Anyway, it turns out that, less than 24 hours after leaving the memorial site of the Battle of Beaumont-Hamel from the First World War, I ended up at Disneyland Paris. Hotel Cheap Beds may be on the shady outskirts of Paris, but it also happens to be relatively close to the railway link to Disneyland at Marne-la-Vallée.
We got up late in the morning, by the standards that we had been setting on the trip thus far – about 8:30, aiming to get the train shortly past 9:30. As much as I wanted to sleep in the night before, once my watch alarm went off, I wanted to be at Disneyland now. The sun was just starting to come out when we found our platform, and even though we missed the first train, it was only a short wait until we got the link to Val de Fontenay on the RER network, and then straight on to Disneyland. As we went, the city edifices disappeared, the sun came out, and the primarily adult crowd on board started getting real excited to see Mickey Mouse’s Parisian cousin.
Once we made it to the Disneyland station, our tickets didn’t work. No trouble, we thought – we’ll just buy another one to let us out. Remember how I couldn’t figure out the Paris rail networks? Apparently they cost £25 a pop. Red flags started going off.
Good thing one of the turnstiles was broken and we could just walk through, grab a sandwich (or a Tequila-flavoured beer, whatever your poison might be at 10 in the morning lining up for Disneyland), and I was able to blissfully regress to my nine-year-old self once more.
In Disneyworld in Orlando, there are a bunch of different theme parks: the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, the Animal Kingdom, a bunch of water parks, shopping areas, and hotels. In Paris, the scale is much smaller; the park isn’t yet 20 years old, and other than the hotels and retail district (Disney Village), it’s made up of two parks: Disneyland proper and Walt Disney Studio Park. We had a hopper pass, so we could jump between the two, starting off at Disneyland just as a Dance Express was making its way down Main Street U.S.A.
Once we stepped in, we were basically in a festive snowglobe. Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, located at the centre of the park and visible from every vantage point, was surrounded by glistening decorations, artificial snow, lights, Christmas trees, and “Carol of the Bells” on repeat. We hadn’t even been on a ride yet and we were giddy.
Disneyland is made up of five zones, making a circle about the castle: Main Street U.S.A., where you come in and where all the major shops are (and there are a LOT); Discoveryland, with a big emphasis on technologically-inspired attractions; Fantasyland, all about princesses, wizards, and make-believe; Adventureland, which is a ten-year-old boy’s imagination let loose; and Frontierland, which advertises itself as the conquest of the West, even though there’s a pretty prominent ghost house, the Phantom Manor (the Haunted Mansion in Florida).
Other than a few changes and new rides, Disneyland is basically a collection of the best of the Magic Kingdom in Orlando. I’m perfectly fine with that, since that was one of my favourite spots when we went to Florida years ago. One thing I did forget though, in all the planning and anticipation of getting to go back to freakin’ Disneyland, was that it’s a popular spot – Europe’s most visited tourist attraction, if you believe that. That means crowds and lines. Each spot we saw as we wandered through Discoveryland had a good hour’s wait, so we were content to just wander and let the sensory overload wear down a little bit before we committed to anything. After all, we had some eleven hours in the park, before they kicked us out at 10 o’clock.
One of the newer perks to Disneyland is the Fastpass. Scan your ticket at a ride entrance, and you get another ticket to let you into a much faster line a few hours later. We were set to do that at Space Mountain: Mission 2, an intense indoor rollercoaster that takes you through hoops and loops in complete darkness, but the ride was undergoing some repairs at the time, so instead we walked through a replica of Jules Vernes’s Nautilus and made a note to check back later.
Once we connected to Fantasyland, we figured we ought to at least get in a lineup; they weren’t exactly getting any smaller as the morning wore on. There was an hour’s wait for the Princess Pavilion, which the girls wanted to do and we didn’t know any better.
Before I was born, my parents went to Disneyworld, and stood in an agonizing lineup to get into Cinderella’s Castle in the Magic Kingdom. I’ve heard all about the disappointment of walking into an unimpressive empty room – that’s not how a princess should live – and I made a vow that I’d never waste my time with anything that stupid. If I’m waiting for more time than it takes Frodo to leave the Shire in The Lord of the Rings, I had better be getting flipped upside down.
So, when the Princess Pavilion consisted entirely of getting your picture taken with Ariel – and not bikini-clad Ariel either – I didn’t get to throw up my arms and scream as we went around a sharp rollercoaster turn, but I certainly felt like doing part of that right there in the middle of Fantasyland and ruin some seven-year-old’s Disneyland experience.
If you could read my mind, you'd learn some good new profanities
You win some and you lose some. We agreed on one thing: we were in Disneyland Paris, so nothing was really that bad. We crossed over Adventure Isle, a pirate-themed walkway through the caves of Skull Rock, coming into Adventureland, where we got our Fastpasses for Indiana Jones and Temple of Peril, and made our way down to Frontierland in the meantime, to hit up Big Thunder Mountain, a wooden coaster that left a mining outpost station and clamoured up a rocky spire built into the middle of a lake dotted with Mark Twain-esque steamboats.
