The Return to The Magic Trip Report!! - Day 3

[Libby_Darling]

The Cast!

Me – Libby, just turned 23.
Ben – 22.

5 days/4 nights at Santa Fe

If you want to know the background of this trip feel free to peruse my over-long pre-trippie http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2539172


Day 3 – September 27th 2010

Today was down in our itinerary as our Paris day. I had done lots of research on the CityRama tour before we left and it looked really good as we wanted to see as much as possible in the day, but we were only reallllyyy fussed about notre dame and the Eiffel tower so 50 euros seemed like a lot to pay :/ but we decided to go for it because it was recommended for first timers.

We were all ready to book it at the info desk until I saw the price in the leaflet we had, 74 euros!! Eeeeek!! We both agreed that was far too much money to be spent sat on a coach all day, and far from having had our fill of the Disney magic we were desperate to get back to the parks!! So we decided to bite the bullet and travel to Paris on our own, using maps and leaflets and guidebooks

We had a little lie-in this morning and I have to admit I woke up with a fairly delicate head…blerghhh! Ben was fine though, annoyingly. Those glowtinis sure do pack a punch! We went down for breakfast at 9 and I was really surprised at how busy it was! I thought the 7am breakfast time for EMH would be the busiest! It really was fine though and we were able to get our munch with no problems. We got the shuttle about 9.45 and went to the little information booth to see if they had anything we could use, but they only had like full on guidebooks and we needed a simple tube map.

So we went to the station and picked up a couple quite easily, and studied them for SOME time, trying to decide which ticket would be best. We saw one that was about 20 euros first which seemed to do everything with bells and whistles on, but in the end we opted for the Mobillis ticket for zones 1-5 which did ring a bell as we saw it so I must have read it in a trippie somewhere so this sealed the deal for us! Blind faith haha!

We happily parted with our money seeing as we were saving about 60 euros. I like to think we were a bit more polite to the ticket man than the woman in front of us who just said “PARIS” to him :/ To the point!

We wandered aimlessly around for a while trying to find the right platform and just decided to pretty much follow the crowd We got on the red line which I think was A, and the other two lines we needed we B and C so it was quite easy to remember once we got the hang of it. We had a fairly long journey, passing Val d’Europe which was the first stop and we said we’d get off on the way back but we decided not to in the end (I’m obsessed with the idea of spending the whole day in Wal-Mart when we go to America but somehow the French equivalent didn’t get me as excited :/)

We got off at Chatalet les Halles and then changed to the B line to get to Notre Dame. We walked right out the station and it was right there! Super easy! We took some photos outside but didn’t feel the need to go inside, just seeing it was enough for us ☺

This was a boy who got mobbed by birds! Eek!

we did queue for the toilets however, which were free but had the longest queue ever!!! Spent more time queuing there than we did looking at the actual cathedral!!

Then we got the yellow line to the Eiffel Tower, got a bit mixed up here and couldn’t find the right platform but we eventually found it and hopped on.

This is Ben confused at the underground map!

When we got off, the Tower was like right there!!

We were quite excited and walked along the Seine, was a really pretty view! Then we crossed the road and walked along a long road that led to the tower. This is when we started to get a bit put off by the whole area. There was basically loads of men selling tiny souviner Eiffel Towers… but like, millions of them! All in a row, all selling exactly the same things. It was weird. They harassed us a bit as we walked past which bugged me as we obviously weren’t going to buy a rubbishy tiny multi-coloured Eiffel Tower! There were women coming up to us asking us to sign sheets of paper to, not sure what that was about but we just sidestepped. And we finally reached the Eiffel Tower and it was really nice but we didn’t want to go up which was lucky because it was mega busy, so we pretty much took some snaps and then went back to the station!

Overall, we were glad we saw it but we didn’t feel the need to go up or hang around there very long. So by this time it was only like 2pm so we decided to GO BACK TO DISNEY!! WOOO!! This was actually Bens idea and I was more than happy to cut our little Paris tour short, we’d done the two things we wanted to and I was having Mickey withdrawals! We were going to go to Val d’Europe on the way back and browse the supermarket but I was suddenly starving and couldn’t contemplate anything other than eating (this happens to me a lot haha!) so we decided to change the plan slightly and go to ANNETTES!! If you have been a faithful reader you’ll remember this was the plan for Sunday night but I got ill and we didn’t go. I was determined to redeem myself!

