Points make Paris... TRIP REPORT COMPLETED 6/29 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
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Welcome to this trip report - if you haven't read the pre-trip report with some live updates from during our visit, you can find it here.
Friday 29 April – part one: where’s our text message… and where are they going?
I’m officially starting this the day before we actually headed out, as I didn’t have a chance to write this up to go into the pre-trip report.
We went round to Sara and Tom’s on Wednesday night to have our hair cut, as she’s a hairdresser – I can’t remember if I mentioned that or not before. If I’m repeating myself, my apologies. Anyway, it was like a cloak and dagger exercise, as of course Daisy still didn’t know anything about it, although everyone else did. I rang her the night before to check that she was still fine with the time we’d booked and to discuss things with her, although while I could speak freely, obviously she couldn’t. I suggested maybe Daisy would need a bath or would have to go out with her dad, so that we could all talk freely…
And so it came to pass that suddenly Daisy did urgently need a bath and we had a few minutes to talk freely. This was really important, as we hadn’t even agreed where and when we’d be meeting in just two days’ time! Sara would be picking Daisy up from school at 1:00pm, having told her she’d be having a blood test. How wonderfully evil is that? In fact, Daisy was even in tears at the prospect. I will just say here she does actually need one, so Sara wasn’t stretching the truth that much, before you think she’s a truly terrible mother… she’s definitely not.
Barb and Dave are going to drive over for 1:00pm and wait in a bus stop that’s literally just down the road from us, as Daisy’s school is near where we live. The plan is that they’ll then stop at ours a few hundred yards up the road, and we’ll head off from there. We’re booked on the 2:50pm Eurotunnel train and have to be booked in at 2:20pm, so that should give us plenty of time to get there, given it’s about a half hour run. We didn’t get much further than that as we were worried a pair of little ears might turn up at any minute and we can discuss anything else on Friday, once the secret has been revealed….
I also had a look to see whether there were any Disneyland Paris apps available and I found the official one, which has wait times, very useful. I also found another app that’s not official, but still does wait times, and let’s just say they didn’t entirely tie up… The Disneyland Paris one showed much shorter wait times, which somehow didn’t surprise me. After all, if you want to encourage people to go to the parks, you don’t want to show them long waits, now do you?
Something else that was very interesting and that I patently missed was the fact that Disneyland Paris now has Photopass+ and apparently has done since mid-2014. Ok, so that was one passed me by then… Considering we were last there in November 2014, I don’t remember seeing anything during our trip about it at all, so maybe they just weren’t promoting it.
I now have the app and a login, after discovering my standard login didn’t work. Of course it didn’t. They have a European site that’s totally different from the American one. Figures! We’ll see how prominent Disneyland Paris Photopass photographers are this trip before deciding. Equally, the weather isn’t looking too promising, with rain all day Saturday, which may mean less shots. You can’t actually buy Photopass+ anyway until you get to the parks, which is a little odd. It’s definitely not the same system as they operate in the States…
Ok, so let’s fast forward to Thursday night, when we picked up Barb’s scooter, as we’re bringing it back with us, as they’re then heading on to their villa in Spain. Now we understood we were leaving at around 1:15pm, which was fine with us, given we’d both be working until midday. Apparently not. Dave informed us they were going round to Sara’s at 12:45pm, and there was no way either of us would make it back from work in time, so as soon as I got in, I informed everyone I was leaving at 11:30am. They were all very jealous when I told them where we were going – and more so, when I told them where we were staying! I took the opportunity to plug DVC membership, as we’d never be able to do this without it…
I was the last one back, just after midday, as I stopped to fill up the car on the way home. She had about a third of a tank left, but I figured it would save us having to stop on the way down through France. The price of petrol is, I think, roughly the same. When we had a diesel car, it was a massive saving to fill up in France, but I’m not sure that’s the case now with petrol.
We quickly got the rest of the stuff loaded in the car. I had said I’d do it this morning, but someone told me they’d packed everything. Well, let’s just say their idea of packing was laying everything down in front of the suitcase!
We were outside and waiting on our driveway at the appointed time of 12:45pm. Time ticked by, and we kept checking for the text message we were supposed to have, confirming everyone else was on their way down to us. Nothing…
Ok…
Hmmm….
At one point, we thought we saw Mark’s parents, but they headed off in a different direction, which was a bit alarming, and we didn’t see them again.
