UK and France: Leg 3 - Euro Disney

Finally the highlight of the trip was four days at Euro Disney.
It was a mission to get to having decided not to taxi. So we caught the metro, changed lines, metroed again and then onto the RER (another train). All the changes involved walking for at least ten minutes up and down stairs carrying 2 suitcases, 4 carry ons and 2 car seats. It was hard work just to work out the language let alone the carrying of the luggage. After 2 hours we finally made it.
We checked into the prebooked hotel which was within walking distance of Euro Disney. Our room was dingy, low lit and small. After the nighmare of travelling there we needed something better. So we upgraded to a suite and the bonus was it came with chocolates, champagne, micky mouse toys for the kids, lovely mickey mouse bowl and cup but the best was the VIP fast pass tickets. So any ride that had a fast pass we could use anytime as many times as we liked and avoided the queues, that at times were over 1-2 hours long. Pity our favourite ride didn't have a fast pass.

Space Mountain Mission 2 (below) was great. Jack was tall enough if he wore his heelies (shoes with wheels in the heels). We loved this ride, pity Jaime was too short as she wanted to ride too.
The rockets were tame but the kids liked them.
Managing to get a photo of the kids with the characters was harder than expected. The Europeans are a pushy rude bunch and it was a case of if you can't beat em join em.

Bounce Bounce... its Tigger.

Jack holding his overpriced, cold , gross popcorn. That got thrown in the bin 15 mins after being bought.

Jaime with her apple juice that was only sold at 2 places in the whole park. Lucky it was beside her favourite ride Thunder Mountain Railroad. It's a fast rough train through water and dark tunnels.

Jack trying his hand at driving. He was rubbish at steering but couldn't have been as bad as my driver (his sister). Had to queue for a hour for this bad drive.

We were lucky enough to be at the park with Jaime's good friend Annika from school. The girls had fun eating chocolate mousse at the Rain Forest Cafe. We were also joined by The Thompson family from school. Jack and Keiran are in the same class. It was great to all hang out we managed a dinner and lunch and some rides together.

We saw the stunt show at the Disney Studios which was a great watch. Amazing driving.

The castle was even more beautiful lit up at night. We saw the light parade twice. It doesn't start until 10.30pm because it's daylight for so long. Big days for the kids as the park opens at 8am for people staying at certain hotels. Public can't enter until 10am so it's two hours of the tea cups, Dumbo, Carousel, Buzz lightyear and Space Mountain Mission 2. Nothing else is open.


Jack and Keiran pulling with all their might.

Finally, with some time to kill, I (Delanie) showed that I too can take photos!
Jaime got taken with Sam, Lars and Annika to a special princess dinner. You get to have a private dinner with 5 princess's. The girls loved it so much they were over whelmed and forgot how to talk. Thanks Sam and Lars, we had a nice easy dinner with just Jack at Planet Hollywood. This must be the only PH in the world still to be making money. It was heaving! Food was ish and overpriced.

UK and France: Leg 2 - Paris

After our time with Angela in the UK, we boarded the Eurostar, to travel to Paris for 3 nights, on the way to Euro Disney. The Eurostar was a great way to travel very easy. On arrival in Paris the rain met us again. Still a novelty so no problems.

We walked to the Eiffel Tower the first morning and had a lovely picnic in the sun on the grass. Kids and Dad ran around like nuts on the grass - bit of a theme for the trip really - being on grass was almost as much a novelty as being in the rain! The queue was 2 hours for the lift, so we ambitiously walked up to the second level. Many, many flights of stairs later, and a fair bit of carrying of one of the unnamed child, we arrived. The view was great until within minutes the rain and wind started and it was awful. We climbed down as quickly as possible. We saw 2 men getting arrested for selling umbrellas at the bottom, they got thrown roughly to the ground, hand cuffed and dragged away. Saw our first 'authorities' wandering around with sub-machine guns too - quite nerve wracking really.

The kids liked taking photos so they took a shot each. Not a bad result. The jandals were lethal in the rain on the tiles.

Jack's effort.

Jaime's turn now.

Jaime seemed to find ladybirds wherever we went. Jack was too nervous to touch them though. She is smiling because she isn't being made to walk again!

We did a bus tour of Paris and had 4 routes to choose from. We managed to see 2 of the routes fully. We saw all the usual attractions. Even managed to go into Galaries Layafette. It is a huge department store with 1 side of the street for men and the other for women. Too expensive to actually buy anything. The stores were packed with people.

We saw the Louvre.

And Notre Dame (no Hunchback).

We walked along the Champs de Elysees and then up the Arc de Triomphe. Jaime managed to walk the whole way up without stopping, something I struggled with after my thighs were still burning after the Eiffel Tower stair climbing effort. Obviously Andrew isn't writing this, his thighs didn't shake for 1 hour after either.

The kids do love each other.

The kids again trying their hand at photography. Parents looking grim.

We tried our hand at speaking the language and Jack managed to order 2 chocolate mousse's. Food wasn't that great or maybe we were just in the wrong places.

We found London expensive but found Paris another notch up again.

We booked a night out at Moulin Rouge. Dinner and show package. While in Paris we thought.... We then booked the babysitter and at a cost of NZD$475 we cancelled the show. It would have been cheaper to Eurostar our friend Angela over from London. So tempting!

UK and France: Leg 1 - UK

Our first holiday from Dubai - well, our first outside of the Emirates, anyway. For two weeks we left Dubai, to spend time in London, Paris and then at Euro Disney. We flew through Amsterdam, on KLM. Angela, one of Delanie's best friends, was our very gracious host - she picked us up from the Airport, took us on a day out to the Cotswolds, and even arranged to vacate her apartment in Swiss Cottage and stay with friends so that we had somewhere to stay. Many thanks to her!
Jack and Jaime experienced rain for the first time in six months! Kind of cool to see rain, actually, but getting wet was something strange, as was waking up in the morning and looking out of the window trying to work out what the day was going to do to work out what we should wear! That's a much simpler process in Dubai...

The drive to and through the Cotswolds was really lovely. We went to the Upper and Lower Slaughters and Bidbury. Had scones, cream and jam to make it authentic.

On the Sunday we went to Greenwich, to meet Andrew, Cheryl, Robi and Alex Henderson in the park for a picnic. It was all fun until the other Andrew ruptured the tendon in his finger catching a ball. That was the picnic ended and the other family started off to the hospital.

Jack stood with one foot in the west and one foot in the east along the Meridian. We caught the tube and then a boat to the park it was great. We found London very easy to get around thanks to great instructions by Angela. We ended up legends on the tube!

We did a lot of touristy stuff - including the London Eye. We did a lot of walking which Jack coped with well. We won't mention the other child.

We met James and Caroline (who have sold their house in Whitby and are now based back in the UK). We spent the day with them, having lunch and doing some shopping. James even managed to find a coffee shop run by Kiwis called flat white. Tiny pokey place but the coffee was good.

We met Simon, Delanie's cousin, at the St Pauls Cathedral steps. We had lunch with him and then went to the Science Centre. Jack and Andrew toured around while I took Jaime home so I could sleep off a migraine. Managed to catch the tube home and even change lines all with my eye sight funny.

On our last full day we did a bus tour round London, after we had met our friend Alan, from Wellington. Its a great way to see the city. We saw Buckingham Place and Big Ben. Loving the old architecture in the city, great history. We took the kids to the Hamleys toy shop twice - got sucked into buying these amazing felt pens but my skills with them are not as amazing as the demonstrators....