The Log Dog Blog: Disneyland Paris: Day 2

We arrived at about 8:45 am, and from the train station, it is about a five-minute walk to the Disneyland Hotel. As we approached the hotel, "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" was playing, which is one of our favorite Disney songs and it seemed like further evidence that our bad luck was behind us!

The hotel itself is absolutely beautiful. Before we even checked in, I had taken more photos than I care to admit!

As I mentioned in the previous post, we had purchased a package (room and park tickets), so essentially we already had a room from the previous night, even though we had not been there to check in on time. On the upside, that meant our room was immediately available and we could go straight to breakfast (also included as part of our package). On the downside, I was a little less than pleased with our interaction with the cast member at the front desk, who, with no prompting or questioning from us, told us, "We can't refund the cost of the night you missed."

This leads me to a bit of a pet peeve of mine: People using the word "can't" when they really should use the word "won't." Because of course you CAN, you just refuse to.

Just be straight with me. "We won't refund the cost of the missed night because that is our policy." Fine. I will accept that even if I don't like it. But don't say you "can't."

This happens all the time in restaurants. I've been a vegetarian for almost 21 years. If I ask, "Can I substitute fruit for the bacon," don't tell me, "We can't do that." Because obviously, yes, you CAN do it, you just WON'T do it.

VERY annoying.

If your policy dictates that something will not be done, just explain that. But don't say you "can't" do something when essentially, for whatever reason, you are simply refusing to do it.

But I digress…

We got our room keys and park tickets and headed toward our room. On the way, we ran into Goofy, who was walking toward us. This is one of the things we really like about the Disneyland Hotel here - it is easy to see some of the characters because they walk around and people aren't nuts about them the way they are in the parks. Goofy came right up to us – first he gave me a hug, then pointed out my sweatshirt (it has the two stars from Peter Pan on it) and mimed flying around, then he hugged C, stole his hat, put it on his nose, and began running away from us! Pretty hilarious! I didn't have my phone ready, so this was the best photo I got because I was scrambling and fumbling as he was kidding around with us and all of the other photos were wildly out of focus!

When we got to our room, we were pretty impressed…we are on the ground floor with a very large, fairly private terrace, and it is awesome. We later counted the steps from the exit of Disneyland to the door of our room and it was only 110 steps. Seriously! 110 steps!

We went to breakfast before heading over to Disneyland and I just have to say that even though we haven't been to Hong Kong or Shanghai yet, the castle here, Le Chateau de La Belle au Bois Dormant (Sleeping Beauty Castle), is my favorite. It is so amazingly beautiful. I just want to stare at it for hours at a time.

We spent a couple of hours just wandering around the park, refamiliarizing ourselves with everything. We rode Peter Pan's Flight, which, in addition to the PeopleMover and Carousel of Progress, is one of my all-time favorite attractions. On this version, there are two rows of seats in each ride vehicle, which is great for families, but as a couple, I don't care for it because you have to ride with strangers. Aside from that, of course I loved it!

We had obviously had a very long couple of days, so we went back to our room to have a nap. We slept until dinner time and then went back to Disneyland in hopes of catching the parade because I'd seen some photos on Instagram and I knew Slinky was in the parade. Well, we didn't arrive early enough to get a good spot, and from what we could see, it was a little underwhelming, especially after having seen Paint the Night at Disneyland in Anaheim. We decided to abandon the parade idea and instead went to Pirates of the Caribbean, which is very well done here.

Disneyland closed at 7 pm, so we stayed for the fireworks and castle projection show, "Disney Illuminations." I didn't like it as much as the "Disney Dreams!" nighttime show we saw on our last trip, but it was still very good!

After Disneyland, we walked over to Disney Village (similar to Disney Springs) to grab some dinner at Earl of Sandwich and wander through the shops, and then we ended the night at Café Fantasia, which is the bar in the Disneyland Hotel. I absolutely love it there! It has a musical theme and the décor is wonderful! There is also a live pianist at certain hours and he is amazing! The best moment, though, was when Mickey and Minnie were just outside the bar walking around and Minnie spotted me trying to take their photo and she grabbed Mickey bar the arm and led him to our table and they posed for me! SOOOOOOO cute!