In which the 24 hour clock gets us…

Aug 11

Breakfast included in our hotel: another buffet, with lots of the expected…bread, croissants, jam, butter, orange juice, coffee (not good), bacon, scrambled eggs, hash browns, and a fruit salad with yogurt. One small table of ham and cheese – the American theme runs far and wide. I would like to ask the French people sitting around me enjoying it, or at least eating a lot of it, whether it seems like ethnic food to them, and therefore, vaguely exotic.

First stop, a ride through a mountain that looked like a mine: Big Thunder Mountain. It’s actually a roller coaster and the line-up wasn’t too bad – about 50 minutes, which shows you how time warps when you’re having fun. Considering how much people complain when they have to wait 10 minutes in traffic, Disney is on to something. They have admirable line-up management with good controls to keep people orderly and lots to look at along the way. We had so much fun on the ride that we had to do it again, twice more!

After the first time, we decided to get fast pass tickets. Essentially, you go to a kiosk and use your badge to get a time stamped ticket that allows you to skip the line at a predetermined later time – which seems to be 2 or 3 hours later. You can only have one fast pass ticket at a time, unless you pay for a daily one, which can be used any time on any ride, for only 100 EUR. Each. My little shopper is pretty smart – she pointed out that that means that you have 2 or 3 hours to shop or eat, which you couldn’t do standing in line. We have only seen two water fountains, both in really obscure locations, which means that you have to either carry everything or buy it. I wonder how many people get home and then keel over in shock when they get their credit card bill? The use of credit cards is encouraged, which seems like a good way to stop people from tracking how much they are spending.

We went on two other rides…a riverboat, and a haunted house; both were judged very positively by my mini-traveller. While we were waiting in line for the haunted house (a bargain, only 25 minutes), a little boy in front of us pulled down his zipper and peed on the path. His 8 siblings were clearly embarrassed, but his mother looked at me and just shrugged – who is going to get out a line-up that long just because a little one has to go? The haunted house was really neat, many of the figures were done with holographs. Some of the scary effects were a bit spoiled, however, by people using their phones to take videos when the lights went out.

For lunch we had chicken nuggets and nachos because it looked small. We dropped a glass of coke on the floor, and I went back to the counter to explain in my ragged French that we needed another one. No problem…they replaced it for free and someone came and smilingly cleaned up. Disney is famous for how they train their staff, referred to as cast members, and everything I’ve seen supports their claim for their training.

E has her own spending money, which seemed like a solution so she wouldn’t ask me to buy things constantly. Yesterday’s purchase was a Mickey Mouse wallet, selected after we had scrutinized wallets in several stores. She thinks this is all quite wonderful, which is why we’re here – I think she’s just about the perfect age.
Back to the hotel but we couldn’t face another dinner, so we went to the bar. This seems quite exciting to an 11-year old. More chips and salsa. I ordered a sandwich but they were out of that, so I just asked the guy what they had: a Mexican salad: and I had that. Everything else on the menu, they were out of.

We went back to Disneyland part because we had gotten tickets for a 4D showing of the Lion King. Then things got confusing. The tickets were for 10:00, which, being both tired and Canadian, we thought meant 10 at night. Then the guard thought we had missed the movie by showing up at 17:45, but we thought that couldn’t be right because we had bought the tickets in the afternoon. Eventually, with lots of gesturing we figured out that it’s at 10:00 am tomorrow…disaster averted. After spending approximately $50 for movie tickets, we didn’t want to miss it.

E still pretty sick so we decided to skip the fireworks tonight and go to bed.