 

[Libby_Darling]

I absolutely love everything 50’s and 60’s and was especially pleased I’d chosen a cute little 60’s dress for this day, felt like I really fitted in with the waitress’es haha!!

Seriously my dream car.

Loooooved the decoration in Annettes and the little jukeboxes on the table! We’d love to have a jukebox if we get a flat together, they are rather pricey though eek!!

I had scoured the menus before coming (obviously!) and knew I defiantly wanted a MILKSHAKE and couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw you could have peanut butter and chocolate together!! DONE.

Ben had…*drumroll* a Desperados! The milkshake was possibly the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted and I immediately needed water *gasp* which took rather a long time to come and was the only bad thing about our meal, we just had to ask 3 different waitresses haha but I didn’t really mind.

We were starving by this point so were a little bit greedy and each got a burger and a side of onion rings to share.

Benji got the Greenpiece burger - Hash brown on a bun with Annette's sauce, tomato, lettuce, mozzarella, aubergine, courgette, mushrooms and avocado.

I got the Avocado Verde burger - Ground beef, bacon, avocado, cheese, guacamole.

Mine was SO GOOD, I got my burger cooked medium (is it wrong that I’ve never been somewhere where they ask you how to cook your burger!? Posh!) and it was amazing, so full of praise for that burger! I still sometimes dream about it!! Although, there wasn’t as much avocado in it as I would have liked and luckily Benji doesn’t like it so I had his in mine which made it even better. TRIPLE avocado!! Ben loved his burger too, way more exciting than the bog standard veggie burger he usually gets.

Although just thinking, I swear he had an omelette or fritatta in his so that description I got off dlpfoodguide.com is possibly out of date. Either way, it was lush! The onion rings were good although Ben ate most of them as they were a bit heavy on the onion for me, I like my onion rings to be 80% batter, 20% onion Also the BBQ was very odd tasting I thought but Ben loved it.

There really was no need for pudding, I was still ploughing through my milkshake but I did finish it in the end! I wrote down the bill in my notebook and it was 48 euros, BARGAIN!! (…)

We waddled out of the restaurant, popped to the little shop by the train station and bought more wine and more Desperados, went back to our room and got changed into practical attire and got the shuttle back to the parks about 4.

Some photos of the cute shuttle waiting area! Loved it!

We noticed there were loads of people coming out of the parks so we were quite happy!!

We went to the Studios and there was hardly any queue at Armageddon so we queued up. Then things got a little bit weird. After queuing for about 15 mins (a shock in itself) a CM said it was brokennn and we could either stay and wait or go. I was all up for going because my feet were killing me after walking round Paris and I fancied a nice relaxing cruise on the Tram Tour. So us and everyone else got told we couldn’t just walk out the queue (which would have taken like 5 seconds) we had to go through into the ride!

Very odd. So we all walked through and then the CM walked back out in to the queue bit for about 5 minutes! Everyone was just stood there like ummm, and then he came back and led us through some doors…into the actual attraction bit where you stand in a circle! We walked toward the exit but everyone else stood in the circle and then the ride started!! Seriously the weirdest thing ever, had no idea what was going on but we just rolled with it. Ben said it was nice not to have to sit through the pre-ride video but I couldn’t remember it and would have like to see it!

After this weirdness we went on Rock n Rolla Coaster which had a teeny tiny queue and was AMAZING as ever. I think we went on this a couple of times actually, it was so quiet.
Then we went on the Tram Tour, but I was gutted because we were sat in the first carriage and it didn’t shake about! I was not impressed as that’s the best bit!! I vowed to go on again in a better carriage haha!

After this we wandered over to Toy Story Playland again (seriously we could not stay away!) and did Slinky and RC in rapid succession.

Have to say how nice the park was at the time, super quiet mainly just keen young couples like us leisurely doing the big rides!

 

[Libby_Darling]

We left about 6.30 and missed a shuttle because it was so busy, but we got back to the room about 7. We had a few drinks (as always) and pondered where to eat.

My genius drinks cooling idea

We couldn’t in all honesty be bothered to trek back to the Village so we decided to hit up La Cantina. And lucky we did, because it was AMAZING!

