World Travellers

Today was my birthday and to celebrate mum had bought tickets to Disneyland Paris!!! You can never be too old for Disney 🙂

Getting up early and having breakfast we packed our day bags and caught the train towards Disneyland Paris – The train tickets to Disneyland were €9 each.

When we arrived at Disneyland it was 10:30AM, because Walt Disney Studios closed earlier than Disneyland Paris we decided to head there first.

Walt Disney Studios is Pixar character based, so we went on rides based on Toy story, Cars and Finding Nemo,

Cheeeeese!

There was also a Haunted House, which is similar to the giant drop and an awesome music themed rollercoaster. Everyone was proud of mum for going on this as it is in the dark and filled with turns, drops and loop de loops, not mum’s idea of fun. But we were proud that mum gave the rides ago 🙂

Mum just a wee bit scared

A couple hours later and with most of the rides ticked off, we went in hunt for some lunch. Unfortunately most of the shops were closed so we grabbed Nutella crapes and watched the Pixar Parade.

The line ups for this park were averaging about 30-45 minutes, so by the time we had done all of the rides and explored the park it was 3PM so we made our way to Disneyland Paris. On our way out we saw Mickey Mouse, so heading over to him we got his autograph and Alfie had a photo with him.

Alfie in awe of Mickey

Entering Disneyland Paris we could see it was a lot less busier and the line ups were averaging 10 minutes, which was awesome!

We went on the Indian Jones ride first and then headed to where the next parade was. This time it was filled with the well known Disney characters 🙂

It was then time to tick off all of the rides, so we made our way around and took it in turns riding and looking after Alfie.

The minimum age to go on rides seemed to be 1 years, so when we went on the tea cup ride we told the lady Alfie was 13 months so that he could go on something and he thoroughly enjoyed himself.

Teacup Ride

Afterwards Tim and I got lost in the Alice in wonderland maze, and then we all went to grab a bite to eat. Lasagna, salad/chips, drink and ice cream was the lunch bundle meal at the restaurant we went in to and tasted very nice.

Gabbie sized door 🙂

Which way?

This way?

View of Disneyland Paris

By 8PM the family was getting tired so they went to find a place to sit down and save for the night time show. Tim and I explored some more before heading back to find them.

The 9PM show at Disneyland Paris is amazing! It is based at the castle and involves laser projection to project Disney characters onto it. It was fun to sing along to the songs and watch the fireworks.

Overall it was a great day at Disneyland and a lovely way to spend my birthday. Thank you for a lovely day xx

Waking up at 6AM, we got ready, packed our bags, decided against a sit down breakfast, instead we used the leftovers from last night to make us a feed and checked out. I was so excited!!

The train ride from where we were staying to CDG Airport was simple, it just took awhile to get there. The family were arriving at 7:20AM, but after customs, etc, we were aiming for them to come out of the arrivals gate around 8AM. When we arrived at CDG there were heaps of people in front of the arrival gate, so Tim being tall, had a look around for them whilst I waited at the gate.

After about 5 minutes we spotted them coming out 😀

Giving everyone a massive hug, we left the busy airport and headed back to the train station where we could catch up properly and I could cuddle my 7 month old nephew Alfie for the first time!!

Training it back to Paris, we caught a taxi directly to our hotel, which happen to be in the heart of the Red Light District. This was great as there was a good night life, shops and pubs were open late and there was a good atmosphere.

Once we were all unpacked and had rested for a little while, we decided to head out and explore the city.

On our walks we came across this lovely church, which we went inside to have a look in.

We then went to the Arc de Triomphe and walked along the Champs Elysees, which I was still struggling to pronounce!

Walking down Champs Elysees Tim saw a shop filled with racing cars, so we stopped for a look around.

After our long walk around Paris and because everyone was tired from flying, we decided to call it a day, grab some dinner and head back to the hotel.

