Disneyland Paris and More Sightseeing

Wrapping up the trip, this is going to be a long one. Go to the potty, get some coffee and settle in. 

Wednesday July 30th:

I still remember visiting Disneyworld in Orlando six years ago and being so impressed with how well Disney has this amusement park thing figured out. The parking, ticketing, employee attitudes, ride queues, cleanliness, etc. It all just works. I really appreciated that the lines for the big rides always had a theme and you always had shade and most of the time you were in a building and not in the sun. The big rides have the fast pass system and the lines go relatively quickly considering how many people are there. I was just impressed. 

Well, Disneyland Paris is a lot more of the same. Obviously it is not as large, it has two good size parks including Walt Disney Studios. Both are part of the same main entrance area, go right for Disneyland go left for Walt Disney Studios. One thing is consistent, there are plenty of people there.

It took us about an hour from the time we left our apartment to get all the way there. It is about 45 minutes on the RER regional train east of Paris. We got there in time for the turnstiles to just open.  

The plan was for Katherine and Lauren to go get "princess'd up" to attend their princess character lunch with the rest of the ladies in our group. 

This maybe the weakness in the Disney operation. See, we did have a reservation for the princess lunch, but you have to call them within 60 days of the trip. There is no online reservation system for the character lunch. What is that about? They must do that so they can try to talk you into a whole meal plan and staying at an on site hotel. In addition you cannot book the hair and makeup thing in advance unless you are staying on the property. We were told to just show up that morning. You can guess how well that worked. In the mean time the boys headed off to rides. We immediately rode the Raiders of the Lost Ark roller coaster then headed to the Big Thunder Mountain. While in line there we learned that the makeup thing did not happen and Lauren was looking to join up with the boys for rides until her lunch. They did ride the carousel before heading over. 

Once we joined up Cindy and I took Katherine to find a couple of little rides for her while they did the Indiana Jones ride again. 

Indiana Jones ride above.

A little while later we headed to a different part of the park and found Space Mountain 2. The original Space Mountain in Orlando is a great ride. After Indiana Jones was a little disappointing and Big Thunder was okay I was wondering if this would compare. 

The line was indoors and the whole setup moved very quickly. The ride was really good. You launch up a ramp and into the darkness. They had all sorts of stars and planets and strange lighting coming out of the darkness. Some rode it a couple of times and we kind of got split up over lunch time.

David and I ended up at Pizza Planet. It was fun. 

The turquoise roof building in this picture is where the princess lunch was held. We are standing at the back of the central iconic castle looking towards the back part of the park. Lauren and Katherine did this six years ago. Back then Katherine was 9 months old and asleep for the entire thing. Just for fun here is a flash back to August of 2008.

 

 

 

 

Yeah, she slept the whole time. 

And now for 2014. Lauren has grown a little taller, like taller then all of the princesses. I think she was on the fence about going this time, she did not want to miss the rides. Last time she was just a little too short to be allowed on the Rockin' Roller Coaster. She was determined to do it this time. I am glad that she went and that Katherine could spend that time with her for this probably last time.

Some of you might not have been aware of the shortage of Princess Elsa Frozen dresses. Disney ran out of them for a long time. Here in Germany we ended up ordering an unofficial version that Katherine really likes. She brought it all the way to Paris and put it on for her lunch. Cindy did a little hair styling and stuff to get her all ready to go.

Lauren got into the spirit with her princess hat, but was trying to stay ride ready and be able to go at a moments notice.

Snow White

By all accounts, Katherine "freaked out" when she saw Cinderella. 

But she was the most excited for Belle. I don't think we captured this freak out, but it was rumored to be the epic. Cindy said once she held hands with Belle, Katherine was not letting go. So fun and so glad Lauren Amie and Meme were all there. 

Meme said the purple rat was just a blur, like all of the pictures of her. She was very high energy and on the go. Below Katherine was showing her fascination with the noses. She kept trying to touch and squeeze them.

This nose thing is not new either.

The lunch did last for a long time. I think they had a really good time. I love all of the pictures. While they were wrapping up the boys finished riding more rides and made our way back to the castle area. We explored around a little. Who knew they had a dungeon with a dragon below the castle?

I also ventured upstairs in the castle to find this area below.

While we waited David and Josh had their turn at Excalibur. 

Now it was time to get to riding. Lauren was nice to hang with Katherine as the little one wanted to ride the first thing that she saw. Disney does so good on the large popular rides, but these small rides have crazy wait times. The posted time here was 10 minutes. 35 minutes later they were getting on. Oh well.

