LOOK BACK EPISODE: Rebecca’s Disneyland Paris Voyage d'Anniversaire (November 2024)

[00:00:11] Welcome to Where I Long To Be, a Magical Trip Report Podcast. My name is Virginia and I am your host. I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying their spring. Normally by now my work schedule would have calmed down a bit, but this year it's hanging on a little longer than usual. I had an incredibly busy week last week and anticipate another busy one this week. And this weekend was just packed from attending the film festival at Alex's school, he was in one of the short films and it was fantastic, to attending an event in the film festival.

[00:00:41] And for work, to two interviews today, it just kind of got a little bit crazy here. And I realized that I was not going to have the time that I needed to finish the episode that I'm currently working on for repeat guest Mariah, who I know you will probably all remember and will enjoy the episode. It should come out next week instead. So earlier today when I was talking with my friend Maria and telling her about my predicament, she suggested that I repost an old episode and I thought that's a great idea.

[00:01:10] Yeah, I have not ever done that before. So here I am trying it out. I decided for this look back, which is what I'm going to call it, I will post it all as one episode with the pre-trip and the post-trip all rolled into one. When I started thinking about which episode I'd like to repost, I landed on my friend Rebecca's trip to Disneyland Paris for her birthday from November 2024, because I have been thinking about Disneyland Paris a lot lately.

[00:01:37] It was Rebecca's trip that inspired me to propose a girl's trip for the Disney Dames. And now we have that scheduled for late September of 2026. Of course, since Rebecca was the inspiration, I had to ask her to be our travel agent for the trip. Remember, as you are listening to this, it's a look back. So there may be some things a little out of date that are not true anymore. We're just going back in time and having a little fun, including Rebecca's Instagram username.

[00:02:05] I'm not sure at all if we mentioned it in the original recordings. But just in case, Rebecca is now 90s travel mom. That's 90s underscore travel underscore mom on Instagram, not 90s Disney mom. The updated username is linked in the show notes in case you are looking for an experienced travel agent to help you plan your next magical vacation. And you can also find that updated username on my website, which is where I long to be podcast.com.

[00:02:33] And with that, let's take a look back to November 2024. Please welcome the 2024 version of Rebecca. Bonjour, Rebecca. Bonjour. Listeners, I'm very excited to have Rebecca back on the podcast who you will have heard before from her May 2024 trip. And this time you are going somewhere far away. Where are you headed?

[00:03:02] Uh, Paris, specifically Disneyland Paris. I think we're doing one night and actually downtown Paris, but really it's for Disneyland Paris. Very exciting. So first question, have you ever been to Disneyland Paris before? Not Disneyland Paris. I have been to Paris, but no, did not put eyes on Disneyland at all. Is this going to be your first non Florida Disney park? No, I have been to California. I have been to those ones.

[00:03:31] Okay. Who is going to be joining you on this trip? My college roommate, her name's Amber. She lived internationally like in Dubai for like 10 years. And she recently moved back and happened to move back to my city here in Wilmington, North Carolina. And so we've been reconnecting and, you know, going on trips together. Is it just the two of you? Yes. Okay. And it's for my birthday. It's for your birthday. Okay. When is your birthday?

[00:04:01] The day we leave November 6th. So a really hard travel day, unfortunately, but. Oh, well, you know what? There are worse things you could be doing for your birthday than sitting on a plane going to an exciting place like Paris. Yes. That's very true. And I get the day before off because we get off for election day. So I get even longer off for my birthday. Oh, fantastic. Election day is actually a day that I do not get off of work.

[00:04:28] Ours, we technically don't. Like on the calendar, we don't have it off. But they're like, by the way, we want people to vote. So don't come into work that day. Yeah. For us, it's like if someone needs the flexibility to take a little bit of the time to go vote, then they can have that flexibility. But it's not a full day off or anything. And I don't know. I think most people have, you know, polls that stay open pretty late or that sort of thing. So I tend to do it in the evening just because I can walk to my polling place from where we are. That's nice.

[00:04:57] I don't even know where ours is. I should probably know these things. By the time people are hearing this episode, the election will have come and gone. And so I was thinking, oh, I should encourage people to go vote. But the results will be. I don't want it to. Yes. Right. The results will be what the results will be. And so we're just, you know, I hope that that everybody is happy with whatever happened. So if they're not, I'm like, hey, I'm gonna I'm not gonna be in Paris. So I don't care. I'm leaving.

[00:05:25] Leaving on a jet plane. All right. Let's get into some of the details. So first of all, where are you going to be staying on this fabulous trip? And will it be at the same place the entire time? It will not be the same place the entire time because Disney does it. Disneyland Paris does it different.

[00:05:45] Where instead of, you know, two night, then you can choose one or two park days. It's like if you do two nights, you get three park days, you always get one extra park day than the amount of nights you're staying. Mm hmm. We did two nights at the Disneyland Paris Hotel, which is the one that's like at the very front of the park. And then we are so we're going to utilize that third park day still.

[00:06:34] Mm hmm. Yeah. The last night I used, I think it's capital one points. I like credit card points. I just use that and ended up paying $10 for like, a hotel right beside the Eiffel Tower. So we're staying there last night before we fly home. Okay, fantastic.

[00:07:21] We're going to go to the parks and go to the parks for cheaper than we can go to Walt Disney World, which I've been to loads of times. And especially if we're going without the kids. It's a hike and it's difficult to get kids on that long of a flight. But if I'm doing a girls trip, then I don't care. So we might as well go overseas.

[00:07:38] Um, but yes, for basically, you know, the nicest hotel, and Disneyland Paris, we are paying and, and this is without flights, which I did find flights for about $500 round trip, which is good. Oh, wow. Okay.

[00:07:54] Yeah. So that was one of the factors in booking this trip as well. I'm like, well, man, flights are so cheap around my birthday. Um, uh, but for two nights and three park days included for two people, it was $1650. Okay. Oh, wow. So hotel and your park tickets.

[00:08:15] Yeah. And if I compare that, like, I feel like it's comparable to a deluxe resort, you know, I was comparing it to the beach club, even though probably the Grand Floridian is the most on par thing with it. Mm hmm. And it would have been probably double that if not more. All right. Yeah.

[00:08:34] And to remind listeners or to tell listeners for the first time who did not hear your previous episode, which I, I will link that in the show notes so that if anybody wants to go back and hear about your other trip, they certainly can. You are a travel planner. Yes. Magic for me travel company. Okay. So we will make sure to have your information in the show notes as well, in case anybody else is looking for a travel planner who can help you find a great deal like this.

[00:09:01] Yeah. And unfortunately I booked this before I was a travel planner, so I don't even get credit for it, but I still had a, I had a fun time planning it and I still get to go and enjoy it. You still get to go, but yeah. Is there a part of you that's like, maybe I should just cancel and then rebook? Is that even allowed? Uh, it is allowed, but I looked up and the price for that package that I just said is over three grand now. Oh wow. Okay.

[00:09:23] So I got a, and I looked for next year cause I'm like, well, I'll tell people that. And they're like, you got a good deal. But I looked at the same dates for next year and they're similar to what I paid. So like 1700. So plan this out about a year in advance. Okay. All right. And that's how far in advance you started planning. Yes. And another difference is, um, restaurant reservations open up 12 months in advance. So you really do need to do it about a year in advance to take advantage of all that.

[00:09:49] Yeah. Very good to know. Cause I was just talking to my friend Jeanette the other day doing her post trip interview for her trip to Tokyo. And it seems like from what I'm hearing about Tokyo, it's a lot less lead time for planning. So it's interesting to hear about the variation between all of these parks and how some of them, you really do need to jump on it that far in advance. And some of them, it's like, they won't even let you buy tickets until three months before. Disney doesn't make it easy. Why can't I just have a rule across the world?

[00:10:19] Well, that would be too easy. And, and just, I don't know for a moment in time reference, everyone, this is literally the, the day after we got the information about the new premier pass at Disney world.

[00:10:33] And then the paid add on membership benefits for Disney vacation club, like lots of announcements within the past 24 hours that have made people feel that even it with Disney being as expensive a product as it is and how much we love it. But it's just like, Oh wow. It's they're really, really making it expensive for people.

[00:10:55] So, and those products already exist in Disneyland Paris. They have premier pass and it's not nearly as expensive and you can do it just for a ride. So I could roll up to big thunder mountain. And if I thought the wait was too long, which honestly the waits are never that long at Disneyland Paris. And I can be like, Oh, I'm just going to pay $11 right now on the app. And then immediately skip the line. It doesn't have to be planned in advance. It's not very expensive.

[00:11:21] And I think that with this new premier pass in, in Disney world, it's one of the benefits is that you could go and ride every single lightning lane once without having to make the reservation part of it.

[00:11:34] But to have to pay such a big cost for every single person in your party. And when you're talking about a park where they're like, let's say Animal Kingdom paying that premium price and thinking about like tough to be a bug counts as one of those things.

[00:11:51] And that is something I would never pay money to do. And then Expedition Everest, I can get in at rope drop time and ride it with no weight. Like the first hour of the park, you can ride Expedition Everest with barely any weight. And so I like the idea of it being more a la carte like that so that you could decide whether it was worth it or not. Yeah. Like this just seems like, Hey, do you hate planning and have all the money in the world to throw around? Then here's the product for you.

[00:12:19] Exactly. So while we are on this topic, is there anything with this trip extra that you have paid for? So any special privileges, any parties that they might be having or anything that's an add on? Nothing that I paid extra for, although we were looking into doing the fireworks viewing areas we hear is worth it. But we haven't booked it yet. Plus, we're there three nights.

[00:12:48] So we figure if we don't have a good viewing area one night, you know, we can get there earlier the other night or hopefully it will be still be available for us to purchase if we do it the first night. We're like, that was awful. So hopefully we don't know. Okay. Has Amber been to Disneyland Paris before? No. Okay. So both of you experiencing this for the first time together. Is she a big Disney person?

[00:13:13] I would say not as much as me, but she loves Stitch and Stitch is huge in Disneyland Paris. I don't know why. Really? But they love Stitch. Yeah. Almost all the products are Stitch and they have Stitch. The meet and greet is like a three hour line. Okay. I know that longtime listeners are cracking up right now because that has made it go down a couple notches in my mind because I am so not a Stitch fan.

[00:13:38] Although, if the line to meet Stitch is three hours long, perhaps that makes other things easier to get on because everyone's so invested in Stitch and I could care less about Stitch. I feel the same way. Yes. And so they have a princess pavilion, which is where you meet the princesses. And those lines are three hours long as well. Yeah. I'm not waiting in line that long, especially if it's for a princess that I've met before somewhere else.

[00:14:04] We have zero. Well, I have zero interest in the characters other than maybe if there's like a really specialty character that we don't get at Disney World. Right. Then I might get excited about it. Like I would die if the Aristocats, like the little cats are there because that's so Parisian anyway. So I would wait probably in a pretty long line for that, but there's very few characters I'd wait in a line for.

[00:14:27] But it also frees up the rides. So Disneyland Paris notoriously does not have that long of rides compared to people who are used to Disney World. So if characters are not a priority for you, what are your specific priorities instead of like rides general? Are there specific rides that are your priorities, specific shows, you know, just soaking in the vibes? What's really important to the two of you? Probably the rides first and then the vibes like Big Thunder Mountain, like top of the list.

[00:14:57] It was already top of the list before the announcement that they're closing Disney World for like a year. Right. More so now. And this is supposed to be the best version out of all the Big Thunder Mountains around the world. That's what I hear. I have heard. Yes. And then the Hyper Space Mountain. So it's Space Mountain, but Star Wars-y. So I'm looking forward to that one. And I'm obsessed with any Haunted Mansion. So definitely that is top of the list. And not Jungle Cruise. I could care less about Jungle Cruise, which is controversial.

[00:15:24] But Pirates. I would have to go on Pirates. Okay. Do you know are most of the rides that have talking characters or narration, are they in French? Some of the shows have like a symbol next to, like the flag, and it will say if this is a French version. Or you could like go to the English ones where, so some of the showings, they will have an English show and some they will have a French show. But for the most part, the rides are in French. Okay.

[00:15:53] But most of the people and characters, I think, like could speak English. Because I did wonder, because they must get a lot of, especially England being right there, a lot of English kids. Oh, yeah. I bet it would bring a lot of questions if they're like, why can't Spider-Man speak to me? Yeah, it's, it's not take long at all. No, he's supposed to be from Queens. Oh, sorry. I see. I got it wrong. New York. And I know that because I live in Queens.

