Disneyland Paris part one

There’s going to have to be a Disneyland one and two post.  First,

Oscar was super excited and beat the students up and out to our outing, they’re going to Chartres today, but it’s Sunday with mass, so Chartres opens later than the consumerist world that is Disney.  We head out on the Metro to the RER A (which is currently on strike, but not for people going from city center to Disney world because you can’t mess with tourism even when you have a legitimate grievance as a union) all the way

out to the gates of Disney.  And when they say that the train station literally disgorges  you into Disneyworld, they’re not kidding.  We’re met by gates, the resort, the two parks in front of us, but only has you go through the gates to the Disney Park do you see the castle that is ubiquitous of all parks.  As we come in, there is a parade coming about being a pirate or a princess because that’s the extra thing going on right now where you can pay extra to

 become one or the other.  I figure what Oscar doesn’t know won’t hurt him.  Now, I’m not Disney savvy, but my boss gave me a few tips and I find someone to ask about fastpass kiosks, what I don’t understand is that they are by the ride that they are for and you are supposed to spend the first hour in the park running around getting your first 3 fast passes in order to go on the rides later in the day.  I get a fast pass for Peter Pan’s flight and check

 in at 11am and get a pass to ride the ride at 3pm.  That should have told me something right there.  Then we went to Pirates of the Carribean, but it didn’t have a fast pass and we got to wait 50 minutes in a line for that one.  Oscar doesn’t seem to like this experience so far.  He wants to know when we’re going to get to the ride, why there are so many people around and we just keep winding

 and winding further and further into the earth.  If anyone in the world has perfected the queue that never ends when you’re thinking that you’re getting there, it is Disneyland.  We finally get onto this ride and there’s some up and down which kind of scares Oscar, so maybe not the greatest to start with, but who knew?  I just remember this ride being lame when I was a kid because the animatronics were so bad.  It’s a little better, but not by 

 much.  Then we head to Robinson Crusoe’s house because there is no line, look around the park from there and then head through other parts of the park.  We ride a little boat ride and a little train ride each of which take 30 minutes in line and Oscar spends the whole time bitching about it and asking me repeatedly “when we get on train, boat, ride, etc”.  There’s only so many times I can say that we have to get to the front of the line.

    And what I’ve forgotten in this time is the fast pass, so we go over to Buzz Lightyear to find out that it’s fast pass is already closed at 1:30pm.  This park doesn’t close until 10pm mind you and then there are fireworks at 11pm.   This is not going as planned…..