A 100 minute wait. What the hell.
The line wove around itself so many times that if it were a string and you pulled it tight, it would be a knot you’d never ever get undone. Either way, with banjo music pulsing in our ears, we finally made it to our train, and set off on a fast, rickety path. It was Kayla and Alyson’s first rollercoaster, and a good indoctrination – not too fast, but not lame either.
We tried to check out the Phantom Manor, but it was down when we got to the Gothic arched gates. Apparently, November 12 was the day Disneyland broke. We had a little wait until our Fastpasses were of any use, so we backtracked to Fantasyland, and wandered through a hedgemaze inspired by Alice in Wonderland – Alice’s Curious Labyrinth – that also took us to the Queen of Heart’s cartoon castle, rising above the shrubbery-lined corridors and giving a cool view of the park.
After trying to meet up with Robyn Huxter, a friend from home living in Paris, two times before now – once in London, once in Paris – we finally made the connection at City Hall along Main Street. Nice cinematic moment of reconnection, as she walked across the Town Square while some workers between us cleaned up some puke with sawdust.
Our Fastpasses totally cut down on the wait for the Temple of Peril, a rollercoaster that went a whole lot more extreme than Big Thunder Mountain by doing a 360° loop and some winding, high speed turns. Too bad it was so short (that’s what she said).
The Phantom Manor was back up and running by now, but all our plans got thrown to hell when we found out that the Walt Disney Studios Park shut down at 7 o’clock, rather than 10 o’clock like we thought. We had a few stops we wanted to make there, so we weaved through the throngs of people lined up for the Once Upon a Dream Parade along Main Street and jumped to the other park. We didn’t have a whole lot of time to explore the Studio Park, but it was basically set up to look like a glitzy movie set, complete with props, cutouts, and movie posters. Aerosmith’s Rock ‘n’ Rollercoaster was calling, to the tune of . . . well, Aerosmith.
Going from 0 to 57 miles per hour in 2.8 seconds, the darkened, enclosed steel coaster is the fastest in Disneyland Paris; you can also count on an acceleration of 44 m/s2 as you go through the first inversion, which beats an astronaut on a space shuttle launch. All that while “Love in an Elevator” is pounding in your ears and the lights are flashing.
The ride broke down midway through the lineup, so in the interest of time we lost most of our capadres to Crush’s Coaster, a ride inspired by Finding Nemo. Me and Robyn stuck it out – once you’ve seen it in Florida, good luck unseeing it. The people may have groaned when the announcement of the delay came on, but they got real pissed when a second announcement followed, warning them about smoking in the queue lineup. Don’t you love it when stereotypes come true?
Once things got moving again, we made it to the inside part, full of rock memorabilia, including signed guitars by Iron Maiden, the Doors, and Aerosmith. We then made it to a crowded studio room, where a video of the band rehearsing and inviting us to a test run of their new rollercoaster came on the projected screen.
The coaster broke down one more time, once we made it to the landing area. A bit of the magic disappears when you see it with the lights on and the music turned off, but soon enough the area got darkened, the lights started flashing, and we were strapped down, positioned above the rocket thrusters, while a countdown went 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .
Shite, I love rollercoasters, and that feeling of euphoria and complete terror that the next loop, which you can’t see, is going to be the one that flings you clear to Timbuktu.
It was almost 7 o'clock when we disembarked on wobbly legs, which led to the single disappointment of Disneyland (ok, the second . . . up yours, Ariel): I didn’t get to go on the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, a 13-storey building that takes you aboard an elevator that falls, falls, plummets to the ground without warning; my favourite thing ever. The first time I went on it, I was nine, and I made a scene on the threshold, after waiting in lineup for over an hour.
Which, before I forget, brings me to a major point: I don’t understand how my parents took a seven and nine year old to Disneyworld and didn’t kill at least one of us (probably Shane; let’s be realistic here). Going with four other twenty-somethings, there was compromise and hindrances – how can you take two kids, and get to do anything you wanted to do, especially when you wait in a lineup for over an hour and one of them starts crying right before they strap you in?
Jaysus, thank you Mom and Dad.
Anyway, the next time we went back to Florida, I could have spent the whole day on the Tower of Terror. I had to bypass it this time – as we walked away, I could hear screams of sheer terror. Maybe next time, old friend.
It was dusk as we came back to Disneyland Park, riding the animatronic-propelled Blanche-Neige et les Sept Nains, the story of Snow White by machines as you went along on a little cart. For a kids’ ride, it ended up being pretty dark – and Snow White showed up a total of two times, once at the beginning and once as she rode off with her prince. The rest of the time, it was the witch, haunting innocent kids' dreams since 1937.
