Disney Land Paris

Disney Land Paris

We were so exhausted from the night before we slept in until 10 am, slowly dragging ourselves out of bed we showered and got ready for a day of exploring.
We left the hotel and on a whim made our way to the train station. Travel instincts must have kicked in because until this point we’d been hopeless with directions. We went straight to the supermarket to get some food for breakfast, some fruit, sandwiches, crisps, the usual. They also had a special check out for disabled people, so when we got to the back of the que, the lady told us we could go to the front. I felt a bit rude, but the culture in France seems fairly rude so it was probably normal. People here are quite rude and don’t really like to smile, unless they’re working. We’ve had fantastic customer service at most places we’ve been, especially the hotels, except the most recent where we’ll only be staying for two nights. There was crushed crisps on the floor and a vomit looking stain near our door.
We left the supermarket and went to the train station, which was about 50 meters away.
I almost had a heart attack when I saw the price of the ticket to get to Disney Land, 31 Euros each, for only two stops! Luckily we cancelled that and found another way around where it cost us 4.90 euros for both of us.
It only took 5 minutes to get to Disney Land, which kind of made it worth staying at the dingy hotel.
We got to the ticket check in & were told to head over to information to get a wheelchair, not realizing it cost 15Euros for the day, which was a bit steep, but I couldn’t have been on crutches all day. The lady who served us was from England, she seemed just as relived as us to be able to speak English, she was very helpful, I didn’t have my doctors certificate which you usually have to have apparently, but she put us through anyway.
Once getting the wheel chair we started off by going to Walt Disney Studios, which was definitely for a younger age group than us. We did a lap of the park which was quite small, saw all the rides and some fun stuff. In the monsters Inc section they had the scream machines, little kids were screaming loud as possible into the speaker to fill up the tanks. There was a toy story section with a little green soldier ride, it looked fun until we saw it in action and all it did was go up and down very slowly. There was a giant Buzz Lightyear toy who looked really cool until it started speaking French, that was a bit of a buzz kill.
I insisted on going into the gift shop, I love looking at all the toys and stationary, I’m a sucker for all stationary. I persuaded Nathan to buy these two super cute Mickey & Minnie pens, they were bridal ones with little bows we decided to get them to use for our reception signing book. I also brought a Disney key ring, I like to collect key rings from places I visit.
We stayed there for an hour then moved onto Disney Land which was a couple minutes walk down, it was huge and much more interesting!
We didn’t go on any rides, I was quite nervous about my hip, any more damage could potentially ruin the trip and I ended up getting very anxious about rides. Getting near the line made me feel very horrible I had to ask Nathan to wheel me away. I felt close to tears several times, I hadn’t had anxiety for a while I'd forgotten how overpowering and horrible it felt. Made me feel very weak and nervous, I wanted to head home already.
I’m not sure why, maybe because the last time I went on a ride I came off shaking so much with fear.
We did walk around and see all the rides though, they didn’t look to fantastic, so I don’t think we missed out on too much. We were both more keen to see a show, however every stage seemed to be closed which was odd because it was the middle of their summer and a Saturday!
We did get to see a fantastic band though called Hakuna Matata, right outside the Hakuna Matata restaurant. There was four of them who wore these big head pieces, with Africa looking clothing and came out with large bongo drums. They were fantastic. There are some moments in life where you feel a wave of happiness come over and you just want to sit in that moment for as long as possible, this was one of them for me.
There was audience participation to, which I've never been a fan of, this was one moment I was happy to be in a wheel chair because he wasn’t going to ask me to go up. There was a line of about 10 - 12 people and he got them to do this little dance, almost like Simon Says, followed by a hip jiggle. One by one he got them up front and they danced, the ones he liked he kept the ones he didn’t were moved aside. He used a whistle and hand signals to communicate, it was hilarious.

We moved on to explore the other areas, there was a mad hatter themed tea cup ride, merry go round, Star wars stimulator ride, pirates of the Caribbean ride, many restaurants and every gift shop had the generic items.

There was also a maze up in the Alice in Wonderland section, Nathan went around the front to take a photo of the top view which had the cheshire cat and caterpillar smoking in the background, leaving me sitting alone. He came back in hysterics telling me I looked like a old, blind patient sitting alone staring at the flowers in a wheel chair. Thanks! haha
The entire village was so beautiful, I would have loved to live there as a kid. (Even now would be pretty cool)
We were tired but waited around until 5.30 for the parade, we head over half an hour early to get a good spot but the streets were already lined with hundreds of people. We tried to sit in the wheel chair section but you needed a special pass for that, which was crap, so Nathan had to wheel me to a section with very limited viewing. He ran off to try to find me some candy floss to cheer me up because sometimes I can be a big kid - candy floss is awesome, but no luck, he came back empty handed.
So I threw my crutches down and had a massive screaming fit - Only joking, I was a bit gutted though.

When the parade finally came around what I could see of it was fantastic. They had so many characters, dancers, floats, costumes and music. The parade started with cinderella and her fairy godmothers, who glided down the street dancing on rollerblades.
Winnie the pooh was my favorite, the cute little teddy bear was dancing and shaking his booty. Alice in wonderland was quite creepy, it was a giant moving head with eyes that looked left & right, but the dancers in front dressed as the cards were great.
Princes and Princesses drove past in carriages. Mickey was on the final float waving and dancing. It was a spectacular show, would of been amazing to see as a kid. One day i’ll take my kids there and go on all the rides... So I keep telling myself.
Overall, we think Disney Land was a bit of a flop, people were so rude and kept walking in front of me and by this point I was so over being in busy areas.
We dropped the wheel chair off and had a wonder around.

On our walk home we stopped back into the shopping centre to grab some food for dinner. We just got a simple chicken wrap, some crisps and peaches. The walk home was lovely, it was so peaceful and green. It sounds strange, but after being in Paris I noticed how much I missed the color green. It was almost soothing. I decided to walk though the park on the way back, as we got down the little hill we saw a small family of otters chilling on the river bank. They were adorable, we managed to get quite close before they scuttled off. We spent the next half an hour enjoying the silence and calmness, watching the family of otters play around in the pond and chasing each other.

We hobbled on to the hotel to try to get an early night as we had to be up at 4am Sunday to catch a plane over to England, but I was so excited I couldn’t sleep until 12.30!