Europe - Day 10

Au Revoir.... So long France. Hello England!

Today marks the end of our time in non-English speaking countries.
We enjoyed out last breakfast at the club lounge and said goodbye to Disneyland Paris. We had made arrangements with a recommended towncar/shuttle for transportation to Gare du Nord Train Station.
Our driver picked us up right on time and off we went. [Editor's note: On some days of the week, you can take a Eurostar train from Disneyland Paris directly to London. Thursdays are not one of those days, however.]

Ready for our ride to the train station. 

The drive into town was nice. It was fun to drive around in Paris...great people watching and more amazing buildings along the way. And just to note... I am not mentally prepared to drive in Paris... not sure I ever will be. Wow! I so appreciated our driver's calm manner.
The train station was busy, but we found our way to the Eurostar area to check in. Which was mostly just dealing with Customs or Border Control, I guess. We technically (can you see the air quotes?) left France and were stamped into England before we got the train. Our timing was prefect. By the time we finished that we walked into the waiting area and they announced boarding. Woo Hoo... Love it when that happens.

Borading the train! 

Boarding this with suitcases in tow was soooo much easier than the TGV we took to Disneyland Paris from the Airport. Having a car attendant helped... just to tell us where to put things. We were settled in no time.
This was a great ride... comfy, decent food, and a fun app for the kids to try out while we were in the tunnel. The app is kind of a VR look at what might be beyond the tunnel... like what fish might be swimming past as we go through at a rather fast speed.

Settled into the train. They had a screen above us with info about the trip and safety information.

A little trivia for you

The fastest they told us they were going was 296 km per hour... I won't do the math for you, call it a learning experience.

A little over 2 hours later we were pulling into London! The hardest part of the journey was navigating the luggage from the station to our flat for the next two days (did you catch that? Flat... see how I picked up a British term, cool huh?)

Welcome to London!

The London Underground!

This is not suitable for rolling luggage. Ha ha, we were not sure we would get to the other side with all our wheels still intact. 

We are staying in an apartment for all you who need the american version ;) It's more than a studio, but not a two bedroom. Has three beds, a kitchen and two baths. Just a washing machine - no dryer, so we are being thoughtful about what we wash, as it will need to hang dry.

View from our flat.

Once we got into the unit the kids both relaxed... almost to the point we weren't sure we would keep our afternoon plans of going to the British Museum.... spoiler: we didn't go.
Hubby ran out to get water and snacks etc. and we lazed in the room for a bit. Deciding we all needed some down time and we didn't want to be worn out before our evening plans.
After a relaxed bit we headed to Paddington Station (closest Underground station) and found some dinner. Then took a few trains to Green Park, where our London at Night Bus Tour departed from. Additionally, it was close to a store I was keen on checking out, so some of us may or may not have spent our London allowance before our tour. [Editor's note: If you had to bet, go with "may"]

What? Where are we?

Ok, now I am really confused.

This feels right... a lovely wall of tea cups. 

With a little bit of time left before our tour and some on and off rain, we found a covered bench in Green Park and again relaxed while we waited for the tour start.

In Green Park, waiting for our tour to begin.

The tour turned out to be great. A small portion of the top deck was covered and we were able to get seats up there. So we were dry, when it was raining (only for part of the tour) and we had great views. The tour guide was lots of fun and the driver was skilled.... Man, London and Paris... not gonna drive in those towns. [Editor's note: Me either. I have, however, driven in Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Munich. I don't mind driving in any of those cities.]

After the tour we took the train back to our flat.. and good night.

Europe - Day 9

Bonjour!

Today was our full day at the Paris Disney Parks. After another great breakfast at the club level lounge, we attempted to get to rope drop at the Studio Park (Parc Walt Disney Studios).

We were a little late, but still plenty of time to enjoy the early entry for resort guests. Our first ride was Crush's Coaster, for some reason this doesn't have fastpasses, so get in line early or commit to at least an hour wait. We were able to get on in less than 20 mins... not too shabby.

We chased that with Ratatouille. which we got fast passes for but still used the standby line, since it was short and we were pretty sure we would want to go twice.

Both rides are currently only here in Paris and both are outstanding (personal opinion - my kids and hubby may not agree).

After that we hit a Cars themed ride, the name escapes me, and then half the group went back to Crush and the other back to Ratatouille.
We met up after and tried to get FastPasses for Tower or Terror so hubby could go. It didn't work out quite yet. But he and our son decided to try the Parachute Drop ride. So our young lady and I shopped a bit, then got in line for the Marvel show. The boys were able to catch up with us in line and we eventually got into the theater to see the show.

We had a few comical errors in our mid-day planning.. the kids and I wanted to go to the other park and ride the train, while Hubby rode a ride. But we didn't have our park tickets. He came after us, but didn't know we popped into a store before we left the first park. So he is waiting for us outside the second park and we are thinking he is on a ride, so we found shade inside the first park to wait for him. Ah, thank goodness for cell phones.
We found each other... and our first plan, to ride the train, didn't work. Technical difficulties. So we found some other rides to keep us busy and hoped that the train would re-open before our day was over. (Side note: our room comes with a daily fastpass. One ride - any fastpass ride is open but not between the hours of 1 and 4... that 3 hour window, we forgot about today. Ugh.)
Anyway, we had a few other false starts, but caught our stride again at 4. And the Train was back too! Hurrah!

The girls decided we would rather have tea at the club than ride the train, so we came back to the room for tea and some shopping. The boys waited for the train and enjoyed a ride around the park.
The rest of the day was mellow in the room. With the girls finishing up our shopping budget and another great meal from Earl of Sandwich in the Village.
Now for some laundry and bed.

And the last pic from the park.....

Au revoir

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.

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!