A tale of two cities… and a few other places… COMPLETED - Page 11 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Hop picking?! Ummm, ok. At least you didn't cram your car full of water bottles for this road trip, right?!
Well, in fairness, we were only going for a couple of days, not a couple of weeks and we would be in a big city where we could easily get more supplies.
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Still love this whole car on the train thing.
Hey, if you plan on coming back again for a future Disneyland Paris race, we'll have to see what we can work out for you to do it... just not next year, as we'll be on the Magic in September 2018.
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Love the little towns on the country roads. But the WW2 place is heartbreaking. Just heartbreaking. Truly makes one feel lucky to be alive today in our part of the world, despite the current issues ongoing.
Very well said.
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I had to google why it's called the Disney bomb. I'd never heard of it before! (unless it was mentioned at the Disney Family Museum and I've since forgotten....)
No, it definitely wasn't mentioned at the Disney Family Museum. I had to Google it as well.
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Not sure I could have gone on like you did in the dome. I would have asked for an exit. There's only so much one can tolerate, that's beyond my limit!
There was a lot we didn't see. It's a shame, as we'd seen the signs for this place for so long on so many trips to France and it wasn't what either of us expected. We thought it would be a bit more like the first place we visited, so I was disappointed in a way...
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The village and the cows are much easier to take on. Such a shame so many bad things happened on such peaceful grounds. Beautiful monument. The names listed makes your heart skip a beat though.
Definitely!
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I can see how the area around CDG was confusing. In my ever being prepared, I was looking at hotels in the area too (in case of flight cancellations or whatever) and the map was indeed confusing! You chose the right hotel though for the views!
So you flew into Charles de Gaulle - how did you find it? You'll find out what happened with Jan very shortly, but I'd be interested to hear your experiences....
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Nice room and hotel and love the lobby! The view is quite good too as I enjoyed that when I stayed at the Orlando Airport Hyatt prior to my cruise with a nice view of the tarmac!
I was very impressed with our stay there a few years ago.
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That is weird what was outside your door as room service staff can be a bit laxed picking things up. It wouldn;t of been bad now, if the bottle was full!
I'm back! Quite overwhelmed seeing how many pages of your TR's I need to catch up on!
Sorry about that!
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Caught up on this one. I guess being married to a rocket scientist, I've know all about Warner Von Braun. I can only assume some of the thought in the US taking him is was that you'd rather have someone like that working FOR you rather than against you.....
I would imagine that formed part of their thinking....
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The hotel reminds me a little of the Hyatt at MCO - just in terms of the views maybe?
Yes, I can definitely see that....
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That trip through war history would have done me in. So important to remember the past, but emotionally draining to be sure.
We met a couple who live in Dunkirk on the Magic last week! They said tourism there is all of a sudden going nuts. No doubt thanks to the movie from this summer.
Oh of course! Until you mentioned the movie, I was like "why? it's not a major anniversary this year - i.e. 60 years etc." That makes sense.
Saturday 16 September – part nine: testing out the Skylight….
We headed down to the lobby and into the Skylight Restaurant – can you guess why it’s called this?
It was deserted when we arrived, but my goodness, it filled up continuously as we had our dinner, and by the time we left, it was really busy. I can see why, as the food was excellent – expensive, but I could see why.
I must admit that did get me wondering just what this place would be like, however we didn’t need to worry. The prices matched both the flavour and the presentation of the dishes, as you’ll see in a second. I was also pleasantly surprised by the fact that, as a non-meat eater, I had a couple of choices for both appetiser and entrée. It’s not often that happens. In fact, I think I had a greater choice than Mark, in terms of if he was just looking at meat options.
For appetiser, I went for the chanterelle mushrooms, ravioli, and a sherry vinegar emulsion, and look what arrived!
Wow. The flavours were superb, and I adored the emulsion, which was a pleasant surprise to me, as I’m not a huge fan of vinegar, but I couldn’t taste any vinegar in it at all.
