Eurostar trip from Paris to London
We woke up bright and early the next morning. If you stay in a Disney hotel, you are allowed to enter the parks 1 hour before the general public. Since we were heading to London later that day, we wanted to spend a few hours in the park.
We had the hotel hold our luggage for us. Here is another traveling with autism tip. Travel as light as possible. Things can get a bit chaotic with any travel. Add to that if you are traveling overseas and things and/or people can get lost in the shuffle. We traveled with carry on luggage only and were so glad we did. It made train travel so much easier!
The lobby.
Disney Hotel New York
We got to the park a bit early, so had to line up at the gate. We were actually the 2nd group in line. The guy in front of us was a very chatty French Disney fanatic. He said his dream was to travel to America to go to the Disney parks. We said our dream was to travel to Europe.
A semi-empty Main Street
We headed straight for Space Mountain, which had been converted to Hyper Space Mountain, a Star Wars themed ride. We walked all the way up to the area where you board the ride vehicles before an employee informed everyone that the ride was closed. How annoying! Let me say that this was the one thing that we did not like about Disneyland Paris. It is frustrating how they don't keep guests informed on ride closures or restaurant hours. They just do not give a care. It would be nice to have signs posted at the entrance to let you know that something is closed, rather than have you snake all the way through a long queue to discover that a ride is closed. We wasted time. Sadly, the ride never opened while we were there, so we missed it.
Hands down, Disneyland Paris has the best castle.
There is a cool balcony that you can walk out to get a panoramic view of Fantasyland.
We paid another visit to the dragon under the castle.
We were pretty hungry, so we decided to have some breakfast. We had meal vouchers for breakfast and lunch. For breakfast we decided to try Cafe Hyperion
We had our choice of savory or sweet. This was the sweet. The only difference was the type of croissant.
One of the things we were worried about was eating the food in France. I mentioned before that people with autism are not always adventurous with their eating habits. But we gently nudged them to try. Nik loved French cheese.
Noah was a bit apprehensive, as you can see. But he did end up eating it.
Time for more rides! We had a 3pm train, so we wanted to squeeze in as many rides as possible.
The Star Wars attraction had a cool store!
We were able to get on multiple rides during the first hour because only resort guests had access to the park. But some of the rides are only available once the park opens for all guests. Big Thunder Mountain is one of those rides. Ones the park opened for everyone, we made a bee line right to Big Thunder Mountain.
It was a mob scene! We made it to the line and people were pushing and shoving. It was actually a bit scary. Alex and I both had the kids in a tight hold so we didn't lose them. We did see one lost kid who was crying. But a testament to how awesome people could be, they passed that kid down the line, screaming out until the parent got to him. It was awesome to see people come together.
I can safely say that this ride is one of my favorite rides in any Disney park. It was crazy fast with lots of dips and turns. We had so much fun and it was worth the wait!
We went over to Disney Studios to try to ride Crush's Coaster. Wait, another mob scene!
3 hour wait, you say? Nevermind! It was hot, and we didn't have that kind of time.
We really wanted to try the Ratatouille ride, but it was a 2 hour wait. At first we got in the line and said we would end our day with that. But then we noticed the 30 minute single rider line. We discussed the pros and cons. A big con was the fact that we had 2 special needs kids and none of us spoke French. In the end we decided to throw caution to the wind and got in the single rider line. Thankfully, the kids were put in the same car, with Alex and I riding in separate cars behind them. It was a great ride and I'm glad we gave it a try.
We made our way around the park to take pictures and decided to head back next door to Disneyland.
Noah and Walt!
It was lunch time and we still had 4 meal vouchers, so decided to do lunch before heading to Paris. Back to Hyperion Cafe!
Yoda cupcake!
Nik gave it a thumbs up!
We walked through Alice's Curious Labyrinth as we headed out.
Disneyland Paris was great, but we probably needed another day to get to try more rides.
We caught an Uber in to Paris.
Before long, we were in the Eurostar station waiting to board our train.
Snack time!
This was a much more enjoyable Eurostar ride. By this time, we were less jetlagged.
The kids enjoyed watching movies.
The lady you can see in the back enjoyed movies as well, because she peeked in between the seats.
A couple hours later we arrived in St. Pancras. This time I didn't come close to fainting!
We cleared customs and headed to the tube to get to our hotel.
First stop was the local Waitrose grocery store for some essentials.
Our hotel was just a few blocks away from the South Kensington tube station.
Our hotel, Citadines South Kensington!
The room was perfect for us, because it was a 1 bedroom suite. The kids had a full size sleeper sofa.
There was a tv for them to watch. We got to watch the latest Doctor Who episode!
Across from the living room was a small table and chairs, and kitchenette with microwave, fridge and stove top.
There was a second floor with bathroom and bedroom with additional tv.
Peek-a-boo, Noah!
Our view.
It had been another long day, so we just chilled out in our room. Tomorrow, London awaits!
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