Disneyland Paris - Day #2

Hi everyone. This is Kara - writing the post while Gayle is working on packing up as we are getting ready to transfer to London tomorrow. The packing is stymied a bit by the fact that most of our clothes are still wet from the laundry adventure today - but I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning.

We slept a bit later this morning since we didn't need to get to a park until 10 a.m. local time. We went to breakfast here in the hotel like normal - completely excited about our VIP Breakfast Pass, as we got to buzz right past the entire line and go right into breakfast. There is no variety at the breakfast here, but it is tasty enough and filling, and we make lunch out of it as well to pack into the park. Grab a bottle of water and you're good to go.

Our plan today was to take in the two or three things we wanted to see at Disney Studios park. We got there around 9:30 and were already well behind the many, many other people who arrived before us. We headed to our most anticipated stop which was Crush's Coaster - a wild, spinning, coaster like ride on the East Australian Current!! We'd both heard the ride was great. We got in the queue and waited for the park to open. As soon as the park opened they opened the queue area up for us to enter and the "wait time" sign immediately changed to 80 minutes. We checked our watches and headed on in. We got through the exterior queue and entered the building with what appeared just a short additional wait at approximately 45 minutes in. At that moment the ride shut down, and we started to have Buzz Lightyear flashbacks from yesterday. We were on the stair steps going up into the queue area, so we sat down and waited. The lights came back on - never a good sign in a Disney ride - but we kept waiting. We were gonna ride this ride!! After about 20 - 25 minutes the ride came back on. The announcement was in French but we figured it out from all the clapping that it must be good news.

We boarded the ride about 15 minutes later - so we now really had waited the 80 minutes. Gayle had been a bit nervous before the ride. She is commenting to me now, that she was filled with fear, and had her eyes closed. However, I gave her my advice that the goal of coasters like these is to let out all your pent up frustration, hostility, and anger in your screams and giddy joys of laughter as you go careening through the darkness. What do you know - she took my advice. She kept her eyes open and screamed and giggled! And, she just said I should tell you it is her most favorite Disney ride ever (and they better move it to Orlando - now)!

After such a great ride - and since the Sunday crowds were crazy - we decided that we had had enough of the Studio. Plus, we still had laundry to do.

So, back to our resort where we both packed up our backpacks with our dirty clothes and laundry supplies. We both laughed that other than the dorm our first year together at Ball State we had never done laundry together in a laundromat type of place - we always had washers and dryers in our apartments and both of us have had washers and dryers in our houses.

We went to the Hotel Santa Fe (motel 6/CSI crime scene hotel), bought our tokens at the gift shop to do laundry and then headed down to building 33 (right next to the Area 51 flying saucer). Yesterday when we had done our laundry reconnaissance, the laundry room had been open. However, the door was locked today. So, luckily there was a phone on the wall and we called housekeeping. They said they would send someone right over. Another phone call and about 15 more minutes later someone who spoke no English came over to unlock the door. He tried to explain to us what we finally decided was that if we both left the door would lock again, and we communicated to him that at least one of us would stay the entire time.

Gayle: Okay! I'm here. Even with my BFF, I can't give up total control and would hate to be misinterpretted! First, let's get one thing straight. In the two years I lived in DeHority at BSU, I never, ever did a load of laundry! In fact, other than one time at a condo in FL, I've never done laundry on vacation; what a waste of good time! As far as Crush's Coaster, that is THE BEST ride EVER! Alright, back to our story already in progress.

Kara: I packed my entired bag and she wrote that one paragraph. Oh well - on with the story. We finished the laundry, but a single dryer token bought only 20 minutes of heat so we only go the clothes warm - not really dry. We put the clothes back into our duffles - now folded and wet - and headed back to the bus stop. We took the bus back to the train station and then caught our bus back to our hotel. We got back the hotel and started unloading clothes out of our bag using the six hangers and every other surface in the room - including the handle that allows the window to open (which my shorts are still dangling from). We called housekeeping for more hangers and began to put the iron we'd ordered earlier in the week to work ironing some of the moisture out of our clothes.