Soon after we headed out of the Disneyland park and over to the Walt Disney Studios Park. We got to ride several rides over there including the beloved Rockin' Roller Coaster. This was a traumatic experience for me, well, and for Katherine too I guess. But more about me. 

Katherine has been fine riding a few roller coasters over the past few months. We have been to several amusement parks around Germany and she has not really been scared of anything. Here at Disneyland she was not tall enough to ride the Mission Space 2 ride, but somehow she was just tall enough to do the Rockin' Roller Coaster. She was very excited about it up until the time when we got near the front of the line and she saw it take off 0-60mph is about a second, into the darkness. It was loud and people were screaming, now she was nervous. We just stayed in line with the rest of the group and told her it would be okay. Every time the next train took off she got more and more worried about it, but never asked specifically to leave or get out of line. Typical Disney, before we knew it we were at the front and she was getting in. Buckled in with the safety harness down mere seconds from blast off she said she didn't want to goooo..............aaaaahhhhhhhhh. For the next two minutes I can tell you nothing about the ride. All I could do was focus on the blood curdling screams in the seat next to me. My little girl was scared to death and I could do nothing about it. I could put my hand on her leg and try to tell her it was okay, but if you have ever been on or seen this ride you know it was futile. She could not hear a word. What makes this ride so great for avid roller coaster enthusiast is the combination of rock music (loud built into each headrest), speed, darkness, inverted track, barrel rolls, it is literally a feast for every sense and it is way overstimulating. I did not factor this in to how it would effect Katherine. This was the longest ride I have ever been on and it just would not end. At least I knew she had not passed out or anything since she was screaming the entire time. Even when it came to a stop she was uncontrollably upset. I tried to convince her that she should be proud now that it was over, she did it. No, not helping. Thankfully after taking a break while some of us did it again she was able to collect herself and move on. In fact she rode the Tower of Terror Ride soon after. It is a ride that is in an elevator that free falls over and over again from very high. I also got over being an awful Dad and talking her into getting on that. I hope there are no lasting effects on me, or her. I hope she continues to ride new coasters with David and I, Cindy was out many years ago. 

For the group our only missed rides were the Crush Coaster (no fast pass option and 60-90 minute wait all day) and the new Ratatouille ride that was also a really long wait, since it was brand new.

Late in the evening I split off with David and Katherine to ride a couple of things they had not done yet while the cousins went back to the Rockin' Roller Coaster. I think everyone was ready for some rest but we had to stay for the fireworks show. At this point it was clear that the Disney folks were trying to get people back over to the other park. All of the food and drink options were shut down and many of the rides were closing. There were not many people left.

We headed out of the park area and into the Downtown Disney shops and food area. The group was split apart and we all found dinner at various places. It was a cool little area. We eventually all met up and did some souvenir shopping. 

I wanted to get a couple of pictures at twilight time. 

I took the above picture several times before I got it right. The flash lit up the foreground and I still got the nice effect in the background. I was happy with this shot. 

This one was not bad either. We actually did not get that close to the castle. The main avenue was packed. Disney needs to figure out a way to get people to behave in this setting. Mom was right when she said everyone should just sit down and stay down. With the various heights of people it was bad enough. Then you had kids on shoulders, kids with giant balloons in the way, idiots taking video with the flash from their smart phone on constantly, and the ultimate annoyance of a laser pointer. This kid had a bright green pointer shining it on the castle, and if you happened to turn around to look at them they would shine it in your eyes. I was not a victim, but several in the group were. I had to maneuver several times but managed to get a few good shots. 

Eiffel Tower on the castle.

Above are the lanterns from Tangled, but keeping the shutter open to get the light with moving lanterns was a tough one.

I know that everyone was tired and I am not sure how much everyone enjoyed the show. I thought it was amazing and I really enjoyed it even with all of the people distractions. I think I might have enjoyed it more than anyone else. We made our way out of there in an orderly manner as soon as the show ended. The huge train back to Paris was very crowded. I am not sure what else they could do. the train took up the entire platform at the stops, it was not like they could add more cars. Katherine passed out and a few others found a place on the floor in the train.

Getting back to the stop by the apartment went fairly smooth. Lauren really needed to find a WC, like really. It was late, like almost 1am late. This was Paris, we found a little place open and bought some water while some used the facility. We made it back and got some rest. Some of us had scheduled for two days at Disneyland, that was not going to happen. We got to see and do most of everything and we were worn out. Time for a change in plans. 

Thursday July 31st:

Meme and Cindy had planned this as a shopping. Amie was undecided and the rest of us had planned another day at Disney. After the day before not one kid was even pushing to go back, it was a long day. After a little rest we headed out to the Arc de Triomphe area. 