However, Mark did better than me. He ordered the pineapple tomatoes with burrata mozzarella, which intrigued me, given the use of the word pineapple in this dish. I had no idea what it meant, but I wasn’t surprised when this turned up…
Mark was pretty shocked, but I figured the tomatoes would have to be yellow, otherwise why refer to pineapple? The mozzarella, in case you’re wondering, was inside the tomato. Very clever! I tried a bite of it, and it was very nice, although ridiculously cold. It had obviously only just come out of the fridge. I wouldn’t have wanted this, as I’d have wanted it to be more at room temperature.
For entrée, I went for the roasted red mullet with prawns, and an orange fennel confit. It was very good, but again, the confit was ridiculously cold, which then meant the mullet was cold every time I put it with that. At one point, I had to check whether the fish was cooked, that’s how much impact it had on the temperature. It was, but it just didn’t feel like it. It was a shame, because that detracted from an otherwise perfect dish.
Mark had the 21 days matured charolais beef fillet with mashed potatoes, and my goodness the presentation of this dish was appalling. Good grief, compared to what else we’d seen this meal, not impressive!
For dessert, I really surprised Mark by not going for the raspberry macaroon with lime mousseline. I know, I know, but raspberry’s not my favourite flavour, and I wasn’t sure about the lime in the dish, so instead I played safe and went for the orange blossom crème brulee, which was one of the best I’ve ever had.
Mark settled on the red fruits platter with Brittany shortbread. I didn’t want to risk it, given I’m allergic to cherries and it didn’t say what fruits were in it, but there weren’t any to be seen…
All in all, it was an excellent meal. The atmosphere here was lovely, very peaceful, and not like any airport hotel we’ve stayed in before. Usually they’re busy places, and there’s a constant buzz, but not here. It was so nice and quiet, and honestly you wouldn’t have a clue you were at an airport at all.
Skylight Restaurant:
Appetiser 9 9½
Entrée 9 8
Dessert 9½ 9
Service 8 8
Atmosphere 9½ 8½
Value for money 8½ 9
Average score: 8.79
Once we were done eating, we headed up to the room, and it wasn’t long before we were in bed. We’d have an early start in the morning to meet Jan off her flight!
The weather today was cloudy with some rain and a bit of sun with temperatures in the mid 50s. The best thing today was seeing the Thiepval memorial. The worst thing today was the disrespectful people at the memorial. Today we tried going to La Coupole And the result was it was a really heart wrenching place to visit. The most magical moment today was getting our first view of the V1 and V2 factory at La Couple – just jaw dropping. Yes, it’s weird to call it magical, but it was in a very bizarre way….
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To answer your question - yes, CDG. It's a huge airport, that's for sure. I flew in/out of 2A and Amy flew in/out of 2E. I made the long walk between the terminals both times. It's an average airport, nothing remarkable about it at all. The middle section with the train was insane though. So crowded, lines everywhere, I couldn't figure out anything, but that's ok. I was glad we weren't taking the train! (We took the Disney shuttle bus) And that's just terminal 2. Didn't even see 1 or 3! Yeah, it's huge.
Anyway, your dinner looked delicious! So glad it was nice for a hotel restaurant. There are a few that we return to every year too for my daughters gymnastics meets. It's nice when a hotel has a good restaurant.
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That dinner looked exceptional for an airport hotel. But then again, miss, this is France!
Too bad, though, about the overly cold aspects of each dish. Very few things taste as good as they could if they're still that cold.
To answer your question - yes, CDG. It's a huge airport, that's for sure. I flew in/out of 2A and Amy flew in/out of 2E. I made the long walk between the terminals both times.
Jan flew into 2E and just walking around that was crazy. I couldn't believe how big it was... and then there was the rest of the terminal. We did see a bit of terminal 3 and that didn't look very big at all. I think terminal 2 is the huge one of the three...
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It's an average airport, nothing remarkable about it at all. The middle section with the train was insane though. So crowded, lines everywhere, I couldn't figure out anything, but that's ok.
Thankfully the train was ok, the least of our problems that day at the airport.
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I was glad we weren't taking the train! (We took the Disney shuttle bus) And that's just terminal 2. Didn't even see 1 or 3! Yeah, it's huge.
Anyway, your dinner looked delicious! So glad it was nice for a hotel restaurant. There are a few that we return to every year too for my daughters gymnastics meets. It's nice when a hotel has a good restaurant.
