In which Disney is busier

In which Disney is busier

When we wnt to the fête de la cité the last weekend in March, the
kids were very disappointed that we wouldn't let them ride anything,
so I promised that we could go to Disney instead. Sunday was forecast
to be cool and wet though, so that wasn't a good day. Besides, we had
ambitious plans to go to the Palm Sunday service at Saint Sulpice and
then visit several other churches. (You'll observe that I haven't
written about this. The best laid plans and all that.). This past
Saturday was also rainy, and Easter Sunday was a blackout date for
holders of our pass (not to mention a free museum day), but Monday
promised to be gorgeous and sunny. Since Easter Monday is a national
holiday in France, it was also a no school day.

So, Monday morning after the kids were up, I asked them whether it
sounded like a good day to go to Disney. They were enthusiastic, so
after breakfast I set them to work folding laundry, making beds, and
unloading the dishwasher while I made a quick run to the Auchan for
lunch stuff. (Fortunately, there was plenty of soup left over from Easter dinner, so I didn't need to worry about supper.) Then I threw together sandwiches, tossed everything in Sapphire's backpack (which is substantially lighter than mine is), and we were off to the train.

After a non-eventful ride (in the front car of the train), we discovered that half of Paris seemed to have decided to go to Disney that day. It appeared from the congestion on the train platform that the other train cars had been packed (which is why we were in the front car), so we followed the flow of people up the steps and over to the bag screening station at the entrance. Then on to the actual entrance to the park proper.

Once we were inside, the kids wanted to go straight to Buzz Lightyear, but we discovered that the line (at 10:30, half an hour after the park had opened) was already 45 minutes long. Fortunately, it's a fastpass ride, and so we stood in line for the fastpass machines (which was still several minutes) and then headed off to do something else while we waited for our time slot to come.

Sapphire's second choice of rides was the Phantom Manor, so we headed over there, only to see that the line for it was halfway down the street. We were about to turn away and go do something else (while I rued my decision to come to Disney, since even on Saturday in the summer the lines weren't anything like that long), when the gates to the ride opened and everyone started going into the queueing line. Evidently, that ride didn't open until 11:00. We ended up waiting for about 20 minutes to get inside, then waited in the line "downstairs" for our carriages to take us through the manor. As we were waiting, we got to see, for the first time that day, a group of people being escorted off a ride. (As they were older, I'm not entirely sure that it was a behavioral thing. It's possible that someone fell ill or something like that.)

We climbed the Swiss Family Robinson's treehouse (which also had a line) on our way back to Discoveryland, then stopped and ate our sandwiches and pretzels before we used our fastpass tickets to get into Buzz Lightyear. (We didn't manage to get any other fastpasses. By the time we were out of Buzz Lightyear, most of the fastpasses at the other rides were already gone.) Then we headed to Small World (Cherry's choice), the Tea Cups, and the Carrousel before we walked over to the Pirates of the Caribbean.

Then, Sapphire suggested that we ride Phantom Manor again, so we did (and watched a group get kicked off a ride for the second time that day. This time at the very beginning, and definitely because of behavioral stuff). We went through the Wild West exhibit walk through (where they had actual working telescopes that you didn't even need to put money in). At that point, it was almost time to go, but when we started for the entrance to the park, we discovered that Main Street was closed off for a parade, and so we couldn't easily get out. So, we headed back to Fantasyland where we took advantage of the short lines to ride Pinocchio, Snow White, the Carrousel (again) and the Tea Cups (again). By that time the parade was over and the crowds were beginning to come back into the park's various zones, so we headed over to the train station.