Day 18: The Journey Home

We woke up bright and early, around 6:00, and loaded up the suitcases. By 6:30, we were downstairs waiting for the bus to the train station. It was incredibly quiet at this hour of the morning. We saw absolutely no guests and maybe two or three cast members. The bus showed up after a few minutes and took us straight over to the train station. We arrived about 45 minutes before our 7:27 train departure, and quickly realized that the train station did not have heat. I found a machine to validate our tickets, and then we waited for our platform number to be listed. About 10 minutes before our departure, the platform number came up, and we headed downstairs. Our train was already there waiting, so we found our correct seats (unlike last time), and put our luggage overhead.

After a quick ten minute ride, we were pulling into the station at the airport. European transportation is awesome! We headed upstairs to find the same confusing check-in system as in Barcelona, but fortunately, we were in the know this time. We had a little bit of trouble scanning our passports, but were able to get it figured out with some help. Then, the lines began. First we had to wait in the bag check line, then the passport control line (why we did this on departure I will never know), then the security line (why was I the only one who had to take his shoes off, no one else did). Thank goodness we got to the airport three hours early. By the time we were done with the lines, it was only an hour and a half until our 10:40 flight.

We headed downstairs to the giant Air France club, which we were able to use with our Delta Sky Club membership. We grabbed a table and enjoyed a nice breakfast, since we had left Disney before breakfast started. Aside from an expansive food selection, the lounge had international newspapers and wifi, a perfect way to pass the time before our flight. From the lounge, we headed to our gate, where we had to wait in a line to get into the gate area, and then fight our way through the herd to board the plane. Even though we were flying on a 747, the world's second largest aircraft, they decided to board everyone at the same time. Once onboard, we had the good fortune to be able to spread out, since the plane wasn't full. Dad grabbed an exit row seat with several feet of legroom, and Mom and I took the window and the aisle of our row. It made for a much more comfortable flight.

Shortly after takeoff, we were served a delicious dinner of either meatballs or pasta, I chose the meatballs. In true French style, the meal came with fresh bread, a vast improvement over our bagged bread on the Delta flight. Several movies were shown overhead throughout the flight, 2 in English and one in French. They also had a self serve beverage station by the middle galley, which was both a great place to get a drink and a great place to stand up and stretch. I passed the time by trying to sleep and playing on my iTouch. Before I knew it, we were being served our pre landing lunch (ratatouille and turkey with a really delicious chocolate souffle type dessert), and started our descent into Atlanta. Overall, Air France was one of the most impressive airlines I have flown. They took great care of us on both of our flights. We had excellent service and excellent food. I can highly recommend them.

Upon landing, we were subjected to the always interesting processes of US Customs and Immigration. We had to pass through passport control, then wait 45 minutes for our bags, then pass through customs where they didn't even look at our forms, then turn our bags back over to the airport, and finally, pass through security again. It was incredibly aggravating. I don't know how the poor people who don't speak English figure out what they are supposed to do. It was bad enough being US citizens. We managed to make it to our flight with no problem, but discovered an incredibly busy airport with huge lines at the gate, and everybody looked angry. It turned out, that there had been a fire onboard one of the underground shuttles, and it had shut down the airport. A bunch of flights were delayed, and people were having trouble getting new flights. We had not been issued boarding passes, so we tried waiting in line, but were promised that our Air France boarding passes would work. Boarding time came, and our Air France boarding passes didn't work. Fortunately they let us stay right by the door as they printed our boarding passes. Problem solved. We hopped on the plane and headed for home.

We had a short, uneventful flight, and arrived in Orlando just a few minutes late. We were worried about our bags arriving, given our tight connection, but they appeared very quickly. The parking lot shuttle showed up in about 10 minutes, we grabbed our car, and headed for home. What an amazing trip!

Up Next: Some Final Thoughts

Day 17: Disneyland, Paris

We woke up around 9, we had to sleep in a little to recover from Paris, and then headed down to the Yacht Club to get breakfast. It was a little busier then the day before, but we managed to get a table after just a short wait in line. After breakfast we stopped in the store, and got some ideas for what we wanted to buy. After all, we so far hadn't bought a single souvenir on the trip. We got ready and then headed for Disney Studios. While we were waiting in line to get our tickets, I all of a sudden heard someone say "Mike, seriously!" I am thinking, we are in Paris, who on earth would know me. I turned around, and there was Dave from the ship. He was starting his vacation the day we got off, and had gone to Paris to meet his girlfriend. What are the odds? We chatted for a little while and then headed into the park.

Dad and I took a quick ride on Tower of Terror (same as Anaheim but still awesome), and then rode Rock N' Roller Coaster (different story line but same ride as Orlando). After that, we realized that we had pretty much seen the entire park. While Studios is a nice place to spend a few hours, it really needs to be looked at as another land of Parc Disneyland, there is not nearly enough to do to spend an entire day. We spent some time in the store, and started to realize that almost every store on property carried almost exactly the same things.

