vellamint
DIS Veteran
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- Jun 25, 2000
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Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - Day Two - Arrival in Paris - Disneyland
Before we knew it we were landing. I thought it would be a tortuous flight but it wasn’t even though it was 7 hours and 10 minutes. We deplaned and followed the crowd through passport checks and on to our luggage.
Now I knew from my research that Charles de Gaulle Airport was HUGE. Even the individual terminals are huge. So I was very concerned as to how to find our shuttle. Originally I was going to have us take the “Bullet Train” - the TGV. It was around the same price as a shuttle but would get us there in 10 minutes as opposed to the 45 minutes driving in traffic. After much thought I felt it would be better to get a private shuttle figuring that after traveling so long we would be in no mood to find the ticket booths, the train OR lug our suitcases up and down and around. TGV would be 54 euros for a non-peak train (the first one was at 9:10 am) and the shuttle was 60 euros plus optional tip (more about tipping later). We arrived at 7:30 am.
After following our flight to our luggage I DID get a little panicky when I realized I had no idea what exit our driver would be at so I started to dig in my pile of paperwork to find the confirmation email he had sent me. (All the while hoping I was NOT going to have to dial a French telephone number and speak to a French person lol…..) No need for worries though…..we just kept following the crowd and there he was with my name on a paper he held up. He took two of our heaviest bags and right outside to a nice van. Luggage loaded, seatbelts on…..off…we…..GO….OMG WE ARE REALLY IN FRANCE!!!!!!!!!!!
Look at that countryside (ok its winter and bleak but hey its French bleak)…look at those French houses, and stores, and gas stations oh my! Just amazing to me…….I am enthralled. I think the girls were sleeping……. Roads signs….there…THERE!!! Marne-la-Vallee Chessy!!! Parcs Disney!!! Ooh-la-la!!
We pulled into Disney’s Sequoia Lodge, the driver brought our luggage into reception and I checked us in while the girls plopped into chairs. We were tired. Our room was not ready. Okay…they have a luggage room but it is outside and they do not have bell services so we drag our bags (3 large, 2 carryon) outside and leave them in the luggage room. Off to the park we go.
There is a shuttle bus that will take you to the parks right outside reception and across from the luggage room. We took the bus….it is cold here so I am glad I bought the girls hats and gloves before we left. We arrive at the bus stop by the park in less than 10 minutes. We go through the usual bag check and then in we go.
It is beautiful. It is stunning. It is Christmas and the decorations are up!! We head up the left side of the park and into an “arcade”. There is an arcade on either side of Main Street behind the stores. It is NOT a video game room. It is a covered walkway with access to the main stores and little seating areas. There is a walk thru attraction in this one called The Statue of Liberty Plateau. It is pictures and mannequins telling the story of the Statue of Liberty but we really don’t pay attention although I did take a few photos.
Onward we go……our first real attraction is Phantom Manor, the French version of our Haunted Mansion. It is MUCH better than either Orlando or Anaheim’s version. Very spooky with lots of skeletons and beheaded people and very macabre scenes that are probably too scary for the American parks. I LOVED it. Even the outside has so much more with so many little areas with headstones and such.
Second ride is Big Thunder Railroad. Now…I am starting to get to the point in my life that I don’t go on as many rides as I used to …. Big Thunder is one that I have been wavering on…. But its FRANCE so I gotta do it right?! It was fantastic!!! I loved it….the girls loved it…..we bought the photo!!! (15 euros) I need to find a good place to hang it in the house. Seemed like a much longer ride than Orlando but my daughters disagree with that so who knows…..
Did I mention that on a Tuesday in November there are no lines!!!
Off to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril….research revealed this was a roller coaster so I told the girls to go on it (but I forgot to that there was a loop in it) and I would wait for them at the exit. Keep in mind we are not using our cell phones due to the extreme cost so my utmost priority is not to get separated…not so much that I am afraid of losing them, just that I don’t want to waste the time to find each other….every minute counts…we are IN FRANCE!!
They rode the ride…I bought a Disneyland Paris Fleece Head Band (9.90 euros).
We walked through “LePassage Enchante d’Aladdin” and “Adventure Isle” which are….walk thru attractions. Took photos of course and then entered Fantasyland.
We are really really tired but there are no lines and the room won’t be ready until 3.
Now in Fantasyland we rode “Sleeping Beauty” and “Peter Pan” both of which seemed almost exactly like Orlando….maybe a scene or two slightly different but I am not positive.
We had to ride “Les Voyages de Pinocchio” today as my research showed it would be closed the rest of the trip. Fun…. Orlando doesn’t have this …. Anaheim does. It seemed the same but I haven’t been on it enough in California to be sure.
