I'm gonna be

Tuesday dawned sunny with the excitement of children in the air. Sorry, the excitement of Teneille in the air. We were off to Disneyland Paris which meant setting an alarm to ensure we were out of the apartment and onto a train at the appropriate time. No issues with trains today. Nailed it.

The train to Disneyland cost 12 euro for both of us which means we were definitely scammed that time seven years ago a man 'helped' us figure out how to use the ticket machines. The journey takes about an hour including time on trains, walking to and between stations. We arrived at 10am for what would be the start of an 11-hour Disney odyssey.

Teneille's face is always a joy to watch when arriving at places like this - she can't wipe the smile.

Welcome to Disneyland.

We downloaded the Paris Disney app so we could remind ourselves where everything was and see wait times for various rides we were interested in. I had been nervous about going to Disneyland after learning the extent of the French summer holiday period. Last time we were here school had resumed but today was still in the final weeks of their break. As with everywhere else we have been this trip the crowds were massive which wasn't cool.

We knocked over the Indiana Jones and Pirates of the Caribbean rides before lines got too crazy before seeking out food. I hadn't eaten and was starting to feel it with all the walking we were doing. We eventually found an Italian food hall thing, and I use the term Italian very, very loosely. I had a pizza shaped like Mickey Mouse's head while Teneille opted for a lasagna. The quality of both wouldn't have felt out of place in an American school cafeteria, I imagine. Both meals came with a chocolate mousse dessert (also shaped like Mickey's head, of course) that was great because chocolate mousse is never not great.

Pizza... I guess?

Lines for other rides had started blowing out to anywhere between 60 and 85 minutes which is ridiculous so we resolved at lunch to buy one of those access passes that let you walk straight on. The passes, advertised for 90 euro each, are bloody expensive but better than spending three quarters of your time at Disneyland standing in line. Did I say 90 euro each? Oh, sorry. My mistake. Prices start from 90 euro. Once we had clicked through to payment it tried to charge us 175 each. We backed out of that transaction pretty quickly. You can also buy access onto individual rides for prices ranging from 4 euro to 16 euro depending on ride popularity. Given we had been willing to cough up 180 euro for passes we decided to pick the rides with the worst lines we wanted access to and buy one of passes for those rides as long as our total didn't exceed 180 euro across the rest of the day.

Utilising this system, we walked straight onto a number of rides, including Thunder Mountain, Crush's Coaster, Ratatouille and some Spider-Man thing.

Teneille in her happy place.

Paris Disney is actually two parks - Disneyland and Walt Disney Studios. Disneyland is more you classic Disney while Walt Disney Studios is where all the Marvel and Pixar stuff is located. After knocking over the rides we wanted in Disneyland we headed to the second park.

Walt Disney Studios has more thrill rides than Disneyland but there is a lot of temporary walls up at the moment as they build some new stuff that won't open until 2026.

The Avengers ride was awesome. Spider-Man was interactive. Crush's Coaster was great too. The Ratatouille ride was interesting because there are no tracks for your car - you are basically on a giant robot vacuum thing that just goes where it needs.

The best Pixar movie.

We got through all the rides we wanted to in the second park before heading back into Disneyland to do Teneille's shopping and hit any rides we wanted to go on a second time. Fortunately and unfortunately this is when it began to rain. Thankfully the weather helped to thin the crowds but unthankfully the rain really set in and was constant for the rest of the night.

We would normally have stayed until closing at 10pm when the park finishes with a light and fireworks show over the Disney castle but by 9pm we were both soaked and were done. Our shoes and socks were completely saturated and we just wanted to get back to the apartment so we could get changed and get dry.

We got a tad soaked...

We got on Indian Jones and Thunder Mountain again during the rain which was an interesting experience as rain whipped you in the face while you travelled along a track at a million miles an hour.

We had a great time but you really do need two days to do Disney properly, especially given there are technically two parks. One day for rides and one day for shows and characters.

We stopped at the supermarket on the way back to the apartment to get some baguette, ham and cheese for dinner and were very grateful to take our wet shoes and socks off. We walked 24,000 steps according to my phone despite my feet feeling like I walked 500 miles. Luckily, tomorrow we get a break. Just kidding. More walking with a day in Versailles.

Until then, au revoir.