Disneyland Paris - Part 1

Our trip began with taking the train to London on Friday, Dec 19th. We arrived at our hotel and decided to take the boys out to dinner in the city. It was very cold and crowded! We ended up at an Italian restaurant close Leicester Square. The Eurostar left early on Saturday morning so we wanted to try and get a good night's sleep. The direct route to Disney was full on the 20th and the 24th so we had to go to the main station in Paris and then take the metro to the resort.

It wasn't too bad but just added on about an hour to the journey. We arrived at our hotel, Newport Bay Club, and got checked without any problems. The hotel is massive so there were people everywhere! You would never guess that there is a credit crunch at Disney!

This was our hotel. There were 1093 guest rooms! It was just a short walk around the lake to get to the Disney Village which is basically the place with the restaurants, shopping, movies and shows

We had an extra guest along with us for the holiday. Max was given Blue Brian for the break. Blue Brian is given to each child in Max's class for a week or so and likes to go on adventures. We had to take pictures and then Max will write about the trip in a book. Thankfully we didn't loose him or the kids would be devastated!

He is quite a bit "loved" and Max is taking great care of him!

We arrived at the park just in time to find a place for the parade. People were lining the streets an hour before so we figured we might as well get a good spot so we could see the floats and characters.

Santa carried up the rear of the parade and brought along some snow!

After the parade, we headed to the Mickey Cafe for dinner. This is the only restaurant on the park that the characters come around during dinner. The food was horrible, but the boys really enjoyed the characters. I have to admit that Dan and I struggled with some of their names and still don't know! I'm so disappointed in ourselves!

Who is this guy? I'm thinking he is the tax collector from Robin Hood. Am I correct? I have no idea what his name is though.

Any idea on this one??!!

Yeah Mickey!!

And Pluto!!

No clue...need some more help!

At first we thought maybe Doc from Snow White, but he was with Captain Hook from Peter Pan. We really should have studied a bit before we left. Luckily, the boys didn't care and had a blast.

Breakfast was included with the stay but you had to get a ticket with an assigned time each morning. You could come early if you wanted without a problem so that is usually what we did. Since we stayed at a Disney hotel, we were able to gain access to the park 2 hours early. That meant from 8-10am. We tried so hard to get up early and get there by 8, but we tended to stay up a lot later that normal. We did make it by 8:30a one morning and by 9 the others. It really does make a huge difference in the length of the lines. Sometimes the wait in the afternoon was almost 2 hrs!

We spent the first day at Walt Disney Studios. Blake was just a tad short for the Nemo roller coaster ride so Max and Daddy went on that and Blake had to wait to ride on Lightening McQeen. We figured out a little trick on the last day so that Blake was able to ride on one roller coaster. Max loved them! That day we spent mostly going to shows. There was a stunt show that Blake loved, a tour of the studio, a cinemagic show and and an animagic show with lots of the characters. Blake just couldn't take it anymore and fell asleep at that last show. Dan carried him to a restaurant and he slept for a couple hours. We ate dinner at Billy Bob's which was a pretty good Tex-Mex place. The boys ended up getting their faces painted after they ate dinner.

I thought I would get this all done in one post, but I'm going to have to split it up. Whoever told me that this blogging is so easy, is full of it!! I'm not sure why posting pictures causes so many problems. I know, Holli, that is why you love your Mac!