Day 4 of Paris 2022

The big keystone to this trip was Billie's birthday, so we were definitely going to Disneyland Paris on her birthday (3/10). Lola is a massive Disney fan and Billie is growing up in her footsteps. I didn't have much connection to Disney when I was younger, but watching my daughter and wife thrill to the parks and movies is enough to keep me coming along for the ride. And, sometimes I have a little fun of my own! 

The trip out to the park is a 45 minute train ride out of the city. It's hard not to enjoy a fast train through the Parisian countryside. You can tell your headed to the right stop because they put the mickey ears on the name, you can't miss it. Billie was hopping up and down the whole way, because she's 6. It's fun to let that energy power the entire day, until it runs out of course! We arrived at the park early enough that there wasn't much of a line yet. But we got into formation to wait to get in, excited to storm the park before the crowds arrived.

To give a quick hit of the rides we visited, here we go: First the carousel (I did this one with Billie, we were both on horses), which was fun, but Billie highlighted it was too short. After the Carousel, we went on Dumbo, which Lola did with us. Dumbo is the one of two rides Billie remembers from her visit to a Disney park (California, three years ago). We went on it together, so she wanted me in the same flying elephant this time as well. Lola was behind us. Billie always takes the Dumbo as high as possible, knowing my fear of heights. I enjoy it, regardless of my fear! 

Around 11a we began looking for a restaurant to eat at. My father-in-law is big on sitting down to eat, not necessarily street food. So passed three or four spots, each wasn't open yet, regardless of what our phones were telling us. Not sure why they weren't open yet, but Lola eventually found a stand selling Mickey Mouse waffles with Nutella and marshmallows. We found an empty table nearby and ate the sweetest snack ever. Too sweet for Billie honestly. She ate one of her three.

After the snack, we headed to Teacups and Billie and I got into one cup while Rachel, Lola, and Mercedes got into another. Lola warned me not to spin Billie too much, in case the waffle might come up. It didn't. Billie spun the cup herself and we laughed as we jerked around. When we exited, Billie stumbled and Lola thought she was sick, but she wasn't. 

As you can tell by the narrative, we mostly did kid rides this trip, as it was Billie-focused. At this point, my in-laws were worn out, so Lola and I split off to do some Star Wars rides while they took Billie shopping. When we arrived at Star Tours, the line was less than 10 minutes. The ride, which is excellent, finished quickly and we decided to go through the cue again and do the ride again. If you've never been to Disney, I cannot express how crazy this is. At Disneyland, you can easily wait 2 hours for a ride like that. So to have no line, or almost no line anyway, is insane! We took advantage of it! 

After, we went looking for the Riveras and Billie. Mercedes has messaged us that they were eating ice cream, but not much more information. We got trapped behind a parade, so that made everything take longer. Eventually we figured it out and met up. We walked to an open restaurant but they posted that the reservations were made MONTHS in advance. So we gave up and went to Casey's, the Disney hot dog place. We ate hotdogs and watched another parade and Billie got in trouble for dancing on the grass. It was funny as Mercedes had encouraged her to dance. Good times!

We decided to head to Mickey Studios, the other park on the lot, to go to the Ratatouille ride. Billie was fried by this this point in the mid-afternoon. Lola suggested we get a stroller, so after running over to get one, we had Billie riding around as we made our way to the other park. And as you may have guess, she fell asleep almost instantly.

So with a sleeping kid in tow, we made our way towards the ride, but we had a problem, as we wanted Billie to nap, but were rapidly nearing our target ride. So we called an audible and Lola and I looked around the reds we could do without Billie. As I'm terrified of heights, it came as some surprise as I recommended the parachute drop ride. And as I stood in line with Lola, I realized I had made a mistake. We strapped in and up we went, as Lola laughed and enjoyed it and I screamed like a baby. It was fun, regardless of my fear. When the ride ended, we walked over to Billie and decided to wake her up for Ratatouille.

Billie doesn't always enjoy rides because of the moving and shaking, but I suspect she's growing out of that because she really enjoyed the ride and immediately wanted to do more rides. Next door there was a kid's roller coaster sort of thing in the shape of the Toy Story Slink Dog. So Lola and her went on it while my in-laws and myself stood to the side. 

After that ride, everyone, including Lola and I, had had enough. It's a long day at any Disney ride, and we were all ready to go home. However, we were scheduled to meet our friends, Rachel and Josh, at the park that day. They were coming in for an extended weekend with us and wanted to see Billie on her birthday visit to Disney. However, a host of travel issues had befell them and they were scheduled to get to the park with about an hour to do anything. After a short wait, we reunited with our friends and then pushed them out to make use of their tickets. For our part, we headed to the train station for the ride home. A ride, of course, that ended up putting all of us to sleep.

I'd end the day here, but there was one more item of note that I should mention. Once home, Rachel and Josh made it back, and we decided to order pizza. We used Uber Eats to order Dominos, thinking two big name companies wouldn't fail us. Until, of course, the pizza never showed up. We called and were informed that they left the pizza outside our door. Not the door to our apartment, but the door of the actual apartment building. Which was on a busy street. Yeah. We thought we were out of luck until someone from the store called to say they had replacement pizza outside. Crisis averted. 

- Dan