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Disneyland Paris is an incredible place. I am half in awe of it and half finding it the most weird experience on earth. We are having fun, at great expense (and the expense just keeps coming - this afternoon I spent 30 euros on two biscuits. Not particularly big ones either). And it's sort of like being in a cult. The staff are amazing but (aside from the one cantankerous waiter who I presume has been found dead in the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction this morning) endlessly cheerful and helpful, but like they've been hypnotised or someone is holding their family hostage.
At least they are being paid (I hope). The paying customers are the really weird ones. Seemingly willing to pour money into Walt Disney's cryogenic freezer, just to show how dedicated they are. Decking themselves out in Disney apparel. Which is acceptable if they are children and just about acceptable if they are parents of young children. But many of the fanatics seem to be grown ups with older kids or no kids, wearing mouse ears or even more weirdly cuddly toys of their favourite character on their shoulder, as if they are familiars from the Phillip Pulman universe. An alien looking at this place dispassionately would have to correctly conclude that human beings are insane and stupid. They would be right. Everyone here is. If it wasn't for a few humans pushing the envelope of intelligence, science and logic you'd just think we were monkeys who liked shiny or cartoonish things and were happy to give up their own possessions for tat or wildly overpriced food. DOn't get me wrong, I am very much in the stupid camp here. It's so weird to have a fantasy place like this as a leisure pursuit and it's hard to see the evolutionary advantage or to argue that we aren't a doomed civilization and species.
And yet, in spite of the awful music, the enforced happiness, the wild prices and not particularly liking a lot of the characters, I am having a great time. And whilst it is expensive, you can see Disney spending the money so it almost doesn't feel like a con. It's an incredible set up with 17000 staff and multi-talented performers and some people who are happy to dress up as Disney characters, some of which are so ancient that even I am not really sure who they are. I mean I know Goofy, but what the fuck has he ever done?
As hotel residents you get a valuable hour at the start of the day to go on all the rides before they let anyone else in, though our kids seem to like the less popular rides anyway. This morning we were going to go on the Peter Pan ride that always has a 50 minute queue, but it was out of commission so we went on something else. With about half of the hour gone, people were still queueing, waiting for the ride to open, which was a real waste of their magic hour. They could have queued for this long any time of the day. Don't waste your magic hour guys. Sure you've invested 15 minutes already, but you have to walk away. Cos you're not going to fly away.
After our Spiderman experience yesterday that nearly ended in my death and a young girl's arrogance resulting in the imprisonment of her father, we decided to go round again. This time we were about 12th in the queue when the ride broke down. Just like those Peter Pan twats we were reluctant to leave after having queued for 20 minutes already, but eventually they said they needed to close things down and gave us a voucher to skip the queue later. So we've seen the pre-film for this thing 3 times and I considered opening the door and moving past it, but wimped out in case I got into trouble.
I'd made the mistake of accidentally using one of my meal vouchers for burgers yesterday. I hadn't meant to, but I hadn't said that I wanted the cost to go on the hotel room. Tonight it became clear that that was a mistake that would cost me about 300 euros. We had a posh meal to celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary, that would have been mainly covered by the vouchers (I can't remember what I'd paid for those, but it was certainly way more than the very expensive burgers), but they told me that I could pay for my meal and thenpossibly go back to the burger place, pay for the meal with money and get them to give me back my vouchers, return to the restaurant and then get reimburse for the meal and use the vouchers. It was a weird palaver, but would save me a lot of money, so after we'd eaten, the kids went to swim and I ran across the park again, managed to convince the manager of the burger place to find my meal (not easy as the previous day they'd fudged it to make an adult meal count as a kid one) and then run back to the posh restaurant for my refund. What a way to spend my anniversary.
But in spite of a couple of gatecrashers at our party (it was our fault- we created them) it was a really fun anniversary date. We looked like the kind of people who had come to Disneyland for their anniversary even though they were grown ups, but we weren't. It was just a coincidence. Then loads of Disney characters came round to talk to us at our table. They weren't really princes and princesses. They were just people saying they were royal and expecting us to be impressed. Just like the real royal family.
But we were still impressed (Phoebe the least so - Ernie really enjoyed telling them about the Spiderman encounter, which they couldn't possibly understand given they were from olden times and not real. Catie was very excited when Ariel turned up, saying she was her childhood hero and that she wanted to tell Ariel how much she meant to her, but that was ridiculous as it wasn't the real Ariel. But when Ariel turned up I told her anyway and Ariel was thrilled, even though she wasn't Ariel. Catie got her photo taken with Ariel. This was my wedding gift to her. I got nothing. Except 300 euros which felt like a victory, even though I'd spent a lot more and I'd only lost that money due to my own incompetence.
We did lots of rides today and I was scared on nearly all of them, especially The Cars version of tea cups which was surprisingly rapid. I thought about going on Star Wars Space Mountain whilst the others were swimming - the kids don't fancy the rollercoasters - but the only fun of these rides for me is pretending to be terrified (and actually being terrified) in front of the kids. Me screaming and laughing on my own would be like walking down Disney high street in full mini mouse regalia and not having any kids with me.
This has definitely been the most successful holiday we've had as a family, with barely a cross word and only low level bickering and slapping (and that is just between the parents). And I've only been in one near fight.