When we arrived back at the hotel earlier Gayle had also made a reservation at the restaurant here in the hotel. We had done a bit of planning on meals prior to arrival and thought we'd be eating up at Val d'Europe where food was supposed to be less expensive. However, we found that food here at the park and resort really wasn't terribly expensive in comparison to food at Val d'Europe and even in comparison to food in the states. We took our time ironing and blowdrying our clothes and then headed down to dinner at Beaver Creek Tavern here in the hotel. The food was good, although nothing special. After dinner we went to the hotel gift shops to finally get stamps for all of the post cards. Gayle had gone just ahead of me and had bought her stamps ahead of me. She tried to warn me about the fact that these were stamps that you had to lick and you had to be careful not to choke. Unfortunately, the third stamp stuck to my tongue a bit more and there was a little bit of laughter as I recounted the "I was afraid I was going to choke on a stamp" a couple of times in the store.

I've also set a new record here at Disneyland Paris - I spent more at the parks/resort than Gayle. I am a HUGE Pluto fan! He's by far my favorite Disney character. The American parks seem to have something against Pluto, but here he is well featured in individual plush animals and other items. So, I loaded up. I need to be flying home with a kennel rather than a duffel bag for all these stuffed animals.

We're back in the room now and getting ready to head off to bed before we take our train to Lille and then board the EuroStar for a trip through the Chunnel to London tomorrow. We're headed off to Westminster Abbey and then have reservations for a sunset flight of the London Eye. No pictures today, but I'm sure there will be plenty tomorrow.

Gayle: A decent night's sleep has not been part of this trip, and I'm really starting to drag. Hopefully the air conditioning at our London hotel will be better? So tomorrow we change cities, countries, time zones, and currency. Oh boy, here we go again....

Disneyland Paris - Day #1

A few more photos are on the blog and hopefully a little video will be up shortly. In the meantime, here is today's update!

Gayle: It was so warm yesterday, we knew it would be a “shorts day” today. We felt really lucky about this, as we didn’t expect it to get this warm here, so we just added shorts to our bags a day or two before the trip! :-) Now, on with the day…

Every day at Disneyland Paris (DLP) has Extra Magic Hours (EMH). This means guests of the resort hotels gain access to the park two hours prior to the opening to the public. (See, you WILL learn things about Disney whether you want to or not!) So we were up early to breakfast and at the front gate just prior to 8am. This is something we also do at Walt Disney World (WDW) in FL, but this was different. First, there were NO other people on our bus, which would NEVER happen at WDW. When we arrived at the gate there were only about 10 other people waiting with us; again, this would never happen at WDW. It felt very weird.

Kara: We have a regular path we take when we enter a park – go around the castle and back to Dumbo. We stopped several times to take pictures of Sleeping Beauty Castle – a couple of them were really good. Then it was off to Dumbo. We didn’t have to wait in the queue and our flight had several empty elephants. Very odd. While we were back in this part of the park we also rode Peter Pan’s Flight and the Tea Cups. Only two of the four lands at the Disneyland Park were open, so after this we headed over to ride Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear. Gayle doesn’t care much for roller coasters so I rode Space Mountain on my own. I don’t like really big roller coasters, but most of the Disney Park coasters are great for me. However, this version of Space Mountain shook me like crazy. It was still a decent adrenaline rush and good for a little screaming – but nowhere near as fun as some of the other stuff we rode a bit later.

