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Three days and two nights at Disneyland Paris. Would it be Heaven or Hell or a weird mixture of the two. We were there by 10am but had to leave our bags in reception as the room wouldn't be ready til 3 or 4. In hindsight I wish I had left more stuff with the bags. I had woken up stupidly early again and it was a tiring day and I could have done without carrying everyone's bags.
The main event of the day turned out to be our decision to do the Spiderman based experience before our booked 6pm dinner. Spiderman was in the far top left corner of one park and the restaurant was in the top left hand corner of the other park. But the queue time for the attraction was just 20 minutes and even if the ride took 20 minutes (which most of them don't) we'd still have 40 minutes to do the 20 minute walk.
But the Spiderman attraction was not having that and something went wrong and we were stuck in the same bit of the queue for at least half an hour (having already queued for 15) and our time was running out. Catie wondered if we should cut and run, but things started moving again and I felt we'd only be five or ten minutes late for our booking. Disneyland is great if you like standing in corridors and there were more of them coming up, but we got to the front of the queue with maybe enough time left. I couldn't contact the restaurant via the app, though the app did say they'd only hold the table for 15 minutes. It was going to be tight.
We completed the spider bot killing mission, though it was hard to really engage with it as we were panicking about being late (and the ride broke down whilst we were on it too). So with eight minutes to our booking we took off for the wildest ride in Disneyland - trying to get to a restaurant that was as far away as possible. We were already sweaty and grubby from a day in the park with no access to our bags, but we were going to get sweatier. Would a six and nine year old hold us back?
We made good progress out of the Studio Park and the gap in between, but then in a twist worthy of a movie, we found that the Disneyland Park was at the tail end of a parade, so the place was jam-packed with people. We did Ok navigating our way through, but then got to a place where a long line of people were crossing the road that we were moving along. I let a few go, but it was a matter of urgency and so I said "Excuse me" and tried to get through. The teenager I had chosen to try to get in front of it was having none of it though. "No!' she barked. I explained I was in a hurry and tried again but even though she was not moving with urgency she didn't let me and said "No" again. I eventually found a gap and got past with Ernie with minimal buffering. She complained (though I had been polite and it was clear I was in a rush) and then her dad turned round. He was such a tough guy stereotype that it wouldn't have got through the script stage of this film. He was bald and incredibly beefy and as wide as he was tall. He'd only seen me push my way past his daughter but was comically furious about it. "What the fuck do you think you're doing? he shouted. I should have been scared. He looked like he was going to hit me and he also looked like if he hit me then I would likely be dead or at least hospitalised. But this seemed such a crazy reaction to have in Disneyland. The anger, the threat of violence, all in Goofy and Dumbo's wake. I said I had asked politely and we were in a rush but he was having none of it. He didn't care that I was holding the hand of a tiny boy. He continued to swear and threaten. It felt so much like a videogame that I might have responded by flicking my hands as if shooting webs, like we had just been doing in teh game.
Had I had more time I think I might have got involved (with words rather than fists) and said that he had a pretty rude daughter who was refusing to allow someone past her, even though she couldn't move quickly herself. And if I'd done that and blamed this whole thing on his parenting then I would be dead now. But I still in the moment thought how funny it would be to be killed by an angry man in Disneyland. I hadn't covered myself in glory, but this was an over reaction from someone who hadn't seen what had happened and whose first resort was clearly to use his size to intimidate and who had no clue how to bring up his kids. I ran onwards, now slightly shaken by what had happened, but also keen not to lose my booking.
We got to Adventureland with a good eight minutes to spare (before the table was given up). I thought I knew where the restaurant was, but it wasn't there and we wasted another four minutes running around trying to find it. We got there in time. The woman at reception was having a disagreement with one of the waiting staff. It was very unDisney. I've seen nothing like this before. But we were there in time and it was pretty clear that if we'd been ten minutes late it would have been OK.
The meal was OK, but we were amused by the waiter who'd been in the argument who seemed to spend the whole evening wandering around the restaurant not seeming to do anything but trying to look as if he was busy.
Welcome to Disneyland - the rest of the day was fun and non-violent (apart from killing spider-bots) and the kids are having the time of their lives. I wish I was less tired (as always), but even I enjoyed it, especially a late night ride on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride that Phoebe loved and Ernie was terrified of. It'll be his new Titanic.
