Disneyland Paris

We had to take Aimee to Disneyland Paris and since it was four years since our last trip, I had to buy tickets. I am not exaggerating when I say I made the stupidest mistake ever by thinking we could take a bus from Paris to Disneyland. Let me say, Google maps totally mislead me. We waited for a bus forever and got frustrated and finally asked another bus driver where the hell the bus was. He told me that bus only runs at night. Since we wasted an hour waiting for the non-existing bus and many of the metro lines were stopped due to a strike I used a last resort of calling Uber. We ended paying $95 for a 40 minute ride. Well, the good news was, it was a beautiful day and Disneyland was a ghost town! We knew there was World Cup game that afternoon but we didn’t know it was the final game so literally all of France was watching the game as we rode every ride three or four times in a row! It is so nice to experience Disneyland without the crowds and tickets that are a little less than $100. Isn’t it like $250 bucks and a kidney in California?

The park was so empty! We had this police car to ourselves and Liv even got to go behind the wheel.

Fun fact: You remember that hat box I brought with all our luggage from Los Angeles? Well, I packed a few of my Disneyland Mickey ears in it. I even brought my souvenir Disney pins but I didn’t want to wear them on my neck all day. Aimee bought Liv a new set of Mad Hatter ears.

She’s actually a good driver in real life. I let her drive my car at Mom’s private roads in the desert.

We were bummed to find the Alice in Wonderland Mad Hatter Teacups ride was closed for maintenance. Oh well, I could ride It’s a Small World all day!

I couldn’t believe that our favorite ride Le Phantom Manor (The Haunted Mansion) was also closed for maintenance. We had to promise Liv to bring her back when it re-opens in the spring.

We made up for our disappointment by riding Pirates of the Caribbean and Hyperspace Mountain with a FIVE minute wait! That is like impossible in California, even if you have Fast Passes.

We figured out how to take the RER train back home and our Metro passes worked. We were lucky to get seats because the station after Disneyland was packed.

Little did we know that Paris was having the biggest celebration in twenty years. Les Bleus/ The French soccer team won the 2018 FIFA World Cup! It was their first World Cup in twenty years. When we left the metro every single Parisian was celebrating. We sang along even though we didn’t know the words!

It was exhilarating and a little scary seeing the French celebrate all over Paris. We were so used to seeing them angry because of some protest but this was incredible to witness. This is what we saw when we arrived at our station in Republique which is the center of Paris.