.....and made our way down the....

It is a very nice street. Compared to the rest of what we had seen in Paris it was much cleaner and had more wide open spaces. I have to say it was not as nice or posh as I expected. For this to be one of the world's high end shopping destinations I thought there would be more, you know, something.

Above heading down the hill towards the middle of the city, east to southeast. Below back towards the Arc. In my new found interest in WWII I have seen footage of Hitler marching his troops down this street. It is amazing how much it still looks the same. 

Part of the shopping plan was to make a stop at the Louis Vuitton Store on the Champs Elysees. The girls will have to tell you about this part. I stayed outside with the kids and hung out. It looks like way to much fun was going on though.

After that we took a short metro ride down the street. There was another shopping area that included a mall. The hope was to be able to find some food too. 

We came across the Palais Garnier, one of the many performance opera houses. Below is the other side of the same building. The Ferguson Four know this view from Smurfs 2. The kids were not that excited when I showed them the movie clip and the picture. Oh well.

Yep, this is a mall. The Galeries Lafayette Homme. No luck on food here. It was more of the same ultra high end brand name stuff. I just wanted to see the building. Everyone was done at this point. We took a quick ride back to the apartment neighborhood and found a cafe to eat at.

We probably did not do enough of this, sitting around in a cafe in Paris. It is pretty fun, but we had stuff to see. We can go back someday and just do a food tour for a week in little cafes.

After a late lunch we were back at the apartment. I think everyone was still beat from Disney and the preceding days of travel. It seemed for a good long while that nothing was going to get done or seen for the rest of this day. Don't misunderstand, I was on board and enjoying the break. I think we have to give full credit to Amie for motivating the group to do an evening Seine river cruise. We had talked about this but had not had the time to pull it off yet. After a nice break we got going again. The boat left from the Eiffel tower area. We made our way there and we were trying to get some street food for dinner when this happened. 

I had forgotten all about the sparking lights on the tower. This only happened at 10PM that night and we got to see it. This already made it worth the effort to do the boat cruise. 

We got tickets for the last cruise of the evening. It was about a 90 minute cruise past the Lock Bridge and the Notre Dame Cathedral and back. We sat together on the open air top section of the boat. It was pretty nice except for the large group next to us with another green laser pointer and being very loud and obnoxious the whole time.

Above and below is the Pont Alexandre III Bridge. It is a very impressive decorative bridge.

Below is the Assemblée Nationale building, the first chamber of the French Parliament.

The Notre Dame Cathedral at night. 

The above picture I was trying to capture one of the several dance floor areas that we passed. Before this we had seen a huge gathering of people along the river. There had to be some sort of big name concert or something going on. It was a lot of people. At this section there were different types of music playing with various styles of dancing at each, along with a lot of people. None of us had any idea this area was so active after 11 pm.

This is where the boat turned around. Below we made it back to the port. 

I am so glad that Amie rallied the troops to get out and do this. It was a cool and different perspective seeing it at night. The trip was winding down and I was happy to spend some more time together checking it out. 

Friday August 1st:

This was our last full day. Cindy had to stay back and do some work for quarter close. There were a few more places that I wanted to get to before heading home. The rest of the group, sans David and Katherine who stayed with Cindy, headed out. 

We walked most of the way and took a couple of stops on the metro to get to the Place de la Concorde area. This is a nice area with the Tuileries Garden and the Louvre Museum. It was only after we arrived there that I realized the city planning result and views that you got from here. I never realized that the Arc de Triomphe and the Ave. Champs Elysees lined up perfectly with several other sites and markers for several kilometers into the center of the city. Below you can see the Egyptian obélisque with the Arc in the background. Looking the other direction is the pyramid of the Louvre and another Arc called the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel.

Before we went any further we had a bit of a distraction. Lauren and Josh wanted to ride. There was a pretty good size fair set up along the length of this garden area. They had several rides, but they only had interest in this one. 

Read it and believe, this thing spins at 120km/h and pulls 5.5 G's. That is them above with their feet pointing up in the air. This ride lasted for over six minutes too. Crazy kids. 

They seemed to make it out just fine. 

So above the picture is closer to the obélisque with the Arc behind. You can also see parts the ornate bridge that we saw the night before on the river cruise. The gold columns are leading up to the bridge. The river is on the left side.

Another great view a little further down, the Fontaine des Mers. Now I have to admit I thought we started in the direction of the Louvre, but we had been walking the exact opposite direction. That was okay, we got to see some great things and I got some good pics. It was easy enough to jump back on the metro to get us close to the Louvre.

So back on the other side of this area in the other direction from where we started. Here is the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel. This was a great view with the Eiffel Tower still in the background. 