Gayle: Yeh, at the Magic Kingdom in FL, there are a limited number of rides open during EMH, and a list of them is provided. No such list was provided here, which made for a bit of backtracking when learning something wasn’t yet open. Grrr. Speaking of… “it’s a small world” was closed during EMH; that simply goes against all things Disney. If the park is open, the small world MUST be open! While Kara was on Space Mountain, I went on Buzz Lightyear. It’s easier to score points here, as you can lift the laser gun out of the ride vehicle. Kara & I then met up to go on Buzz together. However, just as we were nearing the front of the line we noticed they were no longer loading people into the vehicles. Hmmm. Then the ride stopped. Uh oh. Then the music stopped and all the lights came on. This is virtually the Disney equivalent to the “blue screen of death”. Luckily we were given Fast Passes to return at a later time. Fast Passes allow you to come back at a later time and enter a shorter (usually nill) line. There is always a designated hour or so of return time, but since we endured a ride breakdown, we could return any time we wanted. And this allowed us to get a second Fast Pass for another ride (Star Tours) during this time, which is something you also usually can’t do.

Kara: Since we had ridden everything that was open we walked over to Frontierland so we could be there when it opened at 10. On our way we stopped in the Castle. Gayle took several photos inside the Castle of the stained glass windows. When we left the castle we headed to Frontierland. Apparently this park allows anyone into the park before it opens – it’s just that only people with resort IDs can get into the two open lands. So, we joined a pretty large mob of people at the entry to Frontierland. When Frontierland opened we headed straight to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (BTMR) – which is one of my favorites. Apparently it is also everyone else’s as we experienced a ride-entry mosh pit at the entrance to the ride. We finally got into the queue and waited only about 10 minutes in line before we got on the ride. Gayle actually rides this one with me, although she hung on – to me – the entire time. In my opinion BTMR here was much better than any other ride thus far and it’s better than BTMR in Disney World. Very fun!

After this, we went over and rode Pinocchio – a ride they don’t have at Disney World. After this we went back and rode the storybook boat ride which included miniature versions of many of the Disney stories. It was cute. We finished out our time at this park with our Fast Pass to Buzz Lightyear. Gayle kicked my butt!

Gayle: To be fair, I hang on for dear life on BTMR because I’m always afraid I’ll fly out. (It stems from a scary experience at Kings Island many, many years ago.) By this time we headed out of Disneyland and were off to Disney Studios. First, to reach the front gate of the Disneyland Park you have to go through the Disneyland Hotel. That’s really weird compared to WDW. I actually don’t think I’d like staying there because all of the people coming & going all day (& night). The other thing is the front gate of Studios is only about 75-100 yards from the Disneyland Park & Hotel. That is REALLY weird. In FL NOTHING is close enough to see! As we were entering the Studios people were having their photos taken with a 1970s/80s? model of a black Cadillac stretch limo. That seemed odd. Do they not have limos over here? The funniest thing was the limo had an Ohio license plate on the front! HA!

Kara: We headed through Studio 1 – this big rectangular building right inside the Studios. There are restaurants and shops inside. We exited into the park, which is what I call Studios in miniature. Everything is right there. We planned to take in the two shows today so we could do the other attractions we wanted to do tomorrow. So, first we watched Animagique which is a Disney character shows featuring black light effects. There were songs from several Disney feature films. Then we headed over to the other show – Cinemagique. This one was a little more odd. A guy in the audience (an actor) got pulled into the screen and then they took him through several classic movies. It was funny, but not really what I expect from Disney.

Gayle: Yeh, Animagique and Cinemagique were really just adaptations of Mickey’s PhilharMagic, Journey of the Little Mermaid, The Great Movie Ride, etc. from FL. I guess this is smart on Disney’s part. Why should they recreate the wheel, when most Europeans won’t be visiting WDW? I guess if the regular visitors here like them, then so be it, but they certainly weren’t what we were expecting.