[00:16:21] So you're like, uh, Spider-Man with a French accent? No. But they have Marvel, which is a difference. Yes, that is, yeah, very exciting. And you have at least one kid who's very into Marvel things, right? So do you have anything on this trip that you are specifically trying to bring home for the kids? Any kind of merch you have in mind? Or are you just going to see what calls to you? Yeah, nothing in mind.

[00:16:50] I'll see what calls to be. But my friend is being a little bougie and flying business class. And she's like, I get two free bags. If you want to bring back a ton of souvenirs, we can fit them in my bag. So. So let's talk flights then. Are you flying together? No. I was like, are you going to be in the back of the plane and she's going to be in the front? Well, I jumped on these flights myself. I'm like $500 flights. Like, yes. Yes. And she drugged her feet a little bit.

[00:17:17] And I have American points and stuff that I collect and she does Delta. So I'm more like, well, we're going to both aim to like, I don't, we don't care. You know, I don't even barely sit with my husband on our flights and we don't talk. Right. So I don't care about the travel days. I'm like, but this is the time we're going to try to aim to get to Paris. And so our flights come in within an hour of each other. Okay. So then that's when we'll wait for each other, get our bags and then take the train from the airport to Disneyland Paris. Okay.

[00:17:47] So what is that approximate hour that you think you will both be landing? Around 8 a.m. Okay. So nice and early. Yeah. Okay. Nice and early the next day. Okay. How long is the actual flight itself? Mine leaves at like 7 p.m. and gets there at like 7 a.m. But then subtract five or six hours for the time difference. So probably about a six hour flight. Okay.

[00:18:15] And are you flying out of your most close airport or are you going farther away to a bigger airport? Because I know that you're in North Carolina. I love our tiny little airport with nine gates. I was just at it yesterday. Okay. And yes, it's never any line. I could just park my car right there and no one like shoes you off when you're waiting for someone to come out. Like my dad was waiting an hour for me just right outside the front door of the airport. No one shoot him away.

[00:18:43] So I am flying out of there and flying into Philadelphia. And that's where actually originally I had like a seven hour layover. But I'm like, I don't care. It's a $500 flight. I'll do a seven. I could go into Philly for the day on my birthday. That sounds fun. But it was recently changed to more of like a four hour layover, which I'm like, okay, well, actually that probably is better. Well, four hours. That's long enough to go grab a Philly cheesesteak. True.

[00:19:12] Or I'm thinking maybe I can go to the like American Airlines lounge or something. Maybe I can pay to go in there for the day since it's my birthday. Oh, yes. Yes, you could. All right. So arriving around 8 a.m. on Thursday, November 7th. And then how do you get from the airport over to the Disneyland Paris resort? Yes. There are trains. So there's a TGV train. And I hear don't book it in advance because if you miss it, you miss it.

[00:19:41] And you buy specific times. So you don't want to buy it and then not make it. And it's also way more expensive in advance when if you buy it a few, an hour or a few minutes in advance, then it's like 30 bucks. And it's like a 10 minute train ride directly to the station's called like Chessie. So it doesn't say Disney on it. You just have to know. So the Chessie station is the one we'll get off at. Okay.

[00:20:06] And when you get off at the station, can you walk from there into the resort? Yep. You immediately go out and it puts you into like their equivalent of like downtown Disney or Disney Springs, much smaller. But yes, you walk through that and then you're at the park. And how much baggage will you have with you considering how far you're flying and having to do that walk from the train and everything?

[00:20:32] Are you trying to keep it as minimal as possible or are you going wild with the bags? I am keeping it to one like luggage, like a rolling case, but it's small enough that could be a carry on. That way, if I did have a short layover and I didn't want to like have to wait for bags or something, I could just claim it as a carry on. And then I have like a book bag that I'll use as a personal item. So still, I guess, fairly minimal. We're only there like five days. Okay.

[00:21:00] But I will utilize my friend's bag if I get souvenirs. Listen, if she's offered, take her up on it. Um, what are you going to be doing first after you drop your things at the hotel? So we get early park entry for staying on site, but I, uh, we, you know, the, I think the hotel or the park opens before we get there that first day. So we won't be utilizing that. Um, so we'll either drop our bags off if the room's not ready or we'll drop our stuff in the room.

[00:21:29] And then there's actually a dedicated entrance just for those hotel guests into the Disneyland Paris park. So we'll probably just go straight into the main park. Okay. That is going to be so exciting to see another castle, to approach another castle. And I understand that that one is just gorgeous. What is going to be your first goal once you are through the park gates? I think it will just be to see the castle and castle photos.

[00:21:56] And I don't know if it's my first goal, but definitely a goal on the first night it will be, I want a glass of champagne in my hand looking at the castle. Cause there's nowhere else in the world that you could do that. This is the only one you can have alcohol in a castle park. Very cool. So do you have anything special you were wearing for this first day for these epic photos? I did get specific outfits for each day.

[00:22:21] I think the first one I do have like a, cause I'm expecting it to be freezing and probably rainy. My theme was pink because this is the pink castle and it's a pink Disneyland Paris hotel. So I have like a pink ring coat. I have a white sweatshirt with the castle on it. And I have like a pink furry plaid jacket. Shacket. Yeah. I love that. Do you have any pink ears? Uh, not yet. Maybe I can buy something.

[00:22:51] I think that's the one thing I'm hearing that's missing from this outfit. I know, but I do have hats and stuff cause I'm, I might be too cold for ears. I don't know. We'll have to see. It might be, but in my opinion, it's worth it just for the photos alone. Yeah, true. I do have my next day outfit is a good one though. And it does have matching ears. All right. What else are you going to get into over in Disneyland this day? And I should ask, do you have any dining reservations this particular day? Oh, we do.

[00:23:20] And so, and I said, the difference is that the dining reservations open up 12 months in advance. Not that they don't sell out immediately like they do at Disney world though. But some of the really popular ones were sold out six months in advance. Okay. But they don't penalize you for like canceling like day of. So I'm like, I'm just going to book as many different time slots as possible and see what works with our schedule that day. Okay. So the first one I have Remy's. So that's a fun one.

[00:23:49] It's not in the Disneyland park. It's in the, the studios park next door. So are you going to park hop to do that reservation or that reservation is a different day? It's the same day. You could park hop the tickets. When you do the package tickets, it comes with park hopping. Okay. And remind me of the name of the other park. Disney studios. They recently have, they're changing names. I don't know if they changed names yet, but that whole park is going through a big overhaul

[00:24:17] and renovations and a lot of walls are going to be up, but. What time is this Remy's reservation? We have one for lunch and we have one for dinner. So we're kind of going to go with the flow and see. I won't have to be rushing from park to park just to go to reservations. So I'll just cancel the lunch one if we're not, you know, feeling like we're going to be over there by then. That one is a fun one. Not really. I mean, it's like French food. So obviously we're in France, but it's the exit of the Ratatouille ride and everything's

[00:24:45] scaled for like your rat. And like, so you're sitting on a, the seats are like, you know, like a wine cork. And so that's really the big appeal of that restaurant. When you hop over there, are you going to stay in the Studios Park for the second half of the day? I think so. They have a Tower of Terror there, which I normally am not a Tower of Terror person. I hated the one at Walt Disney World, but I love the one in California. It was like the Guardians one.

[00:25:13] And I hear this one is different as well. And it's like even more scary. Really? Yeah. That's what I hear. It's like more spooky. I don't know anything about this one, but it's, it's not Marvel themed. It's not Marvel. It's like Tower of Terror themed, but just not Twilight. Was it Twilight Zone? It's not Twilight Zone. Okay. That's all I know. It's like Saw. That would be great.

[00:25:42] Is there like a Parisian version of that? I have no idea. Le Saw. I think there's some creepy little ghost girls in it. Something like that. I don't know. Oh gosh. Now I'm tempted to watch a ride through. Yeah. See this for myself. But I, so we'll probably do that. There is a Cars ride. I don't think it's a whole area. I think it's just like one ride. And I think it's a re-themed one for something else, but we'll go on that.

[00:26:11] And then the big, the, probably the biggest ride there that has the longest wait is called the Crush's Coaster. So like Crush from Nemo. I've heard of that one. I don't know if we'll go on it that second day, that first day, because I think you have to utilize early park entry to really not have to wait for it. So we'll probably do that. Right. Or pay that per ride fee. Yeah. Or pay it. Yeah. All right. So this first day, you have a lot on the agenda.

[00:26:39] The next day is Friday, November the 8th, also at the Disneyland Hotel. So are you going to start your day at Disneyland Paris or at the studios? I think at studios so we can rope drop Crush Coaster. And this one truly is probably a half day park. So really, we're probably just going to go that morning just to do whatever we didn't do that first day. Any dining reservations for this day? Yes. We have Walt's.

[00:27:06] So Walt Disney has his own little diner on Main Street in Disneyland Paris, and it's called Walt's American Diner. So it's kind of weird that we're going there to have what they consider like American food. But I think it's supposed to be like Walt Disney's favorite food. So that's kind of sweet. Okay. Is that lunch or dinner or two reservations to see where you land? I have one that day and two the next day for Walt's just to see where we land.

[00:27:32] Because I want to time it with a parade down Main Street so we can see the parade while we're having lunch or dinner. And the next day, they're having Christmas parades. So it might be good to see it then too. So that's why I have them for both days. All right. So where are you starting on Saturday, November the 9th? Probably Disneyland Paris or whichever park we didn't already early park entry. But you know what?

[00:27:57] That's going to be the first night or the first day of Christmas stuff. And I'm actually really excited about that because we are in Disneyland Paris Hotel. And I'm like, am I going to actually see them put up this tree? Because you can see the park from the hotel. So it's kind of exciting that they close early the night. So that Friday night, they close the park early so they could be putting up all these decorations. What time do they close the park early on Friday night? I think they close at 7.

[00:28:24] But we have dinner reservations at 8 at one of the hotel. The Marvel Hotel has a buffet called Downtown. That's like New York themed. And that's supposed to be harder to get reservations for and supposed to be nice. And it's a buffet. Okay. Okay. So that's at 8 p.m. Yeah, on the Friday. So I'm like, oh, that worked out because we wouldn't have been staying in the park anyway because we have these dinner reservations. Right. Yeah. I wonder if you could do a little bit of Googling and see like, is there a designated place

[00:28:53] that people tend to gather to watch the Christmas transformation? I don't know. I know the like really nice suites at Disneyland Paris Hotel, you know, have park views from their balconies. But I don't know if there's because there's the Fleur de Lis like hotel bar and there's a few other areas that I'm like, I wonder. Yeah. I mean, regardless, when you wake up the next morning, if you really wanted to, you could, you know, make sure you're taking photos for that purpose. Yeah.

[00:29:23] Or maybe we can stay up late enough Friday night and watch them at least decorate the hotel because I'm sure they decorate the Disneyland Paris Hotel too. All right. So the morning of Saturday, November 9th, do check out of the Disneyland Paris Hotel before you go have your park fun. I'm not sure when the hotel checkout is, but either we'll go into the park for early entry and do some things and then go back into the hotel and actually pack our bags and check out.

[00:29:51] But yeah, I meant, is that the day you're leaving the hotel? Oh, yes. I didn't mean like literally checking out. I just wanted to make sure I was clear on where you were staying what days. Okay. Yes. We are checking out that day. Okay. So you likely would put your stuff with the bell services or whatever until you were actually ready to come back and take care of that. Okay. Anything else you're doing in the parks on that Saturday? So they put up the Christmas stalls, like a Christmas market type of thing all over.

[00:30:20] So probably just going to try to do everything that's new and Christmas specific that day, whether it's they have new Christmas shows, new Christmas characters. Like they have Jack Skellington in his Christmas outfit and they have Stitch in a Christmas outfit. Yeah. Which you're a huge fan of. Yeah. Love him so much. If my friend wants to wait in a three hour line, I'm like, okay, I'm going to go ride these other rides again because I'm not waiting three hours for me there.