Finally we had made it to the Louvre. We had no intention of paying to go inside. For me, I just wanted to see it and the pyramids. It was just one of those places I wanted to see. It was a major plot point in the movie The Da Vinci Code. I didn't need to stay long, after I saw it I was good.

I really liked the picture below. The precision of lining up all of these iconic sites from the east to the west was cool. Then as we are leaving through one of the arches in one of the buildings of the Louvre Museum I looked back and saw this. The small pyramids on either side of the large pyramid lines up perfectly with the elevation of the museum buildings on each side. I thought it was cool.

Part of the plan for this day was to find a good souvenir shopping area. It was close to the end and we needed our last minute junk to remember this place. For the next little while we did some damage and stocked up before returning to the apartment. We actually got a big part of the packing done that afternoon so we had time to vacation a little bit more.
That evening I still had a few places on my list that I wanted to visit. I talked the adults into going out that evening one last time. The girls had packed some dresses to wear for a nice occasion. We had avoided that so far but they were determined to wear them since they brought them all this way.

The first stop was not so bad. We got off of the train and walked up the stairs to find our first destination. We had talked about catching a show here, I am kind of glad that we didn't. I hope the inside is better than the outside. I really expected a larger more imposing structure for such a famous site. It was just a splash of color between two other drab buildings. Okay, moving on. 

Yeah, this is where I got in a little trouble with my sister. She had asked me about shoes, I did not have any knowledge of the area where we were going. Turns out there was a little bit of walking, and most of it happened to be uphill, like way uphill.

We walked and walked and had several sections of stairs, then walked some more. 

Eventually we made it to this area known as Place du Tertre. It is a cute cobbled square full of artists and cafes. A little further down the street you could see the Sacré-Cœur in the distance. 

Come on, this was worth it Amie, right? How are you going to get views like this without being up high? You have to walk to get up high, or I guess you could take that train thing that we saw, but who knew it was there?

We took some pictures and walked around inside of the church. 

The highlight of this afternoon trip might have been this street performer. I have never seen anything like it. He should be charging admission. This guy did a lot of his act on that concrete square column below, then took it up a notch and climbed the pole. That is a soccer ball cupped at his foot. This was not a freeze frame, he was balancing himself like that with the ball. He did all kids of tricks, it was very impressive. I have not tried to Google him, but I bet you can find something on YouTube. Never mind, I went ahead and did a quick search. Yeah, there are a ton of videos. This is a long one. At about 6:30 minutes into it he does the pole thing. Take a look if you have a minute. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVX190J4DAg

We did a little bit more walking to get to the Little Pink House Restaurant, La Maison Rose. We sat across the street at an outdoor table. What a great dinner to end the trip.

The street performers showed up, and they were good. Very fun. The food was good, the service was good and the sunset was great. Once again I was so glad that we ventured out and that we made the hike. We had a plan to take an extra metro ride to limit the walking back. I didn't admit it to Amie at the time but I started out heading the wrong direction initially. I tried to made two long left turns to cover it up, but I think she knew. It was not so bad, we made it back.

Well, that was it. The fortnight was over. The next morning we got up early and got out of town. I walked with the Texas group to the metro stop to get them to the airport. Things had been going our way for a long time now and it had not stopped. This morning there was a broken ticket gate that allowed us to pass the luggage much easier than trying to walk through the ticket turnstile with huge bags. I think that group had a little bit of a learning curve to get through the Paris airport, but they made their flight and got home on time. 

A little bit later that morning the Ferguson Four caught our train home. The France train had some nice perks. We got some bottled water, they served us food and coffee after. We had to make one train change to get to Munich, but everything went as planned. It was a nice relaxing ride home. The above picture is Katherine watching a video from her cousin Lauren. I was dreading the end of the trip, having to tell everyone bye for who knows how long. I was really worried about Katherine having to leave Lauren. We started working on her several days in advance, counting down the days so it was not a shock when they were leaving. That seemed to work pretty well. In fact Katherine was great. She was only a little bit emotional when she watched this video. Lauren borrowed Katherine's device the night before and recorded a little goodbye video for her. It was very sweet and something that she can watch anytime if she is missing her cousin.

I am so thankful for the relationships in this group. The way Amie and I fought when we were young, who knew our families would love to hang out on vacation years later. The cousins all get along great and Meme holds it all together. Thanks to the Henry family and to Mom for putting your busy lives on hold and spending a small fortune to travel Europe with us. This was truly the trip of a lifetime for me and my family. Even better was getting to see you in person and spend time with everyone, a year is too long. We look forward to the next time, and it will not be too soon.