A Dream is Wish Your Heart Makes...In Paris (Part I of Paris)

Yes my lovely, amazing, fantastic followers - it's true.

It's part one of my Paris Trip post!

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

More importantly...it's time for the Disneyland Paris post!  (It's much more fun (and you win bonus points) if you listen to Disney music as you read it - here's a mix of the top songs from 8tracks or if you want to be chill, an instrumental playlist)

Who's excited?!

It's not surprising that given the title of my blog, I am an avid lover of all things Disney.

I've been known to belt out "The Circle of Life" or "Colors of Wind" every once and while.

For probably the first 10ish years of life, I was a Disney Princess for at least 80% of my Halloweens (I have pictorial evidence at home of me as Cinderella, shameless abusing my brother Will by making him carry my "glass" slipper).

It might be surprising, however, that this humble blogger has never been to Disneyland - at least in America.  I vaguely remember going to Disneyland Paris as a kid - it rained a lot and I'm pretty sure we spent the majority of the time either on StarTours (Thanks Will) or Pirates of the Caribbean (Thanks again Will).

What can I say? When he was little, my brother liked things with swords in them - Pirates, Zorro, and Jedi. (To be fair though, I'm pretty sure I beat him in a couple of sword fights.)  Now he's a history major. That's how the world works.

So please forgive your humble blogger if she lapses into fits of wistful nostalgia - yes, I know, I'm young, but allow me my nostalgia for classic Disney.

Anyway, we had planned to end our trip to Paris with a couple of days in Disney, but as fate (and the gloved hand of a giant mouse) would have it, we began our trip in Disneyland.

Due to the wonderful generosity of  Emily's Mom, we were able to get 2 free nights at Disney!  Which was totally awesome! Thank you so much!!!

Only Disney .gifs can summarize my feelings in this post.

Unluckily for us, our French speaker, Helina, was unable to come to Disneyland with us. And the rest of us don't know any French!!

Luckily, we had Emily, who knows Disney like nobody's business, and the fact that Disneyland is a major tourist spot on our side.  As Emily pointed out, "The workers at Disney have to be nice to you."  So the language barrier thing wasn't a big problem at all.  Which meant we were free to explore Disney and spend all our money  at our leisure.

Instead of splitting this post into days, I'm just going to post all the photos (kind of in day order, but not really, since my camera got a little confused on this trip) and tell you the little stories that go with them.  Also, some of the photo credit goes to Rachel and Emily!

We took a night train to Paris from Stuttgart.  Because the night trains are slower (and in this case, also cheaper) it took about 6 hours to get there.  We arrived in the Stuttgart train station around midnight.  This was a bad idea for two reasons:
1) The wonderful American concept of "Open 24/7" does not exist in Europe! No late snacks for us!
2) The train station is open-air and it was FREEZING!!!

But we suffered it out and tried not to fall asleep before our train arrived.

Emily and Your Humble Blogger huddling together for warmth.

Our train just kept going and going and going!
The first half was going to Amsterdam,
our half to Paris.

After walking down the track, we finally get to our car! 

We arrived around 10am in Paris.  We bravely fought our way through the Metro (more on that in the 2nd Paris Post!) and we found ourselves following all the families to Disney!

Our hotel was within walking distance of the two parks in Disneyland Paris: the regular Disneyland Park (with Fantastyland, Adventureland, Discoveryland etc) and Disney Studios.  Each park had its own charm and its own awesome rides.

Here are some pictures from our favorite things (not to mention raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens etc)!

Our first day at the Parks!

Look at those happy faces!

Beyond here is Main Street U.S.A, but you have to
give Mickey Mouse your soul  money first.

Hey there Rachel!

Emily!

It was a wee bit sunny!

Our first glimpse of the castle!

THERE IT IS!!!

Who's excited?

I could live here.

This is what my house will look like.

This is Belle's Castle!
(each park has a castle for a different princess)
She is French, after all.

Factoid: Beauty and the Beast won an Oscar for

Best Music in 1991.  

Respect the singing household items.

Emily and Rachel look excited for Day 2 as we leave
the Sequoia Lodge!