Next is the start of a little preview for tomorrow. We left the park to check out the laundry facilities at one of the other hotels. In a previous blog I described the basic differences between our hotel and its inspiration in FL. Laundry facilities here are available only at the lowest-level/basic hotel. In FL the equivalents would be the All-Stars or Pop Century. This is Disney’s version of a motel vs. hotel. In FL, they are definitely the nicest motels available and fully Disney themed. Here they have Hotel Santa Fe (New Mexico theming) and Cheyenne Hotel (Wyoming theming). Very imaginative, eh? We went to Hotel Santa Fe, the motel we briefly saw upon our initial arrival. Our eyes literally bugged out. How in the world is the Disney name associated with this place?! Kara described it as a horrible “Motel 6”, but even better – one of those abandoned motels they investigate on CSI! LOL! On the way to the laundry we saw a crashed flying saucer. Yeh – no kidding – I’m now calling it Area 51. That’s just sad. We eventually found the laundry, but are still unsure if we can actually get them to work &/or clean our clothes, so stay tuned to the update tomorrow.

We escaped from there ASAP and headed back to Sequoia Lodge. Very soon we were back at Disneyland for a quiet dinner of… BBQ chicken & steak fries. Frighteningly, this was one of the best meals we’ve had so far. We tried to stroll the very busy shops and shockingly, didn’t buy a single thing. Usually I blow my budget exponentially in the shops at WDW. It’s like a whole other dimension here. I have my “World of Disney” and let’s just say DLP doesn’t really fit in my world. We did however grab some yummy chocolaty treats at the Bake Shop before heading home for the night.

And P.S.: We were reading a menu the other night that listed cheesecake made with, not cream cheese, but “Philadelphia Cheese”. Do they make cheese in Philly? Guess something got lost in translation!

Goodnight!

Pictures

Picture uploading isn't cooperating too well so if you want to see a few more of the pictures, you can visit my Flickr page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/kicki22/sets/72157618924018416/ - this should let you see all the photos from the trip as we upload them. I'll try to get more uploaded shortly, but the connection off the Blackberry can only do so much and right now it doesn't want to cooperate with loading the photos.

Daily Dialogue - Paris Day #2

Since yesterday’s dialogue seemed to work okay, we thought we’d try this format again today. So, here is our dialogue about our second day in Paris…


Kara: We got moving a little earlier this morning and no real interruptions during the night. Thanks to all who have asked – my headache went away and I feel completely fine now. We at breakfast and grabbed “lunch to go” from the hotel and then headed to the metro station to catch the train into Paris. We had to make a transfer at one of the major transfer spots this morning – Gare de Lyon. We were also going during what I would actually call rush hour today, and it was Friday, which we’re guessing also added to the busy feeling in the metros. Needless to say, it was a bit more hectic today but once again we navigated with no problems.


Gayle: Perhaps I’ll be narrating a little different take on some things today. First thing this morning has presented a big challenge, and it’s called electricity. We’ve struggled the past couple of days to find outlets in our room that work and what combination of converters and adapters to use. We both decided to let our hair go with some natural curl, but every girl needs at least some style control. Yesterday we did get the flat iron working, although not on full power. It got nicknamed “Luke” because it only got lukewarm. Well, this morning bad turned to worse, as Luke is dead. We don’t know if it’s the input or if there’s now a short, but regardless, there was no heated styling tool to be used. As such, you will see no photos of me in today’s post! As for the morning rush hour on the metro? Our airplane seats were more spacious.


Kara: Well Gayle has decided not to advance the story at all so I guess that’s my job today. We arrived at the Louvre via the Palais Royale - Musee de Louvre metro stop which brings you right into the underground entrance of the Louvre. I have to say that while I’ve enjoyed every other museum we went to on the trip, I was completely overwhelmed by the Louvre. As usual, we had pre-determined a plan, and while we did see most of what we wanted to see – it took a lot of turning around and going back and asking for help. Since we were there early – thankfully – we did get to have a nice time in the Salle de Etats where we got to see the Mona Lisa (above) and The Wedding Feast at Cana.






We also spent a great deal of time wandering the Grande Gallerie and the Salon Carre. I have to admit I think our visit was tempered by the fact that neither of us has a good enough background in art to know what we are supposed to appreciate about the paintings and other pieces.