[00:30:49] I would enjoy seeing Jack Skellington, however. And I have no desire to wait any length of time to see him in Florida. So if I had the opportunity to see him for a lesser wait time, that would be great. Question. Do you watch Nightmare Before Christmas before Halloween? Yes. Because we've already watched it once this year. Okay. I wait until after Halloween has passed and then I'm like, now you're allowed to watch it. Yeah. I don't have a rule, but I do agree. It's more of a Christmas maybe than a Halloween maybe. 100%. Yeah.

[00:31:19] 100%. Okay. And listeners, if you disagree, feel free to argue about it in the comments. Rebecca and I will tell you why you're wrong. I responded to a poll and I'm like, what? Why are there more people that think this is a Halloween movie? It's just a spooky Christmas movie. Yep. All right. Let's move into the next day. So Sunday, November 10th is when you are staying at the, I can't remember how you pronounced it, the Val, Val Europe.

[00:31:51] Oh, yeah. Well, it's the night of November 9th. So that Saturday, yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. So you're grabbing your things after your park day, going to this new hotel. Sunday, November 10th, you're waking up and going over to your hotel that you got for $10 with points. Yeah. Near the Eiffel Tower. Near the Eiffel Tower. So what are you going to be doing during the day on Sunday?

[00:32:17] I presume taking as many photos as possible by the tower. Probably because I have been to Paris before, but we were with friends who live there. And so they were like, oh, here's Eiffel Tower. And we only saw it at night and like from a train station. So like, I haven't seen it up, up close and I haven't seen it during the day. So yes, just doing, I think, touristy things. We, I, I think you can book a tour and stuff like that, but I just don't want to be tied down

[00:32:43] to times because Val to Europe is supposed to be like a really big shopping center. And we probably want to do some shopping that morning if we didn't get a chance to the day before, cause we are still in the park. No, I think that, you know, having a day where you really have tons of flexibility to do what you feel like doing when you feel like doing it, you walk past a bakery and want to get a baguette or whatever. You just do it because you feel like it.

[00:33:08] So that will be an excellent way to, to end much of your trip time by having the chance to do some things that you want to squeeze in at the last second. Yeah. And I don't think we'll do any, like, you know, we're probably not going to go to the Louvre or anything like that. Probably nothing too time consuming. Probably just walking around and yeah. Stumbling into cafes and stuff. Then Hermes and whatever. Yeah. I'm just kidding. Not me. Maybe my friend. No, no.

[00:33:35] I feel like, I feel like every other video I see on TikTok lately is people buying their Hermes. And I'm like, what are these people doing? Doesn't feel worth it to me. No, I won't even buy lounge flies. So. Oh, I don't buy lounge flies for another reason, only because I think they're too small. Yeah, that's true. And I know it would be a very slippery slope for me because again, I live in New York City and starting a collection of any type. It's dangerous. Yeah. I really have to want it. And I already have an ear collection.

[00:34:06] Oh, speaking of bags. Yes. I did buy a special bag, but it wasn't a lounge fly. I just bought like a plain pink sling bag and I had my sister paint it to match one of my outfits. Oh, cute. Because I'm doing an Alice in Wonderland bound because there is this whole like Alice in Wonderland labyrinth behind the castle. And so I thought they'd be cute photos and very fitting with the park. Yeah. Oh, and so it's a pink Cheshire cat bag.

[00:34:36] Oh, so cute. Okay. My friend Jeanette is going to be so excited to see that because she's probably the biggest Alice in Wonderland fan I know. And she loves like she does a lot of sewing and stuff. So she loves like crafting things and stuff like that. So I will tag her so that she will see it. Although she's literally the first person who listens to the episodes every Monday morning. Oh, well, I'm looking forward to that outfit because I'm like, man, I want to do some sort of Disney bounding.

[00:35:03] But what can I do with that's like in the winter? So I have like a big white sweater and stuff and then like the thick fleece tights that I can wear and with like a dress over it. Do you have any other special outfits planned? That's the big day is the Alice in Wonderland one. And that's another reason it's great being so close. The hotel is right there by the park. So if I did need to make an outfit change, I could.

[00:35:26] But I do have like a Mandalorian themed outfit one day, probably the Saturday because I have like a Grogu Christmas sweater. But I also have like a Mandalorian flannel that I'll probably wear. And then I have a Grogu bag as well. Oh, perfect. Okay, right. Well, what time on Monday, November 11th is your return flight leaving from Paris? Um, I believe it's pretty early, but not too crazy, like 10am.

[00:35:54] And both of ours are, you know, around the same time within a few hours of each other. Okay. How early do you have to get to the airport there in terms of going through all of the things that you have to go through? Probably still about three hours. Will you have access to the lounge there potentially? Or I guess you won't have to be. No, I shouldn't have to be. Yeah. And I think our... Sitting around for too long. Yeah. And our hotel has a nice breakfast that I was going to try to do before we left.

[00:36:21] So I'll probably do the breakfast and then get to the airport just when I need to. Do you think that you will be taking a taxi there? Or is there a shuttle from the hotel? Yeah, I'll probably let the hotel order one either. Sometimes I think when I was looking for hotels, I was looking for one that had some sort of service. You know, you had to pay for the service. But still, it seems a little more trustworthy and not like, what is it? But taken. Because that's that in Paris.

[00:36:51] Yeah. Yep. Better safe than sorry. Because if they think you are a tourist in any way, then you can potentially get scammed. And I've heard horror stories, especially with Disneyland Paris, about people taking your stuff from your room in the Disneyland Paris hotels. And then there's a law that you have to keep your passport on you if you're not Parisian. But there's also pickpocketers. So you're like, do I want to have my passport on me if there's so many pickpocketers?

[00:37:19] I think you just have to be very careful with your bag and keeping it on your person. Like if you can have a crossbody bag, that sort of thing. All three of my bags are all crossbody slings that have the inside pocket. And then I've seen people do like, you know those like zip ties that you can use to close things? When you clasp it closed, I've seen people use the zip tie to just like give it extra

[00:37:46] protection on the clasp so that nobody can unclick it. But I would always just like have my hands on it and just be aware. Yeah. I think you're just aware. I'm less worried about being pickpocketed than I am like, you know, leaving things in the room and then like that can't be helped. I don't know. I would talk about that. Yeah. And make sure you take a photo of your passport on your phone, like save it to if you have an iPhone, save it to the cloud and all that kind of stuff so that you can access it.

[00:38:16] And I would probably have a paper copy. That's what my friend said. She's like, I think I'm just going to maybe not have it on my person, but have a paper, like a printed copy in case it is actually illegal. And then you could say, well, I have it. Here's here it is. All right. Well, this is so exciting. You've made me think like maybe I should do a girl's trip to Disneyland Paris. It's less than a thousand dollars a person after we split it for like basically a Grand Floridian in Paris.

[00:38:43] Well, one day I know I'm going to get there and I'm just so thrilled to hear about your adventure and kind of start to plan in my head because I think all of us people who love to plan Disney trips, that's one of the joys of this is noodling on all the possibilities and, you know, that's I don't want to say it's as much fun as being there, but it's nearly as much fun to be in on the planning. I know. My toxic trade is if somebody starts doing it, I might actually book it.

[00:39:13] And that's what happened. That's how this trip started. Right. Yeah. Yeah. No, my toxic trade is somebody says, do you want to go to Disney? And I'm like, okay. All right, Rebecca, this has been a lot of fun to talk to you and have a little bit of catch up time before we started recording. I will talk to you very soon and we'll hear how all of this went. I know it's getting here quickly. I don't know if I'm ready. I actually I'm like already packed actually. So. All right.

[00:39:43] Well, safe travels and we will see you when you get back. Thank you. Welcome back, Rebecca. Thank you. Or should I say bonjour like I did on the pre-trip? Yeah. Well, you are back from a whirlwind trip to Paris for your birthday. So today is November the 26th. So you've been back a couple of weeks now. Are you still riding high from your trip?

[00:40:13] I mean, life tends to shoot you back to reality pretty quick. It's been a hard few weeks. So I'm thankful for having some days off for Thanksgiving. Yeah. I can't believe we're going right into the holidays. It just feels like it's it's come so fast this year. I know we probably say that every year, but here we are again. We put up Christmas decorations sooner than ever, though, because I was riding high for Christmas because of Disneyland Paris. Yeah. Got it. OK. I have plans to put mine up after Thanksgiving has passed.

[00:40:41] But Thanksgiving is so late this year that I don't know. It just feels like I'm not going to get that much enjoyment out of my Christmas decorations. But that's not true. I'll have them up for a month. It will be fine. I did get my new Hallmark ornaments that I get every year. My mom started this tradition. So every year since the year I was born, I've gotten a new Hallmark ornament. She used to pick them for me. And then when I was old enough to help myself, I would pick up the one I wanted. And I still do it for myself to this very day.

[00:41:08] So you can imagine how many ornaments I have based on my age. And I started it for Alex, too. So now we both get a new ornament every year. So this year I chose I've got it sitting right here on my desk. I'll show you. I got Princess Tiana. Alex picked yet another Darth Vader. I was going to. Before you said I thought Star Wars in my head. Because the Darth Vader he had before says Christmas phrases when you push the button. And he found another one that says like normal Darth Vader phrases. And so it was all about that.

[00:41:37] My parents love Hallmark ornaments. They also have a tree full of them. And you're reminding me I have a box of kids Christmas presents in my closet. But some of it is Christmas ornaments I bought for myself from like the Disney store that I'm going to get out as soon as I get back home. Oh, nice. It's fun to have those little traditions of things that you do to kind of get yourself ready for the holidays. Like when we pick our ornaments, it's very hard to find a Hallmark store in New York City. They just really don't exist. I think there's like two. There's one in Port Authority bus terminal.

[00:42:07] And there's one over on the east side. So we tend to do it online. And Alex and I, we look at all of the ornaments together on my computer. And we throw every single one that we're interested in into the shopping cart. And then we go to the shopping cart. And we're like, ha, ha, ha, $1,000 worth of our ornaments. And then we play a game where we each take like two that we had picked and say this one or that one and like slowly eliminate down until we have made it to the one that we actually want to buy.

[00:42:36] So it's like the modern day version of like what we used to do when we used to get like the JCPenney's magazines. Yes. And mark your name. Yes. And we would circle. We had different color pins. And we would circle. And like blue is my color. But you would only allow to pick one per page. But still, there's like 100 pages. Oh, that's a strict rule. And we wouldn't buy it. But it would narrow it down. We did that with I think it was the Sears catalog. Oh, I remember that one too. You know, I don't know. It was just like fantasy shopping for kids.

[00:43:05] But I have to think now as a grown up, it probably helped my mom out knowing what I wanted. So we still get them. But like nowadays, it is a Target toy gift guide and an Amazon one that comes to our house. And our kids love going through it. So I'm like, oh, they do what we did. Yeah, I gave them to Alex and he still looks through it. And then this is I don't know why I'm whispering when he's in the other room with the door closed. But this is the first year.

[00:43:33] So he normally will go through that even though like last year he was 13. He still went through it. He found a couple of things he wanted. This year I was like, the toy guide came and I handed it to him. And he was like, oh, that's fun. And he flipped through it. And he's like, okay. And then when he came back with his Christmas list, there were a couple like video games and stuff on there. But there were like teenage things like I'd like some baggy jeans because apparently that's what all the kids are wearing.

[00:44:00] And things like that where I was like, okay, we're moving out of the toy phase, which it reminds me of Andy getting older and not playing with his toys as much. So I can't talk about that too long because I will start to cry. I cry every time for Toy Story 3. I can't believe they're making another one. I feel like it was such a good ending on the last one. I know. I sort of felt like that was it. I'm like, how are they going to go for that? I know. I know. We will see. We will see. I have my doubts. All right.

[00:44:27] Well, let's get into this amazing Disneyland Paris trip. So starting with Wednesday, November 6th, which was your birthday. It was. Did you have a good travel day for your birthday? I did. And there was even some travel magic. So my flight originally was going to have a super long layover in Philly and it got moved up a little bit. So it was less of a long, I mean, still like a four or five hours, but I feel like not enough for me to leave the airport.

[00:44:56] So I'm like, I'm going to try to see if they'll do a day pass to the American Airlines lounge. And so I went and they were like, no, we're not doing that. And I'm like, but it's my birthday. Like here, look at my license. I'm not lying. And she was like, what's your American Airlines loyalty number? And luckily I have a lot of points.