Rachel's pumped for Space Mountain 2!

Emily's happy to have arrived safe and sound to our hotel.

Main Street U.S.A is really that exciting.

Yours Truly with a giant (and slightly creepy)
Rapunzel behind her.

I found my prince!

Unfortunately, Prince Phillip and I broke up
after two minutes because he didn't really want
to go anywhere.

I think Em and I need this pills for "pale people"!

Our first stop - It's a Small World.

I'm not putting in a link to the song.

You know it.

You're now singing it.

It will be stuck in your head all day.

Aww look at those adorable German...
creepy...singing
robots.

We switched between the parks a lot -
here's Emily in front of Cinamagique.
It was a super cool interactive movie!

In honor of Pixar's movie Cars - it's Guido!
The cutest Italian car ever.

Obligatory pictures in front of the castle!

Emily scrapes some gum off her shoe
in Discoveryland!

Discoveryland was super cool and had some of our favorite rides! This whole area of the park is dominated by the massive (and loud) Space Mountain: Mission 2.  The ride shoots you off through that open space that looks like a gun and into the dome.  The ride is in complete darkness, except for some psychedelic stars and supernovas.  This one, according to Emily was even more intense than the one in Disney World.  It was terrifying fast, with tons of corkscrews and two (!) 360 degree loops. You were super dizzy afterwards!

I was terrified the first time we went on it, but then I ended up going on it twice. 

Tip: Get a FastPass for this one! Don't wait in line for hours.

Space Mountain Mission 2.
It's serious business.

As you waited in line, you got to hear the screams of
the latest crop of victims.
Fun, right?

StarTours is the ride for the Star Wars nerd in us all. It's a simulator ride and some people really love it.  And I wanted to, but I didn't think the ride was worth the long wait.  You got really jostled around the ride and for people who get motion sick (like Emily and Rachel), it was a big no-no.

They did have cool props though!

It's a trap!

R2D2, my favorite little droid!

Our favorite ride, by far, was Buzz Lightyear's LaserBlast.

I didn't expect to like it - it's one of those point and shoot games.   Except for the fact that it was Buzz Lightyear's LaserBlast.  Your arguments against this ride are invalid.

We went on this ride at least 6 or 7 times over the 3 days at Disney, that's how much we loved it.

The ride pays homage to Buzz Lightyear and Aliens in their quest against the evil Emperor Zurg.  The aliens are adorable with their squeaky little voices.

Scene from the first Toy Story - The Claw

The premise of the ride is that you're a Space Cadet, working for Buzz Lightyear, and you have to hit targets with a "Z" (for Zurg) to defeat him.  Sounds lame, but it's totally awesome, especially if you're super competitive, like we are!

Emily gets her game face on.

I'm ready to do battle with my laser gun.

Rachel and I in our carts before the ride starts.

To infinity and beyond, indeed!

Two other of our favorite rides were in Adventureland - the Indiana Jones and Temple of Peril ride and Big Thunder Mountain.

For some reason, I didn't take a picture of the Indiana Jones ride! So here, have this nostalgic 1980s trailer for Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Aww yeah 80s

As we waited in line for Indiana Jones, we talked about how people scream on roller-coasters. I told Rachel that I have two screams - the I'm-having-fun-but-kind-of-scared-scream and the oh-jesus-take-the-wheel-i'm-gonna-die-scream.  We laughed about it and eventually we got up to the ride.  We sat in carts for 6 people, three rows with 2 people (math! huzzah!) each.  Emily sat in front (I was too scared) with some guy, Rachel and I in the middle, and some guy by himself in the back.


Then things got real.

I'm afraid of heights and you could see everything on the ride.  I saw the first drop - the big one - and on the way down, I shrieked.  A blood curdling, terrified, I'm-gonna-die, scream.

As we hit the bottom, I realized that Rachel was laughing at my scream.  And so was Emily.  And the guy she was sitting with.  And the dude behind us too.  We laughed the rest of the way through the ride.  And I never heard the end of it.

