The Happiest Place On Earth

13th and 14th April

Wahoo! Disneyland Paris (Apparently it has not been called Euro Disney for quite some time now). I had been waiting for this for so long. I was just looking forward to have fun; No culture, religion, history or education.

The train took about 40 minutes to get to Parc Disneyland, and we headed straight for the ticket counter. Because we had pre bought rail tickets through Rail Europe, they had a deal going that gave you free entry into Disneyland. So we'd bought enough rail tickets to get both of us in for 2 days (We only pre booked the travel between Caen and Bayeux - 5 pound trips) It was going to be cheap entry to Disneyland for us. We got to the ticket counter and the lady said that it was only valid for travel to and from Paris. Well no it wasn't because I had already emailed Rail Europe to check if we could do that, no issues, any trip in France is valid. So we argued for a bit, but I didn't want to start the day angry so I just paid the 220 Euro for us both for a 2 day pass. I was a little pissed off, especially cause I had checked all the terms and conditions 10 times, so we headed to the guest relations window while we waited for the park to open. The nice guy in there told us the same thing about the journey had to be from or to Paris. I made him go get a supervisor to double check. The nice supervisor did so and then apologised to us cause we were right and he was wrong (Have you even known me to be wrong??) But he still wouldn't give us free entry because the travel had to be within 5 days of going to Disneyland, and ours was 6 days. Again the terms and conditions clearly said 30 days, but I couldn't be bothered arguing anymore because the by this time the gates had opened and I wanted to go have fun. I am still planning to email them and rant a little.

I'm not going to blab on about Disneyland. But I will say that I LOVED IT!!! It's really tacky, but its so much fun. We queued for rides for hours, and picking up a fast pass doesn't make it much faster. We tried to go on every ride, but there was some that we refused to queue for (E.g. The Flying Dumbo's), and many rides we had to go on 2 or 3 times. My favourite ride at Disney land was Space Mountain 2, but I also thoroughly enjoyed the Big Thunder Mining Cart ride. Dan liked the Mad Hatter's teacups a little too much (see photos). Our first character sighting was of Baloo from Jungle Book and Tigger and a few others. Dan raced up to get a photo of Tigger, but he just walked straight off on him. Poor Dan got rejected by an stripy tiger that likes to bounce! Apparently there is a rule, that only 1 of each character can be out at any time across all of the Disneyland's across the world. So when Mickey is out in Paris, he can't be out at the Tokyo one or the Florida one. That's why the come out for 10 minutes then piss off quickly. I assumed it's a pretty tight schedule.

We had lunch at Timon and Pumbaa's Lion King restaurant. We had to even queue 40 minutes just to get lunch. When we neared the front we realised why. There was the most incapable employee behind the counter. We believe the system was supposed to be, one person takes the order while the second gets it all together and puts it on the tray. Anis was our tray packer, but he just stood and watched and every now and then he'd turn around. The server lady was very patient with him, but she ended up doing all the work. Anis was useless. We got our lunch of burgers and chips with drink and dessert. It was a set menu that you didn't get much choice in, but it was nice. The dessert was the most entertaining bit. We ate Mickey Mouse, nutella filled donuts. I didn't like it, too doughy and chocolaty. Needless to say, Dan enjoyed it.

We did eventually make it over to Disney studio's, which is right next door. This was also lots of fun - with heaps of newer rides there. I also discovered my favourite ride of them all. It had to be the Aerosmith Rock N Rollercoaster. Very cool line up area with lots of cool band memorabilia. At least it made lining up more enjoyable. But for absolute fear, the Hollywood Tower of Terror was a lot of fun. We only made it to this ride on day 2, but it was well fun. It was set around the Twilight Zone, and the premise was that we were taking an elevator to the twilight zone. We sat in this wire cage, and put a lap seatbelt on, and we went up to the 3rd or 4th floor. We were expecting it be a tame (because of the lack of safety devices) version of the tower of terror at Dreamworld, we were wrong. All of the sudden the elevator plunged down, then it'd fly back up to the 13th floor, then it'd drop down again. Very very fun, and you'd fly out of your seat because all you had was a tiny little seat belt on. The old guy next to me had his glasses fly off and get smashed, I felt sorry for the old dude, who was only taking a young kid on. Not only did he break his glasses, but almost had a heart attack in the meantime.

The Finding Nemo ride was also pretty cool. We had to wait 1.5 hours to get on this one, but weren't expecting much, it looked a bit kiddish. This one we were going to surf the East Australian Current on a turtle shell. It started off nice and tame and suitable for young children. Then it turned into a pretty terrifying rollercoaster ride. I loved it though, and wondered how many of the tiny little kids queuing up knew what they were in for.

Anyway, the rest of the time was just fun. We caught the main parade with all the characters. My favourite were the Army Men from Toy Story. They even had their feet stuck onto a board. They were fun. We also took in the Stunt Show at Dinsey Studios, that was a little disappointing, it was definitely no Police Academy show at Movie world. We also took in the Armageddon Special Effects show. That scared the life out of me. We were taken into the Space Station where the Russian was in Armageddon (Yes I love that movie a little too much) and they simulated it all blowing up, so there was fire flying around us and gases and smokes and stuff. Lots of fun.

So in summing up - Disneyland was the best 2 days ever.

Oh I forgot to mention that it was Dan's birthday on the Tuesday. He was lucky that he got to spend his birthday at Disneyland, instead of having to go to work like I did. :P