When we were in Paris three years ago, we all got annual passes to Parc Disneyland as our birthday present from my in-laws. As a result, we went to Disney at least monthly during our stay, and often more frequently than that. We would go on Wednesdays (a no school day in France, though that seems to be changing) in February and the park would be almost deserted so that we could walk through the lines with a 5-10 minute wait. We'd be home in time for me to cook dinner, having ridden everything (that we wanted to) in the park multiple times. Naturally, we knew the rides in the park really well after all of that, and could have conversations about what special effects were and were not working on Pirates of the Caribbean, for instance.
It makes sense then, that Disney would be very high on my kids' list of things that they wanted to do while we were in Paris, but we had to defer the trip until we were confident that Ezio's ankles could stand up to the punishment of 14 hours of walking and standing, and then we needed to wait until Blaise was back from Pisa, and then, naturally, we wanted to avoid going on the weekend because experience has taught us that the Parc is at least twice as busy on weekends as it is during the week. So it wasn't until the very last Monday that we were in Paris that we headed off to Disney, catching the A line at Chatelet (a stop to be avoided if at all possible) and riding it past our old RER stop at Val de Fontenay and all the way out to Parc Disneyland. After we cleared the long bag check line, Blaise and the kids got in line to wait for tickets while I rushed for the nearest bathroom. Maybe I shouldn't have drunk the second cup of coffee? I rejoined them before they made it all the way to the ticket window, we bought the tickets (the annual pass is clearly a much better deal) and waited to scan the tickets and go into the park.
We, naturally, headed straight back to Big Thunder Mountain, only to discover that it was broken, they didn't know when it would be fixed, and even the FastPass kiosks had been shut down, so we headed to Phantom Manor, where we observed that they seemed to be cutting costs by turning the lighting way down (read, off). Note to Disney: Spooky effects are far spookier when you can see them. We headed back to see if Big Thunder Mountain was open yet. No, but they did manage to get a train around the coaster, and we could hear the lift hill working. Blaise decided that we should wait. Forty minutes later, the coaster was opened, and everyone rushed into the queue while the Disney employees pleaded with people to "Watch out for the children." (Is this what Black Friday shopping feels like? If so, I'm very happy that I've never participated in that particular ritual.) We rode, got off, and went straight to the FastPass kiosk to get tickets and decided to use the intervening time to get lunch, and then see what else we might ride. The restaurant across from the ride? Closed. Along the path to Adventureland? Closed. But the line for Pirates of the Caribbean was only half an hour, so we decided to wait (sliding pirate—not working, splashing cannonballs—not working). Finally found a "fast food" restaurant that was open, and spent nearly an hour waiting in line for food (behind 4 other groups) only to discover that they didn't actually have half of the stuff on their menu.
By the time we'd eaten it was nearly time for our FastPasses, so back to Big Thunder Mountain. Rode. Then, Small World (which seemed to actually be working normally. The teacups. Ditto. Alice's Curious Labyrinth, where some of the special effects were working, and some were not—the queen of hearts is far less intimidating when she doesn't come out of her cage. Pinnochio, where the supposed 10 minute line took nearly 40 minutes (and where we discovered after waiting all that time that the ride that Ezio had actually meant to request was Peter Pan, which had a 70 minute wait). Then, Cherry and I went to Buzz Lightyear where the wait was lengthened substantially by the fact that 20% of the carriages were broken and Sapphire and Ezio and Blaise rode Space Mountain, where the ride no longer shoots of a puff of steam when the rocket launches, and then headed back to Pirates.
By the time we left when the park closed, Space Mountain had broken down (while Blaise and the kids were in line to ride it a second time) and Cherry and I spent forever sitting on our horses on the Carousel because there was only one person walking around and checking seatbelts instead of the previous four. We also managed two more rides on Big Thunder Mountain, and another ride on Phantom Manor and saw part of the fireworks show at the end.
Ezio's assessment of the day: "That was fun, sort of. I think it was more fun before though."
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