Day 1 - CDG, Disnelyland Paris and Val D'Europe

We landed at Charles de Gaulle airport at 0800 Paris time (that's 0200 Eastern). Our flight left Toronto at 1900 Eastern the night before. About an hour in to the flight we were served dinner. We had the choice of chicken or pasta. Peggy and I both opted for the pasta and it was pretty good. The brownie for dessert was fantastic! Drinks were also served and then the entire cabin needed to be cleaned up. This took up the first 2-2.5 hours of the 7 hour flight.

Then we had some downtime. I spent most of that time watching episodes of Big Bang Theory and an interesting documentary titled Last Man On The Moon about Gene Cernan. Peggy did the smart thing and took a nap. The flight attendants passed through the cabin a few more times offerring drinks and water. Around the 6 hour mark they started serving breakfast which woke everyone up...this was the equivalent of 0100 Eastern (after a full day of travelling).

When we landed we took our time deplaing (mostly because we had switched our seats (row 52) with two people (sitting in row 22) who were travelling with the person sitting next to us in row 52. This meant we had carryon baggage stowed around row 52, but spent the flight at row 22. Upon arrival it was like a trout swimming against the rest of the school trying to go from row 22 to 52. We then went through passport control, which was surprisingly efficient and easy. We gathered our checked luggage and proceeded to the main terminal to wait for our private transfer.

Our driver arrived around 1100 Paris time to pick us up. He was a friendly South African transplated to France via London by love who is named of Chris. It was nice to have a spacious van and personal conversation for the 45 minute drive from the airport to Disneyland Paris.


We arrived at the hotel, checked in, and immediately went in search of lunch (after FaceTiming with our sons at approximately 0645 Eastern). We went to Disney Village, the Disneyland Paris equivalent of Downtown Disney and had a tasty sandwich and fries from a small sandwich stand. We then got in line for the expo...at about 1400 Paris time...which didn't open until 1500. The line was already a hundred or so people long and grew behind us and around the corner until 1500.

We went straight to the Disney official race merchandise booth and purchased some souveniers. We then spent the next several hours picking up our bibs, getting our Castle to Chateau wristbands and checking out the vendors (many of whom travelled from America) at the expo. After the expo we ventured to Val D'Europe via the RER train. It's only one stop away, but it proved to be quite a challenge (especially the return trip) since it felt like 1400 Eastern with little to no sleep since the day before.

We went to a grocery store and a small corner bakery to gather dinner and dessert in Val D'Europe. We successfully, eventually, navigated back to our hotel and we're settling in for the night now while waiting to talk with our sons after school (approximately 2230 Paris time).

Tomorrow we're headed to Disneyland Park which is open from 1000 to 2200 (with 0800-1000 available as extra magic hours to those staying on property).

Bonsoir de Paris!

-Sean