Part-two

wow sorry left it so long before talking about our second day at Disneyland. We visited the Studio park on day two of our trip. I've not visited this park before so this was going to be a treat for me, oh and Emily.

We got there early just as the gates were about to open so we quickly navigated our way to Toy Story PlayLand and took our first ride of the day on the Slinky Dog, brilliant! We both thought that that was a great ride, excellent for the very young kids. Next we had to queue a little while for the Toy Soldier Parachute Drop - Emily loved this one, I have to admit I didn't like the feeling at all (see reason for not flying - as this was what this ride felt like). Three of you sit in the row - biggest person in the middle, and it takes you high up and then drops you - you know that feeling when you are in the plane and the plane "dips" a little and you get that feeling in your tummy? Well yeah I DON'T like that feeling.

Next we took the Studio Tram Tour and that was a pretty good experience and quite interesting to see some of the work behind the scenes of a "set". Be prepared to be roasted and soaked on this one ;)

We had to walk past the Twilight Tower of Terror - it looked like an awesome ride - sadly Emily was too small for this one.

Next we took the Armageddon Special Effects - where they theme of the experience is "your in a real set preparing to shoot a new scene" . Bit of a long winded start to get the audience warmed up, and I was quite surprised that even after all the signs saying that if you have small children who don't like loud noises then this may not be suitable.. blah blah... that some couple took their loudly crying and obviously upset small (yes younger than Emily) on this one!! I mean come on - the kid cried during the introduction, the guy leading us through this event kept saying "you know not suitable for people with nervous dispositions..." . Still this set of parents were adamant that they were going to subject their son to this. I'm just glad that it was so noisy inside that even if he was screaming , we didn't hear it! (is that bad of me?)

After we found the Stitch Live show and this had to be the best of all! We entered an auditorium where there were some benches to sit on and a large area at the front where the young kids could sit. Emily was more than happy to sit right in front of the large screen. The show started like a film but Stitch was talking directly and live to the crowd. I have to say we laughed and laughed through this one - it was really brilliant. Stitch was interacting with the kids and adults, making us chuckle as he took the mickey out of one parent, and then made friends with another girl, took her photo and then showed us the photo - how brilliant! Oh and then he swallowed the camera. Excellent - I'd give this one 5 stars.

By this time we were feeling pretty tired with the heat, so Emily played in the CineMagic area - recording her voice singing a Disney tune, playing with sounds and colouring in some of the characters.

Our last ride of the day, or last two rides, were on the Flying Carpets. I managed to quickly get a fast pass (only some rides offer this feature and is well worth doing early in the day as some get booked out pretty early on in the afternoon) , and we decided to queue for the ride in the ordinary queue anyway. Brilliant idea as we managed to get two rides out of it in the space of 10 minutes by joining the fast pass queue after our first ride!

After this we headed back to the hotel, picked up our cases and went to wait at the station for our first of 3 trains back home.

Oh boy we both were exhausted. I think its taken Emily a week to recover :)

Disney Daft

You all must think I've gone a bit mad recently - well yes the overwhelming pressure of constantly studying for the last 3 years has had it toll on me - but I'm Disney Daft for a reason. You see I've just spent the weekend at Disneyland Paris! It's an awesome place to visit, and I know there is probably a bigger and better one in the States, but for someone who doesn't enjoying flying visiting the one near Paris is a far better option for me.

I last visited Disneyland with Phoebe oooh about 5 years ago. This year it was Emily's turn and at just being 3 years old I thought we could try a weekend away just the two of us. First option was how the heck was I going to get there without flying? ooh let me see - what has many wheels, some tracks and can travel at great speed under the ground? That's right Eurostar!!!

I booked tickets for travel (luckily Emily is under four and therefore didn't have to pay for a ticket for her unless I wanted to book a seat for her). The journey was was pretty good, catching an early train from our local station to Kings Cross and then walking across to the St Pancras Eurostar station, took only 5 minutes. We found a beautiful station with lots of lovely shops - so sorry I didn't have time to stop and check some out, perhaps next time. We checked in, went through security and passport control, grabbed some magazines from one shop and sat to wait for our train. Getting on the train was easy and straight forward - not like travelling by aeroplane that's for sure. I'd definitely say this was a more relaxed way to get there. The journey itself only took about 2.5 hours and it was lovely, arriving just outside Disneyland itself - what a hoot. I would recommend that if you get the Disney direct train to grab yourself the Disney Express service which checks in your bags for you, as they give you tickets to the park so you can just hop off the train and get straight on with the fun. We didn't do that so instead we waited for our coach to pick us up and we dropped off our luggage before heading back for some dinner at the Disney Village.

Our hotel was the Radisson Blu at the golf "area" of the resort which actually made for a nice quiet hotel (unlike the Kyriad I stayed at last time - noisy screaming shouting kids till very late at night). We had a great room - a large double bed for me and a sofa bed for Emily - though she took to hogging my side of the double bed. Room was very spacious, with not only a TV but a PS2 with its own screen - that if I had known the room had one I would have brought some films for Emily to watch. Our bathroom was lovely with double sinks - one for me and one for Emily.

After a nice nights sleep, we got up early, had a nice breakfast and then headed to the park to pick up our 2 day passes that let us visit both parks.

Our first call was to the main Disney park where we had our first ride on the Carousel-de-Lancelot followed by the Dumbo the flying Elephant, Peter Pans Flight, Alice's Curious Labyrinth, "It's a small world" which is a bit surreal. Next we took a stop in the Discovery Land but there weren't many rides that Emily wanted to go on, we did take a quick shot at the Buzz Light Year Laser Blast - which was pretty good. We then headed to Adventure Land and Emily wanted to explore the Pirate ship but sadly that was shut so instead she had a play in the Pirates Beach and the Adventure Isle.

By this time it was late afternoon and Emily was getting tired, so we made quick trip to Adventure Land but nothing tempted her there so we headed to the main street to watch the parade. Emily almost fell asleep on the pavement whilst we watched the parade - time to head off for bed.

Part-two tomorrow...