It was also pretty busy and this was at like 8.30 when we thought it’d be quiet with kiddies tucked up in bed! Apparantly not, it was in full swing. We queued for a little bit and after paying our 23 euros including a drink we were set loose into the buffet.

Best buffet ever, they seriously had everything! I can’t remember huge amounts but I will try my best: chilli, meatballs, spaghetti, pasta, courgette gratin, nachos, chicken fajitas with sour cream, guac etc, pizza, loads of cold salads and meats and lots of others. And a really awesome dessert station too which I actually snapped as in the excitement of the buffet I forgot to take photos of our main course.

But please take my word for it, it’s lovely, don’t think because it’s a budget hotel the food is rubbish because we were very impressed. And it’s not just tex-mex stuff either, you could pretty much have anything you fancied! Oh i could eat it all right this minute.

Again suitably stuffed (we seriously don’t know when to stop…) we wandered to the gift shop as I realized with a shock that we hadn’t done any shopping yet, and I bought an ARIEL PEN!! Best purchase ever.

Ben wanted a go in the arcade (?) so we went on a few things, namely the Jurrassic Park shooty thing which was not good. We walked the small way back to our room and fell into bed with the alarm again set for 6am for EMH! (again!)

 

[first trip]

I am soooooooo enjoying your TRs....making me even more excited about our trip (if that's possible)

 

[loladelorean]

Woo I get way overexcited when I see you've posted another day of your trip report but it never disappoints, I love it!
My boyfriend is still reluctant, I might try and get him to read your report so he can see that 20 somethings can have a great laugh in Disney! I think the Desperadoes will appeal to him, I could promise to get him drunk every night.
Oo only 22 sleeps now til my xmas trip, I'm so excited, even more after reading your report!

 

[DLPdaft]

Your hotel photos are brilliant - you should put them in the Santa Fe hotel sticky when you're finished .

Loving reading your trippie, packed full of excitement.

 

[Mum to Belle]

Your dress really did match the car (& Annette's!) you'll have to get one!! I'm loving the peanut butter & choclate milkshake too... mmmmm!

 

[zinderella]

Your trip report is excellent. i've just showed it to my DD (she's 8) and she is sure you are Ariel! She loves your hair!!!

 

[Libby_Darling]

Awww bless your DD, thats so cute!! Thats the biggest compliment ever

Lola - I thought everyone got drunk every night in Disney!?! I think we do come across slightly as alcoholics but this was our only holiday of the year and we were determined to make the best of it! Promising him an alcoholic beverage each night of your trip will surely get him excited

 

[loladelorean]

Lola - I thought everyone got drunk every night in Disney!?! I think we do come across slightly as alcoholics but this was our only holiday of the year and we were determined to make the best of it! Promising him an alcoholic beverage each night of your trip will surely get him excited

Lol! Last year it was just me and my sister and we were on a tight budget, so actually now I think about it I didn't touch a drink the entire time
However, this next trip will be a different story, as our lovely mummy is coming with us and will most likely make sure we are fed leaving me with more pennies for cocktails!
When Leith and I go on holiday its very much like you and Ben - we had a great drunken weekend in Belfast for his birthday last weekend

 

[dlpSteve]

Haven't been on for a few days it's nice to come back and find more trip report posts to read. I had my photo taken with the car outside Annette's, but unfortunately I wasn't wearing my cute dress that day

 

[nycdisneygal]

am loving your trip report. althought still havent found day 1!!!

dreaming about a trip to DLP. DH is reluctant to go to paris, although he loves disney!

great pic with the car!!!

 

[Libby_Darling]

Glad you're enjoying it, Day 0 and 1 are on page 2!

Entice your DH with promises of the BOGOF litre beers in King Ludwigs, worked a treat with my boyf! Although we never actually made it there woops!

 

[Disneyfanswicklow]

Just read your trip report with my DD and guess what....she said OMG she looks so like Ariel!! saw earlier poster had a similar response from her DD too!

Fantastic photos too can't wait to read more!

 

[markpsych]

A fellow Desperados convert!

Can you buy it anymore in the UK?

It was everywhere in the 80s (90s?)....but I never got around to trying it.

Have now developed quite a taste for it since going to DLP!