Disneyland Paris

We awoke bright and early to take advantage of the extra special super duper early morning magic hours, or whatever Disney is calling them here in Paris. We had a late breakfast planned in Disneyland park this morning, so we just hopped out of bed, changed into the only clothes we had, and headed down to catch the big yellow buses. Unlike in Florida, the lines weren't very long to get into the park for early entry, so we cruised right on in and headed to Discoveryland. J. R. took his first ride on Space Mountain 2, which was a walk-on, so the boys took the back seat. It was pretty rough and both Janie and J. R. thought their heads were banged around a lot and that detracted from the overall appeal. After that, Janie and the boys took another turn on SM2 while Rebecca and J. R. headed over to Buzz Lightyear, which was also a walk-on. J. R. scored much lower today, probably due to trying to help Rebecca shoot some "Z's". We met back up with Janie and the boys and then did another run through Buzz as a family.

After that, it was off to Fantasyland, where we rode Peter Pan's flight (and found Ariel to be missing from the Parisian version) and the Carousel. We also took the full walk-through Sleeping Beauty's castle, something you can't do at Disneyland or Disney World before it was time for our continental breakfast, which was near "Les Voyages de Pinocchio", which we also rode.

Breakfast was good, with a nice selection of croissants and breads, as well as cheeses and meats and fruit and yogurt, as well as, most important for Alex and J. R., plenty of "coffee". Everyone went back a couple of times, although J. R. was nursing a serious pain in the side of his face, which he was attributing to a sinus infection he'd been battling before the trip (and his sinus medicine was dutifully packed away in the luggage somewhere else in Europe). He was also running low on Aleve, which he had been using to lessen the pain and there were no pharmacies in sight.

Disney Studios

After breakfast, it was about time for Disney Studios to open, so we headed out across the plaza to stand in line for the opening. The lines were slightly longer, and of course, we ended up in the slowest moving line, apparently due to some problem with one couples' passes that the cast member couldn't sort out, but we were soon inside. We went straight to Tower of Terror to pickup FastPasses for later. This ride had only opened a little earlier in the year and was therefore extremely popular. The French version of "Lights, Motors, Action" was about to start, so we went back to watch it, having missed it twice on our trip to WDW the last fall. We enjoyed it a lot here, perhaps even more so than when we saw it in the US, maybe because we were not sitting outside in the Florida heat. We were especially happy with the way they handled the translation of the dialog, treating like two people talking to each other, one in English, one in French, rather than a strict translation.

Afternoon at the Studios

There was virtually no line for Rock-N-Roller Coaster, but Rebecca was too short, so she and J. R. headed over to a restaurant to have some donuts and a drink while Janie and the boys rode the coaster. We thought about heading to "Stitch Live", but Rebecca was tired and only the French version was playing then, so we skipped it and sat and took a little nap while waiting. We were eventually joined by the rest of the family and we headed over to see the Armageddon Sound Effects show. This was pretty much 'Alien Encounter' standing up and we all thought it was pretty stupid. We did see a "hidden Mickey" on one of the walls and viewed some of the movie props nearby.

Back to Disneyland

It was about time for Tower of Terror, so we headed over there for a quick drop or three. This is not one of J. R.'s favorite rides because it makes his stomach sick, but he rode it anyway. After that, we went to ride "Crush's Coaster". The line for this was long -- close to 70 minutes estimated, but it moved much faster. Alex had set his stop watch to time the line and it ended up being around 50 minutes (which according to our straight-A student Thomas, was 30 minutes less than the estimate. But they do math different on Hoth, we reasoned). We didn't know what to expect from this ride, but it was cute. It's a lot like the Primevial Whirl ride at Animal Kingdom except two people sit forwards and two backwards as the coaster goes around and spins you around, inside, in the semi-dark. We knew we'd have to try this one again tomorrow.

We went to the "Animagique" show next. J. R. can't say anything about it because he slept through it but from what the kids said, it was "tres stupide".

We'd had enough of the Studios, so we headed back across to Disneyland, where we rode "Pirates of the Caribbean", which was a lot more like the Disneyland version WITHOUT the unnecessary "Captain Jack" overlay and "Phantom Manor", the EuroDisney version of the "Haunted Mansion", which we liked a lot, even though it was all in French.

Auburge du Cendrillon

Janie had arranged dinner at Auburge du Cendrillon, so we made our way over there for our meal. After getting over the sticker shock and our fears of being served "elf food" for dinner, we all had a great time, especially Princess Rebecca, who was in "Princess heaven" meeting her friends. The food was really good, although not worth the price (typical Disney), but dessert was included and was excellent.

Nighttime at Disneyland

After dark, we went searching for the Indiana Jones ride and ran into the only other American voices we'd heard so far, a couple from Orlando also searching for Indy. We eventually found it, but much to Thomas' dismay, he was too short to ride it, so Janie and Alex took their turns while we waiting for them. J. R. found a gift shop and a T-shirt he liked, so he bought that to wear the next day, assuming our luggage had not arrived yet, since we had yet to hear from BA. Thomas and Rebecca wanted to ride Big Thunder Mountain, so we braved the 45-minute line to ride. It was a lot of fun, especially in the dark and left us all in a good mood.

We headed back to the hotel and checked at the concierge for our luggage, but they had not heard from BA and the luggage had not appeared in our room. So after a few more fruitless attempts to call the Paris phone number, J. R. called back to the USA again and got another BA representative and tried to find out how we went about replacing the items we needed. She was not very helpful, refusing to give us any dollar amount, but telling us we could buy 'essentials'. He asked her about our lack of winter coats and she said 'if it is cold, that would be essential'. J. R. tried to get her to put him through to someone else who might be able to provide a more specific answer and she accused him of being 'abusive'. (As Janie, who was listening to one end of the call would say, if she thought J. R. was being abusive, she doesn't know what abusive is.) Apparently she didn't like J. R.'s 'snide' remarks, like when she told him to itemize all his receipts by individual passenger to make it easier and he said "yes, I would hate to inconvenience British Airways" or when she wouldn't give us a precise dollar amount we could spend on 'essentials' and he told her, 'so, I can buy whatever I think I essential'.

After hanging up the phone with BA, J. R. was ready to call them back and ask for the next plane back to the U.S. because the thought of spending a week in Europe in the same set of clothes was not appealing and his sinus pain was pretty bad and he didn't see any remedy in sight. But we all calmed down and decided to head back to Disney Village and buy what we thought was essential and then just deal with BA when we got back to the USA and if it required a lawsuit when we returned to be reimbursed, we'd worry about that then. So we found enough underwear and socks to tide us over until we got to downtown Paris, a hooded sweatshirt for J. R., a fleece for Thomas, T-shirts for all of us, and Janie and Rebecca bought themselves winter jackets. With a new spirit of 'making the best of it', we went back to the hotel around midnight to go to bed.