Gayle: Over the past couple of days we’ve also been indecisive on whether or not to go to Versailles. We were very tempted, especially by the recommendations of others (particularly Inga and Manoj on my side). However, after the miles and miles of walking the past two days and countless pieces of art, homes, palaces, museums, etc., we decided we’re too maxed out on any more “fine art”. In a simple attempt to fill that content gap in our trip, we did visit the Apollo Gallery in the Louvre, which contained the Coronation Crown of Louis XV. As you will see from one of the photos, the room was gilded, ornate, and completely over the top. As far as we can tell, this is very similar to Versailles as a whole. (Inga & Manoj: Feel free to shake your head and roll your eyes at this point!)





Kara: We exited the Louvre at the Pyramid and spent some time just relaxing by the fountains and enjoying the view. We took a BUNCH of photos out here. Gayle even grabbed the Nikon from me and took a few shots. She’s disappointed in the hair styling in all the shots today, but I really had a great time playing with the camera in such a picturesque location – even if she doesn’t like the shots I know her mom will! After leaving the Louvre we strolled through Tuileries Garden. This was a beautiful walk – especially since today was warm and sunny. We didn’t take a tremendous amount of pictures in the garden, but did take some at both ends. The gate at the Louvre end was extremely impressive and there were great views of the Eiffel Tower at the other end, where we also took a couple of photos of each other with the tower in the background. Our next stop was Musee de l’Orangerie.


Gayle: Okay. Kara’s forcing me to advance the story…. Musee l’Orangerie was on “The Plan” because it contains Monet’s “Water Lillies”, of which I am a fan. This museum felt much more formal than the others, but was also quite small. There are only two rooms of “Water Lillies”, but you will see from the photos why. I was stunned at the size of these pieces. You typically see prints no larger than 24x36 and expect the piece to actually be that size or smaller, such as the Mona Lisa. But wow. All of the “Water Lillies” were (approximately) no less than 12 ft. long with some likely being twice that size. Not needing an incredible amount of time here, we were next headed to Notre Dame.


Kara: Notre Dame is situated on Ile de la Cite which is the small island in the middle of the Seine. I really enjoyed strolling around this little island. It seemed to capture what I thought about Paris more than anywhere else we had been before. We arrived at Notre Dame right around 1:00. As we were standing in line waiting to get in, a few folks in front of us met some friends who had just come out of the church and said there was a mass going on. At first I thought this might mean we wouldn’t get in, but apparently they just send in the tourists to move right around the church’s outside area while the mass is said in the center of the church. It was kind of cool to hear mass being said as we were traveling around the church. I’m not sure what I expected here, but Notre Dame wasn’t really it. It was beautiful – especially the stained glass – but I guess it just wasn’t as reverent a location as I had expected.


Gayle: I agree. I couldn’t believe they let tourists in during the Mass. It was truly odd to be “sightseeing” during the Mass. The glass was beautiful, and I wish I had a narrative of the stories told with each pane of glass and the sections of the Bible each related to. Alas, in virtually no time at all we were exiting. The next and final stop for the day was to be St. Chappelle. However, when we arrived, a service was in session, and we were not permitted entrance. At this point, Kara decided we should hop on the “Batobus”, a sightseeing boat cruise. This had always been part of the PLAN, but we were never sure when we might have the opportunity to actually do it.


Kara: We strolled along the Seine from St. Chapelle to catch the Batobus. I really enjoyed seeing all the sidewalk vendors with their art, photos and other wares. We got our tickets and got on the Batobus. The Batobus was a nice relaxing way move around the city. We stopped at the Champs Elysees stop and strolled up the street to the Metro station. We boarded our metro, made all the transfers, and headed back to “home” for a fun dinner.


Gayle: It was a relatively early day, but we were also up late the night prior. Simply getting back to the room and resting for a bit was a luxury we’d not had the prior days. We headed to the Disney Village to Annette’s (50’s-inspired diner) for supper. Between the last two night’s suppers at Disney, we’ve come to truly realize THIS Disney is NOT THE Disney, which we kinda knew from previous research. I could go on with a ton of detailed differences (shortcomings) with this park, but I won’t bore those of you who have no idea what I would be referring to. In short, our dining expectations are certainly not being met. Tomorrow we’ll be staying “home” and spending our first (and really only) full day at Disneyland Paris.


