Globetrotting: to Disneyland Paris and back with TCD

Tri-Circle-D · June 29, 2015

Overall I think they gave a good response by offering the free night and 2-day park visit. It was also refreshing to see them say that their facilities weren't up to snuff and that they were working on it. I still feel they were passing the buck somewhat on the pool and their response about the CM's always being available. It doesn't matter that it was a contractor running the Davy Crockett Adventure. A customer should be able to find out all they need to know directly from Disney as it is their facility.

I agree. The one thing about the response that I didn't like was this part:

Furthermore, I sincerely regret if the WIFI was not available during your visit and apologize for any inconvenience felt due to this. Please know that our Cast Members are available around the clock and are happy to assist any Guests with their concerns should they be informed.

My original email was short, and didn't give the full story about how I did go to the front desk to ask about the Wi-Fi and how the manager refused to come out to speak to me about it. I sent a reply back to the Customer Service Representative explaining this and providing the date and time I went to the front desk. I hope that manager gets a good talking to.

TCD

Momof6....aka Marty · June 29, 2015

That would be something if that lady in the photo is your friend.

I showed the photo to my husband, as he knows her better. He said there is a resemblance, but it is not the same lady.

It's good to be TCD.

Agreed.

By the way, I trying to keep a list of the people groups TCD has a problem with. So far:

1) Real Men of Genius (although, without them, we would all laugh a little less).

2) Hippies of all kinds, but most especially those playing banjos

Today, I added number

3) Clowns

Tri-Circle-D · June 29, 2015

I showed the photo to my husband, as he knows her better. He said there is a resemblance, but it is not the same lady.

Ah, too bad. That would have been something if it was your friend.

By the way, I trying to keep a list of the people groups TCD has a problem with. So far:

1) Real Men of Genius (although, without them, we would all laugh a little less).

2) Hippies of all kinds, but most especially those playing banjos

Today, I added number

3) Clowns

That's a pretty good list.

But I like banjos.

It's the accordion playing hippies I don't care much for.

And, it's not just clowns. I don't care for mimes either. Or, for that matter, most street performers.

TCD

Tri-Circle-D · June 29, 2015

Update time.

We left off right in the middle of the double decker bus tour.

I thought these bus tours were too touristy, but it ended up being a good way to get our bearings, and the hear a little about a lot of sights all over the city.

Of course we had to see the Eiffel Tower, and approached it head on via the other side of the Seine. This photo makes it look like you can drive right under the tower, but you can't. It just looks that way because the bridge roadway is elevated:

You can't see it very well in the photo, and we couldn't see it very well in person, but that giant tennis ball was now hanging in the center of the tower. You can see the top part of it in this zoom on that last photo:

Eventually, we started heading back in the direction we came, which had us passing the other side of some of the things we had already seen. Like, here's the Grand Palais again:

This obelisk came from Egypt, and was placed in the square where they had the guillotine back in the time of the revolution. The narrator on the bus tour told us that they wanted to give this area a new identity, which is why the put the obelisk here:

Believe it or not, this is yet another still operating Roman Catholic church:

They call it La Madeleine. But, we know her as Mary Magdalene. If you ever read the Davinci Code, you know who she is.

Here's a Le Gap:

Le Gap is located in this area where there are a lot of stores:

We are now in the area around the Louvre. This is a big building called the Music Academy. I'm not sure exactly what goes on in there, but I assume it has to do with music:

I mentioned earlier about how quickly the weather changed in Paris. The whole bus ride was about an hour long. It hadn't been that long since we were getting poured on around the Arch de Triomphe, and now the sun was out, and the driver retracted the roof. That was nice:

That Music Academy must have been on a circle or town square or something, because here it is again. Check out all of the ornate details:

Paris is a very nice looking city. From what I understand, they have height limits on what can be built, and it makes things nice:

They haven't banned Starbucks, though. There are plenty of them:

Around the Louvre, we headed toward this arch. As we approached it, I thought there's no way the bus would fit through it, but we ended up driving right on through:

Over there is the L'arc du Carrousel, which might look familiar to you from the Da Vinci Code. Also, look at how beautiful the sky is now:

This is a closer look at the arch we drove through:

This building was around the corner from the Louvre. If I am recalling correctly, it last operated as a big department store, but is currently not occupied by anything:

Here's another church- it looks like Notre Dame, but it's not:

Here we're crossing to the other side of the Seine- you can see the Eiffel tower off in the distance. Note how it's the tallest thing in the city. They've made sure of that:

This is Notre Dame:

And there's our hotel. Our room was on the 4th floor. The right three windows on the fourth floor are ours:

We had picked up this tour right down the street from our hotel, and that is where we disembarked. I guess we could have stayed on for a second lap if we wanted to, as nobody told us we had to get off here. In hindsight, that may have been a way to get a free ride to another part of the city. But, we hopped off here anyway, as there was some stuff we wanted to look at around the hotel.

