Lots of new stuff

The alarm went off at 6.30 and we just could not drag ourselves out of bed. We slept for another hour, then got up, took showers and got our park backpack ready and headed out the door. When I had planned the trip I had wanted to push it and get in for the Morning Extra Magic Hours from 8 until 10am, but after the long day the day before we just couldn't manage. Since our favourite bakery only opens at 7.30 and it would have taken too long to go shopping we decided to drive to the Disney Village.

We arrived at the parking structure early and found a spot on the ground level, then we walked over to the attendant's office, asked if the annual passholder special was still in place and since it was, paid our two Euros and left the structure. We had to walk all around the Disney Village in order to get in and most of the way back to the very back of the village to get to our desired breakfast location, the newly opened Earl of Sandwich. We checked the menu outside, then entered and walked right up to the register to order. None of us wanted a hot drink, so we got two Diet Cokes and waited for our order to be prepared.

When we sat down I took a look at the receipt and found that our order showed only one of our two ordered sandwiches. So I walked back and reordered the second sandwich, got a second buzzer and sat with Tom until our breakfast arrived. We had ordered two sandwiches to share, the Breakfast BLT, bacon, lettuce, Roma tomatoes and seasoned mayonnaise and the Bacon, Egg'n'Cheddar sandwich. We both preferred the Breakfast BLT, which was much tastier. Since we both thought we would be hungrier we had picked up two sweet treats as well. Tom had chosen a Brownie, which was soft and gooey and nice and I had ordered the Breadpudding, which I didn't like at all, since it was very dry and lacked some flavour.

When we had finished our breakfast we knew we weren't going to make it to the park with lots of time for Extra Magic Hours, so we decided to stroll through the shops and have a look at merchandise. To our huge surprise there was lots of new merchandise and it took us longer than usual to get from one end of the village to the other, but shortly before 10am we made it to the entrance of the parks. The bag check line for Disneyland Park was huge, so we walked a few steps over to the Studios bag check line, got through the check point and then just walked over to Disneyland Park.

We always use the entry on the far right because there are less people and this is where we went. The skies were blue, we were in a really good mood and within a few minutes we were back at another Disney park. There were quite a few people in the main square but then we saw the double decker bus pulling up and we decided to get in line and hitch a ride to the hub. We were pretty lucky to get the last two seats on the right side of the upper deck and enjoyed our leisurely trip to the castle. Once we had gotten off, we decided to walk through the castle and have a look at the Christmas Store inside the castle.

Our next stop was the sweets shop and then we walked towards Adventureland. The Indiana Jones ride was closed and so we headed on over to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. The standby line was 80 minutes and that is just too much for me, so we picked up a Fastpass, which was good for around midday. We were still discussing what to do and on our way over to Phantom Manor when we realized that the Riverboat was just loading passengers and so we got in line and got on. We hadn't been on the Riverboat in a long time and going round was really fun and interesting. While we were getting onto the boat we noticed that once again Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was stuck on an uphill climb and people were still "trapped" on it.

While we were getting onto the boat we noticed that once again Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was stuck on an uphill climb and people were still "trapped" on it. When we sailed by we could see them evacuating guests and the train was still stuck when we got off the boat. We thought about doing Phantom Manor, but since BTM was stuck the line had gotten longer. So we decided to head back to the castle and explore the shops for a while. We stopped and watched the Character Caravan walk by and it took us quite some time to explore and check everything out and once we had finally made it to the Emporium and we had seen the crowd pick up considerably we decided to head to the Disney Village for lunch and some shopping.

So after leaving the park our first stop was Annette's Diner. There was no line but nonetheless we were taken to a small table near the fire exit. Our server wasn't the most attentive, but at least he came by every now and then. We both ordered Diet Cokes and Tom picked the Double Rockabilly Burger,Double decker burger, fried onion ring, bacon, cheese, BBQ sauce and french fries for his entree. I had my heart set on the Fabulous Blue Cheese Burger, Ground beef, spanish potato tortilla, bacon, blue cheese, sour cream, served with french fries and coleslaw. Both portions were huge and very good and hit the spot. We were too full for dessert and wanted to have coffee at Starbucks to make use of their free internet.

So after we had paid the bill we just walked over to Starbucks and ordered our coffees. Tom had a Cappuccino, while I tried their new Creme Brulee Macchiato. We both loved our coffees, but the internet connection was dreadful. So after some time we gave up, finished our coffees and decided to do all our shopping at the Village right away and then drive over to Auchan and our favourite little bakery. We ended up with far more items from the Disney village than we had originally thought, and since they offered a special Disneyland Paris bag with purchases over a certain amount, we bought one, since I was sure I would need a second piece of luggage.

Once we were done and had two huge bags full of Disney merchandise, we quickly walked back to the parking garage as it was about to start to rain.When we left the garage it was already raining and we started our drive over to Auchan, the supermarket. We had to drive around for quite some time to find a parking space, but finally we did. It was quite a walk to the entrance, but we were happy we had found a space to park our car in the end. Our first stop inside the shopping center was the Disney outlet store, but the merchandise was the exact same they offered in the parks so we didn't buy anything. We then walked over to the supermarket and started our shopping spree. There were some things we wanted to pick up to bring home, like salt and their dark chocolate with nuts and candied orange peel and some things we needed for dinner. No trip to Disneyland Paris is complete without a nice picnic dinner in the room. Tom picked a few of this favourite beers, chips, ham, salami, several cheeses and a few other items. Once we had everything we wanted we paid for our purchases and headed back to the car. Again, everything got loaded into the car and then we were off to the bakery. We picked up a few more staples there, then stopped at a new fruit and vegetable shop and were finally on our way back to the hotel.

We hauled everything up to our room and decided to just take a little break before dinner and then head back to the parks, which were open until 10pm.Tom tried to connect to the free internet, but it just would not work, so we took our netbook down to the lobby where there was free WiFi. It wasn't high speed, but at least it worked. By then it was around 6pm and we decided to have dinner. There are a few staples we always have when in France and we were looking forward to them a lot. Freshly baked Baguette, Boursin cheese, Camembert, Goats Cheeses, Ham and Serrano ham, and the tomatoes we had picked up. We also opened the packets of chips to nosh with dinner. We nibbled and nibbled and nibbled some more and before we knew it, it was 7.30pm. Now, what to do? To get to DLRP would take about 15 minutes, then the walk to the park and getting in, we would have about 90 minutes in the park and was it worth it, especially since it had started to drizzle. Well, to cut the long story short, we did not return to the parks. The lack of sleep of the day before was catching up with us too, so we took a little break from eating, watched a little TV, planned out the next day and then had dessert. Tom had decided on a Chocolate Twist, puff pastry filled with chocolate and I had gotten not one but TWO Chocolate Eclairs. I did finish them during the course of the evening. By 11pm we were both in bed and off to dreamland.