Kara: We’re both looking forward to switching into “vacation” mode tomorrow and resting/relaxing in the park while riding rides. While Gayle’s right that there are a lot of differences in the parks, I do think the Paris park does do a much better job of creating beautiful locations for photos so I’m looking forward to more pictures and playing around with the camera. For now though, we’ll both say good night to all of you as we’re headed off to bed shortly.

Daily Dialogue - Paris Day #1

Today’s installation will feature a dialogue account of Thurs. May 28

Gayle: This morning began very early especially since Kara awoke at 1am with a migraine – super weird since that’s usually me. Headed down to breakfast and luckily we have VIP seating for our entire stay at Disney ;) so we don’t have to wait to be seated. HA!

Kara: We’ve read in all the books that we can get the Museum Pass at any train station. ALL THE BOOKS ARE WRONG! However, we did succumb to buying the 2-day Paris Visite pass which allowed us to get on and off the trains/metro all day without having to figure out when we needed to buy more tickets or how many we needed – something I’m not sure we would have ever figured out. By the end of the day, Gayle was navigating the train stations like a pro – and I was happily following her :-)

Gayle: Actually I believe it definitely took both of us, as we had to read all of the signs, trains, etc. First stop today was Tour de Eiffel – or for you Americans the Eiffel Tower. Wow. It is A LOT taller than I even could imagine. We were off of THE PLAN, which I am now simply referring to as an OUTLINE, and were there later than opening. The line for the elevator was crazzzzzy long, so we decided to take the stairs….

Kara: That’s all 382 stairs (I would capitalize those numbers if there was a way to do that). We made it, although I think I found some muscles in my legs that I didn’t have before. We’ve also discovered that weather.com can’t tell temperature in Celsius – or can’t tell French weather as it was forecasted to be warm and only partly cloudy. As you can see in pictures we had on jackets all day and it was extremely cloudy. We took several pictures though of both the city and the tower. One of our favorites was of one of the workers “just hangin’ out” on the lower side of the first level of the tower.

Gayle: Oh and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Colleen when I saw a figure of the Eiffel Tower painted in cow spots! Next, we walked along the Seine on our way to the Musee D’Orsay. It was much further between metro stops than we expected. Again, we arrived later than we wanted to, but the line moved very quickly.

Kara: We finally got our 2 day Museum Passes and then headed in to take care of some basic things like free bathrooms and finding lunch! Actually, we packed lunch from the hotel this morning and just needed a couple of bottles of water and some fruit and chips. After a nice lunch we headed to find the galleries and enjoyed looking at the works of Monet, Manet, Renoir, and others. We can both pick out a Monet from about 20 paces so I think we agree we liked those best. Got photos of many of those, but didn’t load those yet.

Gayle: Actually, my favorite here were the works by Degas, definitely the ballerina in me! The building itself is an impressive architectural piece that I could have enjoyed much longer. But as you will see, a strange passer-by got in one of our shots. Hmm…

Kara: I actually took the shot of the polar bear for Ashley Ann! I also have a Panda Bear shot for Amanda that I haven’t loaded yet, but will. It’s from “small world” at Disney. The other piece that I took several photos of was the Prince with his dog Nero. Very cute sculpture. We left Musee d’Orsay and headed to one of the smaller museums – but definitely one I had been looking forward to – Musee Rodin.

Gayle: Surprisingly, this was both of our favorite stop of the day. It includes a wonderful traditional museum in Rodin’s former home, as well as many works in a stunning garden. Kara shot continuous photos, while I narrated the history of some pieces from the brochure.

Kara: If you ever get to Paris you MUST see Musee Rodin. I could have probably stayed there just looking at the pieces and the flowers for several more hours, but we managed to see everything we wanted – except Orpheus – which was not installed when we visited. We left Musee Rodin after grabbing a quick drink in the café and headed to the Arc de Triomphe.