I hate to admit it, but we decided that we ought to check out a French McDonalds. It's the lady at our hotel's fault. She's the one who told me where it was.

Just like we learned from Pulp Fiction, the Quarter Pounder with Cheese is called the Royal Cheese (but there are French words on the packaging) :

And, when you order fries, they give you ketchup and pommes frites sauce (which is a lot like ranch dressing, but not quite) :

I'm kind of sorry that we ate at McDonalds, because there were so many restaurants all around our hotel. This is just one of many. At this place, Chez Kelly, you could have a appetizer, main course and dessert for a fixed price of 16 EUR, which I assume includes tax and tip. Note that they had frog legs on the menu:

In this shot, you can see all the restaurants up and down the street, and this was just one of the streets near our hotel:

I had told DD how much I enjoyed the inside of Notre Dame cathedral, so we went back there so she could see it. Here's one of the big stained glass windows again. The thing to remember is that every little image on this giant window has some religious meaning and is designed to inform the viewer of some biblical event or principle:

Every surface inside the cathedral is covered with some type of instructive imagery:

I think this is Saint John Paul, II again:

This display at ground level explained some of the carvings that were above it:

Here are the actual carvings above the display:

You might look at all of this and thing that it is unnecessary and extravagant. But, this cathedral was built at a time when the average person was illiterate, and even those who could read did not have access to Bibles and written material. Remember that scene in Spaceship Earth where the monks are transcribing religious texts? The Gutenberg press was invented while Notre Dame was being built, but the written word was still not a primary means of communicating. These carvings and images in the cathedral were visual representations of stories that helped believers to understand who Mary, Jesus, and other central figures in their religion were. It is impressive to think about how much effort was put into doing that.

We are going to stop here, but will finish up with a few more photos from Notre Dame and some more sights from around Paris in the next update.

TCD

ependydad...Doug · June 29, 2015

I sat across the street and enjoyed listening to the tour guide for this big Asian tour group. So these people came all the way here from some far away land, and they rush around to see exotic things like a bookstore? Fascinating:

Pot, meet kettle? Didn't you travel many thousand of miles and rushed around and saw a bookstore? Fascinating.

:)

Tri-Circle-D · June 29, 2015

Pot, meet kettle? Didn't you travel many thousand of miles and rushed around and saw a bookstore? Fascinating.

:)

Hmmm.

You make a good point.

LOL

TCD

jmaul · June 30, 2015

Caught up. Wow.

Thieves SMB.

Nice pick for the room.

Score on the comp cabin and park passes. You should complain even more and maybe they'll throw in airfare. Or, trade for something stateside.

Notre Dome pics and Mass FTW.

Tour bus looked to be a great way to pack in a ton. Nice building pics.

CCIntrigue...aka Gwen · June 30, 2015

Congrats on the comps!

Tri-Circle-D · June 30, 2015

Caught up. Wow.

Thieves SMB.

Nice pick for the room.

Score on the comp cabin and park passes. You should complain even more and maybe they'll throw in airfare. Or, trade for something stateside.

Notre Dome pics and Mass FTW.

Tour bus looked to be a great way to pack in a ton. Nice building pics.

Thanks. I really didn't expect any kind of compensation from DLP, and they really don't have any reason to sweeten the deal, so I'm going to leave it be, and hope that I can take them up on their offer at some point.

I was against doing something touristy like that bus tour, but it ended up being a fun and informative thing for us.

Congrats on the comps!

Thanks. I hope that I get to use it.

TCD

Tri-Circle-D · June 30, 2015

Let's move on.

We left off in the Notre Dame cathedral. They were doing a brisk business with the candle sales today:

I don't think there was a set price for those. There was just a donation box, and you could pick up a candle, say your prayer, and be on your way.

I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but there was no cost to visit the cathedral. There was a donation box, and they had things like these candles, and an extra tour of the treasure room or something like that for which there was a charge. I thought that was a classy move, and I put a few euros in the donation box.

After our visit to Notre Dame, we went back up to the room, and enjoyed our view:

As you can see, it was a beautiful day. We still had some time to do some more sightseeing. We had no set plans for Paris, but we had discussed going to the Louvre or another museum. If it had been a rainy day, I'm sure we would have done that, but we both agreed it was too nice a day for us to go to some crowded place indoors to look at art that neither one of us particularly were interested in seeing. I had some more Metro tickets that we needed to use up, so I suggested that we go back to the Eiffel tower, and then head somewhere else after that.

And that's what we did. Here we are again- make sure you don't miss the BATB (Big A** Tennis Ball) dangling from up there:

We talked about going up to the top. I really didn't want to, but I would have if DD really did. The whole thing seemed like a pretty big ordeal, so we decided not to. That leaves us both a big thing to do if we ever come back.