Big Thunder Mountain was another favorite.  It's not as crazy as the Indian Jones ride, but it is a long ride, so that makes up for the lack of huge drops and loop-di-loops. It's really cute and Western themed.  The line is super long though, so be warned.  Get a FastPass for this one!

Yeehaw.

We had lots of fun and I found myself going on rides I would have never normally gone on. 

But, I am afraid of heights...

By far the worst ride for me was Disney Studios' Tower of Terror.  Now for someone who doesn't like heights or the idea of falling, this was the absolute worst ride for me to go on.  It's based off the Twilight Zone episode which features the Tower of Terror, an elevator which gets hit by lightning while 5 people are inside...while trying to get to the 13th floor. The elevator and people inside vanish.  The premise of the ride is that we are trying to find them by recreating the scenario with a security elevator.

Terror, sheer terror.

We make silly scared faces before we actually experience
the terror of the ride.

After waiting in line, listening to everyone's screams from above, we get ushered into a room which plays a clip from the Twilight Zone and the ever excellent Rod Serling.

One of the ushers on the ride walked behind us and tried to make scary noises while we watched. We laughed instead.  You then get taken upstairs to wait to be sorted into the ride.  The same usher sorted us into the ride. We were put in the front row and I was sandwiched in between Emily and Rachel (because they wanted to hear my scream again).  As he closed the door, the usher darkly said "Bon Vonage" and then closed the elevator doors.

Then the fun stopped.  I had nothing to hold onto except for two little bars on the sides of my legs.  There was no bar in front, only a short barrier, the same height for many of the ride carts.  We got taken up and then the Tower of Terror did its thing.

If you've never been the ride, I really don't know how to describe it and even the bootleg YouTube videos don't do it justice.  You're taken up to the highest point (nearly 200 feet) and a door opens, showing you exactly how high you are... and then you fall.  Not all the way down, but then you shoot back up and down.  Sometimes in darkness you fall and rise, sometimes they pull you up to 1 of 3 doors and they open it up for about five seconds, just enough to see how high up you are and then they drop you.  Everything about the ride is sudden and jerky.  At one point, I couldn't tell if we were falling or shooting up.

It was bad.  I was so terrified I don't even know if I screamed.  I just kept my eyes closed and I grasped the little bars with white knuckles.  When we finally got off the ride (the same usher let us out - I think he wanted to see our faces) and stumbled out into the gift shop, shaking and whispering "Never again, please don't make me, never again, no please."  I think I might need therapy.  (As for Emily and Rachel, they were fine and desperately wanted to go again).

On a happier note,  we also met up (and by "met up" I mean waited an hour in line) with a Disney Princess!  It was little awkward since the 3 of us were the only people there without tykes under 10.  When we waited, we saw Belle (yes!) and Snow White (meh, she's whatever) go inside the Princess Pavilion.  But when we turned the corner...there was Aurora!  Which for you people who had no childhood, means Sleeping Beauty.  It was kind of awkward, but she was really sweet - duh, she's a princess - and she also spoke English too.  Which was good.  It kind of shattered the illusion when I realized that I was taller than her...and ergo, I could never be a Disney Princess at one of the Parks (it was like Plan E, in case the whole lawyer or teacher or writer, etc thing didn't work out).

Rapunzel's castle was added to the other windows
showing the other Princesses' castles.

Each Princess had an "artifact" from their story:
Rapunzel's Golden Flower!

The other two were not as excited as I was.
Or maybe they were annoyed by the loud, small children...

YAY AURORA!

Emily could be an Aurora with her hair!

We all got a picture with her!

And finally, Rachel and I caught the pin trading buzz from the pins Emily's mom sent us.  Emily affectionately called it "our crack" since we became obsessed with finding workers to trade pins with.

I now have an adorable, super girly
Princess lanyard!

Rachel and I fix our lanyards.  Picture Perfect!

Overall, we had an amazing time at Disney.  Yes, I left basically broke - this why you should go as a kid, your parents pay!  I definitely want to go again, and we probably will!

No matter how old you are, it's definitely worth it to go for the day.  But be sure to have a game plan if you're only there for a day!

Next post, I practice the one French word Disney taught me...Bonjour Paris!