Disneyland Day ONE

This morning Courtney and I had to bid farewell to our luxurious apartment- and cat- and make our way back to the airport. By now we are true independent travelers and can navigate our way through the toughest of airports. Our shuttle to Disneyland have the most cryptic instructions sighting terminate 2e/f gate 5 level 0 spot 0.09. You'd think that would be detail enough- if the place actually existed!!! We were approached by a French taxi man who after pointing vigorously at our disneyland tickets he pointed to his taxi and gate. Courtney and I looked at each other presuming he was trying to con us into going we him, we made our way through the door he was not standing by, pretending to take his advice. After hesitantly deciding to take advice from a French taxi man we made our way to gate 8 and saw 'the sign' - disneyland Paris. We had found it! Apologies to the weird taxi man who actually pointed us in the right direction :)

We board the red Disneyland shuttle comprising of 80% under 5s and the rest of us acting like our younger nieces or siblings were on there way... After traveling 30 mins through the French countryside on the wrong side of the road we reached the disneyland bus stop. After catching another shuttle to take us to our hotel we are still optimistic with the excitement of what lay ahead in the magical world of Disneyland.
Still clutching our luggage after an airport shuttle, disneyland shuttle and hotel shuttle we had finally arrived at our magic circus hotel!!! Our room with its massive double bed and disney themed cupboard was perfect for our post disneyland crash period. We gathered the necessities from our bags, locked away our valuables and made our way to yet another shuttle to take us to DISNEYLAND!!!

Months ago when courtney and I had been planning our disneyland adventure she had informed me that under no circumstances was I allowed to miss ANY scary rides! This was a promise I was unsure if I could keep... I reminisced on the time when faced with the terrifying mile high ride at dreamworld (comprising of being jetted
up a tower and speedily being dropped backwards down it at a billion miles an hour) I freaked out at the last second and had to stop the ride just as it was about to disembark. I was humiliated and since then have had a sever fear of all scary rides! So naturally the first ride Courtney dragged me to was- the tower of terror!!!!!
We made our way through the 20 minute line through the lobby while i tried hard not to think about what was about to come! The ride was based around some hotel that had ghosts in it from when there was a lightning while they were in the elevator??? Well at least that was as much as I could gather from the pictures and french talking.. We made out way through a room and in the back to the 'service elevators'. We piled our way into the seats, packed our bags behind our legs and strapped in. Even Courntey was scared at this point- not knowing what was about to come! We were thrown to the top of the building where the doors opened out onto the top of the building where you had a view of the entire Disney village!!! Before we could take it in we were dropped extra fast then sent flying back up again, and down again and up again. The room was filled with screams- mostly coming from my direction as everyone tried to anticipate the next drop without any luck and our legs and arms went flying!!! Before we knew it it was over and we were back safely on the ground- stumbling out in fits of nervous laughter!
You will be pleased to here that this experience has conquered my fear of roller coasters and scary rides!! The first ride we went on set me up for the rest I the day as we sought out the best most exhilarating rides :) following tower of terror we went through 'Armageddon' with a room full of special effects to simulare a scene out of the meteor based movie including wind fans, water sprays and a great big ball of fire!!! This induced full on tears from one 4 year old boy who clutched to his mum and begged to be let out! Courtney and I sympathized with this boy as another blast of pure fire shot out of the centre cannon. We thankfully got let out of the simulation and made our way to a rock and roller coaster- need I say more.
From there we made our way around the park and through from walt Disney studios to dreamland castle park. We walked in past a fountain, under the Mickey clock and through the pink castle to be greeted by a town centre like id just stepped into the centre of my favourite game- kingdom hearts! In the centre were horse drawn carriages and a golden gazebo, merchandise stands and food vans. As we walk up the packed street each side has typical disney themed layout with delis and restaurants and hotdog stores. It was AMAZING. At the very end of the street, straight ahead of us when we looked up was the princesses castle- typically seen at the start of any Disney movie as the shooting star darts it's way across the top. It was magical!!! See my fb cover photo for an exact replica of what it looked like from the ground- amazing!!!
The Disneyland park is ten times bigger than the walt Disney studios as we decipher the map to come up with a plan of attack. We decide to start from the left and make our way through- though only manage to make it through a haunted house and pirates of the Caribbean ride before deciding to eat and crash :)
As we made our way back through the town centre in search of food everything we came across was just super unreasonably priced!!! It was ridiculous. We may as well head back to our hotel for a 34 euro buffet! (which I wasn't entirely apposed to). We then recalled the Disney village we had passed on our way in and thought we would try our luck with places OUTSIDE the ridiculous world of Disney where were in fact not as rich as the disney princesses we had started to believe we were.
Here we hit the jackpot. Reasonbly priced food and not to busy. And then we spotted the golden arches. We both breathed a sigh of relief as we made our way hopeful to our sanctuary. McDonalds. Cheap menu, food we enjoy and most importantly WIRELESS!!!
We spent the next hour catching up on the past ten hours we had been deprived of, updating statuses and contacting friends and family. When we had finally got our technology fix we said farewell to our old fried for another day and made our way back to the hotel to make a crash landing from our first day in Disneyland Paris :)