[00:45:20] So I feel like maybe that's why she said, basically don't tell anyone, you know, that'll be $75. So I still had to pay for it, but you know, they weren't supposed to sell day passes and they did let me buy a day pass. Okay. I can't believe that worked. It's my birthday. I know. And she noticed that I had like, I never have nails. You complimented my nails. I'm like, yes, my birthday now. More evidence that it's my birthday. I love that. So how was the lounge?

[00:45:48] Because I am a lounge person and a lounge fly, one might call me. How was your experience in that lounge? Is it a good one? It was okay. I mean, it was busy, which I guess that's why they're not selling day passes. So I'm part of the problem there. But no, and you know, free drinks. I guess I drink a lot to try to get my money's worth. Because every time I'd go up, the bartender just would like hand me like white wine, like whatever they got me before. They would start to recognize me.

[00:46:19] And I made a good friend with an older lady who was a retired art teacher who has a house in Italy that she was going to. Oh, wow. Yeah, and she was super nice. And we were traveling alone. So she would watch my stuff if I went to the bathroom and vice versa. I did literally tell her that I want to be you when I grow up because that's amazing. So you had your lounge experience. And then onto the plane was everything on time? It was. It was.

[00:46:47] In fact, my friend, Amber, she was traveling as well. But she was on Delta and she was traveling business class. And so she had a direct flight and I got there before her. So hers was maybe 30 minutes delayed. So just hanging out in the airport waiting for her. Yeah, we had agreed. We're like, oh, well, we'll meet at baggage claim. And that's another part. I am like an American Airlines credit card holder, which gets you like free check bag. But I didn't realize that doesn't apply to international flights.

[00:47:16] And I had planned on checking my bag. But it's small enough. It could be a carry-on. So I just had it as a carry-on. But then when I got to the plane, the first one was a 15 row plane, like tiny from Wilmington to Philadelphia. There was no overhead. So they made everyone like valet check their bags or they said they'll complimentary check them to your final destination. I'm like, well, that's what I wanted anyway. So I get it for free. So I ended up, I did check the bag. Yeah.

[00:47:45] And so we said we were going to meet at baggage claim in Paris. But what we didn't realize is we were landing in different terminals. So one baggage claim would be different than the other. So I realized that when I landed. So I'm like, I'm just going to meet you at the train station, which is inside the airport as well. So that sounds like it's a super easy transition from airport to train station to get wherever you're going within the Paris area. Okay. Yeah. Which is what we planned on doing. It wasn't as easy when I got there.

[00:48:13] It was a little overwhelming with just a lot of people and everything in French and not knowing where to go. And there were kiosks to buy the train tickets. So I started doing that and I didn't see how to make it English. So then I'm like, I'm just going to wait in line and talk to somebody. And I did. He was like, oh no, just use the kiosk and make it English. And so I just, I knew there was a website. So I just went on my phone and bought the tickets on my phone. And that's what I would recommend to others. Because that was definitely way easy. Good to know. And that's on the train line.

[00:48:43] Did you use any kind of translation service on your phone, like Google Translate or anything while you were there? We didn't have to. Almost everywhere had like a French menu and an English menu and everything was in both languages. Fantastic. Okay. So I'm a bit concerned because you've had no sleep at this point. Yeah. And you have a full day ahead of you because you landed at about 8 a.m. ish in Paris time.

[00:49:09] Once you got on the train and made it over to the Disneyland stop, which I think you said was Chessie, the Chessie stop. Yeah. And it was only one, it's only one stop. It was the fast train we took. So it was 22 euros a person. And it was only 10 minutes, which is great because we had luggage. Right. So then you were taking your luggage sort of down through the downtown Disney, Disney Springs type area to get over to the Disneyland hotel.

[00:49:35] Was that easy to navigate your way from the train station to the hotel? Yes. Because in fact, the train station is even closer to the Disneyland hotel. Like we didn't have to walk through Disney village to get to the other hotels you would have to, but this one literally you walk out and you see it right there. Oh, perfect. So it was maybe, I don't know, a football field away. To put a Paris thing in American terms. True. All right. So did you have any birthday magic? Was your room ready? It was not, but it was still really early.

[00:50:05] It was like, you know, 930 or so. That would have been a lot of magic. Yeah. But they did have some changing rooms right there and we could check in and, you know, they gave us our tickets and we could change out of the clothes we've been wearing for way too long into cuter Disney clothes. Okay. After you dropped your bag, presumably at Bell Services, did you go right into the park like you planned on? Yes. And we went into Disneyland Paris Park. They have the Studios Park and then Disneyland Paris. Yep.

[00:50:34] Tell us about the first view of the castle. It was beautiful. Like you would, I guess, an ideal weather scenario, but it was still, it was still nice. It was very European. We were starving. So we stopped and got a Mickey shaped ham and cheese pretzel bun. Okay. How was that? It was good. It was good. I got a strawberry mint macaroon there as well.

[00:51:04] A macaroon or a macaron? I guess macaron. But I just, for the American viewers, macaron. No, it's always macaron. Oh, really? No, do I? I've been saying macaron my whole life. Is it a Southern thing? No, I think we had this conversation during the pre-trip because I just recently edited it. I think we had this whole conversation. Macaroon is the little, like almost completely coconut things. Oh, yes. Coconut macaroons. Yeah. And macaron is always the French cookie. Okay.

[00:51:32] But you're right because I grew up in the South and pretty much everyone says macaron. Macaroon. Yeah. But it's mackerel. See? Yeah. I've been calling it macaron my whole life. And even if I know now, I don't know if I could cognitively like not do that. Like I say y'all and I can't stop it. Oh, yeah. I still say y'all sometimes. But hopefully macaron doesn't come up too often. That's what, maybe it will help you if you say macaron, like two syllables.

[00:52:02] Instead of three. Because there's not a, that's what it is. It's two syllables, I think. Like mackerel. I know. I know I sound very silly. Am I even spelling it wrong? I don't know. Hold on. Hold, please. We're going to, we're going to confirm. Investigate. Yes. Is this the like aluminum, aluminum? Oh, like. Debate? Because they spell it differently. Okay. There is an A in there. So. Okay. So that's why we would think to pronounce the A. Yes. And make it three syllables.

[00:52:30] But it's the, it's the adding the extra O that's the pronunciation, macaroon pronunciation. Yes. Sounds like macron according to Google. Yeah. You're right. Maybe it's the extra O. Throwing me. Anyway. Yeah. Linguistics. I know. And it's so funny. Like everybody has those things. And for me, it's the macaroon, macaroon thing. Is that your thing? That's like you die on that hill? I will die on that hill. Yes.

[00:52:59] And every time somebody says it, I'm like, which one do you really mean? And the fact that you added a flavor to it, because the, the macaroons hardly ever have flavors. Like it might be chocolate dipped or something, you know, but macaroon come in like every color and every flavor. So I'm sorry. What flavor was it again? I think strawberry mint. That actually sounds really good. It was pretty good. It was a big one too. Oh, really? Like the size of the, um, the raspberry ones that they sell in France and Epcot?

[00:53:27] Uh, I actually never got one. I, it was, it's always been on my list. Yeah. I was going to say maybe like fist size. Yeah. Yeah. And at listeners, I was holding up my hands as a demonstration to see if she recognized the size. I have a few linguistic hills I'll die on too, but they're not. Well, well, I feel like you need to school me on one of yours since I, I did. Because otherwise I'm going to feel terrible that I went down this grammar hill. Like, so, uh, the beach closest to where I live is Topsail Island.

[00:53:55] And you have to say Topsail, even though if you just read it, you would say Topsail. And I'm like, no, that's wrong. Yeah. Topsail. That's my main one. I'm right there with you. If somebody ever said Topsail, I would be like, no, that's not right. You've never been there. But I'm a North Carolina girl who has been there. So, or same thing down the road from Topsail is Curie Beach. And a lot of people say Curie or Cure. Yeah. Yeah. It's Curie. That's where my aunt used to live. All right.

[00:54:24] Welcome back from North Carolina talk. Back to Disneyland Paris. All right. After getting your, uh, what am I going to call it? Breakfast based on the time of day it was. I guess so. Yeah. Just very Frenchy breakfast. Yeah. Looking for Mickey and French items. Yes. So where did you head next? Uh, we went towards, I guess they have, they call it discovery land. Is it like adventure land? It's like, uh, where our space mountain is. Oh, okay.

[00:54:53] Did it feel like a future world? Like Tomorrowland type thing? Yeah. Oh, Tomorrowland. That's what I was trying to think of. So it's their version of Tomorrowland and it's called discovery land. Oh, okay. Interesting. Did you go on hyperspace mountain? Cause I know that was one of your. We did. Yeah. That was the first thing you did. Uh, we first did buzz light year. And it's almost the exact same as what we have. Um, but the animatronic buzz is speaking all French, which is funny. Um, so it's a small differences. Otherwise it was like the exact same ride.

[00:55:23] I assume Zerg is speaking French too, which would also be funny. Yeah. I don't know if they, they didn't have like a big animatronic Zerg though. So I only remember the buzz light year one. Okay. Were the, the, the shooter things better than the ones we have in the U S that are, I mean, I got a pretty high score. I got a better score than usual. So I'm going to say it was better as far as the laser alignment. Um, we did hyperspace mountain. Mm hmm. That's their version of space mountain because it's star Wars themed. Mm hmm.

[00:55:52] And my understanding is it's much faster than ours. Is that right? It felt like it. And it like launches. I don't know if ours launches. I haven't been on it in a little bit. I mean, it goes up a hill and around, but I wouldn't call it a launch. It's not like a pull back and go type thing. Yeah. And does it have a loop? Yes. Does it? I thought I heard it had a loop. I think it does because that's where you're shocked. We got off and we're like, whoa, that was way more intense than what we were expecting, but it was good. Mm hmm. Yeah. So I think you're right.

[00:56:22] It does have a loop. I really want to try that. And the lines weren't too long that day. Like, I think maybe 20 minutes. Yeah. And you had mentioned that they have something where you can kind of pay per ride if you wanted to skip the line. So just in advance of going through the rest of the details of your trip, did you ever use that service while you were there or you didn't need to? We never felt like we needed to. Okay. Yeah. We didn't do it at all. What would you say the longest wait you had was? We use single rider a lot.

[00:56:51] So if maybe the line actually said like 50 or 60 minutes, but then we would only wait 20 in single rider. So probably the longest actual wait was maybe like 40 minutes for something, probably like Big Thunder Mountain. Mm hmm. I think that was the longest wait we had the whole trip, which for Walt Disney would be amazing. Yes. All right. Walk us through this whole first day. We did fill hard magic because it's in Discoveryland for some reason there and it's hidden away. So I think a lot of people miss it. Is it the same as ours? It's the exact same.

[00:57:21] Some of it's in French though. But yeah, otherwise exactly the same. But the Donald butt is gone. I kept on being like looking back. I'm like, is it here? Is it? And it's not there. No. No Donald butt. Yeah. That's one of the most fun parts of it. Yeah. And I feel like the squirting, like because they squirt you sometimes. That was aggressive. Like we got kind of left from that. Yeah. Yeah. But that's the only differences. We did It's a Small World and it's a beautiful facade.

[00:57:48] Like I feel like very vibrant colors and stuff compared to ours. That made for some good pictures. Did their version have Disney character animatronics in it? Because in Disneyland, you'll see Moana and, you know, characters that fit within different lands will be among the Small World dolls. So was that the case there? Yes, I think it did. I don't remember seeing like a ton, but I do remember pointing some out. I like that.

[00:58:17] I wish we would kind of get that addition in Florida. I think it's fun. I feel like that's a really inexpensive way to bring people to a Small World again. Right. A little refresh. And then it's sort of, it's almost like a Where's Waldo. That would be fun. Like if they had characters in there and then periodically they would move it so that when you wrote it, it wouldn't be in the same place and you're actually doing a Where's Waldo. Yeah. It's funny to see their version of America and it's a Small World though. What does it look like?

[00:58:45] I feel like there were maybe some cowboys and then there was Hollywood and I remember seeing like the Golden Gate Bridge. Maybe the Statue of Liberty or something, you know, the main things. Where did you head after that? We did Peter Pan's Flight. I wasn't pushing for it because I know how long of a line it normally is for such a short ride. But Amber had never done it in Walt Disney World. So I'm like, well, okay, you got to do it. And it was exactly the same. And it was a longer wait.

