We drove down late Friday, after Max got home from work. Along the way, we stopped at Quick Burger for a late dinner. They have a special promotion right now for the new 3D Star Wars movie. The kids' meals are all Star Wars, and they have Jedi and Dark Burgers. They were also supposed to have a Dark Vador (Darth Vader) burger, but it wasn't there for some reason. The article I read in the CS Monitor said that they were all going to be there starting 1Jan, but the poster for the Dark Vador burger said 1 Mars (March). But, Max got the Dark Burger (a Darth Maul burger). It had a vaguely red bun, and was very spicy. I got the Jedi Burger, which had horseradish sauce. Ugh. They were both very nasty, and had more cardboard in the burger patty than in the box, I think. However, Em's fried mozzarella stars were fantastic!
I booked a cheap-ass hotel, since we wouldn't be there for anything more than sleeping and showering. It was only a little over $100 for two nights. It was worth it. The room was teeny. There was barely any room to put down our suitcase, and Em slept on a bunk bed! The bathroom was like being in a camper. I swear the whole thing was made out of one piece of molded plastic. The only toiletry provided was that liquid soap dispenser you can see there on the wall. Being in the shower made me feel like I was in a Barbie Dream House. I'm kind of surprised that I didn't have to pump the water by hand. But, it was cheap, and that's what I wanted. We really were only there for sleeping and showering, since we didn't get there until after 10 either night.
Anyway, we got up at 8 on Saturday and went down to breakfast. Wow, what a sucky breakfast, and it was almost 5€ (about $6.50). I'm used to good hotel breakfasts. It was disappointing. Ah, well. We headed out to Disneyland. When we got to the car, there were beautiful frosty bits all over it. We knew we were in for a chilly day. Luckily, Em & I had bought us all long underwear at the PX a couple of days before.
Em & I had gone to their website and figured out what we wanted to do. We wanted to see if we could get it all in one day, because the tickets are really expensive. $81 each for a 1-day park hopper! And that was with the advance purchase discount. (A note, I just looked up the prices for Disneyland in CA. The one day park hopper there is $105. Now I feel like I got off easy with $81) Since we've been to Disney in both California and Florida, and we go to Disney pretty much every time we visit family in California, we didn't need to repeat a lot of stuff. I wanted to see the things that we couldn't see/hadn't seen at either of the other parks.
We went to Walt Disney Studios first. It's like Hollywood Studios in Florida.
Our first ride was Crush's Coaster. We actually got there at 9:30, and the park wasn't supposed to open until 10, but it was open anyway. There was already quite a line for Crush. I'm glad we stayed, though, because it was way fun. It's supposed to feel like you are on the EAC, and it did! Your car spins as you go along the track, and it's pretty much dark. You just see some bubbles projected on the walls. One of the fun things was that, in the line, they had audio animatronic seagulls that alternated saying, "Mine! Mine!" with "Mon! Mon!".
We went to RC Racer, where you sat in a huge racer (one of those seats 30 people sort of things) and went up and down a big half pipe. It looked like a pirate ship ride, but you're on a track instead of a pendulum. As we were on our way in, we saw people coming back out the entrance. We paid them no mind. We walked through tons and tons of empty line space, and got way up to the front. There was hardly any line at all! Then, we stood there for like 20 minutes and barely moved. We left.
The Studio Tram Tour was closed, so that was one ride off our list. We headed to the Rock N Roller Coaster. That is Em's favorite roller coaster ever, so we went, even though we had been on the one in FL. We expected a huge line for this one, but it seemed like they had just opened it, because we pretty much walked right on. It was awesome. In the gift shop on the way out, Em found a Jack Skellington backpack that she just HAD to have. It ended up working out nicely, because we were able to shove all the souvenirs in there the rest of the day.
Next was the Art of Disney Animation. Since Em is so interested in drawing, I thought she would enjoy it. It wasn't what I had expected, and it turns out we had seen it in FL. That's OK. It was fun that English was one of the languages that required headphones, since the live presentation was in French.
Then, it was off to the Magic Kingdom. Here's how cold it was.
Of course, you enter through Main Street. Bienvenue!
The first thing we wanted to do was find tiaras. We're princesses, and princesses need tiaras. I thought one of the castle stores was probably the best place to find them. No luck in the first shop. In the second one, there was a display case with a few tiaras, but none of them lit me up, and the cheapest one was 20€. I didn't care to pay that for one about which I wasn't excited. Out the back of the shop was an entrance to the dragon's lair under the castle, though, so we went down there. It has a pretty dragon.
We went back through the shop to get out, so we could go up inside the castle. On the way back through, I saw a bunch of tiaras by the register. There was one I really liked, and it was only 10€. Woo! So, Em & I got to be princesses for the rest of the day.
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| Not the greatest pic, but we were cold |
We went to go inside the castle, but it was closed! So sad. Here's just a taste. It's the underside of the passage between Main Street and Fantasyland.
After that, we thought it best to start at one end and go around. So, it was off to Frontierland, where we visited the Haunted Mansion, or Phantom Manor, as it's called there. There was seriously no line at all. It was awesome. The beginning part, in the room with the growing paintings was enough like the English, and I understand just enough French to know exactly when to say, "to find a way out! Of course, there's always my way! ha ha ha ha!" Normally, I love the Haunted Mansion, but this one had a lot more stuff that popped out and jumped out at you, so I didn't like it as much. It didn't have the creepy bride with the heartbeat, though, so that's a plus on the Phantom Manor side of things. I hate that bride.
