That Time I Went to Disneyland Paris...

Since we were already going to be in Europe for our recent cruise, we decided to fly into Paris and make a visit to EuroDisney Disneyland Paris. We had to use an entire day and a half for traveling from Pennsylvania to... not even Paris, just the Charles de Gaulle Airport, so we arrived in France late the night before and stayed in an airport hotel. We chose the Marriott because we had reward points from each signing up for their credit card, other stays, and by having our wedding reception at a Marriott (3x points!)....

The next morning we took the Marriott's free shuttle back to the airport where we were able to take the TGV train straight from there to Disney in about a 20 minute ride. It is not particularly inexpensive, but it's the easiest way to get from the airport to Disney. 

We found the lockers at the train station where we could store our luggage (we were staying at a different hotel that night) and headed to the park. 

Disneyland Paris is the smallest Disney park but it was plenty fun. We were there on a Sunday so it was a little crowded, but started to thin out at the end of the evening, allowing us to go on a couple of rides a second time. 

The best ride (with the longest wait time - we did the fast pass for it) was Big Thunder Mountain. We wanted to do it again but the wait was too long and Fast Passes were no longer available.

We also loved Pirates of the Caribbean, of course.

Other rides we loved were Hyper-Space Mountain (rebranding of Space Mountain to be Star Wars themed...

...and Buzz Lightyear's Lazer Blast (we liked this at Disneyland Shanghai also).

I did not like the Indiana Jones Ride: Le Temple Du Peril.

It started fun but then my head/ears started getting slammed into the overhead restraint, which was immediately painful and resulted in a headache.

We took the train around the park for one stop which was not worth the wait at all.

We were going to take it two stops, and just for the fun of it. But, due to waiting so long, we had to get off after one stop so that we didn't miss our fast pass window for a different ride.

We didn't get to go on the Peter Pan ride due to the perpetually long waits, Haunted Mansion and the tea cups were closed.

Star Tours (one of our Fast Pass picks) was fun but the show was a little meh. They basically just used existing footage from the Star Wars movies and it didn't make sense that our space ship was (supposed to be) flying around in those scenes. Also, it will make you motion sick, if you are susceptible to motion sickness.

All of the food was extremely expensive. We found the cheapest, counter-service place, Café Hyperion, which had salads, chicken nuggets, and hamburgers. The best thing we ate there was the "yoda" cupcake (all the food was Star Wars themed).

"Jedi" burger... look closely at the bun.

We later went to the Pirates of the Caribbean restaurant, Captain Jack's Restaurant des Pirates, for coffee and dessert which cost about a million dollars.

2" diameter chocolate tarts & vanilla ice cream: 15€.

We overall had a good time and spent less money to go there than it would have been to go to Disney World in Florida (the idea behind for the side trip).

 And because I don't have any more to say, here are the other things we did and saw:

We left the park and found our hotel's shuttle to our hotel (2€/person). We, again, chose a Marriott - Marriott's Village d'ile-de-France, which was a-MA-zing. The Village d'ile-de-France is not really a hotel so much as it is rows and rows of townhouses. And 15,000 points got us our townhouse for free. I think that the rate was low due to being off-season, but still an awesome deal for us.

We got to the hotel just before the kitchen closed - thank goodness because we were starving. We then enjoyed our hotel "room" that was bigger than my home with its full kitchen, 2.5 bathrooms, huge bathtub, comfortable beds, and ducks.

We had pre-arranged a shuttle to take us to the airport since there wasn't really a cheaper option, and all of the public-transportation options, while environmentally preferable, would be tempting our getting lost and/or missing our flight.

We found a cheap flight on EasyJet, which we had no problems with except for the strict luggage size which I didn't know included the wheels, but I guess that is on me, and we were off to Naples, Italy for our second side-trip.