Cause like, why wouldn't you trust this broad?
The queue lines were (thankfully) starting to die down, as most people who hadn’t left after the Once Upon a Dream Parade were now lined up in the same area for the 8 o’clock Fantillusion show. Screw that, I missed getting hurtled down an elevator shaft, I was not missing getting blasted the hell into space on Space Mountain.
In Orlando, Space Mountain has been largely unchanged since it opened in 1975 (it got refurbished in 2009, but I haven’t seen that . . . yet). Mission 2 is much newer, and starts off big, by literally launching you into space.
"Be honest . . . you've never read me, have you?"
The whole thing is enclosed in the dark (kinda like Aerosmith), except for the floating stars, asteroids, and cosmic lights that pass you by, whether you’re upside down or rightside up or in the process of flipping between the two. It only lasts for about 2 minutes (that’s what she said), but when you’re inching closer to 100 clicks an hour, it seems like a lot longer than that. That’s not to say that, when it’s done, you don’t want to do it all again . . . and again.
Time was running out once we re-entered the earth’s atmosphere, but we had enough time to do the Phantom Manor (another animatronic tour, except that it had a lot of Gothic corridors and ghosts – which is always a good time) and Pirates of the Caribbean (more animatronics, except that it was on a boat, and had a lot of drunken debauchery as the pirates raped and pillaged, all in the name of sheer fun – and the dog with the keys in his mouth was missing, but there was still a barking . . . seriously, Disneyland was broken today), before a guy in Mickey hands yelled at me and the crowds started shuffling out . . . or at least as far as the shops near the entrance. It was time to buy some overpriced Disney crap – you’re almost obligated after a full day of waiting in lines, occasionally interrupted by a ride.
On the train home, exhaustion set in, but we wanted a night out in Paris, so myself, Robyn, and Adam kept on the lines as far as Notre Dame and the Île de la Cité. We stepped out of the station in the midst of the Latin Quarter, only to find a narrow street bustling with people, pubs, and cheap Greek food.
Grabbing a bite, we wandered to the edge of the Seine and hung out in the brisk autumn evening until about 12:30, when the metro lines were in danger of shutting down.
Or so we thought. The danger had passed a while back, and after running through the urine-scented underground tunnels, we found a roadblock, and some security dudes holding their hands up. We weren’t getting out of Paris by the rails that night – either to Hotel Cheap Beds, or Robyn back to her abode south of the city.
There was a point in my life when these kinds of dilemmas would have stressed me out. A lot. It might have been at Disneyworld itself that I started to shake that off – it was just me and my dad, and somewhere near the Mexico exhibit in Epcot, we lost all track of time and direction, and very nearly missed the last bus that would take us home, and in the meantime nearly got thrown into jail when we inadvertently went through the employees-only back alley.
But this trip, I’ve had that many close calls, it’s not a big deal anymore. Running through the streets of London, checking my watch and frantically planning the call I’d have to make to the security at Harlow, to let them know I was sleeping on a bench somewhere along the Thames. Running after a bus in Cabo de Gata watching Devin raise his hands in prayer while I started looking to the desert hills of southern Spain for a place to camp out for the night. Being stranded in Paris, I knew we’d make it back. Somehow.
That somehow involved wandering the streets until we found a bus station, waiting for a half an hour for the approximately right one, striking up a conversation with a helpful Middle Eastern dude, who passed us off to an equally helpful Sri Lankan dude on the bus, who ended up giving us a ride in his car (there were three of us – he couldn’t kill us all) almost to our hotel where, at 3 o’clock in the morning, we were guided back to Hotel Cheap Beds by the obnoxious neon glow of the Saturn dealership. I told you that would be important.
Poor Robyn. She crashed in our room, only to get up in the morning and go back to Disneyland with another friend. It’s a hard life, this Parisian lifestyle thing.
After a breakfast of croissants and Babybel cheese, we did some last minute exploring through the city, walking along the Seine by Notre Dame and on to the Jardin du Luxembourg, poking into a few shops and looking for cheap things with the Eiffel Tower printed across it. Our train came early in the afternoon and, since the railway lines to Harlow are down over the weekends in November, we didn’t make it back to the Maltings until supper time via the bus.
Worn out completely, pockets weighed down by metro train tickets that may or may not have still been good (screw the Paris metro) and Euro cents, it was an early night after a weekend in Paris that was barely in Paris at all. Still, in the span of some 72 hours, we did a pretty good job of, going from the top of the Eiffel tower to a French café and pub where the bartender danced and bellowed out Édith Piaf songs, and everything in between. Plus, I got to try out a passable French accent that only occasionally stumbled. Ok, maybe it stumbled a lot, but I did order a Subway sub without dipping into my English vocabulary.
It’s fitting that a weekend that involved massive, suspended steel rollercoasters should be an emotional rollercoaster as well. If only every weekend could be as memorable.
Cheers,
rb
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