sarahb74
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2010
Hi, Im Sarah, 39 (yikes!), type-A planner, Disney nut and your guide for our whistle stop tour of Paris and DLP. Joining me along the way are DH (52, dont tell him I told you!) not keen on anything fast or spinny (but more of that later), loves photography so thats his main thing on our trips. Also we have DS (12), still excited about Disney, loves BTM, & parachutes, and DS (7), would stay on IASW all day if he had the chance and loves a cuddle with the characters. This is our 5th trip to DLP but first in August (previously did Easter, Feb half term, Christmas and May half term) and first opportunity to see Dreams! The boys have been keen to go into Paris to see the Eiffel Tower so we decided this would be the time. I am a bit short on holiday from work this year, so the trip was planned from Saturday to Wednesday, giving us 2 travel days, 1 day in Paris and 2 days in the Parks. As we knew it would be busy and probably hot, we decided to splurge on 1 night at the Castle Club, with nights before and after at off-site hotels to keep the cost down. So, here we go
DH & I worked all day Friday, but I had the cases packed and ready a few days before, so on Friday night we just packed the car ready to leave at 9am and made sandwiches for the journey. Saturday morning I was awake at 5am, excitement I guess! I pottered around, sorting out our picnic and waiting for the others to wake up. DH and DS7 were up around 6.30am, but I had to drag DS12 from his bed at 8am. We had breakfast, set up the dvd players in the car and set off for the tunnel at 9.06am (the precision is there for a reason !). The journey was largely uneventful, but there were 2 sets of roadworks, they didnt seem to slow us down too much but as we got nearer I saw that we were quite tight to time for our crossing. In fact we pulled up at the ticket machines 2 minutes before our check in closed! Luckily there wasnt a queue. We checked our letter and followed the signs, no time to stop at the shops we were waved straight through. When we got to the boarding lanes there was a man holding a piece of paper with 10 on it most cars were ignoring him and went in the closest lane, we headed for lane 10, and as we drove down noticed the barrier was up. We went through the barrier and I noticed that they closed it behind us. We drove straight on the train, they closed the doors and we left, on the train before ours!! Result only 15 minutes difference but there was no sitting around waiting.
Once we were moving we got out the picnic, we always do this as it kills the rather boring time in the tunnel and saves us having to stop again. The journey the other side was uneventful for those keeping an eye on potholes, they are still bad around Charles de Gaulle, but other than that I didnt notice any problems (particularly the sliproads). We arrived at our hotel, the Elysee around 4.15pm, parking and check in were easy and we headed up to our room. This really exceeded our expectations, the room was large and well laid out as well as in excellent condition and we got a great deal in a flash sale!
I did some unpacking and we all freshened up for dinner we told the boys we were going to have a drive around to find somewhere to eat, it took them a while to notice that we had driven into the carpark at the Disneyland Hotel for the reservation I had made for Inventions!! As we were only going to be in the parks for 2 days and DS7 is character obsessed, I thought it made best use of our time to fit in a character meal on our arrival day so he wouldnt be so bothered when we finally got to the parks. It worked really well, we had a lovely meal and saw Snow White, Tigger, Eeyore, Minnie, Goofy and Pluto. It was really quiet, I think the parade being at 7pm probably meant less people were there at the start, we arrived at 6pm and stayed until 8pm and it was starting to get busy as we left. We also had a fab table with a great view of the park entrance so we could watch the hordes of people leaving after the parade! We headed back to the Elysee and got a good nights sleep in, ready for our day in Paris.
DH & I worked all day Friday, but I had the cases packed and ready a few days before, so on Friday night we just packed the car ready to leave at 9am and made sandwiches for the journey. Saturday morning I was awake at 5am, excitement I guess! I pottered around, sorting out our picnic and waiting for the others to wake up. DH and DS7 were up around 6.30am, but I had to drag DS12 from his bed at 8am. We had breakfast, set up the dvd players in the car and set off for the tunnel at 9.06am (the precision is there for a reason !). The journey was largely uneventful, but there were 2 sets of roadworks, they didnt seem to slow us down too much but as we got nearer I saw that we were quite tight to time for our crossing. In fact we pulled up at the ticket machines 2 minutes before our check in closed! Luckily there wasnt a queue. We checked our letter and followed the signs, no time to stop at the shops we were waved straight through. When we got to the boarding lanes there was a man holding a piece of paper with 10 on it most cars were ignoring him and went in the closest lane, we headed for lane 10, and as we drove down noticed the barrier was up. We went through the barrier and I noticed that they closed it behind us. We drove straight on the train, they closed the doors and we left, on the train before ours!! Result only 15 minutes difference but there was no sitting around waiting.
Once we were moving we got out the picnic, we always do this as it kills the rather boring time in the tunnel and saves us having to stop again. The journey the other side was uneventful for those keeping an eye on potholes, they are still bad around Charles de Gaulle, but other than that I didnt notice any problems (particularly the sliproads). We arrived at our hotel, the Elysee around 4.15pm, parking and check in were easy and we headed up to our room. This really exceeded our expectations, the room was large and well laid out as well as in excellent condition and we got a great deal in a flash sale!
I did some unpacking and we all freshened up for dinner we told the boys we were going to have a drive around to find somewhere to eat, it took them a while to notice that we had driven into the carpark at the Disneyland Hotel for the reservation I had made for Inventions!! As we were only going to be in the parks for 2 days and DS7 is character obsessed, I thought it made best use of our time to fit in a character meal on our arrival day so he wouldnt be so bothered when we finally got to the parks. It worked really well, we had a lovely meal and saw Snow White, Tigger, Eeyore, Minnie, Goofy and Pluto. It was really quiet, I think the parade being at 7pm probably meant less people were there at the start, we arrived at 6pm and stayed until 8pm and it was starting to get busy as we left. We also had a fab table with a great view of the park entrance so we could watch the hordes of people leaving after the parade! We headed back to the Elysee and got a good nights sleep in, ready for our day in Paris.