On to “it’s a Small World”. I love this ride. I don’t care if the song gets stuck in my head all day lol. What’s this??!!! It has the HOLIDAY OVERLAY!!! OMG… I am so unprepared…..where’s my camera? Flash on or flash off…….TAKE some VIDEO….. I wish we had gotten back on this at some point because it really was beautiful with the Christmas songs.
I would have stayed later but the girls are not the commando park person I am so at about 2:30 I think it was we started back to the hotel. To be fair…we had been up since the morning before with only sleep on the plane.
Hungry now we decided to sit down and eat somewhere in the “Disney Village”. We chose Annette’s Diner for the French fries lol…..we had to wait about 15 minutes for our table. Jenn had her standard burgers and fries, Jess and I ordered onion rings and fried cheese which was NOT like mozzarella sticks and hash browns. The bill was 38.20 euros which comes to roughly $56.00!
It was finally time that our room was ready.
I think I need to explain a little about the hotel and check in as there are differences between American and European Disney. We did each receive a key card but the locks are different and it always took 3 or 6 tries to get into the room. We received a little plastic card for each morning of our stay with a breakfast time on it. I asked for 8:15 - 8:30 figuring we would want to be done and out by 9:30 am everyday (silly me). I also received 2 paper cards. One is an identification card for the resort and one was a charge card for the resort…this one I had to sign. It as odd that the charge card was a piece of paper instead of your room key but I was careful not to rip it or let it get wet.
We retrieved our luggage and I tipped them about 4 euros I think …. Tipping is optional in Europe as evidently they pay their workers a living wage. (I tipped the shuttle drive 10 euros for a 60 euro fare.)
I tried to keep track of our spending by equating 1 euro to $1.50 which is about the exchange I got when I bought the euros through Bank of America ($1.48 to be exact). For anyone that cares to know…..it was much cheaper to charge things on my Capitol One card. They do not charge an exchange fee to convert European charges to American dollars and the exchange rate I have calculated from my statement is 1 euro = $1.32. I would have been better off charging everything.
I had successfully requested a room as close to reception as possible and thus received a free upgrade to a “Montana” room. The standard room I booked was in outer buildings……if I hadn’t been upgraded we would have had to walk outside to get to breakfast and the shops from our room. This would have cost about $200 more if I had booked a Montana room from the outset. Again, for anyone who needs to know…I booked through the UK website getting a MUCH better deal than the USA website.
Into the room. Kind of small, kind of plain. Rustic looking. Jessica actually chose this hotel because of her love of nature. Dark woods and quilts. Nice. We like it. Now for the differences… No clock radio…no clock period. No screens on the windows. No ceiling fan. Only 3 outlets in the room one of which is on the vanity. This mattered originally because we needed to charge 1 camera, 2 I-Pods, 1 cellphone (I kept mine with me for emergency purposes), I had my white noise machine and we had the hair straightener……which fried to death by the way. They have wake up calls but the phone made a small noise instead of a ring like we are used to so it did not succeed in waking us up….I resorted to my I-Pod as an alarm.
NO HAIR CONDITIONER…..not even for purchase in the resort store. This may not sound too bad to some of you but I bet you have short straight hair!!! Thankfully I had one little bottle of Pert Plus and my Frizz-ease…….
Thin towels, one little bottle of shampoo a day and soap that dried our skin out pretty badly.
Internet research indicated there were no rollaways here….. I requested one at check in but it wasn’t delivered so I went back to the desk to ask. The new girl didn’t understand what I was asking for so of course the bed they brought was a baby “cot”. I told the housekeeper not to leave it and tried to explain what it was I wanted and once he looked in and saw Jennifer on the floor attempted to inflate the air mattress he said he wasn’t supposed to … but he will be right back. Voila!! A full size rollaway……I tipped him 5 euros for this. We don’t sleep well in the same bed together……but problem solved.
Both girls fell out for a nap while I went back to the lobby again to take pictures and get the layout of the place. Purchased souvenir magnets and Disney pins while I was there…..I collect these.
Back to the room, Jennifer is awake and hungry…Jessica is exhausted so we left her to sleep and walked to the “Disney Village” to find food. Not much luck though. We bought sandwiches and drinks. New York Sandwiches had a deal – a sandwich, a dessert and a can of soda for 11 euros ($16.28) for a total of 33 euros ($48.84!!!) It was going to have to do. I eyeballed the stores for future reference. We ate while watching the Disney Channel which was one of the few channels in English and went to bed…..oh and my white noise machine wasn’t sounding very good so I had to unplug it. I don’t know if it broke the socket….it wouldn’t work in that particular socket again. The only outlet it would work in was the one in the bathroom which was too far away to be useful.
Good Night to our first night in France.
