Today was kickback day. Daniel and I slept in until 10 am and then headed out to the parks for a leisurely day of riding attractions and shopping. Of course, no trip to Paris would be complete without some sort of mysterious downtime of the Metro system. Today, it was the RER system which was shut down between Opera and Nation stations, which meant in order to get to Disneyland, we had to go via the regular Metro line after backtracking to Franklin Roosevelt Station. It meant instead of arriving at the parks at noon, we ended up there after 1pm. We met up with Tom who gave us a CD of photos from yesterday’s fun and excitement. We again thanked Tom and then headed out to Walt Disney Studios.
I wanted to make sure I went on a few attractions that were there in 2002 that I missed: Armageddon and Anamagique. Armageddon started out great but just sort of ended after a bunch of explosions. I think if they had a bit where you saw your video mixed in with the special effects it would have made it a great attraction. Anamagique was a cool theater show with characters and black light puppeteers. It reminded me of Mickey’s Philharmagic but with live characters vs. 3D animation.
After riding a few of our favorites again, namely Crush and Rock and Rollercoaster avec Aerosmith, we headed over to Disneyland Park. We again dashed around the park in the remaining hours we had. The parks close early this time of year and Disneyland Park closed at 7pm. Basically we would dart to a ride and then look in some shops and then repeat. As the park closed, we headed towards Main Street USA to do some last minute shopping and I picked up some magnets and pins. At park closing, they had an Illuminations event where there was a character song and dance in the hub and then they did some dazzling light effects on the castle.
As a nightcap, we headed to Disney Village to get some dinner. I couldn’t believe how expensive some of the places were. For example a steak was over 40 Euros (approx 60 dollars) and a hamburger and fries at another place was 30 Euros. We settled on the New York Deli which while still pricier than the McDonald’s (the largest in Europe) was a lot less crowded and had better food.
A quick check of the Disney Store in the village and then it was back to Paris to our hotel. Thankfully, there were no further problems with the trains. Tomorrow we are back in Tourist Mode.