15-22nd May 2013

For Nana Keating’s 70th Birthday we took her and Auntie Kathryn (who was soon to be 50) to Paris for a holiday with the kids. They enjoyed it so much that they demanded a re-visit so this year we returned with the intention of staying a few more days and seeing more of Paris.

So we booked a mid-week six night break with the plan to have three days in Disneyland and two days in Paris.

The Disney Experience

Ben, nearing three, would be able to enjoy far more of the rides this year whereas Elliott would have to have a reduced number. This didn’t seem to worry him as those rides he could go on he loved.

The rot set in when Ben discovered that there was a talking skull on the Pirate Ride, this involved us going on the ride repeatedly just so he could see the final item. The skull isn’t part of the ride, so to speak, it is just the warning to remain seated until the boat comes to a stop. But the fact that it sometimes spoke English, sometimes French, and its mouth moved seem to fascinate him. He also liked that the town was on fire.

Then there was the Small World ride. This saccharine putrefaction designed to wear down the patience of devout bhuddist and turn even the strong willed into gibbering wrecks of their former selves is also pure nirvana for the very young. It’s like candy for the ears and eyes, or maybe crack to fuel their Disney-addled synapses. Ben made us go on the ride three times in succession to see the little children-dolls dancing and singing. No amount of brain cleansing can overcome the horrors of this, it is Disney-boarding, at the end of it even the most staunch of us was claiming we had perpertrated acts of genocide, we’d say anything to make them stop.

The ride that got the most satisfaction was the Teacups. This was a rdie that both of the boys could go on together and Elliott loved it. The minute we started to spin he started to giggle, throwing his head back to see the miasma of lights.

The one downside to the experience was the length of some of the queues and the weather, as it conspired to place a large number of people in the park on the day that the heavens opened. We all got quite drenched but our spirits remained high.

Paris

To visit Paris we decided to use the jump-on and jump-off buses. These are a great idea as you buy just one ticket and choose one of the may routes and frequesnt buses. Thank god they were frequent as they were also often packed to the brim with people, which caused some distress with a pram, a trolley, two children and a frail septugenarian.

They also had drivers of varying tempraments and were not the best rides when it rained heavily as they were all open-topped so the downstairs would become quite packed.

However, they did allow us to see a greater amount of Paris in a shorter time. I think though that if I were to use them again I would want to do so mid-week.