Day 6 Thurs. Oct. 29

53 F, partly sunny, and gale force winds, small shower in the morning.

(Kel)

Made it! Eventually. It's now 20:45 and we still haven't slept. After the change at Crewe and a cup of coffee and a muffin we rode the commuter train into London Euston... The mad dash out of the Britrail, thru the concourse and into the Tube (missing the 09:17 into Waterloo, too full to get on) is all best forgotten.

We stumbled into Eurostar at 09:38, 11 mins after our train had left. When we had a good reason for missing it (turns out the Dover/Calais ferries had been canceled for the same reason, and they expected it to last thru Sat.) they were able to get us on the next Eurostar going out at 10:23. The only trouble is that it didn't go all the way to DP, but stopped at Gare du Nord in Paris proper. The Eurostar Waterloo station is much like an airport, except you haul all of your own luggage (we now know why it's called _LUG_gage). The line going thru security check was getting long and they train needed to finish loading, so they waved a bunch of us past the Xray and metal detectors and right up and onto the train.

The Eurostar is a lot like a regular British Rail train, but much longer (more cars) and a hell of a lot faster. We saw the (Battersea) power plant from the Pink Floyd Animals album (sans pig) and as we entered the Chunnel we had to set our watches ahead an hour. The train speeds up to 130 mph once it hits the French rails in the chunnel and we arrived in Paris at 14:15 local time. We got off the train and walked out the gate into the Paris concourse. No passport or customs checks, no more fuss than getting off a BART train at Concord. No wonder things are always getting blown up over here.

Converted some US Dollars to French Francs and then off to figure out the Paris Metro system. Luckily Disneyland Paris translates easily..;) Bought our tickets and hopped on with crossed fingers. We guessed correctly and made all of our line transfers just fine. Arrived at DP around 15:30 on the afternoon of the 29th! At Last!! Walked out of the Marne le Vallee Chessy station, down about 100 feet and then into the hotel/parc gates. Disney Village is opposite the Hotel/Parc on the other side of the station. Walked over to check in and hooray! A 4 star Disney resort hotel room was ours! Shower, king size bed, sofa, mini bar,TV (with the audio piped into the bathroom via a volume knob next to phone which was next to the toilet), you name it.

After a much needed shower for the two of us we entered the park. Deja Not! or would you call it Deja Who? So close, so similar, but not quite the same. So much larger. And poop! the castle draped in scaffolds and tarps. Figures! We walked around until dark (and boy! is this park DARK! You literally can't see your feet.) and had our first food since that long forgotten and digested Irish Breakfast 45 billion years earlier. We hit the BBQ place. Luckily everyone speaks a small bit of English and the menus are bilingual. The trick is to greet people with 'Hello' or 'Good Morning' and they'll swap over from the Bonjour.

A bit more exploring, a little shopping, and got back to the hotel just as the MSEP finished up. Wrote more gloatcards, hit the mini bar, watched a little news and as it's now 10pm we can finally go to sleep. While we were at dinner the maid came in, turned down the bed and left the chocolates and the TV on for us. Ahhhhh! Real Sleep! In a Real BED!!!

Side note: Must be a total Euro thing, but all lightswitchs here and in GB are outside the bathroom..