Disneyland Paris – Micky and his many friends!
As we live only an hour and a half from Ashford, we decided to take the Eurostar from this quaint little station rather than brave the masses at St Pancras. It really is a lovely little terminal and you can park right by the station which makes it a really easy way to travel (and a nice change from Gatwick park and rides). On arrival, it’s a short walk to English customs, followed swiftly by French customs and the whole process is very easy and quick. This is in stark contrast to our return journey from Gare Du Nord – a station we had to return from as there was no availability back from Marne-la-Vallee - Chessy Station. More about that later!
I would highly recommend the Disneyland Express luggage service. When we arrived at Marne-la-Vallee, we simply had to leave our luggage at the express desk at the station and we were free to go straight into the parks. The station is metres away from the entrance to the park which is a little surreal – even the kids had anticipated a Glastonbury-style walk to anything fun, so we were pleasantly surprised we could just jump straight into it.
As we walked into the park, it started to rain and then as if we weren’t reminded of home enough, it started to hail! The advantage to having wet weather is that there were no queues, so we decided to head to the first attraction and run in. I had no idea that Disney collaborated with Aerosmith and we found a ride featuring the band itself, called Rockarolla. The clue should have been in the name, but we didn’t realise we had unintentionally led our young children into a roller-coaster that featured not one, but two loop the loops and several hair-raising bends. The joy of this ride is that you cannot see the person next to you, so for two frightening minutes, we tumbled and swayed to the tunes of Aerosmith and I prayed that my nine-year-old didn’t hate me at the end of it. Luckily, he enjoyed it. However, our seven-year-old daughter who sat next to my husband, less so. I decided to partner up with my son for the rest of our time in Disneyland.
After several less scary rides, we went back to our hotel, collected our bags and found our room. We had booked to stay at Sequoia Lodge and chose to stay in the Golden club section. This gave us our own (less busy) dedicated club check in, breakfast and afternoon tea in the golden club room and one fast pass a day. Sequoia Lodge is a short walk from the Disney parks and is designed to look like an American mountain retreat. It reminded me of a camp I worked at in the 90s in the Pocono mountains, probably the look they were going for so quite accurate! It may not be for everyone, but we found it comfortable, well located and the breakfast good.
That evening we had pre-booked the Buffalo Bills show, a western-style show featuring cowboys, Indians, cattle and horses. The set meal is actually really good, and they cater well for kids and all meal types. The show is entertaining, and I really do recommend this. One huge warning however: do not go to this show if you suffer from any type of asthma, animal or dust allergy without taking antihistamines (if they work for you). My husband did not realise we were going to a show with live animals (he didn’t listen to his travel agent) and did not take any precautions. I can safely say he did not enjoy the show, what he could see of it anyway as his eyes watered constantly and he sneezed his way throughout. The rest of us loved it though – you even get to keep your cowboy hats at the end (a small consolation for the husband).
The following day passed in a happy blur of rides, shows and Disney-ness. Rides that stood out for us were Thunder Mountain, Hyperspace mountain (the son only came on this one), Buzz Lightyear, Ratatouille, Star Wars, Peter Pan and the various shows they had on.
We ate that night at the Remy Restaurant, and I think it’s fine for meat eaters but really bad for children and for vegetarians. My husband happily shared his steak with the kids while I had bread as the veggie meal (boiled vegetables with tofu – oddly not Asian in style) was inedible. The whole experience was quite fun though.
As we had a late train back and the Disney luggage service, we had another almost full day in the parks revisiting rides we enjoyed and spending a last day enjoying the ambiance. We foolishly booked a train back from Gare Du Nord so had to cross Paris on several metro lines to get there and found ourselves in the longest commuter line to get into the Eurostar section of the station. I would highly recommend you don’t do this as it is much easier to return from Marne-la-Vallee - Chessy Station. But I experienced this, so you don’t have to - The things I do for my clients!
I do highly recommend Disneyland Paris though and can see what the magic is about. We enjoyed our little stay here and in the kid’s words – found the whole experience ‘awesome’!