We were in the same place that we had been yesterday, but today, there were new merchandise booths set up for some kind of event that apparently was going to take place here related to the French Open:

They had scaffolding set up for what looked like lights that would be used for some kind of stage performance:

After I got home, I tried to see what I could find out about that BATB and the other stuff we saw here around the Eiffel Tower, and I came across this photo, showing that they set up a big screen here to let people watch the French Open. I'm glad that we missed that:

We got a kick out of this couple. The guy was posing with a model of the Eiffel Tower on his head. I'm guessing he bought it from one of those annoying guys walking around selling the models and selfie sticks. I wonder how people this dumb had enough money to afford to come to Paris?:

After hanging around the Eiffel Tower for a bit, we ended up heading back to the hotel. The plan from there was to take a stroll along the Seine to see some of the things we had seen on our bus tour up close and personal. It was 6:23 when I took this photo, and the weather was perfect:

I don't know what the deal is with those little metal booths that line the wall here. As best I can tell, people must rent them out and use them to sell art and other stuff. This guy had old magazines he was selling. The cover of this one caught my eye. I guess the article is complaining that the British are responsible for the birth of Hitler?:

I wanted to go down and walk along the Seine, but DD reminded me that there were probably thieves and such down there, so we stayed up on the road level. There were quite a few folks on the other bank enjoying the sun:

This bridge is called Pont Neuf. Which I think means new bridge. The narrator on our bus ride pointed out that the name is a misnomer, as this is one of the oldest bridges crossing the Seine:

Now we are on the other side of the bridge, looking across the river. The big statue of the guy on the horse is King Henri IV. All the way across the river, that big building you see is an example of art deco architecture. That used to be a big department store called Le Samaritaine, but it has been closed for at least 8 years. However, an investment group is hard at work modernizing the building, and it will be reopening: http://blog.forbestravelguide.com/new-life-ahead-for-paris-famous-la-samaritaine-department-store

We walked some more, and came to another bridge. This one is called Pont des Arts. It is better known as the Lock Bridge. This is the bridge where it all started. This bridge had so many locks on it that the authorities put up panels to try to stop people from putting their locks on it. The nice classy Paris folks promptly covered it with graffiti, and people found ways to get their locks on the other side of the barriers. The result doesn't look so good:

This is the view from the same spot at that last photo was taken, looking the other direction over the bridge:

You can see that there are lots of locks behind the panels:

This is the view up the river from this bridge. That's Pont Neuf there, and that is also the western tip of the island that sits in the middle of the Seine. That's the island that Notre Dame sits on:

Now we're off the bridge along a ramp that leads up to it. You can see that this is also covered with locks:

It turns out that we were some of the last tourists who will see the locks. The French government removed them all right after we left Paris: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/02/world/europe/paris-bridges-locks-of-love-taken-down.html?_r=0

While the Siene doesn't look all that big, it is heavily used to transport goods. Here's a barge with several large shipping containers on it:

We walked some more, and came to the Orsay Museum. We learned on our bus tour that this building was originally going to be a train terminal, but that it became obsolete because of the Metro and other types of transportation. It was repurposed as a museum:

The Paris Orleans words up there were there from when it was a train station:

The bank of the Seine is wider here, and there is a barge docked down there which serves as a restaurant. I wonder how they got permission to do that?:

We walked well over a mile before we finally came to what I really wanted to see- this statue of Thomas Jefferson. It was briefly mentioned on our bus tour, but I wanted to see it and try to get some more information about why it was here:

My photo came out dark, but DD got a good one:

Side view:

Let's take a closer look at that inscription:

This tells us that the statue wasn't erected until 2006.

It's not really in that prominent a location in the city, and I'm sure a lot of people go right by it without even noticing:

If we had kept going, we eventually would have walked all the way to the Eiffel Tower. But, we decided to turn around and head back toward the hotel here.

We were also going to hunt down a shop that DD wanted to visit before we headed home. And, we needed to stop somewhere for dinner.

We'll finish up this walk in the next update.

TCD

CCIntrigue...aka Gwen · June 30, 2015

I've never had any desire to go to Paris, but your pictures are making me rethink that!

WannaBeImagineer · June 30, 2015

I'm all caught up.

That was a good call taking the bus during the rain, it gives you a way to scope things out, we never did that, we just walked through the rain.

We did take a boat ride from the Eiffel Tower to Notre Dame, CP wanted to so we bought a ticket and got round trip for free, it was pretty nice. It wasn't a tour, just a mode of transportation like a bus.

I'm a little worried though, will you have a French baguette before you leave? How about a French croissant or French wine? You know when in France, do as the French or something.

I hope you found the Luxemburg Gardens too, I stumbled upon it my first day and took CP there on our trip and one of our great memories is on our first day there enjoying a fresh baguette and live music in the garden. ha le magnifique!

Oh and that restaurant you posted with the prix fix menu, everyone claims they are tourist traps but we went to two different ones and they were both good, and good deals!