I'd definitely go back there on a return visit to Paris. Actually, I'd go back to the hotel again....
I love the atrium upon entering the restaurant. Looks like a great meal but too bad some of the things were way to cold. With Mark's entree they should have done a better job by not putting the two dishes on his plate. Not the thing to do!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
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Sunday 17 September – part one: where’s the train station?
Neither of us had a great night’s sleep. Mark had felt as if he’d got a sore throat for a while now, and it seems it started to manifest itself in the night. I have no idea what woke me up – maybe it was him coughing - but I remember sitting upright in the middle of the night, and of course that was it, I was awake.
I was at least asleep when the alarm went off at 6:00am. Jan’s flight was due to land at 7:50am, so we both got going, and headed downstairs for breakfast. My goodness, it was a nightmare with the lifts. We think only one was running at that point, although during breakfast, we saw a second one moving as well. We turned up, and there wasn’t room in the lift – well, there probably was, as Mark observed, just no-one wanted to move up to let us in. We got the second one, and thankfully we were at the back of the lift, as more and more and more people piled in. We couldn’t believe the final guy who got in with his hand luggage. There just wasn’t room for him and how the lift doors shut without trapping him, I do not know!
We headed into breakfast, and it looked as if they had a great selection…
However, it didn’t taste that good. I had some cheese – no issues there – but the choc au pain was only Ok and the bread I had with honey was stodgy to say the least. I saw Mark’s hot food offerings, which including creamy scrambled egg (not my favourite) and baked beans with onions and green bits in. No thank you!
We did see what looked like a general in some form of Army at breakfast, but as there was security around him, I didn’t think taking a photo was a good plan.
We headed back to our room to brush our teeth….
… and then headed out, knowing Jan’s plane had landed a little early. “A good start”, I thought. Oh my, was I wrong thinking that!
We walked over to terminal 3…
Now this is where I understood from the Charles de Gaulle airport website that was where you picked up the train. Stupidly, I decided to cut through the bus station. If we’d walked around the outside, we’d have seen the signs that pointed to the station. It’s fair to say things got a little heated when we got to terminal 3, and I couldn’t find the station anywhere. What the? I was getting so worked up, as I did not want Jan turning up in Paris and us not there to meet her.
We found our way back to the station, which was very impressive, and thankfully very close to the Hilton, which would be good for going into Paris later…
We headed on to the CDGVAL, which is the airport shuttle between terminals, and we made our way into terminal 2. Oh my goodness, terminal 3 was tiny compared to this monstrosity! I had a feeling it would be big, as the website talked about 2A – 2F, and I was right.
Glad Jan's plane landed early and nice views from the room. CDG airport is definitely tough to navigate!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
Of all the airports I’ve been to in the world, I think CDG has been the worst. I landed there at about 2 am, maybe from India (can’t recall), and had a 5 hour layover before my flight home. The part we were in didn’t even have seats, and nothing was open. Which is fair at most aiports. But there were LOADS of flights coming in at that time, and all I wanted was some water, and a bite to eat. Nothing. And I was so tired, I may have even started to cry at one point!
Anyway, glad you found the train, but I can imagine feeling a bit stressed wanting to make sure Jan knew you were there!
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Truly makes one feel lucky to be alive today in our part of the world, despite the current issues ongoing.
So you flew into Charles de Gaulle - how did you find it? You'll find out what happened with Jan very shortly, but I'd be interested to hear your experiences....
The view is quite good too as I enjoyed that when I stayed at the Orlando Airport Hyatt prior to my cruise with a nice view of the tarmac! 
Until you mentioned the movie, I was like "why? it's not a major anniversary this year - i.e. 60 years etc." That makes sense.
In fact, I think I had a greater choice than Mark, in terms of if he was just looking at meat options. 
I tried a bite of it, and it was very nice, although ridiculously cold. It had obviously only just come out of the fridge. I wouldn’t have wanted this, as I’d have wanted it to be more at room temperature. 
- but I remember sitting upright in the middle of the night, and of course that was it, I was awake. 
I saw Mark’s hot food offerings, which including creamy scrambled egg (not my favourite) and baked beans with onions and green bits in. No thank you! 
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