Next, we headed across the esplanade to Disneyland and headed straight for Discoveryland and Space Mountain. This ride is way different then in the US parks. It has an accelerated uphill launch and inversions. I would say it is a lot closer to Rock N' Roller Coaster then Space Mountain. Once we finished Space Mountain, we took a ride on Buzz Lightyear, and I vastly improved my score from the day before. Once we had finished our ride, we set off in search of lunch. We had seen some cool restaurants in Adventureland and Frontierland, so we headed over there to check out menus. All of the restaurants in Disneyland are absolutely beautiful, they went to great effort to build these restaurants. At least one restaurant in each land is table service, and some restaurants even had live entertainment (American country band playing in the barbecue restaurant). However, after checking several menus, and observing a very odd buffet, we noticed on the map that the new Pizza Planet restaurant offered a Pizza, Pasta, and Salad buffet. We headed back to Discoveryland where we started, and made one of the greatest discoveries of our trip, an all you could eat buffet for 16euro. YAY!

We headed inside and had a great conversation with the person at the register. She wanted to know all about Disney World, and how it compared to Disneyland Paris, as she had not had an opportunity to visit the US parks. We had a fantastic meal that even included a self serve soda fountain, I had a line of cups to prove it. With how much food we ate, I am sure that Americans will no longer be allowed in that restaurant, lol. From Pizza Planet we headed to the train station to take a ride to Frontierland but we found out that it was closed. This would become a trend throughout the evening, that everything started closing down well before the park, but there was nothing on the map or the schedule to tell you when something would be closing.

We started the hike back across the park to Pirates, and took another ride. Then, we explored Discovery Island, the pirate equivalent of Tom Sawyer's Island. Dad and I took a ride on the scariest ride ever, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril. I definitely felt in peril, but not in the good we designed this ride well kind of way. I felt peril in the this rickety thing is going to fall apart and boy does it hurt to ride this kind of way. And they tell me this thing use to go backwards, that would have been a nightmare.

After Dad and I escaped peril we headed into Fantasyland to ride some more rides there, but alas, everything we wanted to try was either closed for the night or closed for maintenance. We then headed back to Frontierland (lots of walking in this park) and took a ride on Big Thunder Mountain and Phantom Manor. Interestingly, we were the last group to ride Phantom Manor before it closed, even though the park didn't close for another hour. From there, we stopped by Casey's Corner to use our free soda coupons that came with lunch. The line was ridiculously long, so I ran to the deli where I was able to get our drinks in no time. We then decided to grab some ice cream, which turned out to be an excellent decision since it was Ben and Jerry's. We took a stroll through the Emporium and checked out the Liberty Arcade that runs behind the Main Street stores to help protect people from the French winters.

Once we were done in the Emporium, it was time to say goodbye to Parc Disneyland. We stopped in the Disneyland Hotel to check it out. It was probably the most Disneyesque of any of the hotels and was very fancy, but not quite my kind of place. We made a quick stop by the train station to buy our tickets for the following morning and then moved onto Disney Village and stopped in the Disney Store to buy all of our souvenirs. I really wanted a t-shirt, but adult males must not wear t-shirts in Europe because I could not find a single one.

We finished up our shopping and then quickly toured the rest of the hotels. We thought our hotel was weird, but it only got weirder. Our first stop was Hotel New York. This was where we had originally asked to stay. It was very nice, similar to the Swan or Dolphin, but not quite a Disney hotel. It was more what you would expect of a hotel in a big city. Then we went over to Hotel Cheyenne and Hotel Santa Fe, the two budget hotels. Hotel Cheyenne was like an old western town, and it was weird beyond belief. I can't even begin to describe it. We then went past Hotel Santa Fe, which resembled an old broken down apartment complex. Finally we arrived at Sequoia Lodge, which was the coolest, and most Disney like of all the hotels. Sequoia had a beautiful pool with a slide, and most of the rooms were in lodge buildings making it the only one of the six hotels to have grounds to explore. The lobby and the restaurants were beautiful. Well done Disney, I guess 1 out of 6 isn't bad.

Back at Newport Bay, we stopped by the store to grab the last few items we wanted, and then Mom and I went downstairs to check out the pool. As I mentioned earlier, we were staying on the Admiral's Floor. We were supposed to have a bunch of benefits such as a private dining room for breakfast, but all we really got was a special check-in desk, free pool towels (why do they charge for these anyways), a kettle (to appease the Brits), and a really nifty sign by the elevator telling everyone how special we are. The pool was a very nice indoor/outdoor pool, the outdoor part was closed until summer, with a giant ship and steering wheel. There was also an arcade and a fitness center located right by the pool. The one odd thing about the pool, arcade, fitness center area, was that it was down a long hallway on the first floor by a bunch of rooms. It was not connected to a public area. Also, there were only two doors in and out of the hotel, both from the main lobby. If you were staying at the end of a wing (the wings are really long) on the first floor, you had to go up to the second floor, all the way to the lobby, back down to the first floor, and out. I really don't know how Disney forgot their many years of experience when they were building this hotel.

After we finished exploring our unique hotel, we stopped by the front desk to exchange all of our euro coins for notes, and to ask what time the buses started running to the train station, since we had to leave very early. Then we did some packing, and went to bed.

Up Next Day 18: The Journey Home