Looking forward to more.

WBI

WannaBeImagineer · June 30, 2015

I forgot to comment on some things.

First, don't feel bad about eating at McDonalds. You have to do it at least once in each country so you can see what's different, lol.

Second I just looked up the restaurant that you posted the menu of, Chez Kelly, and we ate across the street from it at La Harpe that's crazy! But I guess that area is pretty small and so there's a good chance of it. As I was looking at the google map I remembered how much I liked staying in that area, having all the options right outside the hotel was great.

Third I liked really liked the Orsay Museum, mostly because I recognized a ton of artwork and it wasn't crowded like the Louvre.

We also really liked this one http://www.musee-orangerie.fr/ it has the big water lily paintings.

WBI

Tri-Circle-D · June 30, 2015

I've never had any desire to go to Paris, but your pictures are making me rethink that!

Aside from being pickpocketed, I kind of liked Paris. More than I thought I would. The people were on the rude side, but not as much as I expected. And, there were some really nice folks, like the lady who was always at the front desk at our hotel.

The city itself is really interesting, and very easy to get around. We didn't go to any of the museums, and I think that I could easily spend a day or two doing that. And then there's Versailles. That would be a good day trip. Add to that the fact that there are more restaurants than you could ever possibly eat at, with prices that really weren't bad for a big city, and it's a pretty nice place to visit.

I'm all caught up.

That was a good call taking the bus during the rain, it gives you a way to scope things out, we never did that, we just walked through the rain.

We did take a boat ride from the Eiffel Tower to Notre Dame, CP wanted to so we bought a ticket and got round trip for free, it was pretty nice. It wasn't a tour, just a mode of transportation like a bus.

I'm a little worried though, will you have a French baguette before you leave? How about a French croissant or French wine? You know when in France, do as the French or something.

I hope you found the Luxemburg Gardens too, I stumbled upon it my first day and took CP there on our trip and one of our great memories is on our first day there enjoying a fresh baguette and live music in the garden. ha le magnifique!

Oh and that restaurant you posted with the prix fix menu, everyone claims they are tourist traps but we went to two different ones and they were both good, and good deals!

Looking forward to more.

WBI

Well, those French hot dogs come on a baguette, so I had one with that, and as you will see, I had another.

DD did have a croissant earlier. I said she had a pastry, but now I remember it was a something called a pain au chocolat, which I think is a croissant with chocolate. She really liked that.

I hate to admit it, but I had no French wine. Or beer either, for that matter. DD doesn't drink (which is remarkable because Mrs. TCD and I do), so it wasn't something that we did. I'd just have a beer here or there.

I never made it to Luxemburg Gardens.

That does it.

I guess I need to go back.

I want to eat at one of those Prix Fix places too.

I forgot to comment on some things.

First, don't feel bad about eating at McDonalds. You have to do it at least once in each country so you can see what's different, lol.

Second I just looked up the restaurant that you posted the menu of, Chez Kelly, and we ate across the street from it at La Harpe that's crazy! But I guess that area is pretty small and so there's a good chance of it. As I was looking at the google map I remembered how much I liked staying in that area, having all the options right outside the hotel was great.

Third I liked really liked the Orsay Museum, mostly because I recognized a ton of artwork and it wasn't crowded like the Louvre.

We also really liked this one http://www.musee-orangerie.fr/ it has the big water lily paintings.

WBI

I actually have some more photos of some of the Latin Quarter restaurants coming up in the next update. It's a small world after all that you ate in one across the street from that one in my photo.

I think the Orsay would be more my speed than the Louvre too, but I don't regret enjoying the day outside.

I'll have to go back some day to see some museums.

TCD

Tri-Circle-D · June 30, 2015

We left off admiring TJ's statue.

And now it was time for us to turn around and head back.

On our earlier bus tour, there was some mention of the animal sculptures outside of the Orsay museum. I think they were brought here from another place, and they are quite old, but I may be mistaken about that. Even so, they are nice to look at and very well done:

There's a nice open courtyard here that I imagine must get full of people from time to time:

Here's a Rhino:

And a horse:

Check out the detail on the horse:

Le Rhino Butt:

There's an elephant over yonder, but I didn't bother to walk over there for a closer look. I'm sure it was nice:

On the way back, we took a side street so we could visit another location of that macaron place that DD really liked. This is the same outfit that we visited in Harrods and on the Champs-Élysées. DD had checked for the location on her phone, and saw that they closed at 7:30 pm. We had to walk fast.

We found the place with just minutes to spare. This is their display window. I took this photo at 7:22 pm:

Right after that, we went to go in, and the door was locked!

We could see staff inside starting to break things down, and thought they had closed early.

Oh man, was DD disappointed.

But, an employee pointed to a door around the corner and gestured for us to go there.

And we made it in!:

Crisis averted.

DD bought a few small boxes of macarons to bring home to folks.

