If you're in it for the pictures and not my long descriptions, I'll save you a scroll. ;)
Here's a slideshow from our trip.
The day of our trip arrived so we woke the boys early, ate a hearty breakfast, and lugged the luggage (ha!) and the boys down the stairs. We walked a block to the tram which took us to Amsterdam Central Station where we boarded our train. It was a really easy process up to that point. About an hour into our 3 hour train ride to Paris, Richard Carey asked what we were going to do once we got to the Paris station. I told him all the information I had read from the UK site: A Disney representative was going to come to our seat with our packet of information, get us checked into our hotel, give us our luggage tags for the luggage service, and give us our park tickets. He seemed a bit skeptical. He asked again what we were going to do when we got to the station. How were we going to get to Disney? I told him that the train brought us all the way to the park. He asked for the tickets. He then showed me on the tickets that our train brought us to Paris North, not the Disneyland stop. I told him again that the representative would be coming and would give us all the information we needed, including any information about transfers. He was still skeptical. He started doing internet research on his phone and I started to get a little worried. What if he was right? What if no one showed up and we arrived in Paris with no plan?
Well, that is precisely what happened! The train dropped us off in the bustling Paris train station. Toddler in stroller, preschooler on foot, a Daddy, a Mama and two rolling suitcases. Hmmm. So we start walking. Looking. I mean, there's going to be a big sign that says DISNEYLAND THIS WAY, right? Wrong-o. In Richard's internet research on the train, he knew that a certain line would take us to Disneyland. We just had to find where it was and buy tickets for it. Eventually, after trying a few windows and kiosks, we bought tickets. We finally found a way down to the tram and our first connection arrived. Compared to other people just zipping through the city, we had quite a load so we were the last ones to board the car. Richard got on first with the boys and I got on next carrying the two suitcases. The problem was the door closed on my arm with one suitcase hanging out the train. Luckily, Richard and a few Parisians nearby pried the door open and I was able to pull the suitcase inside. We had one more transfer at the next stop and we were on our way to Disney. All the while, I was so confused about what had gone wrong. Hadn't I read everything there was to read? How did this happen? Well it turns out that the train from London is on a different line than our train and it does indeed go straight to Disney and comes complete with a little representative that comes to your seat. The Amsterdam route requires a transfer and it was all written out for me in the packet of information I received. In Dutch. Moral of the story? Learn Dutch or move to London.
We arrived at our precious cowboy hotel and we all settled down from the exciting day long enough to get freshened up and head to the park. Our hopper pass ticket was wasting away!
We had a lovely couple of days captured best, I think, in the photo slideshow. It was really neat to celebrate Louis' birthday there. He got a phone call from Mickey Mouse in the morning wishing him a happy birthday, and the cast members at the park gave him a Happy Birthday sticker so several others wished him a happy birthday, too. The parks had their own character, but were still very much like the two American resorts. All the hotels had US themes. So overall, once we were there, it was very comfortable. We stayed there four nights, which seemed a good amount of time to be relaxed with our pace but still pack in a good bit of rides and shows. Bateman's favorite ride was Dumbo and Louis' was tied with the carousel and tea cups. Daddy got a thrill ride in on Space Mountain, which is a little boosted in Paris. My favorite event was the Fall Festival parade which was just beautifully done.
Our return tram/train story was much less eventful except for the fact that we arrived at the Paris station 9 minutes before our Amsterdam train departed. So we were running furiously through the airport to successfully board the train on time. The train had started on its way before we had located our seats. Phew! We are so grateful for such a wonderful trip and celebration of our sweet and beautiful Louis.
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