Continuing the Magic

The boys have enjoyed the museums and the history but we felt it was time for some non cultural down time, so we headed off for Disneyland Paris today. We navigated the train process reasonably well and reached the parks in about 45 minutes. Disneyland is very clean and well manicured and is a mini version of the US sites, albeit with a pink, French looking castle. We only had a day to cover both parks, so we focused on rides that looked different to the US rides. A few of the big rides are closed for refurbishment for the 25th anniversary so we missed our chance to ride the French version of Space mountain and Pirates of the Caribbean. We checked out Phantom Manor and the boys tried out Indian Jones et la Temple du Peril. Once I saw it had an upside down loop, I gave it a miss. Lunch offerings were fairly boring, but we managed to fill up Josh with nuggets de Poulet while we tried the tex-mex selections. The highlight of the day was the Crush Coaster in Walt Disney Studios. Fast, fun, and mostly in the dark like Space Mountain, with the Nemo characters flashing by every now and then saying something in French. We would have ridden it multiple times but the lines were long. After the boys tried out the rest of the thrill rides we headed home on the train. It was very cold and we were pretty exhausted. Josh and Flynn had the distinction of being the only people we saw in Disney wearing shorts instead of long pants. Our dinner plans came unstuck when the restaurant we had planned to try was in a different location. We regrouped and continued the US cultural theme with a quick dinner at the McDonalds near the hotel - sacrilege in Paris I know, but easy, cheap and surprisingly comforting. Paris was enjoyable but we were limited by lack of pre planning and research, and there are many areas left to discover another time.