[00:59:14] That might have been one of our longer waits too. That might have been about 40 minutes. Did it have the bedroom that you walked through just like ours? It didn't. No, we had a much better queue at Disney World. I know you had a couple of dining reservations on this day for Remy's, but you were considering canceling them or moving things around. Did you stick with either of them? We did stick with the one at nighttime. Okay. Yeah. And in fact, I did. I just forgot to, because we were so busy doing things. I forgot to cancel any of them.

[00:59:43] And it just, you don't have any charges or anything for no shows there. In fact, the one we did show up to at Remy's, I'm like, oh yeah, our summer's party for this time. And I'm like, why is it show canceled? We were like a minute late. And she was like, oh yeah, don't worry about it. So it's like, it automatically cancels it if you're not there before the time. I don't know. But there's no penalty for canceling or no showing. I mean, in some ways that's good, but I wonder if any of their reservations fill up because people are holding them. I'm sure they do.

[01:00:12] That would definitely be a problem in Florida. Yeah, that would. I think they allow more spots for walk-ins here though. Okay. As it here is in Paris. Yes. Yes. Yeah. To be clear, you're not in Paris right now. No. We also did Pirates, which was a must for me. And it was really good. And it wasn't a long wait. I don't distinctly remember huge differences between that and the Walt Disney World one. I'm sure it was a little bit different, but the oh, oh, oh, oh, Pirates Life.

[01:00:42] It's still all the same songs and stuff. There might have been a few little dialogue bits that were in French, but. Was Jack Sparrow in it? He was, yes. And in fact, I think they have a character walking around, but they have so many characters. It's like Disneyland where they have so many characters walking around. You don't know where they're going to be and they're not on the app a lot of times. Right. You just kind of run into them. Right. I think it's easier to do that in smaller parks like that. Yeah.

[01:01:09] I mean, that, I just, it's very hard to imagine that being something we could do in Disney World on a consistent basis with the way people start to queue up and chase after people and all of that. And Amber said, she's like, oh, I'm shocked. There's like, I don't see many characters. I'm like, really? There's like a lot more like you just happen to run into a character here than like Disney World. Like that just doesn't happen as much there. Were there any characters that you saw out roaming that you don't see in the US?

[01:01:39] Baloo. Oh, okay. From Jungle Book. I saw Max roaming at one point, which would be, in Hollywood Studios, I did see Max roaming before. So he's also in Walt Disney World. Some of the ones I didn't see roaming, they had like actual meet and greets, like the Winnie the Pooh characters had an actual meet and greet. And I'm pretty sure those are on the app. They had some characters in outfits that I've never seen before. And I met Goofy in like a golfing outfit. Yeah.

[01:02:08] So I got pictures of Goofy in the golfing outfit. There was Goofy, maybe? No, it was Pluto in like a country western outfit in like their Adventureland area. Interesting. Yeah. Well, I knew Goofy was sporty, so the golf outfit didn't surprise me. But yeah. All right. Where did you go after that? We went to Phantom Manor, which is their haunted mansion. And Amber had never done it in Walt Disney World.

[01:02:37] I'm like, oh, it's going to be great. How did she miss these things? I think she's only been once. So I'm more, you know, the Disney person that goes to the parks a lot. But she does. She got it really into it. How was it? Was it the same as ours? Or were there differences? There were differences. They still have the stretching room, but it's different portraits. It's not the same ones that we have. I'm pretty sure they don't have like the noose thing at the top. It's something else. I couldn't make it out, which I'm like, that's probably for the best. And then they had, it was like the bride.

[01:03:06] They had her like going up a staircase when you first get on the ride and stuff. So I would say it's a lot different, but they still have that, like the dining room, dance ballroom scene. Right. And like important things like that and the graveyard scene. So they have the important bits. But it is definitely unique to Disneyland Paris. Was there the hurry back at the end? Yes. Yeah. But in French, whatever that would be. I don't remember. All right. After that.

[01:03:35] Then we went back to the hotel because it was about 3.30. They said they would text us, which obviously I'm not getting text messages because I'm out of the country. So we just had planned to wait until after three o'clock when, you know, we're sure the room is ready at three o'clock. Okay. How was the room? It was beautiful. It was a long walk from the lobby, though. If I could do it again, I would put in like, hey, special request. We'd like a room near the lobby because it was a pretty long walk.

[01:04:02] And there's only one entry point into the hotel. So it's not like we could, you know, there's two doors you can enter and we could just get in closer to our wing. No, there's no way to get in over there. You have to go into the main entrance and then walk all that way. Is that because it's so it's basically right at the entrance of a park? I guess so. It's basically they block the castle view with the hotel. Yeah, it's at the park entrance. Yeah.

[01:04:30] I don't know why they do it that way. Maybe for security or I don't know. Anything special about the room to note? Well, our bags weren't there. And so we're like, oh, what's the point of being in a room if we can't change and get ready and stuff like that? So we called up and they did say that we like we were next on the list to have our bags brought up. It was really nice. They had like a Nespresso coffee maker and they had a really nice loose leaf teas that we did bring home and they they're in like the little chassette and they have like little flowers and stuff in them.

[01:05:00] So we've been liking those. When we came back that night, they had little cookies and stuff on the bed for us to. Yeah. Oh, that's cute. Were they mackerels? It was actually some sort of nougat. Yeah. Oh, OK. Yeah. What was the theme of the room? I think we had requested Moana or Frozen or something like that. And we ended up getting Tiana's. You would have liked it. I would have loved it. Yeah.

[01:05:25] Oh, and some other things are, you know, small Disney details like the seven dwarfs and the mirror in the bathroom. I mean, you could tell it's a five star hotel. Like there wasn't a TV. It was a mirror. But then it's a TV inside the mirror. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So that was cool. And then I discovered on the second day there's like, what are these in the bathroom? What is this panel for? I'm like, oh, it's Bluetooth. So I connected my phone and we started when we were getting ready in the mornings jamming to like emo music in the bathroom. And yeah.

[01:05:54] How very Disney of you. Yeah. So I love the new Disney emo album. All right. So bags came up and then you were able to get changed? Yep. And then we went to Studios Park. Okay. So Studios Park, would you say that it was very comparable to Hollywood Studios? No. Okay. No. It was much smaller. There's a lot of walls up. It's under construction. That didn't even particularly bother me that much.

[01:06:24] I could see if somebody is used to how it was before. Or it would probably lessen the experience. But since I've never been there, it was fine for me. But they have like a small Toy Story land area with all different rides than what we have. And then they have like a really small Cars land area with different rides than what we have. Other than I think maybe there's like that type of Mater one that Disneyland has. And then of course they have Remy's. And then they have a Marvel land like at Disneyland. Okay.

[01:06:52] What would you say is like the big ride in that park? The Crush Coaster, which is Finding Nemo, which was really cute. And there's nothing like that anywhere else around the world. So I think that's why it's such a big attraction because there's just nothing like it. If I have to compare it to one ride, I would say it's most comparable to like Guardians of the Galaxy. Right. Because I heard it has sort of a similar ride vehicle that will kind of turn on the track. Yeah. I definitely didn't like it as much as Guardians of the Galaxy.

[01:07:22] So they have, unlike Guardians of the Galaxy, two seats face forward and you're back to back and two seats face behind. And we did single rider so we didn't have to wait too long. I was put in a behind seat. And it's like I thought maybe it would spin and I would be at the front some point. It would spin but I would still be behind. And so just like going backwards the whole time didn't make me feel great. But I would feel like if I had a front, like a forward facing seat, I would have been fine and liked it a lot more.

[01:07:52] Did Amber have a forward facing seat? She did and she loved it. All right. And it is really cute. Did you ride this first day? Yes. What other rides did you do in that park? Because I know that you were very interested in doing the Cars ride and doing the Tower of Terror that they have there that's different and more spooky. Yes. We did do the Cars ride. But there was like no line for it. It was basically just a tram. Amber didn't know anything. I knew some because I had, you know, YouTubed it.

[01:08:21] But she was like, oh, is this tram like taking us to the ride? I'm like, no, this is the ride. I don't get it. What, what, like a tram is, what are you riding past? What does the tram look like? How is it? What makes it Cars? It used to be, it was rethemed to Cars. It was something else before where it was like simulating like an earthquake and a flood. Oh, okay. So they just rethemed it to Cars.

[01:08:47] So really you just take the tram and then you park in front of this mountain Cars facade. And then there's some sort of earthquake and flood. And you do get pretty wet. Like we saw the seats and I'm like, I'm going to sit on the right side because clearly something goes on on the left. But then that was basically it. So I would say not great. When there's an earthquake and a flood, did you see any Cars characters? You do. Okay. Yeah. And you have Cars characters like talk to you and stuff. All right.

[01:09:16] I feel like at some point back in the day, and I don't remember if it was in the old MGM studios or if it was in Universal. There was something like that where it was like a disaster type ride. I remember it in, I definitely remember in Universal, but I think they also had something at MGM. I think Disney and Paris must have had that same thing. And then instead of getting rid of it, they just rethemed into Cars.

[01:10:10] Okay. The food was good. We didn't have any complaints about our food. We ate it all. And yeah. Was it French food? It was, but I just got steak and fries. But then you could say like, can I have ratatouille as a side? And they'll give you like a small little bowl of ratatouille. Mm-hmm. Did you do that? I did. Yeah. Okay. Was it good? It was good. I mean, I have a lot of zucchini at home and cook like squash and stuff a lot. So for me, it's not that special.

[01:10:39] But if people aren't used to having that, I would say they need to try it. In fact, I was telling my friend about that basically like zucchini. And it took me a full day. Like out of nowhere the next day. I was trying to think of the English word for zucchini because they call it something else. And then so out of nowhere the next day, I'm like, courgette. That's what they call it. Because all I could think of is aborigine, which is eggplant. My experience with ratatouille at Epcot, because I was super excited to try it after the movie and everything because they made it look so good.

[01:11:09] And as somebody who grew up eating a lot of zucchini and squash, as you are wont to do in the South because it grows in abundance, I was just like, oh, okay. That's all this is. That's how I feel too. But Alex loved it. And every time he sees it on a menu, he's like, oh, I'm going to get the ratatouille. So I'm like, okay, you do that. Yeah. That was good. And the decor was cute? It was so cute. Yeah. Were you sitting on a wine cork?

[01:11:39] Oh, yeah. I was going to say like sitting on wine corks. We were in a booth, but still that meant we could see the decoration and stuff pretty well. Cute. All right. I'm imagining that it looked like the end scene of the Remy. Yes. I miss exactly. Okay. Yeah. And so that's why we went on the ride and immediately walked into the restaurant that's connected to it. So when you get off the ride, it's like a glass window wall and you see into the restaurant. Oh, okay.

[01:12:06] So it sort of blends in with that ending. Okay. Yes. That's really cute. I wish we had that. I know. Opportunity missed. I know. All right. What did you do after dinner? We were very exhausted. So we went back to the hotel and went to sleep. Okay. What time would you say this was? Eight or nine? Probably about eight. No sleep the night before. And did Amber get any sleep on the plane?

[01:12:33] I think she got some, but I think we were both, you know, kind of jet lagged and ready for bed. She goes to bed really early anyway. I'm a night owl. She is not. Okay. Friday, November 8th, because listeners, in case you're confused about the dates, she flew on the 6th, arrived on the morning of the 7th. So the following day, November 8th, you had plans to rope drop Crush's Coaster.

[01:12:59] Did you continue with that plan or because you had already ridden it, skip that? We skipped that, but we did rope drop Studios Park. So we did go to that park that we thought we would. But we went directly to Avengers Campus because we hadn't been there yet. And that was probably my favorite part because I'm a big Marvel fan. And so we went to Web Slingers, like this Spider-Man ride, same as California has.

[01:13:27] And, you know, it was still early park admission. So there was no wait whatsoever. And I felt like I knew all the tricks because I'd been on the one in California. So I would like wait by the side of the door that's about to open. So we were literally probably like the first people at the park on the ride. But it was interesting. In fact, a memory came up on my phone the other day of when I was in California Adventure. And it's a clip that I took in the pre-show of Peter Parker talking about how the cloning technology of the little Tracy robots works.

