Icky Mouse!

Midway through the vacation in France we took a trip to EuroDisney - or as I think it's officially known these days "Disneyland Paris'.

I have to admit I was a bit hesitant about this part of the trip.  I love roller coasters, and in times past we would have made lots of trips to Alton Towers in the UK when on vacation. Where we would have done ride after ride after ride until we were about ready to throw up!  But I always though that Disney was more about the Disney and less about the screaming.

It didn't help that we were only going for one day, and so only doing one park (why they split it into multiple parks is beyond me - apart from the be able to charge more of course!).  And...  The park that we were doing was Disney and not the Movie park with the 'Tower of Terror' and other big rides.

And so we turned up went though the gates and onto 'Main Street'.  I can say I was immediately impressed with how well turned out the park is!  That first street makes such an impression when you walk walk into the park.  The buildings look impressive, it is  *so* clean (other theme parks should really take note of this - I can't believe how clean Disneyland is) and really is like walking into a different country.

The first thing we did was stop for coffee whilst looking at the map.  And that was my first disappointment.  I love coffee.  I'm a coffee addict, coffee snob and even took my espresso machine on vacation with us.  So when I saw the 'Segafredo' sign I was over the moon. Nice Italian coffee beans, that produce a smooth coffee that is not too bitter.

I couldn't finish the cup of coffee is was that bad!  I never realised that Segafredo did instant coffee, but I do know that their instant coffee is as bad as everyone else's!  Add to that chemical foam instead frothy milk and the disappointment was complete!  Hohum...

Anyway...  We left the cafe and split up.  My in-laws went to the fantasy land with my niece and nephew and Mrs Stace and I went to the Indiana Jones ride.  We met long queues for the first time.  50 minutes wait before you could ride.  But...  Disney have queues absolutely nailed - again other theme parks really need to learn from this!  I don't know how they do it, but you seem to spend your time constantly moving in the queue rather than standing followed by shuffling, followed by standing still again for a long time.  We thought that had the wait time wrong when we got to the front of the queue and that it was only 1/2 an hour or so, but no it really was 50 minutes, it just felt faster.

The ride was stunning, we managed to get the front seat and as it's supposed to be a mine cart you have nothing in front of you unlike a normal roller coaster so it adds to the fear factor.  Brilliant!

After we went to find the others - they were waiting for the Dumbo ride; amazingly enough they had an even longer wait than the adult rides! And were still queuing for 30 minutes *after* we found them again.  They must have been in that queue for more than 90 minutes!  I'm amazed that a 5 year old and 2 year old coped with such a long wait.

A wander around looking for food followed, and again another disappointment.  The food was terrible, I had a ham and cheese baguette that tasted like it had been made a couple of days earlier and left in the fridge.  Awful!  I did like the look their toasted snacks that was the first choice, but I went to the loo and when I came back plans had changed and we were eating awful sandwiches.  Again  hohum.

We split up again in the afternoon and Mrs Stace and I went on Space Mountain: Mission 2, which is fantastic!  The acceleration at the start is phenomenal!  From the outside when you wait it looks rather lacklustre, but when actually in the ride it pins you to your seat.

After that we tried Star Tours.  The only ride we did where the wait time seemed terrible - but that may have been because we were worried about getting back for the others.  Whilst waiting were were worried that the ride was not going to be worth it - the intro seemed a little cliche...  But it was really fun.  A simulator with some Star Wars type footage.  It's amazing how your brain can be tricked by visual stimulation and slight movement!

We had some Ben and Jerry's ice cream - really good value, and easily the best tasting food of the day as well and met up with the others again.  For the rest of the afternoon we went on rides with the kids.  It's a small world, a boat ride though the fairy tales of Disney and a kids roller coaster.

We waited for the parade (really good, even if the text used in their songs was a little creepy) - and again the organisational aspect was shown off fantastically.  As soon as the last float went past the road was clear and you wouldn't have known that a parade had just taken place.  Amazing!

We had our evening meal, and again a huge disappointment.  Microwaved supermarket pizza for restaurant prices.  Quite how they can have some things so amazing in value and quality and others are so terrible I have no idea!

Then we watched the Mickey Mouse wizard show, with the Genie from Aladdin, the fairy godmother from sleeping beauty and all the princesses.  I had my niece on my shoulders for the whole thing so she could see.  It was a great show.  The they day was over, we did a little shopping and went back to the caravan.

And we slept really soundly!  11 hours of walking, standing and rising coasters really takes it toll!  But a great day - I would like to go back just Mrs Stace and me so we could do both parks and try to do more of the coasters!

Why Icky Mouse?  Well my nephew can't say Mickey yet.  It's so cute he starts shouting 'Icky Mouse, Icky Mouse!'

As we were going to be doing roller coasters I didn't take my camera with me, so no shots this time I'm afraid!  I was going to post pictures of the mementos we brought, but I can't find any on-line.  I'll try to get some shots and repost :)