In which we visit the Magic Kingdom

What is an American who grew up in Florida to do when he goes to Paris? Take his family to Disney, of course!

When we were in France two years ago we discussed going to Parc Disneyland, but were never bold enough to actually pull the trigger. It was expensive. And far away. And Cherry was a baby. And there were so many other things to do actually in Paris. And Blaise was busy. You get the picture.

This year we were determined to actually go to Disney. But it was still expensive, so Blaise spent months haunting the special deals pages on the Disneyland website. Various offers came and went, but the timing was always wrong. There was, for example, a 29 Euro deal, and the tickets could be reused for a second admission, but you had to order them a week in advance and then you could only use them on Tuesdays and Thursdays and there had to be a week (or more) between visits.

Blaise's Mom (thanks Mom) had agreed to pay for a trip to Disney for Sapphire and Cherry's birthday, and we got the idea of asking her to pay for annual passes for them instead, and maybe for Ezio as well since birthdays here are definitely going to be about experiences rather than stuff, which we don't have much space for anyway. She countered with an offer to get each of us an annual pass as our (early) birthday present for the birthdays which we have in Paris. Better yet, Parc Disneyland had a special "large family" offer for families of 5 or more which brought the cost of their midlevel membership (only 30 blackout days and free parking for our nonexistant car) down to the same price as their low level membership (60 blackout days, including large swathes of the school holidays and many weekends).

Last Saturday night at about 11:30 Blaise says to me, "Want to go to Disney tomorrow?" "Um, sure."

So the next day we went about our business as usual, and told the kids that we were going to a park in the afternoon. (We wanted to stay for the fireworks, and we were worried that if we started our day at Disney too early the kids would be exhausted long before the parade and fireworks at 10:00.) Sapphire and Ezio kept asking which park we were going to, and we just kept telling them that we'd heard it had some really cool things for kids.

After lunch we got jackets together and headed out for the train station. I went ahead to buy tickets, since we were going the opposite direction from the way we normally do; away from rather than into Paris. We headed down the "wrong" set of stairs and waited for train. At one point, a train going into the city came past and Ezio looked at it and asked if we might be on the wrong side of the station. (The train going into Paris enters a tunnel as it leaves the station. The train going away from Paris does not.) We assured him that we knew what we were doing, and that he should just be patient.

Once we were on the train, Sapphire and Ezio had seats together, and Cherry was sitting on my lap across the aisle from them. I could see them whispering together and trying to figure out what was going on because there were no tunnels, the housing was getting less rather than more dense, and the names of the stations were unfamiliar. I just smiled and kept my mouth shut. Once we got to the Parc Disneyland station and got off the train, Sapphire looked around, and asked if we were lost. She knew we weren't in Paris, but she also wasn't quite sure where we were. It wasn't until we had cleared security and were heading over to buy passes that she and Ezio figured out where we were.

It turned out when we went to get passes that we were supposed to have brought identification with us for the kids. Fortunately, Blaise and I had our passports with us and so they were willing to allow us to buy the passes for all of us with just those pieces of identification. After we had filled out all of the stuff, and they had printed us ID cards, we were ready to head into the park.

Let's see, what did we do. . ..

1) We walked around a lot. And I made Cherry walk, for the most part. I carried her some, and we sat when she got really worn out. I think the Disney here is more compact than the ones in the States, so that made it somewhat better.
2) We rode rides, though not as many as we probably would have if we hadn't know we would be returning. Sapphire and Cherry though the Pirates of the Caribbean ride was terrifying. Ezio thought it was the coolest thing ever. We wandered through the mazes on Adventure Island. We rode the carousel. We rode other things too, but I'm too lazy to list them all, and I suspect you don't feel like reading about them anyway.
3) We had mango ice cream bars for a snack, and pizza shaped like Mickey Mouse heads for dinner.
4) We crammed in along Main Street and watched the Fantillusion parade and the fireworks. And Cherry fell asleep, as did both of my feet.

Then we headed home on a very crowded train. We finally got home around midnight and the kids crashed more or less immediately.