Finally we saw Sara heading over to the school to pick Daisy up. Ok, so where on earth are Dave and Barb? This is getter curiouser and curiouser by the minute…
I passed the time by taking some photos of the sky. I was fascinated by how square this cloud looked…
Eventually, about 1:10pm, Sara, Tom and the kids arrived, and told us Dave and Barb had forgotten their sat nav (GPS) and had gone home to get it. They told us to drive, and we’d meet them at the motorway services, so we set off…
Just as we got to the motorway, Sara rang us to say the plans had changed, and we were now going to catch Dave and Barb up, as apparently they were already on the motorway and in front of us. Her words were “they’ll stay in the slow lane”. Now we took this to mean they’d been pottering along at maybe 60 miles an hour (the speed limit over here is 70), so we’d catch them up in a few minutes. Not a bit of it!
Eventually, getting concerned at where on earth Dave and Barb were, and whether we’d got the right end of the stick, we rang Sara back, and she said they were “just ahead of us”. Well, we couldn’t see them. It must’ve taken us about 20 minutes to catch them up, and the journey from ours to the Eurotunnel terminal only takes about half an hour. At one point, we were concerned that perhaps we wouldn’t see them until we got to the terminal.
I took some photos as we drove along…
… and couldn’t resist getting a photo of this!
Mark told me he’d have preferred me to get a photo of the bikini clad woman on the side of the lorry, who was also holding a frying pan. Sorry, missed her! Ooops…
LOL Don't you just love making arrangements with family.
I hear you on the husband packing skills. I do all the packing which is a fault as I discovered when I left Scotland before mine and he came back here with none of the stuff he should have.
I'm mentally driving that road with you I have done it so many times. We used to always meet at those services too
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Oh my. Good thing for phones and you can all just call/text each other to figure out where to meet; that's quite a confusing way to start your trip!
The truck picture does look amusing though. I guess that's supposed to make you want to cook more in the kitchen.....
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What a confusing start. I hope you find everyone at some point. Love the truck picture. I guess I have another example of how spoiled I am as Ed does all of his packing and rarely forgets anything. Can't wait to read more of your adventure.
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Waiting for our next adventure after enjoying our Alaska cruise. Jenn
LOL Don't you just love making arrangements with family.
Well, it was certainly a new experience for me!
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I hear you on the husband packing skills. I do all the packing which is a fault as I discovered when I left Scotland before mine and he came back here with none of the stuff he should have.
Oh my goodness!
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I'm mentally driving that road with you I have done it so many times. We used to always meet at those services too
I was thinking of you on the way over and how you used to do that drive, but a heck of a lot further than us...
What a confusing start. I hope you find everyone at some point. Love the truck picture. I guess I have another example of how spoiled I am as Ed does all of his packing and rarely forgets anything.
Sorry if I missed that out - they told her when she came out of school, only her reaction wasn't quite what they'd expected, but more of that to come....
I was thinking of you on the way over and how you used to do that drive, but a heck of a lot further than us...
This reminds me of a funny story about us. We met at that service station once for food and toilet before the tunnel. Graeme and Peter got there before us shouting about being brilliant etc. When we left they left first and promptly took the London turn off on the roundabout (we were going to the tunnel!!!!) Gemma and I just drove to the tunnel and were still laughing our heads off at how brilliant they were 40 minutes later when they got there.
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I suggested maybe Daisy would need a bath or would have to go out with her dad, so that we could all talk freely… 
Sara would be picking Daisy up from school at 1:00pm, having told her she’d be having a blood test. How wonderfully evil is that? 
In fact, Daisy was even in tears at the prospect. I will just say here she does actually need one, so Sara wasn’t stretching the truth that much, before you think she’s a truly terrible mother… she’s definitely not. 
and we can discuss anything else on Friday, once the secret has been revealed…. 
I also found another app that’s not official, but still does wait times, and let’s just say they didn’t entirely tie up… 
Ok, so that was one passed me by then… Considering we were last there in November 2014, I don’t remember seeing anything during our trip about it at all, so maybe they just weren’t promoting it. 
We’ll see how prominent Disneyland Paris Photopass photographers are this trip before deciding. Equally, the weather isn’t looking too promising, with rain all day Saturday, which may mean less shots. You can’t actually buy Photopass+ anyway until you get to the parks, which is a little odd. It’s definitely not the same system as they operate in the States… 
Ok, so where on earth are Dave and Barb? This is getter curiouser and curiouser by the minute… 
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I guess that's supposed to make you want to cook more in the kitchen.....
Waiting for our next adventure after enjoying our Alaska cruise. 
Jenn
they told her when she came out of school, only her reaction wasn't quite what they'd expected, but more of that to come.... 
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