And we were on our way.

By the way, if you're interested, the company selling these macarons is called Ladurée, and they have a few locations in the US. The closest one to us is in Miami. Which is a bit of a coincidence considering a development that occurred after we got back from this trip. I'll tell you about that later.

Look, a French lady on a Razor scooter. My kids used to ride those all the time. I still have them too:

So, we closed down the macaron joint.

And we hadn't had our dinner yet.

The plan was to find a place on the way back to the hotel.

We kept walking so we would be near the hotel and wouldn't have far to walk after we ate.

About a block from our hotel, I came across another French hot dog stand. This guy made crepes too. But, I went for the dog. Do you see all that cheese on the griddle? That's all for my hot dog:

And here it is:

Yes, I went to Paris and had a hot dog for dinner both nights I was there.

If you ever had one you'd understand.

As I ate my hot dog, we walked past other places I could have enjoyed.

Like this Gyro joint. They have a big meat tornado spinning there in the window. Since I live right next to Tarpon Springs, Florida, which has a big Greek community, these meat tornadoes are something that I see from time to time, but I wonder if the rest of you are familiar with such things:

This place looked like another winner. They had meat roasting on spits out front. There were chickens, and what I assume was a leg of lamb. The bottom spit had a whole animal on it. DD said it had to be a pig. But, it could have been a cat:

Also note, per that sign on the left, this place offered cheese fondue and meat that you could cook at your table on a hot stone. Sounds like my kind of place. Well, except for the cat on the spit.

We stopped at the Shakespeare and Company bookstore on the way back, and DD enjoyed browsing through the moldy stacks of books. I waited outside and people watched.

Then we headed back to our room.

We were flying home tomorrow, and we needed to pack and check in for our flights.

This was the view from our window at 8:40 pm. It was far from dark outside:

Looking the other way, you can see that the sun was low in the sky, but hadn't set yet:

I don't know why I didn't take any photos of our hotel room here. This is the only one I have. I took it to show our nice windows, and you can see the unique carpet we had in the room. When we first arrived in the room, we saw that we had just one king bed, even though I had reserved a twin room, but we looked and saw that they had just pushed the two twins together. We separated them as far as possible so DD didn't have to hear me snore:

By the way, the third window was in our bathroom, and if we opened it, we could see Notre Dame from the throne. We kept that window shut, though.

After we took care of our airline business, I suggested to DD that we go back across the street to see one more thing that I meant to look for but missed. I had read about it in a guidebook, but forgot to look for it while I was over there in front of Notre Dame. When we got there, there were people crowded around what I wanted to see, so we took another look at the carvings around the northeast door:

Check out the hat on that guy on the right. I wonder what that's about. And look-one of the guys is actually a girl. Note that they are all holding stuff. All of that is symbolic. And note how many other figures there are crammed in just about everywhere you look.

This is the center part of that same doorway. That's Mary there in the center holding the J-Man. I don't know who the rest of all those people are:

This is the left part of that same doorway. There's the dude holding his head that we saw already. And now I see he's got a couple of angels attending to him. That looks like some kind of king there on the end. Note how all of these folks have some kind of critters beneath them. That all has some kind of significance too:

Someone who knew what he or she was talking about could speak for hours on what this one doorway shows and who all the folks depicted are. Somehow an artist or artists planned this all out and got it carved around just this one door. That is really remarkable.

We hadn't really looked at the north side of the building. There's plenty of gargoyles over here:

Look at them all:

We saw that the crowd had dispersed from around what we had originally come over here to look at, so we headed over there:

This is it:

I am not sure if you can read the inscription in the circle, but it says "Pointe Zero les Routes de France." This is literally the center of Paris. All distances throughout France to Paris are measured from this very spot. It's interesting that Notre Dame cathedral is the closest thing to this spot.

From here, we headed back across the Seine via another bridge. As we began to cross, we heard what sounded like a marching band playing, and looked down long the river bank to see a bunch of French guys going at it on marching band type instruments:

We just stood there on the bridge and enjoyed the music. As we did, this boat approached:

Check out what's in the boat- it looks like it's a floating restaurant, with tables covered in white tablecloths:

The boat honked at the band, and they kept playing and waved at the boat. It was a very festive atmosphere:

Now it was a bit past 9:30, and the sun was finally leaving us. Those lights you see over to the left in this photo are from our hotel:

We decided it was time for us to head back.

TCD

keith_h · June 30, 2015

As for the meat tornado I have seen plenty. While Chicago is know for Italian Beef and Deep Dish Pizza it also has a fairly large Greek population. Likewise during my early career I had a number of trips to the DC area and New York where every Gyros joint had one. Here in NC you don't see the spit too often as the Greek and Mideastern restaurants tend to favor buffets so they pre slice the meat in the back and bring it out to the line in trays.

