently went on a travel-purchasing binge. When I think back to last year, we didn't do anything during the winter. Well, correction. We did things... like packing, moving, unpacking, organizing, settling. Those things involved a lot of staying inside at our house. I don't want to repeat that. I have always been on a mission to "make the most" of our time over here... and I guess I have taken the bull by the horns for this winter to make sure we're not sitting at home. Next up: a trip to Fussen, Germany.