When we got back I hopped in the bath with Alfie and Uncle Tim held him for the first time 🙂

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The next morning we all woke up feeling refreshed, enjoying our continental breakfast of croissants and cheese, we got ready for today’s adventure. Sacre Coeur, picnic lunch and Eiffel Tower climb.

The Sacre Coeur is positioned on the top of a hill,so was great fitness to make our way up there.

Along the way we stopped for some gelati and a rest 🙂

When we arrived the Sacre Coeur it was packed, we had a walk around and took in the beautiful view of Paris from the top of the hill. We spent about half an hour here, before starting our decent back down.

Tim and ran ahead as we wanted to buy the goodies for lunch today. We agreed to meet the family at the train station and headed to the supermarket.

Buying some baguettes, pate, camembert, olives, ham, salami, baby cheeses,champagne and a chocolate mousse dessert, we ran back to the train station and boarded our train to the Eiffel Tower.

We thought it would be nice to have a picnic in front of the Eiffel Tower, before it was time to make our way up it.

Cheers

Picnic with a view

Once we had all stuffed ourselves silly, we made our way over to the meeting point for the Eiffel Tower climb and collected our tickets.

The view from the top was beautiful, there are building and park lands as far as your eye can see.

View of Paris

We made it!

After mum shouted us a beer to celebrate being together again and for making it to the top 😉

Beer with a view

Once we had finished our beers, taken all the photos that we wanted, we made our way down to ground level again. We then headed over to a fountain where you can get photos with the entire Eiffel Tower in it, so took some more pictures before heading towards the river.

The sun was starting to set, so we decided to wait on dinner and enjoy a river cruise. The cruise line we went with was called Bateaux Mouches and lasted 70 minutes. It  took us up and down the Seine River, pointing out the Notre Dame and other beautiful architecture along the way.

Notre Dame

Tim and I then took the family to a look out where they would get a nice view of the Eiffel Tower and waited for the sparkling lights to start. We then made our way back to our hotel via the Moulin Rogue to have a look.

Packing our backpack, Vicki kindly dropped us at Manchester airport where we were to catch our £19 flights to Paris via Ryan Air.

With Ryan Air, if you are not apart of the EU you need to get a verification stamp at check in, even if you only have carry on luggage. We saw a few couples at the boarding gate be denied flying on this flight because they hadn’t gone and got this stamp, silly really as the people at the boarding gate could check the passports.

Because Ryan Air is a budget airline, you are not assigned seats, so if you wish to sit together it is always a good idea to line up early, especially if the flight is full. Once we were aboard we could see the flight wasn’t fall so we scored a whole row to ourselves.

We landed in Beauvais airport, which is an hour bus ride from Paris. We had used a hotel voucher that we received from the Baltic Cruise so found a nice hotel just outside the city centre to stay in tonight.

The bus to Paris city cost 16€ and the bus was very comfortable, so we caught up on some zzz’s 🙂

Once we arrived in Paris we walked around and took pictures with the Arc de Triomphe, walked down Champs Elysees, grabbed a bite to eat from the local supermarket and walked the 10km to our hotel. Stopping by a great photo opportunity of the Eiffel tower.

We were staying at the Novotel, so a nice hotel, Tim mentioned it was our honeymoon and they upgraded us to the executive suite, the only room in the hotel where you get a front on, clear view of the Eiffel Tower. Mini bar and breakfast was included too, which was great!

Exploring the hotel we went to the roof bar and took in the beautiful view before taking a stroll down the street to grab some bits and pieces for dinner.

Baguette, pate, cheese, olives and salami seemed appropriate, we also bought a bottle of sangria and went back to our room to eat our dinner and wait to watch the tower sparkle every hour well into the night.

Tomorrow my mum, brother, sister and nephew were flying from Australia, so Tim and I had decided to surprise them at the airport early tomorrow morning. I was so excited that I found it hard to sleep, making it a struggle to wake up in the morning.