Before we knew it we were landing. I thought it would be a tortuous flight but it wasn’t even though it was 7 hours and 10 minutes. We deplaned and followed the crowd through passport checks and on to our luggage.
Now I knew from my research that Charles de Gaulle Airport was HUGE. Even the individual terminals are huge. So I was very concerned as to how to find our shuttle. Originally I was going to have us take the “Bullet Train” - the TGV. It was around the same price as a shuttle but would get us there in 10 minutes as opposed to the 45 minutes driving in traffic. After much thought I felt it would be better to get a private shuttle figuring that after traveling so long we would be in no mood to find the ticket booths, the train OR lug our suitcases up and down and around. TGV would be 54 euros for a non-peak train (the first one was at 9:10 am) and the shuttle was 60 euros plus optional tip (more about tipping later). We arrived at 7:30 am.
After following our flight to our luggage I DID get a little panicky when I realized I had no idea what exit our driver would be at so I started to dig in my pile of paperwork to find the confirmation email he had sent me. (All the while hoping I was NOT going to have to dial a French telephone number and speak to a French person lol…..) No need for worries though…..we just kept following the crowd and there he was with my name on a paper he held up. He took two of our heaviest bags and right outside to a nice van. Luggage loaded, seatbelts on…..off…we…..GO….OMG WE ARE REALLY IN FRANCE!!!!!!!!!!!
Look at that countryside (ok its winter and bleak but hey its French bleak)…look at those French houses, and stores, and gas stations oh my! Just amazing to me…….I am enthralled. I think the girls were sleeping……. Roads signs….there…THERE!!! Marne-la-Vallee Chessy!!! Parcs Disney!!! Ooh-la-la!!
We pulled into Disney’s Sequoia Lodge, the driver brought our luggage into reception and I checked us in while the girls plopped into chairs. We were tired. Our room was not ready. Okay…they have a luggage room but it is outside and they do not have bell services so we drag our bags (3 large, 2 carryon) outside and leave them in the luggage room. Off to the park we go.
There is a shuttle bus that will take you to the parks right outside reception and across from the luggage room. We took the bus….it is cold here so I am glad I bought the girls hats and gloves before we left. We arrive at the bus stop by the park in less than 10 minutes. We go through the usual bag check and then in we go.
It is beautiful. It is stunning. It is Christmas and the decorations are up!! We head up the left side of the park and into an “arcade”. There is an arcade on either side of Main Street behind the stores. It is NOT a video game room. It is a covered walkway with access to the main stores and little seating areas. There is a walk thru attraction in this one called The Statue of Liberty Plateau. It is pictures and mannequins telling the story of the Statue of Liberty but we really don’t pay attention although I did take a few photos.
Onward we go……our first real attraction is Phantom Manor, the French version of our Haunted Mansion. It is MUCH better than either Orlando or Anaheim’s version. Very spooky with lots of skeletons and beheaded people and very macabre scenes that are probably too scary for the American parks. I LOVED it. Even the outside has so much more with so many little areas with headstones and such.
Second ride is Big Thunder Railroad. Now…I am starting to get to the point in my life that I don’t go on as many rides as I used to …. Big Thunder is one that I have been wavering on…. But its FRANCE so I gotta do it right?! It was fantastic!!! I loved it….the girls loved it…..we bought the photo!!! (15 euros) I need to find a good place to hang it in the house. Seemed like a much longer ride than Orlando but my daughters disagree with that so who knows…..
Did I mention that on a Tuesday in November there are no lines!!!
Off to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril….research revealed this was a roller coaster so I told the girls to go on it (but I forgot to that there was a loop in it) and I would wait for them at the exit. Keep in mind we are not using our cell phones due to the extreme cost so my utmost priority is not to get separated…not so much that I am afraid of losing them, just that I don’t want to waste the time to find each other….every minute counts…we are IN FRANCE!!
They rode the ride…I bought a Disneyland Paris Fleece Head Band (9.90 euros).
We walked through “LePassage Enchante d’Aladdin” and “Adventure Isle” which are….walk thru attractions. Took photos of course and then entered Fantasyland.
We are really really tired but there are no lines and the room won’t be ready until 3.
Now in Fantasyland we rode “Sleeping Beauty” and “Peter Pan” both of which seemed almost exactly like Orlando….maybe a scene or two slightly different but I am not positive.
We had to ride “Les Voyages de Pinocchio” today as my research showed it would be closed the rest of the trip. Fun…. Orlando doesn’t have this …. Anaheim does. It seemed the same but I haven’t been on it enough in California to be sure.