Next was Thunder Mountain Railroad. As you may recall, our goal was to find rides they don't have in CA or FL, but we wanted a few favorites, too. Plus, there was a geocache that we thought would be in this line. We actually never found it, but oh, well. We had gotten completely lucky in the other lines, because this one took forever. And, it somehow got significantly colder while we were in line. I don't know if it was just the location of the line, or if the weather actually got colder, or what, but we were numb by the time we were done. I seriously couldn't move my toes anymore, despite the fact that I was wearing both ski socks and walking socks. But, we got some pretty pictures of a waterwheel-made ice sculpture.
Lunchtime! We were going to go to the Aladdin buffet, but it was pretty expensive, and Em & I weren't terribly hungry. We ended up at Restaurant Hakuna Matata, which actually had really yummy kebab sandwiches and fries. Plus, it came with a free hot chocolate or coffee that we could pick up at a number of counter service restaurants between 3-5pm. So, yay! Free cocoa!
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| I enjoyed the frozen river in "Africa" |
Disneyland Paris still has the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse, which was always Max's favorite thing, so we took a few minutes to go through that. It had the big shell sink, which was my favorite part of the one at Disneyland, so that made me happy. Their Pirates of the Caribbean is also still the original ride (no Captain Jack), so that was a lot of fun.
Fantasyland next. I really wanted to see Alice's Curious Labyrinth, but it was closed. :( We caught they very tail end of the parade as it went through. Since we couldn't get across to Discoveryland (Tomorrowland) because of the parade, we hopped on Small World, since it was right there and had no line. About 2 minutes after that, everybody and his dog decided to get on Small World. But, we were first, and we had our very own boat. It was a lot more fun to ride it after all of our travels, because we could point out all the places we've been. And, since we had our own boat, we didn't annoy anybody with it.
We headed out of Fantasyland, and Max & Em saw cotton candy. It was almost 5, so I went to get my free cocoa (remember it was from 3-5 that I could get a free one) while they got their cotton candy. I went to Au Chalet de la Marionette, which is known as the Village Haus in Disneyland. Every time we went to Disneyland as tweens and teens, we would go to Village Haus for lunch, so I had to get something at the one in Paris. It was actually quite yummy for institutional cocoa.
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| Au Chalet de la Marionette |
Discoveryland was next, and was Max's favorite part. It's very Jules Verne.
We got in line for Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast, because it was Em's favorite ride in Disneyland. It was a long line. Max hopped out of line to get FastPasses for Space Mountain. When he got back, we had barely moved. We stayed for a bit longer, but when our FastPass time for Space Mountain rolled around and we still hadn't gone very far in Buzz, we got out of line.
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| The castle from Discoveryland |
With the FastPass, we barely had any wait for Space Mountain. The line is very steampunk, so Max enjoyed that. The next thing was the Nautilus.
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| I think the book/movie Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy sounds like Tinker Tailor is a name, and he's a Soldier Spy. So, here I am being Twinkle Tailor, Princess Spy |
Oh, the Nautilus. Max was in heaven. Jules Verne is oft-cited in steampunkery, and the Nautilus doesn't skimp. We spent a long while in there. It's a full-sized model (maybe less, the bed looked rather small) of the Nautilus from Jules Verne's books, and Max took pictures of every nook and cranny.
Near the exit for the Nautilus and Space Mountain are the entrances for Captain EO and Star Tours. We passed Captain EO just as they were doing last call for the last show of the night, so we hopped in. I hadn't seen EO since I was a kid, and I thought Em might enjoy the cheesiness of it. Turns out, she was too tired to really appreciate it, but she did enjoy the gift shop at the end. I got a totally rad EO T-shirt that nobody on Facebook recognized. That's OK, I love it anyway. I'm not fond of Star Tours, but there was no line, so we went on it anyway.
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| My awesome shirt, as taken in the hotel |
We stopped back by Buzz Lightyear, and the line was gone, so we did that. The line smelled really bad, but it was fun anyway. Coming out of Buzz, we saw that there was no line for Space Mountain (by now, it was about 9pm, so things were thinning out). Max had no desire to go back on Space Mountain, but he did want to go back to the Nautilus so he could take pictures without us making him feel rushed, and without having to work around other people. Em & I pretty much walked on to Space Mountain, and were out again in no time. We sat outside the Nautilus for a while, because we didn't want to miss him. After a bit, I walked to the exit of Space Mountain again, just to see if we'd missed him. We hadn't. After another bit, Em decided she was going to go inside and look for him. It's a straight shot, but pretty long. Not too much longer, and Max came out. Em came out mere moments behind him. She must have run the whole thing.
We were pretty flippin' exhausted by then, and it was closing time anyway. But, we were also hungry. Luckily, Main Street is always open later, and we found a sandwich shop on the way out. It was pretty yummy, but I couldn't finish mine, so I took it with me. I figured I could eat it for breakfast. The nice thing about it being so cold out is that the car at night is like a fridge. We came back to the hotel, showered in our strange little camper shower, and crashed.
Emma says - It was SOOOOO COLD! My little mozzarella stars were ah-mazing, and I'm so glad I had them. THE PARK WAS SO AWESOME BUT SO COLD! I was very, very happy with how they did Crush's Coaster, because I've always loved that movie, and it was really fun. Some notable moments were Space Mountain, which was great; Rock N Roller Coaster, where I got my Jack backpack, which I now use for pretty much everything; Dad finding his little paradise on the Nautilus; freezing my toes off at Big Thunder Mountain and not getting the cache. But, I loved all of it.
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