Gayle: In case you are wondering why we liked Musee Rodin so much, it contains “The Thinker”, “The Gates of Hell”, and “The Kiss”. Look these up and learn something today! And remarkably, there is a photo (not contained here) of me literally stopping to “smell the roses” in the garden.

Kara: When we arrived at the Arc we exited right out of the metro and right in front of it. The structure is HUGE. We met a lot of other tourists there who were all taking photos much like ours. A couple of younger American girls returned the favor of me taking their picture in front of the Arc by taking a few pictures of us as well. As in most places, I could have stayed there all day just taking photos of others for them – a favorite activity of mine when I travel.

Gayle: By this time we were more than ready to head “home”. Upon arrival we had supper in Disneyland and then to our room. The “OUTLINE” seems to still be in flux. However, tomorrow will include at least: The Louvre, Musee Orangerie, Notre Dame, and St. Chappelle.

Kara: We both enjoyed our first day in Paris very much and hope you enjoy a few of the more than 150 photos we took between the two of us today. Hopefully tomorrow we’ll take many, many more. All in all we walked more than 7.5 miles today and we are tired so it’s off to bed for us.

Tues. May 26/Wed. May 27

From Gayle...

I'll just add to what Kara posted below. I worked really hard to prep for the flight and time change. Luckily I did get a moderate amount of sleep on the plane. Between the plan and Harry Potter 1 (my dissertation-writing background) the time literally flew.

The Paris airport (CDG) is really big and somewhat confusing, but we quickly figured things out. It took awhile to get out of the airport & as usual, I was asleep on the Disney bus by the time we were headed out of time.

Apologies, as I'm about to switch to Disney-speak. We're at Sequoia Lodge because Kara loves Wilderness Lodge and this is the closest thing DLP has; I selflessly gave up being at Newport (the cousin of my beloved Beach Club in FL). Yet we knew it would never BE Wilderness Lodge. In fact, I was expecting it to be more of an "All Star Resort" feel. The lobby was very nice & check-in smooth. The room, however, just met my expectations of the "All Stars", but I am a fairly high-maintainence traveler! We've encountered some issues, and tonight's quality of sleep will indicate the severity.

Getting into Disneyland Paris was a breeze, I laughed at how close the parks & village are too each other. Like Kara said we're getting really tired now, as we never did take a nap. We've just decided to change "The Plan", which rarely happens. So next up - Paris Day 1 on Thurs. (instead of Fri.).

Trust us - much better posts are on the horizon.
Gayle

One verrrrrrrry long day!

Yesterday, we finally left on our trip to Paris and London. We flew from Indianapolis to

Newark and from Newark on to Paris. Both flights went fine. Unfortunately I didn't sleep

terribly well on the second flight so when we landed in Paris at 9:40 a.m. local time, I had

already been up for nearly 24 straight hours. As I write this now at 8:04 p.m. local time,

I've lost count of how many hours I'm on, but we're headed to sleep soon.

We arrived at Charles de Gualle airport a little early, went through customs (my passport

now finally has a stamp!), got our bags, and found the Disney transfer bus with relatively

little difficulty. We knew before we came that the European hotels would not be at the

standard of American hotels. However, when we pulled into the lot of the first Disney hotel

on the bus route - Hotel Santa Fe - I started to have a sinking feeling that this was going

to be terrible. However, we went on down the road to the Sequoia Lodge - our resort for the

week - and it looked much better. Gregory, the cast member who checked us in, even gave us

VIP breakfast passes which means we don't have to stand in line for the free breakfast while

we're here - a HUGE bonus.

We went to Val d'Europe - a shopping complex one train stop up - and had dinner at a

restaurant called Hippopotamus. It was just a burger, green beens and a baked potato, but

given how long we'd been going without a good meal, it was quite good. We came back to Disney and went into the park. We rode Snow White, Small World, Pirates, and Phantom Manor - all with relatively no wait. We explored a little in the village and then headed back to the bus stop to come back to the hotel.