[01:13:56] And I had taken that same exact clip in Paris. And he has a totally different voice than speaking French the whole time. So I need to put those side by side. Oh, yeah. That's really cool. How did you do score wise? Oh, I had best of the day. But I was, you know, one of the first of the day. Right. Whether that held on. I think I took a picture because it's like, well, you know, as in French, but I could tell it said best of the day. I'm holding on to that. I'll take a win.

[01:14:24] I think it was my friend Ashley, Ashley Ever After, who said that when she did it in California, she discovered that if you did finger guns, it worked the same as doing like the movement you're supposed to do. And it was much easier to score. Oh, really? Yeah. I just aim for like the gold ones. Those give you the highest points. So what did you do after Avengers Campus? Or is there another ride in that part of the park? There is, but there wasn't one that was open yet.

[01:14:54] So because only some rides open in early park entry at each park and you don't really know what they are until you get there. Oh, you don't? It's not indicated in the app or anything? It might be. But yeah, I think it can change on a daily basis. Wow. Okay. Yeah. But I mean, you have an idea. So. All right. So we went on Tower of Terror next. That was only like a 10 minute wait because it's still early park entry. So how is this different? Because I know that you told me that you were not a Tower of Terror person.

[01:15:22] In fact, you hate the one in Florida, but you do like the Guardians one in California. So describe this one to me. This was my favorite ride of the whole trip. I don't know why it's such a. Yes. That's the most shocking thing because I do not like the one in Florida. But this one was also like a scary theme, not a Guardians theme. Yes. This one was the same type of theme. I don't know. I feel like the motion. It's fun. It was a fun motion, not like a.

[01:15:49] I mean, yeah, I was trying to scare you, but I still thought it was thrillingly fun. Not like, oh, I can't wait for this to stop. Like I have in Florida. Yeah. How long has it been since you've ridden the one in Florida? Let's see. My son was three and he's six now. So probably about three years. All right. I mean, that's recent enough to know how you feel about it. I was wondering if it had been longer than that.

[01:16:11] Does this one in Paris come out of one shaft and go to another shaft to do the dropping? Or does it all stay within one elevator shaft? It all stays in one elevator. Okay. But it opens up and they have the like projections and they have this little girl saying like, I warned you. And they're mainly talking French the whole time every now and then she'll say something in English. What was the theming of it besides being scary? Was it Hollywood-ish?

[01:16:40] Um, it was, it was still Tower of Terror and it was still, um, oh man, I even, I love the way they said it in French because I can't remember what it was said, but I kept on repeating it over and over because it sounded so cool. But it was still Violet Zone, but they obviously had the people speaking French. Uh-huh. Did they have the pre-show with the, okay. Yeah. But all in French. I saw the pre-show. Mm-hmm. All in French. Did it sound like Rod Sterling? No. I mean, I don't think so.

[01:17:06] And most of the, like the Peter Parker especially, I'm like, oh, that doesn't sound like Peter Parker. Most of the French dub don't really sound like them. Other than Mater. I'm like, French Mater was so funny to have like a, a Mater accent, but in French. So favorite ride. Did you end up doing it more than just the one time? Yes. In fact, I think we tried to do it three times, but then it broke down one of the times and we're like, ah, forget it. But we definitely did it twice on the trip. All right. Where did you go after this?

[01:17:36] When we got off that, Web Slingers was still only showing five minutes and Tower of Terror was now showing 20. And we're like, oh, we probably should have reversed it and did Tower of Terror first and then did the Spider-Man ride. But Flight Force is an Iron Man themed roller coaster, like indoor, but it was still closed. So we started walking the other direction and that's when I saw the Goofy in the golfing outfit. So we had to stop and talk to him. Then we checked and Flight Force said it was open.

[01:18:03] So then we rushed back there and it was only a five minute wait. So we went on that. And yeah, there was like a Iron Man animatronic speaking French in it. And so that was cool. And on the ride, it's Iron Man and Captain America or Captain Marvel working together to defeat somebody. But they're speaking English on the ride. Or weirdly, Captain Marvel is, but Iron Man is speaking French. Don't know why, but. What would you compare it to in terms of another coaster that we would be familiar with?

[01:18:34] I guess still like Space Mountain. It's indoor and it's dark and it's in space. So that's still kind of Space Mountain-y. Any loops or anything? Oh, actually, this is a retheme of Aerosmith. So I guess very comparable to Aerosmith. But since it was in space, the vibes are more Space Mountain. But the ride itself is identical to Aerosmith. Got it. Which we will not have for that much longer because it's becoming the Muppets.

[01:19:03] No one saw that coming. No. No. Yeah. I don't hate it. I mean, I'm okay with it. But whenever anybody would throw out guesses as to how they would retheme it, it was always another band. And I mean, not that the Muppets don't have a band because. I love Animal. Yes. They do have a band. But I'm excited for it. I'm, you know, I don't know. I'm going to miss Muppets 3D. And in a lot of ways, I'm going to. Oh, you didn't? No, I've never been on it.

[01:19:32] You could watch it on YouTube and be just fine. But in a lot of ways, I'll miss the Aerosmith version too, because there's so many little things. The counting down in your ear before you leave. The Iron Man one has that. They say like five, four, three, two, and then they blast off because it's the same space. Right. Ride. But it's not Steven Tyler. That's. No. To me, the iconic part. Anyway, I'm just excited for trying it in a new way like that with the Muppets.

[01:19:59] Um, but I would also love to do it with the Avengers characters because I love those movies. Yeah. So when you were going through the ride, are you passing by anything? Is there anything to look at or is it just dark? Um, they have screens where you'll see like Iron Man and Captain Marvel shooting stuff and you'll see like laser like things go by and stars and planets, but. Okay. Explosions every now and then, that kind of thing. All right.

[01:20:29] Well, it sounds like fun. We liked it a lot. We went on that more than once as well. We did grab like a pano chocolate at like a stand there and just kind of took pictures and people watched for a while because we're like, I think we've done everything in this work we wanted to do between yesterday and today. I did. They have virtual queues there where you can like meet Spider-Man and stuff. So I did join the virtual queue. I didn't actually end up going to any of those because I didn't have to do it. It was just, oh, if we're around the area when it's time, then I'll.

[01:20:59] I mean, Spider-Man. And your number got called? It did hours later, but. Okay. Which I hear they're pretty relaxed on it. Like you can show up hours later and they'll still honor it. It's just if it's been probably five hours and it's canceled. Right. Well, what else did you do in the Studios Park before you did your park hopping? We went shopping. We, I already, I bought a bunch and then we were just waiting for, they have like this little diner place in the Marvel land that didn't open until 11.

[01:21:29] By this point it was maybe 10. So we had to kill like an hour and they had shawarma there. They have that at California Adventure too. And Marvel land, I guess it's like a superhero thing, shawarma that they grab at a stand in New York or whatever. So I really wanted the shawarma. So we waited for it. It was, it was pretty good. And after that you did your hopping. Yes. We went back to the room and changed. That's the luxury of staying at the Disneyland Paris hotel. Cause it's right there. So you can just go back a lot.

[01:21:58] So then we changed. This is when I got into my Alice in Wonderland bounding. Yes, yes, yes. You told us about that in the pre-trip. So people who listened to that will know all about it. Amber surprised me. She did a lot of good bounding too. Mainly like really themed outfits. This was her Lilo and Stitch day. Okay. I was going to ask if any of your looks were coordinated with each other. We're not coordinated. She surprised me. I did not even know she was doing it. Full of surprises. Yeah. So what did you do over in Disneyland this day?

[01:22:29] We went to the Indiana Jones rollercoaster. Cause we're like, let's just knock out all the big rides and do the rollercoaster. And that's the only rollercoaster we hadn't done between the two parks yet. Oh, and Big Thunder. But that's, so we did those two. We knew we had to knock those out. I understand that Big Thunder there is one of the best. Would you agree? It was good. I don't think it deserves like all the hype it gets. Cause it's very similar to the one in California. I feel like the only difference is you go on a tunnel, but there's a lot of coasters that

[01:22:56] go like underwater in a tunnel, maybe not Disney rollercoasters, but in general, it's a thing we've seen here, but it was still, it was good. So I would say, yes, best version of Big Thunder. What was the Indiana Jones coaster like? Because the Indiana Jones ride in California is not a coaster. No. No. And it was nothing like that. It was a small, like picture Donkey Kong. You know what that one's kind of going to look like? What's like carts, like mine carts. It's like that.

[01:23:24] And you're going through, I guess where the ball rolls, I guess the temple kind of thing. You don't see the ball or anything like that, but you're like in the temple in a mine cart is the idea. And you do a 360 loop. Oh, okay. Yeah. That sounds cool. Because you do a loop, I guess you have like the over the head harness. And so your like head is banging between them the whole time, like pinball. Everyone complains about that. Hopefully you weren't wearing earrings that had vacs that were stabbing you in the head.

[01:23:53] I don't have my ears pierced. Oh, you don't. Okay. No. Well, that's, that's a downside of having your ears pierced when you ride a ride like that. You're like, I have a hole in my head now, like more holes than I had before. Yeah. I did have like a bow hair clip for my Alice in Wonderland one that I had to like make sure the clip wasn't banging against the back of the headrest. And I, of course I took ears off for all these. Oh, and here's a difference. I noticed that Disneyland Paris versus Walt Disney World fanny packs, I was using like

[01:24:20] something small like this, like a belt bag is fine. And you can go and ride like that at Disney World fine, but they were very strict and would not let you wear it. You had to take it off and put it on the floor, which I'm like, that is less secure. But did they not have little pockets? Some rides did. Other rides, like literally I just put the loop, like the bag loop through my leg. Around a foot. Yeah. That's a difference. Oh, and then we went to the castle. Did you get your champagne?

[01:24:49] We did. And we had to wait in a little bit of a line, but you could see them like just, they already had, they knew what people were there for. They had pre, you know, just fill in all the glasses of champagne. And it's like 20 euros, but it's like a hard plasticky champagne glass that you get to keep when it says Disneyland Paris. Oh, okay. That's worth it. Yeah. And we took the glass under the castle to meet the dragon. And got some cute pictures? Yes.

[01:25:18] Not necessarily of the dragon because it was so dark. It's hard to get pictures, but we did get lots of good pictures, you know, of the castle. I meant of the castle. Of the castle. Yes, of the castle. Sorry, I should have clarified. Because I was picturing you all with your champagne flutes and toasting and looking all cute in your bounds. We took it to the Alice in Wonderland maze because I'm like, well, we have to because I'm dressed as Alice in Wonderland. How was that maze? I've seen people doing it on YouTube. Was it difficult?

[01:25:46] Well, at first we were going in at like, you know, no care in the world. And then when we got to like, they have like a tiny little castle inside the maze you can climb up. And we're like, there's a parade going on. We were going to see that parade. And on the app, it said it was going to start at 530. We even asked a cast member on our way to the maze. Hey, when does the parade start? Because people were lining up. We're like, they're crazy. It doesn't start for over another hour. And they said 530. And then it started at 430. So that was a little bit.

[01:26:14] But we are told after the fact, when I complained on Facebook or whatever, somebody said that, oh, it's because the park closed an hour early. So everything got bumped up an hour. But the app didn't show that. Oh. Well, that would have been nice to know. Yeah. I was sitting here thinking, like, do they have a daylight savings time sort of thing going on? That's what we were wondering. Yeah. But it was just because the park closed early, they bumped up everything. And we didn't. They didn't show it on the app. So how long did it take you to get out of the maze?

[01:26:44] Right. We were like, oh, well, maybe we can catch the end of the parade. And we're like, we can't find our way out of the maze now. Like, we were just, like, taking pictures and having such a good time drinking our champagne walking through the maze. And then we actually needed to get out. And we could not. So it took a little bit. But then we walked through the castle and could see some of the tail end of the parade. And you weren't able to catch the parade on any other day? No. Other than the Christmas parade the next day. We did see the Christmas parade.

[01:27:11] Did you get anything else done this day before heading to your lunch reservation? We were going to go back to Phantom Manor since we were over there when we were riding Big Thunder Mountain and stuff like that. But then I got distracted by Jack Skellington in his Santa outfit at the gazebo in front of Phantom Manor meeting people. And he wasn't supposed to until the next day when Christmas stuff started. So it was kind of magical. I'm like, we have to go and meet him. I've never once met him.

