Disneyland Paris 2016 // Day 1, Part 1

Well, I suppose it's about time I get started on our days at Disneyland. It took me long enough to even look through the album, let alone edit and then write this post. As you can see from the image above our first day was Tuesday the 29th of November and we arrived at about midday, however...our trip started a while before!! Being from the border of England and Scotland, we had a 4 and a bit hour train journey all the way down to London on the Monday night - arriving into Kings Cross about midnight. As our Eurostar was just before 7am and check-in obviously an hour or two before, we decided it wouldn't be worth getting a hotel only for 4/5 hours. How wrong we were.
We headed to St Pancras and set up camp on a bench beside the Eurostar check-in keeping everything close because London is not nice and there were many 'not nice' people going around. It was freezing and scary so I thought popping over to McDonalds just across the square would kill an hour or so and warm us up but that was another bad idea. They have security on the door you know?! If that isn't a bad sign, all the drug addicts and strange scary people eyeing up our bags definitely were. Of course, that meant leaving with haste and pretty much running back to our bench in St Pancras with my freezing caramel sundae in hand. The hours dragged on but finally check-in opened and we herded through like everyone else around 5.45am where I collapsed on a slightly softer seat, in a warmish hall to have 40 winks.

No our bad fortune did not stop after boarding the train! Did you think we were in the safe zone? ha! Not with our luck. Before even getting near the Eurotunnel the train stopped and we were informed of an issue on the line. Now I know delays are gonna happen and I was fine with waiting 20mins or so but we had a connection to get at Lille where we were meeting Kerri and Kris. We should have had 1hr 45mins to wait at Lille until our next train but by the time we got there we had to jump off the train, literally not even get to say hello to Kerri and Kris and sprint towards our other train, bags in tow. We made it. Just. But man was all that stressful and I was all levels of sweaty - blurgh.

Thankfully when we arrived at Marne la Vallee, stepped out into the fresh air and saw all the security (it was very welcome since there had supposedly been a planned terror attack for December 1st) it was all over and almost straight forward from there on out. We walked to our hotel, checked in and got into the room early which was fab as I got to have a freshen up and change my sweated-through jumper then headed back to sit by the lake and wait on Kerri and Kris. Due to bad luck coming in threes, of course, I'd decided I didn't need the luggage service thing that we'd paid for and so after checking in, the receptionist told us our park passes etc were back at the Disney kiosk at Marne la Vallee station haha and so that was our next port of call once Kerri and Kris arrived.

And then it was into the park we go...

(I know that was a long-winded intro and a lot to read but for my own future reference and stuff, ya know?)

This was the most weird, surreal walk into the park ever for me. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Maybe it was because we were with other people or something, but I just didn't feel like I was actually there. First port of call was City Hall to make our dinner reservations and then across the road to Town Square Photography to buy our PhotoPass! Yay! The guy in there was awesome. I adore the cast members at Disneyland as they always (as they're meant to be) absolutely brilliant, but you know, some are more memorable and go the extra mile to make you smile.
Then we headed down Main Street, whipped out the PhotoPass for its first use in front of the Castle and proceeded to my traditional first ride; Phantom Manor!! I have to admit to being a tiny bit gutted that the Boot Hill Cemetary was closed off as it's always a nice wander around and great for photo taking, especially when there isn't renovations going on on the Rivers of the Far West. I enjoyed getting a peek at what was going on behind those boards and am even more over the moon to hear that the legendary geysers have indeed been brought back to life!!! I haven't seen them in action since my 1996 Birthday visit as a child and can't wait to see them again (ROTFW & Big Thunder didn't re-open until the week after we visited), which will probably be for my 30th Birthday now.  Let's hope they don't break down again by then ;)

So I'm going to leave it there for today so as not to overload the blog with too much to read and too many photos to look at. The 2nd part of our day will be in my next DLP16 post on the 3rd of February so make sure to follow and not miss out ;)