We're back in the room now and preparing to finally bring this really long day to a close and already debating possible changes to the overall trip plan. I promise tomorrow's post will include pictures and be far more interesting. Quite honestly - I'm just too tired to be funny or interesting right now.

The Plan

From Gayle

Those of you reading this know at least one of us. Something to know is we are both detailed planners. As such, we've developed the following "PLAN" for the trip. Now, let's see how close we get on the actual execution....
Tues. May 26 - Depart IND>Newark>Paris on Continental
Wed. May 27 - Arrive and get settled
Thurs. May 28 - Disneyland Paris
Fri. May 29 - Paris Day 1 - Eiffel Tower, Musee D'Orsay, Musee Rodin, Arc de Triomphe (Louvre, if we have time, as they are open late on Friday nights)
Sat. May 30 - Paris Day 2 - Louvre, Musee Orangerie, Notre Dame, St. Chappell, Boat along Seine
Sun. May 31 - Disneyland Paris &/or Versailles
Mon. June 1 - Eurostar to London, London Eye
Tues. June 2 - Westminster Abbey, Parliament, Guards Museum, St. James Park, Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace, Hyde Park, Harrods
Wed. June 3 - Tower of London, Tower Bridge, St. Paul's Cathedral, St. Martin of the Fields, British Museum (& Wimbledon, but probably won't have time)
Thurs. June 4 - Windsor Castle & possibly Eton
Fri. June 5 - Oxford, specifically Christ Church
Sat. June 6 - Fly home - Heathrow>Cleveland>Indy

Stay tuned; it's sure to be exciting, but at least humorous!
Gayle

My turn

From Gayle...

Okay, here's my first post (finally). Kara & I are chatting online about the plan for this weekend. Basically we're working to reset out body clocks to avoid as much jet lag as possible - something I have a horrible time with. So we will plan to go to bed and get up an hour earlier each of the next 4 nights. This means I need to be asleep by 5:30pm Monday night in order to get up at 1:30am Tues. If you know me at all, I'm usually just heading TO bed at 1:30am, so it will be interesting to see how this goes.

Otherwise, I'm sure the remainder of the weekend will be spent on the phone for countless hours dealing with "Did you take care of...? How will we...? Which of these 20 shirts should I pack (including picture messages)? What about...?" Ugh. Enough already. Just squeeze me like a sardine into my crampt seat and get the horribly long flight over.

The next thing I'm looking forward to is seeing Kara's bag. See, she has a packing problem and by this, I mean an overpacking problem. We are always holding our breath when it gets weighed, which entertains me. (Kara will kill me for this!) Me? I'm the packing machine. I think there's a Tetris program always running in my head. I better be nice though, as Kara's in charge of all the electronics, cables, chargers, etc. So if you want to see anymore posts, it's because of her. :)

Next up: The daily "plan" for the trip!
G

We're in the single digits

The countdown calendar is officially in single digits. The packing list is made, the trip books are done and my house is starting to look like a tornado ran through it as I'm ransacking every nook and cranny looking for all the things I just have to take with me. Thankfully, I was able to finally decide on the Pacsafe CitySafe 200 Anti-Theft Hand Bag that will serve as a great day bag during the trip - holding my camera, travel guide, and other necessary items each day. Gayle got the next smaller version of the same bag several weeks ago - it just took me a while - and three different purchases - to decide which one I finally wanted.

Big things yet to do are to find all my SD cards and get them cleaned off, make sure all the necessary travel documents are in my bag and pack. I'm at the point where I just want to be there though so my motivation is lacking - but hopefully we'll get everything done and be ready to head out next Tuesday with little fanfare and stress.

Getting Ready for the Trip!

Well, the countdown calendar is now almost to single digits and it's time to make final preparations for the trip, including starting this blog so we can post about our adventures each day. Join us as we journey through Paris and London!