Our Anniversary- Disneyland, Paris- July 20, 2013

    We were all pretty tired from yesterday at Disney, so we got a slower start this morning.   The girls slept in a little.  By the time we had breakfast, took the bus, and entered Disneyland, it was about twenty minutes after 10:00, so the park was already open.

     Since we had done most of the left side of the park yesterday, we worked our way up the right side of Main Street, exploring it's nooks and crannies.  One alleyway we hadn't seen before had real gas lighting, with the lamps lit.  Then we went to Discoveryland, which is this park's verison of Tomorrowland.  Unlike the familiar white and blue motif, this land takes its decorating cues from Jules Verne stories, and is done in a retro-futuristic green and gold, but it still contains many familiar attractions.  In Discoveryland, we started to head to the lines for the Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast, but it was temporarily down, so after waiting a bit, we left and went to Star Tours instead.  As a result, it was after 11 before we got into our first attraction today.  Star Tours is the Star Wars ride found in other parks, but this one was all in French, and not as bilingual as we remembered it.  Perhaps we stood in the wrong line?  We had started by getting a Fast Pass for Space Mountain, so the three girls went on that.  Actually it's called "Space Mountain: Mission 2," since it's been redone on the inside.  It starts on the outside by blasting the riders from a cannon.  Then, on the inside there are projections of planets and exploding stars and such.  We followed that by going to Captain EO, the Michael Jackson 3-D movie that used to be shown in EPCOT.  Neither Julie or Scott had seen Captain EO before, probably because it was just as Michael Jackson-ish as they expected.  Emma liked it, anyway.  Then, it came time for the Fast Passes we had for Buzz Lightyear, and the ride was operating again.  Unfortunately, Scott had screwed up when he got the passes and only got three, so he sat this one out.

      While the three girls were at Buzz Lightyear, Scott grabbed a table for lunch in the  Café Hyperion.  The eating area here is set up to overlook a stage, where we've seen various things.  Today, we were too far back to see the English kids that were singing, but we could hear them.  We ate and refreshed ourselves.  This morning was a little tense, probably because we're all pushing so hard.  The afternoon was starting to look a little better.

     Emma had been wanting to go to Fantasyland, and she wanted to ride Le Pays des Contes Fées, but it was temporarily stopped.  (That seemed to be happening a lot to us.)  We rode the Casey Jr. circus train while we were waiting, because it is right next to it and circles the ride.   By the time that was done, the boats at Le Pays des Contes Fées were running again.  It's similar to the Storybook boat ride at Disneyland, showing small models of the settings of many famous fairy tales.  It's a nice tribute to many Disney stories all at once, and a gentle, relaxing ride.  From there we went to Les Voyages de Pinocchio and Blance-Neige et les Sept Nains, which are known as The Voyages of Pinocchio and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in other parks.   We saw the giant dragon that lives under Sleeping Beauty's Castle, and went browsing in stores along the way.  Then, we went through the Aladdin walkthrough.  Along the way, Scott ended up with apples in his pants, since the plastic bag of slices that we were saving from lunch for Emma broke in his pockets.

     It felt like a good time drinks and refreshments in Adventureland.  While we were cooling off, Julie said that there were three things that this park did better than the others.  First, she likes the Haunted Mansion (aka Phantom Manor, here), because it seems longer and shows more of a narrative on the ride.  Second, she likes the Alice and Wonderland labyrinth which is unique to this park, we think.   Most, she love the Pirates of the Caribbean, largely because of the evocative area that surrounds it called Pirates' Beach.  After lunch, we took some time to explore that pirate area, including the pirate's floating ship itself and "Skull Rock" which is shaped like the Skull Rock from "Peter Pan."   That put Julie in the mood for Pirates of the Caribbean again, and Emma agreed to go back on it, even though she listed it as her "low" yesterday.

   Partly because it's our anniversary and partly because we have a tradition of getting at least one picture of the entire family when we're at a Disney Park, Scott talked the group into getting a picture with Mickey Mouse.  There is a special place to do that in Fantasyland.  Even though there was more than a half hour wait, we watched Mickey cartoons in the queueing area while we waited and cooled down.  After meeting Mickey again, we continued our anniversary celebration with dinner at Au Chalet du Marionette, a Pinocchio themed restaurant in Fantasyland, that is also vaguely Bavarian.

     We talked about doing some other things while we ate dinner, but it was about 7:00 and our list of things that we HAD to do seemed to keep getting shorter and shorter.  Already we decided that it wasn't worth pushing all the way to 11:00 to see the fireworks because we've got real trains to catch tomorrow and packing to do at the hotel.  We had Fast Passes for the Indiana Jones ride, but decided not to use them.  We took the Disneyland Railroad for a circumnavigation of the park, starting in Fantasyland.  It relaxed us all so much that it seemed to make sense to go back to the hotel.  We let the girls do some shopping and actually bought some things for them.  Emma got the "Leroy" stuffed animal that she has been saying she wanted for her birthday to go with the Stitch and Angel that she bought on her own.  We were talking about shipping it back to surprise her, but figured she's too smart and it was easier just to get it for her here.  Anna got the figures from "Monsters University."  While the girls shopped, Scott went to pick up pictures.  He got the shot of us from the Pirates of the Caribbean, and accidentally bought a frame for it too since he didn't realize how the pricing worked, but it was a good idea for an anniversary present for Julie.  We got picked up our picture with Mickey as well, near the front gate, and headed back to the hotel.  It was about 8:30 when we left Disney.