Disneyland Paris

We stayed at Disney’s “The Art of Marvel” New York hotel. It’s a 10 minute walk to the entrance of the park, so it was convenient for us to go back to the room in the afternoon for Eliza’s regular nap. We spent the day at the pool at the Disney Newport hotel since the pool at our hotel was being renovated.

The Newport hotel was dated. The entrance to the pool area might as well have been hidden. It was past some hotel rooms and looked like a small door opening to a cafeteria. Once you go through the doors, it looks like just a changing room. The couple in front of us was just as confused and lost as we were. You had to go into a changing room, through the door on the other side, and then walk through the shower area to reach the pool.

I’m 80% sure our burrata was was supposed to look like BB-8.

After dinner, we decided to wait in line to meet Daisy Duck. Not the nicest duck in my opinion. First she and Eliza twirled around clumsily. Then it was time for all 3 of us to get our picture with her. Daisy extended her hand to my face. I was not used to this custom. She was trying to get me to kiss her hand. After a few awkward and confused moments, she gave up and put her head in her hands in disgust. I was not amused. Anyway, we got our picture.

The first thing we did was walk through Sleeping Beauty’s castle. First we went upstairs, and then Stephanie led us downstairs to the dragon. It was dark, and the dragon is right there in front of you, grumpy and loud. Surprisingly Eliza was very brave despite how scary the dragon was. She even said she liked it.

Next was our highly anticipated princess breakfast.

Cinderella

Snow White

Aurora

Both Stephanie’s and my favorite ride is Peter Pan. We wanted it to be Eliza’s first ride, but the line was too long. We ended up doing It’s a Small World first. She absolutely loved it. We ended up riding it again later.

We also did the fairy ride which is a boat ride through miniature scenes from different Disney movies like Aladdin, frozen, and Snow White. Next to it was Casey Jr.’s train ride. It’s not a fast train, but it’s definitely not slow. After getting off the ride, Eliza said “that was so crazy. It made my heart jump. It was the meanest train ever. Let’s go see the slow dragon.”

Nap didn’t go so well the first day. Stephanie found a Facebook group dedicated to sharing strollers at Disneyland Paris. Someone would leave a stroller at a random place like a hotel lobby and someone else would arrange to pick it up. Eliza ended up falling asleep on the way back to the room, and woke up soon after when we tried to move her to her bed, resulting in a 5 minute nap.

We decided to try Peter Pan, despite the hour long wait time. We waited for 15 minutes before they shut it down indefinitely for repairs. The line would move now and then, giving us hope. But they ended up shutting it down completely and gave everyone in line a “fast pass” ticket for later. We ended up going on It’s a Small World for a third time.

The 2 big daily events at Disneyland Paris are the parade and the night show. The parade was fun. We got to see the princesses again, Mickey, Minnie, and others. The night time show corresponds roughly with sunset, which at this time of year for Paris was 10:40 - way past bedtime for all of us. We strategized and figured one of us would stay in the hotel with Eliza one night while the other tried to catch the show, and vice versa the next night. On our first day, we changed our mind and decided to push through and catch the show. It was a big success.

We stood to the side of the castle, because we figured the straight view from Main Street would be packed. We had a less than ideal angle, but it didn’t ruin anything. There’s no bad angles for fireworks. And the drones were very much still recognizable. Eliza was nervous during the show. Anything with dramatic music makes her nervous. But she was brave, and she ended up loving the show. So much so that she requested we stay up late on day 2 to watch it again. So we did.

We had bad luck with weather in Paris. Munich was hot, Paris was even hotter. Day 1 at the Eiffel Tower was in the 90s. Day 1 at Disney was 95. Day 2 at Disney was over 100. That day the Eiffel Tower was closed because of heat. 2 days later people were wearing sweatshirts to stay warm at Disney.

When we planned our trip, we decided to do the Eiffel Tower first and then Disney later because the train ride from Paris to the airport was over an hour vs 10 minutes to Disney which is just outside of Paris. We also decided to stay a night at a nearby hotel with a big pool so Eliza could have a pool day that didn’t cost an arm and a leg for mommy and daddy. That plan turned out to be a mistake. The hotel we booked did have a pool, but it was kind of a cheap pool, and it wasn’t heated, so it was a bit chilly, not to mention the wind we would have appreciated at Disney during the heat decided to show up on our pool day. Also, when we were arranging transportation back to the airport, the magical 10 minute ride somehow morphed into more than an hour. We ended up scheduling a taxi.

To add to the fun, air traffic control in Paris decided to go on strike the day we were leaving. Thankfully it didn’t cancel our flight. However, we were delayed 3 hours. We found out early enough that we were able to sleep a bit more the next morning. We missed our connecting flight because of the delay, but we were rebooked on the next fight, which at least got us home. In total, wake up time to bedtime was 24 hours.