An American Mouseketeer in Paris - July 2016 (New 1/11)

elphie101

Left my heart in Tomorrowland
Joined
Sep 30, 2008
Hi there and welcome to this trip report! No better way to get started than to just jump into it, am I right?

The Who:


My name is Jenn, and the stubbly one would be my DH Kevin. We're a couple of 20-somethings from the States with many, MANY trips to WDW under our belts both as kids and as a couple (plus one Disneyland trip!), though the most memorable would have to be when we were married there nearly two years ago!


(Only wedding picture, I promise! You can read about that adventure in my signature below)


The What:
Our very first trip to Disneyland Paris! This trip was also the beginning of a two and a half week adventure to DLP, Paris proper and finally London.

The Where:
We stayed for 3 nights total - the first being our arrival night at Kyriad Disneyland Paris followed by a stay at Newport Bay Club

The When:
June 30-July 3, most importantly because it fell over my birthday!

The Why:
Because we had never been to Disneyland Paris and want to see all the parks someday, and because trying to affordably celebrate my birthday in the States is a nightmare (the joys of being born around a national holiday!) That and does anyone ever need a reason to go to Disney?!

Come on in if you enjoy lots of pictures, lots of words, and the perspective of an American seeing the beauty of DLP for the very first time :) Allons-y!

Table of Contents:

Day 0/1 - Travel Day
Day 1 - Disney Village and Hotel Exploring
Day 2 - Disneyland Paris!

Day 2 - Drinks at Disneyland and the Newport Bay Club
 
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Always interested in DLP. Cant wait to read all about it, and wouldn't mind a London trip report, too. hoping to go there, someday soon, too.
 




Joining in! I went to DLP back in 2007 when I was studying abroad in Scotland, but oof, that was a long time ago! I'm excited to see what's new.
 
YAY! I'm in! :)

Yay!!! Can't wait to read more!

Always interested in DLP. Cant wait to read all about it, and wouldn't mind a London trip report, too. hoping to go there, someday soon, too.

Joining in!

Following along!

C x

I'm eagerly following along! :banana:

Can't wait to read all about it!

Joining in! I went to DLP back in 2007 when I was studying abroad in Scotland, but oof, that was a long time ago! I'm excited to see what's new.

Count me in!

Yay! I'm following along! :)

I'm following along too!!!

Welcome everyone!!! Whoo boy, this is a lot of folks, hope you find our travels interesting :laughing:
 
Just binge read you wedding TR/PJ.....ok took me 5 days, but still. I figure if I can't have a Disney wedding I can live through others! Looking forward to this report!
 
Yay! I'm in!

I'm in! Can't wait popcorn::

Definitely in! I can't wait to read about your adventures!

Yay, welcome everyone!! So nice to see familiar faces :) (Screennames?)

Just binge read you wedding TR/PJ.....ok took me 5 days, but still. I figure if I can't have a Disney wedding I can live through others! Looking forward to this report!

Awwwwww I can't believe you read that behemoth! (Well, I suppose that's why I wrote it all in the first place). Glad you enjoyed and welcome to this ride!
 
So sorry about the delay everyone! I really thought I would get this up sooner but wouldn't you know it, being out of the office for 2 1/2 weeks leads to a lot of catch up. My apologies again for just leaving you with the boring travel post, but I promise things will be pixie dusted soon!

Day 0/1 - Travel Day

Our story begins with quite the travel day - 16 hours of it in fact! Luckily our flight did not depart until 7:00pm, so I was able to take the day off to finish packing and run various pre-vacation errands while Kevin put in one last work day, albeit working from home. Right at 3:30pm when he was off the clock my brother and dad arrived to take us to the airport - we walked my brother through house and cat care one final time (he would be house/cat sitting for the full 2 1/2 weeks), said a tearful goodbye (on my part at least) to our precious little furballs, and set off for the airport!

Some of you who know me off-DIS may remember this, but our flights for this trip were an enormous headache. Originally we had booked a flight on Norwegian Air getting us into Paris at 10:00pm on the 30th, so I went ahead a booked a (nonrefundable) room at the Kyriad by Disneyland Paris, as a bed to get us close to the parks for the next day. Well, 6 months before the trip, the airline up and canceled the flight, and wouldn't offer another one out of our airport until days later. So instead, we took the offered refund and booked our outbound flight on WOW Air, also the airline for our flight home. Then, less than 2 months before departure, WOW went and canceled our flight home from London, leaving us scrambling! The whole London flight debacle put a super sour taste in our mouths and made us anxious about our departing flight with WOW, not to mention we had booked via Priceline (also for the first time) and WOW has a crazy low checked bag weight limit (not to mention they weigh/charge for carry ons!) All of these decisions were made with money saving ideas in mind, but if there was a moral to the entire Eurotrip for us, it was that sometimes it's worth it to pay a little extra for things.