Beckers · July 1, 2015

What were the showers like? When I went to France they SMB. Instead of a wall mounted shower head at normal height they were hand held sprayers but weren't above your head but like waist height . So to rinse your hair you had to do it one handed and hold the sprayer with the other.

Tri-Circle-D · July 1, 2015

As for the meat tornado I have seen plenty. While Chicago is know for Italian Beef and Deep Dish Pizza it also has a fairly large Greek population. Likewise during my early career I had a number of trips to the DC area and New York where every Gyros joint had one. Here in NC you don't see the spit too often as the Greek and Mideastern restaurants tend to favor buffets so they pre slice the meat in the back and bring it out to the line in trays.

Thanks for the Gyro info. I spent the first part of my life in NJ, and never remember seeing or even hearing about Gyros. Then I moved to Florida and not long after visited a place called Mr. Gyro, where a giant piece of some kind of meat was roasting prominently on a spit. I had to have one. I liked it. I've had many since. I still am not sure what's in that "meat," and I'm not sure that I want to.

What were the showers like? When I went to France they SMB. Instead of a wall mounted shower head at normal height they were hand held sprayers but weren't above your head but like waist height . So to rinse your hair you had to do it one handed and hold the sprayer with the other.

Good question. This was not something that I was going to mention, but our room at the Notre Dame Hotel didn't have a shower! We just had a bathtub. There was a hand-held sprayer that you could use, but no shower curtain. I tried to take a shower standing up, but got water everywhere. So, I had to kneel in the tub to take a shower while holding the sprayer in one hand. It worked. And, I guess I could have taken a bath. But that's not my scene. Other than that, the bathroom was really nice. At Davy Crockett Ranch, the showers were normal ones like in the US.

TCD

Momof6....aka Marty · July 1, 2015

I believe the meat tornado is called schawarma. It is a mix of meats cooked on a vertical spit. Why do i know this? Because at the end of the movie, "The Avengers", Tony Stark says he wants schwarma. The last scene is them eating schwarma.

Other useless trivia - St Denys is famous because the legend says after he was beheaded for preaching the gospel in Paris, he walked 6 miles, carrying his head and sharing the Gospel the whole way.

Tri-Circle-D · July 1, 2015

I believe the meat tornado is called schawarma. It is a mix of meats cooked on a vertical spit. Why do i know this? Because at the end of the movie, "The Avengers", Tony Stark says he wants schwarma. The last scene is them eating schwarma.

Other useless trivia - St Denys is famous because the legend says after he was beheaded for preaching the gospel in Paris, he walked 6 miles, carrying his head and sharing the Gospel the whole way.

Nope, I don't think that was shawarma. Shawarma is similar, but it's Arabic. This was definitely a Greek food establishment. That final scene in The Avengers is funny, and it didn't seem like any of them were enjoying the food. Gyros are good.

I read a similar story about St. Dennis. If it really happened that way, I'm not so sure how effective a dude carrying his head in his hands would be evangelizing. It's a good story, though.

TCD

Tri-Circle-D · July 1, 2015

If this trip report seems long, that's because it was a long trip.

But, with this update, we will be leaving France and returning to the good old U S of A.

We left off standing on this bridge, watching the Seine flow beneath our feet, and the sun slowly sink in the sky. That band was playing, and a small crowd gathered to listen and cheer them on. It was a really nice experience on our final night here in Paris:

A last look at Notre Dame. You can see that this side has plenty of gargoyles too:

I don't know who all these people on bikes were, or where they were going, but there they are. Note that they're not wearing helmets, and it is about to get dark. You won't ever find me riding a bike at dusk in Paris:

By the way, it was 9:34 pm when I took that photo, and it still wasn't dark.

I goofed by not taking more photos of our hotel in Paris, because it was really something to see.

This is the lobby. Our room had wallpaper similar to this:

You can see Notre Dame out that window:

We were up on the 4th floor, and these are the stairs. It reminded me of a fun house or something:

This photo was taken from the top of the stairs on our floor, looking down. I really had to concentrate on the stairs, because that whacky wallpaper made me feel disoriented:

There was a small elevator available, but it was barely big enough for two people. We did use it when we came with our suitcases so we didn't have to lug them upstairs.

I left something important out that happened the previous night.

We were in our room when we got a text from Twin #1 telling us that the Disney Parks Blog had just announced that they would be having a "meetup" for the 24 hour day which was going to be happening on Friday, May 21. Both DD and I immediately went to the blog and entered for a chance to win. Both the twins did too. Earlier that day, Twin #1 let us know that she had won a spot, and DD got an email here in Paris telling her that she had won too. That gave us four admissions to the meetup, and we could all go!

We spent some time in our room the last night texting back and forth with the twins, finalizing our plans.

DD found out that she had another employment phone interview to do on Friday, the day after we got back, which was also during the 24 hour day. So we were trying to figure out how to make that work.

We got things set, and hit the hay.

We had to be up early to head to the airport for a 10 am flight.

