Europe - Day 8

Bonjour!

Today we ventured into Paris to tour about a little. The Disneyland resort is about a 45 minutes away from downtown Paris, so after a delightful breakfast in the club lounge, we walked over to the train station and hopped on a train.
It was fun to take that in. It started out pretty empty and by the time we got off to change trains it was rather full.
We changed trains and went one stop and were at Notre Dame.
(Side note: I never think there will be construction [street/sidewalk work] at landmarks like this) We found our way through the temporary walls and were able to get our berings. Our tour for the day is on the BatoBus boats. We were able to find the dock pretty easily.
So a note on tickets... so far we have mentioned buying tickets ahead of time and how well that worked.. Deutsches Museum, Chocoversum..... But if you are thinking of picking up BatoBus tickets ahead of time... don't. This didn't work well for us at all. We paid for tickets and never got more than an emailed receipt. Despite it indicating that we would get vouchers..... we didn't. And they didn't provide good options for contacting with questions. So we planned to come with our email and see what happened. Well, they couldn't honor the email... we needed the vouchers. We had decided before we left home (and we didn't get the vouchers) that we would repurchase the tickets if we needed to. So instead of arguing with the two employees who were insistent we needed vouchers.. yes, we explained, we just smiled and said we understood and bought new tickets. We can work it out with our credit card company if need be. So, in addition to the hassle the "advanced purchase" ended up being... the onsite, day-of tickets somehow cost less. [Editor's note: And yes, the tickets were purchased through the official website, not a reseller.]
Honestly it all wasn't a big deal... we tried, it didn't work, time for plan B. But word of warning... don't worry about pre-booking this one.
A boat was just leaving when we arrived at the ticket counter to get things worked out, so we had some time enjoying the sights and sounds of the area while we waited for our boat.

Here comes our boat.

These boats are pretty cool.. all window... not a bad view on board.
We had talked about hopping on and off, exploring it all on foot, but at the day came we really just wanted to be shown the sites. We have had a lot of walking and the river was nice.

The Batobus's don't have much narration... so if we do this again (when we do this again) I think we will search out an English tour with narration. We spent almost two hours on the river seeing the sights. Somewhere about 3/4s of the way through the rain kicked in..... raining the hardest by the Eiffel Tower.

Once we had gone full circle we wandered past the street vendors and artists and found our way back to the trains.... we were all hungry for lunch and if we had any energy left, some park time.

We grabbed sandwiches at Earl of Sandwich and brought them back to the room to eat. Then as luck would have it, it was tea time in the lounge.. yay, this may become a tradition for us here.
The sandwiches and goodies were a little different today... soo tasty.
I have been mastering the french coffee machines... They are easy peasy after the German ones ;)

I also have been drinking cappuccinos while in Europe.... it started as a "when in Rome" type thing.... clearly they were the most common drink when we were in Germany and now they are just the coffee drink of this trip. I wonder if two months from now, if I order one at home, if it will remind me of this trip? Hope so.

part of our afternoon tea service at the club lounge - so many choices!

After that late lunch (seriously why are we eating lunch at 3:30 on a regular basis?) and tea, we went back into Disneyland. And were able to ride Big Thunder Mountain... finally. I have ridden this ride in California and Orlando. Both are similar in excitement/intensity. This was a step up. I think the others can no longer claim to be "the wildest ride in the wilderness". This one has them beat.
I have to say I feel that way about a few of the rides here... Paris has done them better... improved on a classic or whatever you want to call it. But in a few instances... the Paris verion is my new favorite.

We made our way from Frontierland to Discoveryland - riding this and that along the way.

With more rides and walk-throughs we took a little time on Main Street to shop then left the park for the day.

Again the stores in Disney Village pulled us in to check things out, but we got back to the room and settled in. Even with a rainy Eiffel tower.. it was a great day.