Paris Disneyland

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
Taking advantage of the free shuttle service from our hotel, we arrived at Disneyland Park around 11:30am on Wednesday. Emma opted to forgo the giant line to meet Minnie Mouse and head straight for the rides in Fantasyland. Our first stop was Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, where we woke the dragon and then climbed the stairs to view beautiful tapestries portraying scenes from the film. Next was the ride through Snow White’s adventures, followed by a family favorite: “It’s a Small World.” After our journey around the world, we wandered through Alice’s Curious Labyrinth and then drank some serious bottled water. It was over 90 degrees that day and Wade is crazy about neither heat nor amusement parks! En route to the Tarzan Adventure in Frontierland, a live show, we scored some fast passes to ride Peter Pan’s Flight between 6:05pm and 6:35pm. The Tarzan show was good, but nothing compared to the Lion King we’d seen last summer, so we decided to try to get tickets to the 8:30pm showing. Lunch found us around 3:00pm at Pizza Planet in Discoveryland, where the food was mediocre, except for pricing. Wade did manage to identify the fact that there were only two air-conditioning vents in the entire massive room, one when you queued up for food and the other in a far corner of the dining area. It was stifling in the place so our trio headed for the corner and the A/C. The cold air felt great and Emma enjoyed the Buzz Lightyear play area immensely, especially the ball pit located in the Bucket of Soldiers from Toy Story 2. Somewhat refreshed from our brief stay with a/c we headed out to wait our turn at Disneyland’s newest attraction, Buzz Lightyear’s Laser Blast. Though the wait was longer than almost any other, this turned out to be Wade’s favorite ride and one of Emma’s top three. We climbed aboard “spaceships” and began to shoot our laser guns at targets throughout the ride. Scores are kept and we didn’t meet anyone for the rest of the day who’d hit more targets than Daddy!! When we finished assisting Buzz in saving the galaxy, we took our fastpasses to Peter Pan’s flight. The fast pass option is AWESOME. The average wait time for the ride at this time was 35 minutes and we didn’t even wait for a complete minute. We were set to get in the front of our ship when a family jumped in front of us. We were visibly frustrated because this would completely block Emma’s view for most of the ride. An extremely sensitive worker noticed this and when we finished the ride put us on again, this time with Emma in front!! How nice! So, we were able to ride one of our favorites (you fly over London!!) twice with no wait! Just before time to secure our seats for the 7:15 Princess Parade, we got in our longest queue of the day . . . the Dumbo ride! Emma and Daddy rode together – in an elephant decorated in pink, of course and Mommy rode ahead of them to snap the requisite photos. We found our spot for the parade, Daddy went for more bottled water for our trio, and then Mommy went to line up for Lion King tickets. Since Daddy had spent an hour waiting for them in the hot sun last year, it was only fair that Mommy go now (plus, much of the waiting area for the evening performances was shaded!!). Emma really enjoyed the parade and then we all grabbed some dinner before getting in our seats for the Lion King production. The family of four seated in front of us was from South Carolina. We had a nice visit with them until the curtain rose. SPECTACULAR! Perhaps even better than we remembered it! Our last ride of the day was aboard rockets in Discoveryland before finding our spot for the Fantillusion Parade, a Disney Parade filled with lights. After the last car rode by, we hurried away because the spot we’d chosen would be off limits for the fireworks. We watched “Wishes” the laser light and fireworks production before heading back to wait for the shuttle, which we boarded just after midnight. We told Emma the day had changed to Thursday and she thought that was really something. She says her highlights of the day involved meeting Disney Princesses Cinderella (Emma said she reminded her of Aunt Martha!), Sleeping Beauty, Esmerelda (Daddy said her smile reminded him of Aunt Julie), and Ariel.