In hindsight, a later flight would have been better, but we had to fly back to Dublin to use the return part of that round trip flight I had booked us. It still saved us a bit of money, but next time, I think I will spend the money for a direct flight from Paris, as we didn't have time to do anything on our last day.

We were up at 5:30, and here's how things looked out or window at 5:33 am:

Remember how late the sun set the night before? The sun was up at 6:26 am. In the middle of May:

looking the other way:

This was a cool thought- the next time I would see the sunrise, I would be in the MK at WDW.

We headed down to the lobby soon after this.

We could have taken a train to the airport. But, after I studied the maps and saw all the stops we'd have to make on the way there, I really was worried that I wouldn't gauge the time right, and we'd be late. The spoke to the nice lady at the front desk about this the day before, and she told me we should take the airport shuttle. Which cost us 16 EUR a piece, and worked just like an airport shuttle in the US. Our driver was there with the van a few minutes early, and off we went.

Here's the last we saw of our hotel and Notre Dame as we crossed the river on our way to pick up some more guests:

We drove around Paris picking up a few more folks before heading out to the airport. Some of these hotels were pretty far out from the main action in Paris. And, some of the parts we drove through didn't look so nice. Seeing that made me glad that we got to stay where we did.

It ended up that I booked our flight from Paris to Dublin on Aer Lingus. That was a tough choice, as there was a flight on a carrier called Ryan Air that was half the price. I really wanted to give Ryan Air a try, but I read a lot of horror stories about them, and that whole German Wings thing happened while I was planning this trip, so I spent the extra money for Aer Lingus. That worked out good.

I took this photo to show the very small size of our carry on suitcases. Everything I read about Aer Lingus said they were very strict with enforcing their policies, and from what we saw, that was true. But we were good to go:

Charles de Gaulle airport was very nice:

We were a bit early, which is better than being a bit late. DD visited a newsstand and came back with this:

This is the magazine that ticked off all those Isis jackwagons earlier this ear. What a bunch of jackwagons they are.

One of the main buildings at this airport was a classic 70's work or architecture:

It was a beautiful day and our flight was on time. I wish we had time on this trip to visit the French countryside, because it looks very nice:

At 10:50 am, the French coast was beneath us:

And it was only 2 minutes later that we reached England:

It took us a good 50 minutes to fly all the way across England to the other side, and then we saw the coastline of Ireland:

Soon enough, we were back in Dublin:

The Dublin airport was nice:

Since we were US citizens flying back to the US, we were directed to an area they called Customs pre-clearance, and basically had to go through security again. We had to fill out a form on a computerized station and show our passports again. What I didn't realize is that was actually our Customs clearance, as we were able to walk right off the plane and leave when we got back to Orlando. That was good.

This sign was on display at one of the shops in the airport. We just missed National Leprechaun day by less than a week!:

That was a major planning fail on my part.

Our flight from Dublin was on time too. In fact, our plane was there and ready for us to board when we got to the gate:

From here, we flew 9 or so hours west and south, and eventually made it to Orlando. I tried to make myself sleep on the plane, but I couldn't. So, I got to watch three full movies: Birdman, Dumb and Dumber To, and Wild. Those are all movies that I probably never would have watched otherwise. Birdman was one strange movie, let me tell you. And even for free, Dumb and Dumber To was not worth seeing. It wasn't even a little bit good. I liked Wild OK, but it's more of a girls movie.

We arrived in Orlando at a bit before 7 pm.

You might think our trip and this trip report are over.

But, we didn't head home yet.

Nope.

We had a room reserved at Coronado Springs.

So we headed there.

We'll continue from there in the next update.

TCD

CCIntrigue...aka Gwen · July 1, 2015

Wow, what a long day you had! Did they feed you on the plane? Was the food decent? Could you get up and move around often?

Tri-Circle-D · July 1, 2015

Wow, what a long day you had! Did they feed you on the plane? Was the food decent? Could you get up and move around often?

Yes, I think we got fed twice on the flight back. And the food was decent. I highly recommend Aer Lingus.

DD and I were on one side of the plane with just two seats on our row. Right before the flight took off, I was able to move back a row, and sit on the aisle seat on a row in the center section with no one next to me. So, both DD and I ended up with plenty of room. Being on the aisle let us get up and walk around a bit from time to time.

TCD

Tri-Circle-D · July 1, 2015

OK, we're back in the USA now.

We arrived at MCO right on time, and headed to WDW.

It was now Thursday night, May 21. I had watched the sun rise over Notre Dame cathedral in Paris that morning. A long time before this, even before the Europe trip was planned, I had booked a campsite for Memorial Day weekend. This was even before the 24 hour day was announced. I had a feeling they would do it again, and they did. But, then we went to Europe, and there was no way that I could figure out how I could land in Orlando on Thursday night, drive home and get the camper, and be back in time to be in any kind of condition to go to the 24 hour day.

