Europe - Day 7

Auf Wiedersehen! Bonjour!

We have left Germany and are in France. Apparently all German airports are BIG, maybe not, but Hamburg was a pretty big airport. And the only airport this trip that we both fly in to an out of, kind of funny to think about. Our young lady pointed out that even our home airport we fly out of and in to... which is different.
With a few minutes of hustle, we got on our Air France flight to Paris. Other than some very squeaky flaps or doors on the plane, the flight was uneventful. We are missing TSA pre-check if you are curious. And just a curiosity... no one... checked any form of our ID in Hamburg. No One. Curious.

Our bags arrived happily with us in Paris and once we had collected our now 3 bags from baggage claim, we went to get our train tickets.
I will be honest this area of the airport was so incredibly crowded, I have no idea why we were in one line an others were in other lines. They all seemed to go to automatic ticket machines... but some were incredibly long and others... not. [Editor's note: Most of the long lines were for the light rail trains into Paris. We were taking a TGV from the airport, however, so our lines were shorter.]
We pre-purchased tickets for a specific time train, we just needed to print them and wait for the train. We had time to eat/snack/graze once we had our tickets and we did. The train was listed as 15 minutes late, but we weren't in a hurry, so it worked.

Our train to Disneyland Paris

I have to admit I wasn't prepared for how fast these TGVs go. Didn't really phase me when we were riding it, but standing at the station when one flew through - WOW!

His first TGV ride... happy kid. 

Getting on and off was slightly challenging with all our luggage.. and the luggage of the others. Just not enough space for it all. But we managed, and soon we were going through bag check at Disneyland Paris. 

[Editor's note: There a few different options for getting from the Paris airport (CDG) to Disneyland Paris. You can take a bus, which is a 45-60 minute trip, and not particularly cheap. You can take one of the RER trains into Paris and then a different train back to Disneyland Paris. This works, and is fairly inexpensive, but would take 60-90 minutes. Another option is to take the high-speed TGV from the airport. It's similar in price to the bus but only takes 9 minutes. Yes, 9 minutes. However, it doesn't go as often as the other two options. When we looked at it, we realized that by taking the TGV, we would get to Disneyland Paris at approximately the same time as the bus but we'd need to hang out in the airport for an extra 45 minutes or so. We planned to just use that time for lunch.]

Our hotel for this part of the trip is the Disney's Hotel New York. We got a package that included park passes and what Disney calls "club level", which has a private lounge with breakfast and afternoon tea daily. Plus drinks (coffee, tea, soda, etc) during opening hours (7am - 10pm). [Editor's note: The primary reason that we booked the "club level" room was that it wasn't that much extra and it came with breakfast. It also came with an extra fastpass per person per day, which was really helpful for getting on some of the more popular rides.]

We got checked in and shown to the club level floor and our room.

Our room is a standard hotel room with two queen beds and a bath. It's clear it is on the older side. (This hotel closes in October for a complete overhaul "Systemic, top to bottom, 100 point restoration". It will be a Marvel themed hotel reopening in 2019.)
But we found some nice touches - complementary mug (which will soon be a collector item), rose in the bathroom, and shortly after we arrived they delivered a large bottle of water - small but nice, appreciated touches.

Those touches included the club level lounge where we had tea (snacks) before we hit the park. Yum... Oh, the finger sandwiches and pastries! The food was delicious and plentiful. Add to that coffee, tea etc... Practically a meal. We will be back tomorrow for sure!

Now to the park! I was way more excited than I realized. Honestly I didn't think I'd ever come to Disneyland Paris and here I am! Amazing!

Can you tell? I am a little bit excited. 

We made our way through parts of the park, taking in the sights and comparing some of our favorite rides. Also making a point to ride or come back to the things they only have here.

I think this Small World is my new favorite. 

Alice's Curious Labrynith

We had a bit of a fail with Big Thunder Mountain this evening. If you follow the blog you may recall a BTM fail last May at Disneyland California, which resulted in a meltdown for our kiddo. Well today we thought we had it all in hand when the ride stopped while we were in line. He and I were even talking about how this was like May, and boy was that hard, and aren't we glad that's not happening..... Then they closed the ride.
So the reality is that this is a hard thing. He wants to roll with it, but his emotions seem to overrun his whole system. I think we made progress while we worked it through. Hubby and our young lady rode Pirates while he and I sat, talked and tried to plan what was next.
Additionally, it was about 8 pm and we decided to call it a day. With a few stops on the way back to window shop, we we were all good by the time we got to the room.
Now to get comfy and sleep.

And man does Disney do a number on a girl's feet! Ouch.

Last picture of the day.... A dragon. This friendly fellow (maybe not.... he growls) lives below the castle.

Yay! we get to use our Dragon tag! 

Au Revoir!