We arrived at the airport and checked in, thankfully with all our bags under weight. We had about 2 hours before our flight started boarding, and as a parting gift my dad (who works at the airport) was able to get us access to one of the business lounges so we could enjoy a free dinner before our flight. Unfortunately, we found out that all of WOW's gates were in a separate part of the terminal with it's own security checkpoint and that if we wanted our free lounge access we would have to go through airport security twice. Because of course it couldn't be easy!

However, the lure of free food (and beer! FREE BEER!) is a strong one, so we bid farewell to my family and set off for the main terminal and the lounge.





Well, we were very obviously out of place (everyone else was dressed for sitting in Business class of a flight, while we were in shorts and tshirts) and we actually got several stink eyes from other passengers, until someone's kids started running around screaming. Luckily the buffet was opened soon after (and it was delicious!) so we quickly ate, enjoyed a few free beers and then scurried off to the second security checkpoint so we could arrive at our proper gate.





After a good 45 minutes of last minute electronic charging and internet using, we boarded our plane, and before long we were on our way!


Bye Boston!

Our flight to Iceland was about 5 hours long - I watched a few TV show episodes and was able to sleep for about half of it. Flying northeast at such an odd hour gave us the craziest sky pictures!


Somewhere in Northern Canada






Hello Iceland!

We landed about 4:00am local time and stumbled off the plane into the airport, where we followed the stream of people to an immigration checkpoint, and then meandered around the airport looking for anything that was open and selling food (figuring it would be at least another 4-5 hours until we would have another chance to eat).


As it turned out, the plane was too big for the gate, so we were loaded into a weird little holding pen and then bused to the plane itself - poor Kevin was absolutely freezing in his shorts thanks to the 45 degree Icelandic weather.





The flight was about 3 1/2 hours long and mostly uneventful, as I slept through the majority of it (to us it was the middle of the night!) Before long we landed in PARIS!!!

We landed and followed traffic through Charles De Gaulle where we waited for our checked baggage, then followed signage through the airport looking for the inter-terminal shuttle. It was only when we took a wrong turn and found ourselves outside that we realize that we were, in fact, outside in France and no one had checked our passports! We had a momentary panic we had somehow broken some kind of law and were in the country illegally, though we quickly connected to the WiFi and realized our Iceland immigration checkpoint also served to clear us for entry into France. The more you know!

Once we arrived at Terminal 2 we meandered down to the train and bus area of the airport. Because on time performance of our flight was so spotty, we didn't prebook our transportation to Disneyland Paris and just decided we would see what worked best with our schedule, the TGV train or the DLP Shuttle bus. As it so happened, the next departure for both left at the same time, so we got our tickets for the TGV train and settled in to wait for our departure. We also ducked down to the Tourisim booth in order to get our 4-Day Museum Pass for our Paris-proper week following Disney. The TGV train was absolutely the right way to go for us - they called our track and checked our tickets and before long the train pulled up.






Our first look at the French countryside

About 10 minutes later, we arrived at Marne-la-Vallée – Chessy - we made it!! I have to say, I wish we had a train station steps away from WDW or DL, it was incredibly convenient.


A little bit of Disney just over the horizon!

We went across the street to catch the free shuttle to the Kyriad hotel, and immediately noticed the increased security presence in the area - obvious military folks patrolling the area with the biggest guns I have ever seen in my life. Considering recent events in France, we weren't at all surprised.

We ended up waiting about half an hour for the shuttle, which serves about 5 or so of DLP's neighbor hotels, with Kyriad being the second stop. Once we finally arrived, we stumbled into the lobby, went through the painless check in process (though we did find it odd we had to leave our passport number) and headed down to our room! It was small and basic, no frills, but served our one-night needs. The one problem we had in the room though was the presence of ONE electrical outlet in the entire place. After so many hours of travel, we had various phones and electronic devices that were all competing for charging attention.






It was about 3pm local time, and though we were utterly exhausted, we were also starving, and given that we had FINALLY arrived at Disneyland Paris, where else could we go for lunch but Disney Village?

Coming up next: Actual Disney pictures and not just boring travel talk!
 
Oh my! That is quite the travel day! I think that is one of the few things that I will find hardest when I finally travel overseas- I am not a fan of travel days, and it will be much longer than just a little hop to FL!
 

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