[01:27:40] And when I was five, I used to say my favorite movie is Nightmare Before Christmas. And I had never met him in Disney World. So we met Jack Skellington. How long was the wait? 10 minutes. Only because it was only maybe five families in front of us. But he just took, you know, such a good quality time with everybody. Oh, that's amazing. When you get to meet him at the party in Florida, everybody talks about the fact that it's hours long. Right. 10 minutes. That's why we just stumbled upon it. It was not listed on the app. We were just going to Phantom Manor and he just happened to be meeting there.

[01:28:09] And if he's more common there, maybe he's not as much of a draw for the people who go to that park regularly. Me and Amber have a bunch of inside jokes because there was a British person that was passing by as we were waiting. He was like, oh, it's a skull bloke. So now we call Jack Skellington the skull bloke. That's funny. All right. What was after Jack Skellington? Amber went and she got a snack while I went on the teacups because she wasn't interested in the spinning. And I'm like, it's so cute.

[01:28:38] They have like a, it looks different there. So I'm like, I have to, I have to do it. Then we did star tours because we hadn't done that yet. And then I don't think this is in the right order, but we did go back and do Phantom Manor for the second time at some point. We didn't stay for fireworks though. Yeah. I know that you said that on this day, because it was closing early, that you had made dinner reservations for outside of the park. Did you make it to that lunch reservation though at Walt's American Darn.

[01:29:08] No, I skipped all that. Okay. All right. So when you did leave the park, you were heading to a dinner reservation at the Marvel Hotel. Yes. So as a Marvel fan, what did you think about the Marvel Hotel and did it make you wish you had stayed there? I did love it, but I don't think I would have wanted to stay there without my kids because they would have liked it so much too. And I just felt guilty when Disneyland Hotel, they, you know, whatever, it's wasted on them. But yeah, they would have loved the Marvel Hotel.

[01:29:37] It was more of a walk to the park, like, cause you had to go through downtown Disney. It was a lot longer. I mean, it's probably only a 10 minute walk, but I just got really spoiled with the Disneyland Hotel and it being right there. But no, we really liked it there. We did the downtown buffet and this is me sounding American. But one thing I noticed that pretty much all the restaurants, especially at this one, is they cram you in.

[01:30:03] Like we legit had, I feel like eight inches between the tables and I'm like, I have to wait until someone's not right there. So my butt doesn't touch their food when I try to get out, you know? Yeah. So I feel like they really cram you in, but otherwise the food was good. We tried to try pretty much everything and I'm going to say it, but I'm going to say it right. The macarons. Macaroon. Macaroon. We're really good there. They had, they had like a Hulk pistachio. That was amazing.

[01:30:32] Ooh, I love pistachio. Sounds good. So what's, what style food was it? Was it American because it was normal? Yeah, they had like three different stations. So there's an American station, an Italian station, and like an Asian station. Okay. And I, I don't even, I think I, I had one thing from the American one. Cause obviously I'm not that interested because it was like brisket or something. And I'm like, okay, that was pretty good. But I mainly stuck to heavy on the Chinese and then maybe some Italian.

[01:31:00] They had dumplings like in the little steam basket and everything. I love that. Oh, we had some surprise things that night. So after there, they have a Skyline bar where I thought it was going to be on the top floor cause it's called Skyline, but it's actually on the bottom floor. And we sat at the bar and they have like a screen and you can see like the Quinjet landing on in New York and you can see Spider-Man flying by every now and then. That was cool. And then we went to the Marvel or the Deadpool speakeasy there.

[01:31:30] It's called the broom room. And I did not know he had a speakeasy. Yes. And so we went, they give you a card at the front desk and they tell you what floor to go to. And then they said, it's, it's on you from there. And so you go to the floor. Luckily somebody was coming out as we went in. And so I'm like, Hey, help us. Like, where are we going? And so he showed us the door and we use the key card and you go in and you're in a broom closet. And then there's like the safe and you look at your card, it has a code.

[01:31:56] And so you entered the code on the safe and then it rings the doorbell and somebody comes and like ask for the key and then says something cheeky or whatever. And then they eventually they'll let you in. That's so fun. Yeah. And you go in and it's like all red. They have like actual props and they have the, the actual, uh, Deadpool and Wolverine suits from the movie. And they have a bunch of other props and stuff like that you can look at. And then they have really good drinks, but very expensive drinks. Like how expensive are we talking?

[01:32:24] Like 25 to 30 euro a drink, which is more dollars than that. Right. Yeah. For the conversion rate. Yeah. Just a few more dollars and up. Okay. Yeah. Basically expensive. Even to me who lives in New York. Yeah. So me and Amber shared the drinks. All right. Anything else this night? No. Then after that, we, we went back and went to sleep. Okay. And the next morning on Saturday, you were checking out of the Disneyland hotel and checking

[01:32:54] into the Val d'Europe. I don't know if I'm saying it right. Hotel. Yeah. So this was a day also that, that Christmas was starting. So there were going to be all the Christmas markets and Christmas parades and Christmas everything. Tell us what you did in this day. And then I'd also like to know your impression of the hotel that you moved to. Yes. And I also think I forgot to mention the day before we didn't stay for fireworks, but we did stay for the drone show. So we did see the drone show.

[01:33:23] Okay. All right. It was nice, but yeah. Did you see the one in Florida when that one was running? Yes. Yes. Okay. The one at Disney Springs. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So we rope dropped the Studios Park again because I know the other park has more, but my favorite rides were at the Studios Park. So we rope dropped Tower of Terror since that was my favorite ride. Surprisingly. That's shocking to me after your pre-trip interview. It was shocking to me too.

[01:33:51] I'm just like, oh, it was so thrilling and great. And then we did Web Slinger. So we did the same thing as the day before, but we reversed the order because we learned that then. Got it. And Flight Force was open during early entry this time. So we did Flight Force. And then we did walk over to the Toy Story Land and just take a bunch of pictures. We did do single rider for, they have the little army men parachute drop. Oh, okay. So that's a ride there.

[01:34:19] And we thought it would be like a little kiddie ride. So we're like, oh, we'll go see. That's what I'm picturing. But it was a little more intense than I thought. Like the feeling of Tower of Terror, but just like, you get that feeling in your stomach, you know, of the drop, which I thought they would be going too slow that you wouldn't feel that. But was it an open air ride? Yes. And they say you can see the new Frozen Land they're building when you're at the top of it.

[01:34:47] So I was looking, but it was too like foggy and misty of a day. I couldn't see anything. It was too European. It was very European. All right. So after you did your favorite things again, is that when you hopped back over to Disneyland? Well, we did Remy's one more time. And then when we came out, they have these little Christmas markets, like little stands, except they're shaped like little red Christmas boxes. Those were open by the time we got out.

[01:35:15] And I'm like, why is like no one like if that was Walt Disney World and this was the first day of the Christmas stuff. And they would have just opened the stands. People would have been rope dropping those and waiting hours just to try that new food. There was no one in any of these lines. There was no one waiting for food. So is that what you did for your lunch that day? Yeah. And that was basically breakfast lunch. We got some more macarons. Yay! Am I getting better? Am I learning? That was 100% right.

[01:35:44] Okay. We got some little cheesy potato things. A galette, which I guess is like a buckwheat pancake, which doesn't sound good. It was like my favorite thing. It's basically like the savory version of a crepe. Yes. Because you can get that same thing back at the creperie in France in Epcot. Yeah. This was a jambon fromage, so like ham and cheese. I had one like that at Epcot. That was like one of my favorite things.

[01:36:14] I didn't care for it. And what I didn't care for, like who doesn't like ham and cheese together? And probably some people, but that sounds delicious to me. What I didn't like was the buckwheat part of it. I know. That's what Amber said, that she didn't like the idea of it. She said this was better than what, you know, some buckwheat ones she's had before. But yeah, I think if it had been a different kind of, I don't even know what to call it. It's like a tortilla. But yeah. Oh, we also got a Nutella crepe because why not? Ooh, because why not? No.

[01:36:42] If you get the option to add Nutella to something, you say yes. Yes. So we just got a few things and, you know, split everything. And the prices were really good. Like five euros for like a pretty big crepe and stuff. So I was really impressed. And again, I'm like, you would have to wait an hour in line to get the stuff at Disney World if they had things like this. Did you catch any of the Christmas shows that happened this day? Yeah. So it was very busy this day after this early park entry where we got a lot of stuff done.

[01:37:10] Pretty much really long lines the rest of the day because it was a Saturday now and it was the first day of Christmas stuff. Right. And Monday was a holiday in France, I believe. It's been too long for me to think of the holiday. The end of World War II. Armistice Day? Yes. Something like that. Yeah. I'm going to have to just quickly Google that. It would have been November 11th. France holiday, November 11th. What do they call it? Yep. That was it. Yeah. Armistice Day. Okay. I did learn something in history class. I was so unsure.

[01:37:39] I think that was what I had in my head. I'm like, I don't want to mispronounce it, especially after the Macron fiasco. So I'm like, I'm never going to say those words again. No, you've got it now. Yeah. So we basically prioritize shows this day because we're like, well, we haven't done any shows. We've only been prioritizing rides. So let's do shows today. So we went back to the hotel and actually checked out and you can just leave the bags in your room and they'll come and get them for you and all that. So we did that. That's nice. Yeah.

[01:38:08] Randomly, one day we had someone else's bags in our room delivered. We got back and we're like, whose bags are in our room? And we had a call and we're like, um, there's, you delivered bags to our room that aren't ours. So we're like, we hope that I just got to the right people. But that was weird. Very weird. Yeah. So we went to the Disneyland park. Oh, and I was, today I was dressed in like Mandalorian, Rogu stuff, like from head to toe. So we of course had to meet Mandalorian because I never have at Disney World.

[01:38:39] And they actually have him on the app here and say when you can meet him and where, which Hollywood Studios is not that way. You just have to run into him. And I've never had that kind of luck. Did he have Grogu with him? He did. And yeah, in my pictures, I'm making like this. It's like, oh my goodness. And he was like moving and stuff and make cute little sounds. Oh my gosh. Oh, that's the cutest thing I've ever seen. So cute. I love it. Remember before we knew his name and everyone called him? Baby Yoda. Baby Yoda.

[01:39:09] Yes. My kids still call him Baby Yoda sometimes, but they also know his name's Grogu. And weirdly, they've never seen the show because it's, you know, an adult show. But they know who Mandalorian is and they know who Grogu is. It's the cute factor. Yeah. I think. And then we met Darth Vader, like next door, which I have never done that meet and greet in Hollywood Studios. Like clearly I prioritize rides all the time and don't get a chance to do character greetings. Yeah. I'm the same way. What was interesting, because this is an international park, you know, they have like

[01:39:39] a handler that talks to people and he's like, what language? I guess there's some sort of setting he can adjust. And I don't know if it's like pre phrases that he can click. I don't know how it works, but he can speak solely French to one party and then switch it up and speak solely English, still in his Darth Vader voice. I always wondered how that works. Yeah. Because I wonder how they change it within their helmet without. Yeah. Unless it's some sort of voice changer and he's actually saying all that stuff. Yeah.

[01:40:07] He's like, hey, Siri, turn on the English. Yeah. I did like that all the characters were like big, you know, like I don't like when characters are smaller than me, basically. I'm already short. I don't like to feel big when I'm with characters, especially, you know, ones that are meant to be bigger. Right. So it was a good Darth Vader. Now Amber is like obsessed with Darth Vader. She had such a good interaction with him. I thought he was gonna, because I have Grogu and Mandalorian stuff on still. And so he was picking on me.

[01:40:36] I thought he was gonna rip my hat off. Oh. Yeah. He was like getting on me. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. When you have a good or a very detailed character interaction, it can really make a difference in how you see that character. I mean, I used to not like Donald and Daisy and now I love them. I'm obsessed with them. And it's because I've had some really good character interactions with them. Donald's one of my best character interactions too from like Topolunus. So good. Yeah. Yeah. So good. So good.

[01:41:06] Then we went to the Lion King show, which is different than the Lion King show at Animal Kingdom. How so? It's not like animatronics. You know how like they have the big Timon and Pumbaa and you know Simba. It's just, I was so impressed with the level of detail of the costuming. Mm-hmm. It's hard to describe, but they have a coat and then the like, the coat tail is the animal tail and it's colored exactly. And then they have the markings of the animal like on their pants and then they'll have their

[01:41:35] hair in ways that look right with the character. They're hair and without ever wearing, you know, they're not wearing fur. There's no fur. There's no like lion costumes. It's just really clever costuming, which I, it's very Broadway. Okay. I love that. And they only did songs. So they only did the top songs from the movie, a bunch of acrobats and stuff like that, like they do at the Animal Kingdom one. And they have some original songs because they're telling the whole Lion King story in song.

