When you wish upon a star...

March 2017 

This year was my 30th birthday! So I decided to do regress to a 3 year old and visit Disneyland. It was magical.

Prior to our trip, I got thoroughly spoilt by my family back home (thank you!) and our friends here. Cake and prosecco was the order of the day. And a lot of cheese.

 






At the end of March we took a Friday off and took the Eurostar to Lille and jumped on another train to Disney. We had two and a half days ahead of us which sounds like a lot, but trust me - there's a lot of queuing to be done. And two whole parks! We started at Disneyland and left Walt Disney Studios for the next day.

The first priority was the obligatory mouse ears. Check.


It wasn't long before we made friends and hit the rides.





Most of you know that I suffer from motion sickness. Trains, cars, boats - you name it. So understandably I was a little nervous of some of the the rides, which Mike thought was hilarious because most of Disney is rides! Indiana Jones was to be my first test, and even despite a surprise loop-de-loop, I was fine! Thunder Mountain was next and it was excellent.

We had the Disney App on our phones which was super handy. You could see all the rides and their estimated wait times. Sometimes the wait times could be two hours, so we gave those a wide berth until they settled down. On average I'd say we waited 45 mins. You could use Fast Track, effectively a ticket in advance with shorter lines but you could only have one at a time.

Things were going so well. We'd been on loads of rides and admired the beautiful streets and castle. What next? Ooh, the Star Wars Star Tour! Good shout. No. Bad shout. After a 40 minute wait we jumped in a space craft but we didn't really know what the ride was. Fast forward 5 minutes and I'm desperately clinging on to my seat rest and Mikes leg, covered in sweat, deep breathing and willing myself not to throw up. It was a god-damn motion master. Although the seats themselves weren't moving that much, the graphics were so convincing it felt like we were flying and swooping down and twisting and turning all through space. Closing my eyes somehow made it worse. It was horrendous.

I finally got myself and my stomach back to equilibrium and we found something to eat before watching the daily parade, accompanied by some extremely upbeat music. And fairies on segways.





 









It was the 25th Anniversary of Euro Disney and to celebrate they'd jazzed up their daily fireworks show with an illuminations show. Holy heck - it was incredible! Beautiful Disney scenes projected onto the castle accompanied by a fountain display, Disney soundtrack and fireworks. It. Was. Amazing.

Although we could have stayed onsite at the Disney hotels, they were pretty expensive so we opted to stay at an Ibis one train stop away. It was perfect for what we wanted and I would highly recommend it.





Day two dawned and we made a beeline for Walt Disney Studios. I'd heard from a friend that the Crush ride (from Finding Nemo) was really good. It wasn't. It was really, REALLY good! After a decent wait we were sat in a turtle shell with two other people. At the beginning you felt like you were swimming through the reef, but then you reached the "EAC" (East Australian Current) and oh man, we were flying all over the place in nearly pitch blackness! It was a lot of fun, easily one of our top rides.

 

Oh. the Tower of Terror. You knew what you were getting yourself in for, and yet you were never prepared for the stomach-dropping madness upon entering "The Twilight Zone". I mean, you could see the wall opening at the top and hear the screams as people were lifted up and then dropped down, Up, up, down, up, down, down again. Oy vey. It was a good-un. But a little unsettling for the tum.


We saw a special effects car show which was neat. I had my heart set on the Ratatouille ride based on one of my favourite Disney films. We fast-tracked our tickets and then headed to the Ratatouille restaurant, Remy's Bistro, for lunch. Food in the parks was expensive as you'd expect, but surprisingly tasty. This restaurant was set to be our splash out dining experience and it was worth every euro. On to the ride! All I knew was the concept; you're shrunk down to the size of a rat and you're racing through the kitchen. If you haven't seen the movie I highly recommend it.

Remy's Bistro where you're made to feel tiny like a rat.

Off we set in our little carts, scooting around the corners only to find... that we were in another heckin' motion-master again! For crying out loud! Fortunately I managed to keep our expensive lunch in place. I sat the parachutes out, but mustered myself for the RC Racer.




That evening, as it was our last we found prime seats to watch the illumination show again. The next day we hit all our favourite rides again; Crush, Thunder Mountain and Indiana Jones. Mike decided to go on the Star Wars ride once more. I opted to go back on the It's a Small World ride. Twice!

A wee nod to NZ!

 

A lot of the characters spoke French so it was lucky for me that I had my interpreter with me. I think I'd like to go to the American Disneyland one day, but this one was wonderful!