On to “it’s a Small World”. I love this ride. I don’t care if the song gets stuck in my head all day lol. What’s this??!!! It has the HOLIDAY OVERLAY!!! OMG… I am so unprepared…..where’s my camera? Flash on or flash off…….TAKE some VIDEO….. I wish we had gotten back on this at some point because it really was beautiful with the Christmas songs.
I would have stayed later but the girls are not the commando park person I am so at about 2:30 I think it was we started back to the hotel. To be fair…we had been up since the morning before with only sleep on the plane.
Hungry now we decided to sit down and eat somewhere in the “Disney Village”. We chose Annette’s Diner for the French fries lol…..we had to wait about 15 minutes for our table. Jenn had her standard burgers and fries, Jess and I ordered onion rings and fried cheese which was NOT like mozzarella sticks and hash browns. The bill was 38.20 euros which comes to roughly $56.00!
It was finally time that our room was ready.
I think I need to explain a little about the hotel and check in as there are differences between American and European Disney. We did each receive a key card but the locks are different and it always took 3 or 6 tries to get into the room. We received a little plastic card for each morning of our stay with a breakfast time on it. I asked for 8:15 - 8:30 figuring we would want to be done and out by 9:30 am everyday (silly me). I also received 2 paper cards. One is an identification card for the resort and one was a charge card for the resort…this one I had to sign. It as odd that the charge card was a piece of paper instead of your room key but I was careful not to rip it or let it get wet.
We retrieved our luggage and I tipped them about 4 euros I think …. Tipping is optional in Europe as evidently they pay their workers a living wage. (I tipped the shuttle drive 10 euros for a 60 euro fare.)
I tried to keep track of our spending by equating 1 euro to $1.50 which is about the exchange I got when I bought the euros through Bank of America ($1.48 to be exact). For anyone that cares to know…..it was much cheaper to charge things on my Capitol One card. They do not charge an exchange fee to convert European charges to American dollars and the exchange rate I have calculated from my statement is 1 euro = $1.32. I would have been better off charging everything.
I had successfully requested a room as close to reception as possible and thus received a free upgrade to a “Montana” room. The standard room I booked was in outer buildings……if I hadn’t been upgraded we would have had to walk outside to get to breakfast and the shops from our room. This would have cost about $200 more if I had booked a Montana room from the outset. Again, for anyone who needs to know…I booked through the UK website getting a MUCH better deal than the USA website.
Into the room. Kind of small, kind of plain. Rustic looking. Jessica actually chose this hotel because of her love of nature. Dark woods and quilts. Nice. We like it. Now for the differences… No clock radio…no clock period. No screens on the windows. No ceiling fan. Only 3 outlets in the room one of which is on the vanity. This mattered originally because we needed to charge 1 camera, 2 I-Pods, 1 cellphone (I kept mine with me for emergency purposes), I had my white noise machine and we had the hair straightener……which fried to death by the way. They have wake up calls but the phone made a small noise instead of a ring like we are used to so it did not succeed in waking us up….I resorted to my I-Pod as an alarm.
NO HAIR CONDITIONER…..not even for purchase in the resort store. This may not sound too bad to some of you but I bet you have short straight hair!!! Thankfully I had one little bottle of Pert Plus and my Frizz-ease…….
Thin towels, one little bottle of shampoo a day and soap that dried our skin out pretty badly.
Internet research indicated there were no rollaways here….. I requested one at check in but it wasn’t delivered so I went back to the desk to ask. The new girl didn’t understand what I was asking for so of course the bed they brought was a baby “cot”. I told the housekeeper not to leave it and tried to explain what it was I wanted and once he looked in and saw Jennifer on the floor attempted to inflate the air mattress he said he wasn’t supposed to … but he will be right back. Voila!! A full size rollaway……I tipped him 5 euros for this. We don’t sleep well in the same bed together……but problem solved.
Both girls fell out for a nap while I went back to the lobby again to take pictures and get the layout of the place. Purchased souvenir magnets and Disney pins while I was there…..I collect these.
Back to the room, Jennifer is awake and hungry…Jessica is exhausted so we left her to sleep and walked to the “Disney Village” to find food. Not much luck though. We bought sandwiches and drinks. New York Sandwiches had a deal – a sandwich, a dessert and a can of soda for 11 euros ($16.28) for a total of 33 euros ($48.84!!!) It was going to have to do. I eyeballed the stores for future reference. We ate while watching the Disney Channel which was one of the few channels in English and went to bed…..oh and my white noise machine wasn’t sounding very good so I had to unplug it. I don’t know if it broke the socket….it wouldn’t work in that particular socket again. The only outlet it would work in was the one in the bathroom which was too far away to be useful.
Good Night to our first night in France.
I also thought Big Thunder Mountain RR was a longer ride than Orlando - plus there is the tunnel bit at the beginning that makes it unique.