[01:42:03] And so to fill some of the gaps that don't have songs in the movie, that action happening, they have some original songs. Okay. I was really impressed. I thought it was really good. That sounds amazing. And it was all in English. How or why did they make those decisions on which things are in which language and which are not? Yeah. I guess if it's like a Disney song, that's in English, then they'll do it in English. But some of the dialogue maybe will be in French. I don't know. But there was no dialogue. It was all songs. So that was nice.

[01:42:32] Then we went to a quick service that is unique to their called Hakuna Matata. And it's like, I don't know what type of food to call it. I wouldn't say African food, but you know, it's trying to be that kind of vibe. I just got like a salad. But it was fine. Generic kind of quick service food. But that's different than just like burgers and hot dogs. So I appreciate that. Which is always nice to have that option. All right. What was after lunch? We did a lot of park hopping, but they're right beside each other. So it's really easy to do.

[01:43:00] So we, since we were focusing on shows, we're like, everyone says we have to do Mickey and the Magician. And you have to show up to these shows at least 30 minutes beforehand. And you just stand. I was like sitting on rocks to not just be standing still for 30 minutes. Like walking for 30 minutes is fine, but standing still is tough. But we were able to like get front row seats to everything. And we were way back in line. I think it's just the, I'm going to call it on we attitude of the people who like guide you where to sit.

[01:43:30] They don't care. Some people will start going right and then we don't know which way to go. And so we just follow them. And then we're in a whole section of empty seats. So we just sit in the front row and it's fine. And that's how it ended up being at MS Alda shows. And how was Mickey and the Magician? It was really cute. It was all in French, but very basic French. Like I understood it all. And I wouldn't say my French is amazing. So Mickey spoke French only.

[01:43:55] And he was trying to be like the best magician in the world and learning from like a master and cleaning up the space. And as he would do it, he would meet a new Disney character that would come in and teach him something until he became the best magician in the world. It was really, really cute. And you got to see a lot of, like you got to see Elsa. You got to see a lot of characters in one setting. Were there any other shows over in the Studios Park that you saw this day? Not this day.

[01:44:22] Another day we did the Stitch show, which was like, do you know Turtle Talk with Crush? It's that, but with Stitch. Can you understand what he's saying? So they have different showings. They have like, and you'll see a little flag beside the time. And it's either a British UK flag or a French flag to say what language it's going to be in. So yes, he only spoke English at the one we went to. Okay. I was thinking more so of like the Stitch voice where it's very difficult to.

[01:44:50] I don't understand what he's saying, even if it isn't. That's true. But yeah, you can kind of, you could understand them. It was cute. Amber is obsessed with Stitch. So we had to get to that. Yeah, I remember you mentioned that. Because I did, I did make a note because you, you had said that Stitch is all the rage in Paris and that he's apparently on everything. And I wrote here as a follow-up question to ask you, did it ruin your trip? Because you know how much I don't like Stitch. No, it's cute.

[01:45:17] It made me want, so I literally, I booked an Ohana breakfast so we can meet Stitch. I don't know if I'm going to keep it for when I go in January, but. And I saw the new Stitch live action coming out and I showed my son that like yesterday. No, I think it's made me like Stitch more. I'm leaving room in my heart that one day I will see something and have a good interaction with him maybe. And it will turn me around just like it did for Donald and Daisy.

[01:45:45] But yeah, that day has not come yet. So I literally wrote, did it ruin your trip on my whole follow-up notes section. No, it's not. And I even brought like a little snow glow back for my kids. And on one side, it says like Disneyland Paris with the castle. And the other side, it's like Stitch, like carrying into a present. This is when we tried to ride Tower again, but that's when it broke down. So that would have been the third time because I like did that much. And so we, we must've got a lot of steps in this day because we went back and forth, back and forth.

[01:46:13] So we went back to Disneyland and we rode Space Mountain again because now we were just focusing on like, we've done everything we wanted to do. Let's just do things we want to do again. You said that you had two reservations for the Walt's American Diner for this day. Oh yeah, we didn't go to Ace. Yeah. Okay. We found we were so busy doing things like we didn't want to, you know, stop and have lunch. And yeah, especially when there were so many good snacks and small things around.

[01:46:39] And probably, you know, based on the time difference and everything, you probably were actually getting hungry at off times. Yeah, true. What else did you do on this Saturday? Um, right. Everything was still really busy. They have a walkthrough of like, is it 10,000 Leagues Under the Sea? Is that the right name of the movie? It's either that or 100,000 Leagues Under the Sea. That sounds too far. I have the number. Probably 10. I don't know. 100,000 seems like very big. I'm like, I thought it was either 1,000 or 10,000. So let's meet the middle and say 10,000.

[01:47:08] I think it's probably 10,000. I don't know. Because I will tell you, they, I know that they used to have a ride like that, that you got in, felt like you were getting in a submarine. And I would never, ever ride that ride because of claustrophobia. I did the Nemo rethemed version of it and I was feeling very claustrophobic. Yeah. So this was a walkthrough. So this was not, there was not a submarine. So that was fine. And you're just walking through and looking at stuff. They have some like screens where you can see like dolphins playing and squids and stuff. It was cute.

[01:47:37] We just literally walked through it. Then we just waited for the parade. And yeah, the parade was nice. It started getting a little bit dark. And I'm glad we watched it. But then, yeah, then we Ubered to the other hotel. Okay. And this hotel that you were moving to for this day was the Val d'Europe, however you say that, hotel. How was it? It was nice. I would recommend it. It was in, it was literally across the street from a really big mall. So the next day we just went shopping in the mall. I did a little looking at it online.

[01:48:05] It's whatever they call their version of Good Neighbor Hotel. So it has like a partnership with Disneyland Paris. Yeah. I don't know what you actually get from that. And we stayed there just, you know, on the day we were leaving. So right. Leaving the park. Mm hmm. Okay. So you stayed there that one night and then woke up the next day on Sunday, November the 11th. And you were staying one night at a hotel by the Eiffel Tower. Yes. And how was that? Good.

[01:48:33] So we went to the mall and did some shopping. And then we ended up taking the train. There's a train station like right across the street from there as well. And that was really easy. They have a ticketing person. And I don't think she spoke any English. We would just say train into Paris. And she, you know, she gave us the right tickets. And they were inexpensive. And it gets you access to the train into Paris as well as, as long as you don't leave the station, you can do like the metro within Paris. And so we had to change over to the metro.

[01:49:03] But we found that very easy compared to like the London underground is much more complex. The Paris one was very simple and easy to figure out where to go. And we even had our bags with us and didn't have any issues. And the hotel was nice. The hotel was nice. It was still a bit of a walk to places, but it was fine. Maybe 20 minutes to the Eiffel Tower, but we could walk that fine. Right. Did you have a good view? So I thought we were going to have a view, but I don't know if it was because of, yeah,

[01:49:33] it's cloudy or something, but we could not see anything. But I mean, we still had a good view of like, it looks like it was very like pretty Parisian. View of housetops and stuff, but just not the Eiffel Tower. But when we got to the Eiffel Tower, we happened to time it. We were not planning it. We got there right at six o'clock on the dot and the tower lit up to like the sparkly evening. Yeah. So that was fun. And we walked all around it. I had seen the Eiffel Tower before, but just from afar, I'd never gotten that close to it.

[01:50:02] And you didn't go up in it? No. And I think you have to book that like really far in advance if you want to. And we weren't sure. Or I'm glad we didn't because I feel like we didn't have that much time that day. Right. So we just happy hour hopped. All the little Parisian bars with the like red canopies that you see, you know, we went to each of those kind of on the way back to the hotel. The next morning, Monday, November the 11th, you had a 10 a.m. flight.

[01:50:31] So you had to get up and get yourselves to go through all of the security checks at the airport. And hers was a little later, but we took an Uber together to the airport. Okay. And how did the return flights go? Were they both on time? Yep. They were both on time and eventful. So that's good. Oh, my. So mine originally was supposed to go through Miami and it got canceled and they rebooked me on one through Dallas.

[01:50:57] And so it was I didn't think about it at the time, but I'm because I didn't have a choice. But man, it was so painful. That's probably the longest flight I've ever done in my life going from Paris to Dallas. How long was that leg? Um, I want to say like 10 hours. And then how long was the layover? Maybe like three hours. But there was I've never seen such a long line for security in my life. So I'm kind of glad I had a long layover.

[01:51:25] And then I had to fly backwards because I'm from the Carolinas. So I like went past to go. Yeah. Anyway, so that was the annoying part is I'm so far in the wrong direction right now. Oh, yeah. Not cool. Not cool. Yeah. So I would not do that again. Did you get any sleep on this return flight? Um, I mean, I'm sure I rested my eyes, but I don't think I got much sleep. It was fine. It was a good trip. We did everything we wanted to do.

[01:51:54] And the jet lag and lack of sleep did not stop me from doing anything. We did probably we didn't have late nights, though. We would even like the last the night, the one in Valde Europe, we just end up there was like a little convenience mart right beside the hotel. And we just grabbed some beers and snacks and just took that back up to the room and had those and watched weird. Weirdly German was mainly the type of TV on it's like everything was in German, like French or German.

[01:52:23] I didn't find a single thing in English. But all right. So favorite ride was the Tower of Terror ride. What was your favorite food item? I'm gonna say though, like ham and cheese galette. Okay. Yeah. And favorite souvenir you brought home for yourself? Hmm. I did get some ornaments. In the they have a Christmas store inside the castle. And they had some little Mickey shaped baubles type of thing. And it was like a three pack. I don't know.

[01:52:52] Oh, and I got a beret at one point. And I've already worn it since. That's a good souvenir to bring home. Yeah. In France. Yeah. Okay. Well, this trip sounds like it was so much fun. You've really got me looking at the Disneyland Paris website. I have started looking. That's the first step. But I'm really looking forward to seeing your photos. And I know you haven't posted much of your trip yet on Instagram besides the stories.

[01:53:16] So I hope that you will be posting about your trip so that we can all take a peek into all of these amazing sites and everything that you did there. Yeah. I think I posted one about the Alice in Wonderland bound and stuff since I got such good photos there. But I do need to post some of the other days. And if anyone goes recently, the Deadpool bar, I think, goes until like late January. And it is really cool and kind of one you don't hear about as much. Oh, I didn't realize it was a limited time thing. Yeah.

[01:53:46] It came out. They did it because the movie came out. And in fact, I watched it just came out on like streaming services while I was there. So I'm like, this is good timing. And I watched it on the airplane on the way back. Yeah. I just finally watched my first Deadpool movie within the past, I don't know, three months or something because Alex loves it and wanted me to see it. So I committed to sitting down and watching it. I don't know how my four-year-old has heard about it, but he'll ask me, like, have you seen a Wolverine movie? I'm like, yeah. It's like, have you seen a Deadpool movie? I'm like, yeah.

[01:54:15] Like, but those are not appropriate for you. You cannot watch those. No, they are not. It is a different kind of movie. I felt weird watching it on the plane. I'm like, fast forward, fast forward. This is a little too violent. Rebecca, it has been so much fun chatting with you again. I'm so happy that you came back. And grace me with your presence again, fellow North Carolina girl. And I hope that I will get to talk to you again sometime in the future. Yeah. Let me know if you end up going to Paris. Oh, I will. All right. Au revoir.

[01:54:46] Au revoir. Thank you so much to Rebecca for being on the show back in November 2024. And for inspiring my upcoming trip to Disneyland Paris. I am absolutely buzzing about this trip. And it is all the more magical to have her helping to plan the trip for us. Listeners, please give Rebecca a follow over on Instagram. Again, she's 90s underscore travel underscore mom. That link is in the show notes. And make sure you reach out if you are looking for your own travel agent.

[01:55:16] Before I go, please make sure you are following the podcast on the app you're listening on now. Don't forget to rate and review the show. Five stars would be amazing. And even more amazing would be if you share the show with others. Thank you so much for tuning in and for all your support. And remember, keep daydreaming about where you long to be.