So, I switched my reservation over to Coronado Springs. I got a Florida Resident's rate, just for two nights, and it ended up being a little less than what it would have cost me to camp three nights. The Fort has gotten ridiculously expensive.

The twins each drove down on Thursday from their respective schools, and had already checked in to the room before we arrived.

When DD and I got there, there was a big change in plans. We were both pretty exhausted, and DD thought it would be better for her to head home and get a good night's sleep so she would be ready for her big phone interview on Friday, rather than hang with us and be crazy. She had made that decision the night before. So, not long after we arrived, she drove one of the twin's cars home, and exited this trip report.

Since we had four spots for the blog meet-up, Twin #1 invited a friend of hers from school to join us. He was in town already, as he is working a professional internship this summer with Disney. He's an engineering student at UF, and the girls are very jealous at how much better the PI students are treated compared to the College Program (CP) students.

The girls and their friend headed out for some fun Thursday night, and I crashed. They didn't stay out too late, as we had to be at the TTC by 4:30 am for the meetup.

Which brings us here, to the TTC at 4:34 am on Friday, May 22. The sun had not yet risen again since I last saw it rise in Paris. From there, I am not hear waiting for a boat:

The girls had received instructions via email telling them where and how to check in, and we had done that. Part of the check-in packet included a paper wristband, which identified us as Disney Parks Blog meetup participants. We would be riding over to the MK on the first ferry ride of the morning, and only those with wristbands were allowed on. Here, they're doing a wristband check:

We were on the ferry and on our way by 4:53 am:

When we got to the MK, we had to go through bag check, and the scanners. Part of this deal included a one day one park ticket, which is sweet. We had our passes, so we got to keep those tickets and will use them for a future purpose.

After we scanned our MB's, we were admitted to a roped-off area right in front of the train station. Our view of the special opening show would not be too shabby:

And, look who else was there in the roped off area with us:

When we came in, we got free Inside Out buttons. But, everyone did at the 24 hour event:

Whoever is in charge of these flowers does a very fine job:

The time passed very quickly. There were a few announcements made, and we knew the opening show would take place around 5:50 am. Almost time:

Hey, what are those letters on the face of the clock?

Did you know about this?:

Do you see that?

It says LORUS.

Who is LORUS?

I Googled it, and I think it's a name used by Seiko.

But, why is it on the Train Station clock, and how is it that I am just noticing this for the first time ever?

I don't know where the Mayor was, as we were greeted and welcomed instead by the Fire Chief. Which is fine, but today was kind of a special day, and the Mayor should have been here for that. And it wasn't just the Fire Chief who greeted us. We got the Frozen people too:

The dancers and the other characters showed up just like normal on the train:

The family of the day ended up being three teenagers who were dressed as Peter Pan characters:

We were told to report to Cosmic Rays after getting in to the park.

We headed that way. It's always fun to be in the Magic Kingdom at 6 am:

Other guests were commemorating this occasion by taking sefies, but we had to keep on moving:

As you might expect, the idiots in charge left a mess in the hub, including the Partners statue still being in a box, for guests to enjoy for this big event:

When we got to Cosmic Ray's, we found a free breakfast buffet spread out for us to enjoy. It was just fruit, pastries and yogurt, but it was free:

Here's my plate. The stuff on the bottom is fruit. And the things at the top of the plate are Tomorrowland cinnamon rolls. You heard me:

It wasn't the most elaborate food that Disney could have served us, but I am not going to complain about a free breakfast. We enjoyed it very much.

Here, we were given instructions about where to report next.

We would be leaving the park to go and see the movie Tomorrowland at Downtown Disney.

For free!

We were supposed to meet up at the path where the parades enter and leave the park next to Splash Mountain.

We headed that way.

Here's a shot of still unfinished hub expansion work as seen from the Tomorrowland bridge:

The sun was just now rising and illuminating the east side of the castle:

Sunrise over Tomorrowland:

Sunrise over the Plaza Ice Cream Parlor tables:

The girls and their friend popped in to the Emporium and got their special Frozen Summer Fun t-shirts.

Then we continued on our way.

Here's a photo showing work underway at the Adventureland Veranda:

Sunrise over the Jungle Cruise tiki splash area:

The sun was hitting Pirates just right:

We got to where we were supposed to be. I never noticed this cool lamp post before:

Here are our fellow winners:

They had us line up and head backstage. But first we had to wait for the train:

We got to cross the tracks here. I wanted to look for railroad spikes, but the twins told me that I needed to come on:

And then we were taken into a backstage area. No one told me that I couldn't take photos. So I kept on taking them.

I'll start the next update with a few of them that I took before someone told me to put the camera away.

TCD

Momof6....aka Marty · July 1, 2015

Thank goodness this isn't Friday. i don't think I could wait all weekend to see those pictures!

Globetrotting: to Disneyland Paris and back with TCD

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