What makes you walk 27,000 steps or almost 19 kilometers (11.8 miles)? Well, since I saw loads of mice this past weekend the answer is Disney Paris!
Due to the fact that my dear, sweet husband couldn’t think of anything to get me this year for my birthday (apparently everyone had a VERY hard time shopping for me for Sinterklaas as well) and we needed to be down in Tilburg to consult with my surgeon for liposuction on my stomach next year, I mentioned that we’re only about 4 hours away from Paris. We might as well drive on to Paris after the consultation…
Needless to say, my husband grabbed the chance (especially since Disney Paris was having a 2 parks for the price of 1 deal) and we headed to Disney!
And this is why I hate travelling through France…
Way back in 2006, when I’d only been living in the Netherlands for about 6 months, my husband took me camping in France. Now, something you need to realize is going to France for your 3 week summer vacation is what the dutch do. It doesn’t matter if you stay in a bungalow at a holiday park, camp, or honor the age old tradition of stopping up the dutch motor ways by bringing your caravan… the dutch LOVE going to Southern France. My inlaws do it yearly with their caravan, my husband and sister in law did it as kids, their parents did it as kids, and I’m sure my inlaw’s parents did it as kids.
It’s important to the dutchies to be able to bake in the sun for 3 weeks since it’s usually MIA in the Netherlands 360 days of the year.
Anyways, we were tight on money but my husband still wanted to share France with me so we loaded the car up with a tent and sleeping bags and off we went.
Somewhere on the national highway I had to pee, so we stopped and I was confronted with the hole in the floor.
I can’t squat and pee without getting it all over myself. This was never a life skill taught to me by my parents. Worse of all NOBODY told me that I could run across this in France! So at that time since I really had to freakin pee, I did what any other American woman who can’t squat and pee would do. I got out of my shorts and underpants (I had flip flops on and I had spied a hose outside, probably for all the stupid foreigners that can’t squat and pee) and did my business. Then I squirted my feet off with a water bottle then proceeded to go out and clean myself up.
After that I spent a good 10 minutes yelling at my then boyfriend for not warning me what to expect. The fact that he was laughing his ass off at my reaction didn’t help.
Now, if you’re wondering if I used this abomination the answer is HELL FUCKING NO! I knew that this was a possibility so I planned my own pee breaks at proper rest stops on the way.
However, I reiterate, WTF french people, WTF!?
Disney Paris time! Lets hurry up and wait!!
This trip we didn’t stay at any of the Disney hotels. We decided to stay at the CitizenM near the Paris airport (we love the CitizenM, it’s where I stay for my surgeries in Rotterdam) which was only a 30 minute drive to Disney Paris The only downside of course is you have to pay for parking at the hotel AND pay another 20 euro to park at Disney but hey ho. We knew this trip wasn’t really going to be cheap.
So we left for the park at about 8:30 in the morning, stopping at a gas station cafe somewhere along the way for breakfast. This is one thing I do like about France (I do travel through France a lot going to the UK by Ferry), no matter where you stop, gas station cappuccino and croissants will be good. The French seem to love their coffee and pastries so that’s always a sure bet.
And in the cappuccino, they use real cream. The dutch, who are also coffee freaks, could really learn from this. No, really, they can.
This put us at the Disney Paris parking lot at about 9:45 and then we had to make our way to the security gates (it’s just like airport security, really sad that the world has come
to this). One thing I did notice while we took the 15 minute walk from the parking lot to security, large masses of people FORGET how to put one foot in front of another. I really hate large crowds and even the “happiest place on earth” didn’t stop me from wanting to clothes line that person that just randomly stops walking that’s in front of you.
It took another 30 or so minutes to get through security. Unlike the masses, we did not bring a stroller. We did not have back packs. We didn’t have diaper bags, big ass bags on wheels, or any other type of large, questionable objects that needed to go through x-ray. We only brought what would fit in our pockets and we still stood in line forever. I can tell you one thing, before surgeries I wouldn’t have held up very well. I don’t think I could have done that much standing around OR dealt with the assholes that couldn’t keep their kids from kicking you in the back of your calves for 30 minutes straight.
Once through security, we only had one more road block to the rides! The ticket machines! Oh boy… this is where my faith in humanity fell a few pegs.
We bought our tickets to Disney Paris online. We printed our tickets out before we left. We had our tickets out, in our hands, ready to be scanned at the gate. However, the very large family in front of us (who spoke neither French or English) weren’t prepared. How you couldn’t know you were standing in line to have your tickets scanned is beyond me, but they were very surprised when they suddenly were first in line. They had to dig tickets out of their bags while holding on to wriggling, over excited children. Then their tickets wouldn’t scan. That’s when the ticket person realized they had vouchers and they needed to go get real tickets from the ticket booth (let me reiterate here, you want to buy tickets BEFORE stepping foot on this property because that line was probably another 2 hours long).
This is when the ticket person realized these people didn’t speak French or English. This is when the large group didn’t understand why they couldn’t just go in. Meanwhile, we got to tick the hours away, just being able to see everyone else on either side of us go through without hassle. We suck at picking lines.
Once the poor ticket person got them out of the way, we were unleashed onto the park!
It’s not Disney World, but it will do just fine for now…
Disney Paris is NOT Disney World. In fact, it’s not even a real Disney property. The real one went bankrupt at some point and now the current company running this operation just licenses the Disney trademark. But you know what? Even though I’ve been to Disneyland in California and held a year pass to Disney World when I was a Florida resident, it was still good enough for a weekend birthday trip!
It was pretty foggy all day, which really made all the Christmas lights on the Disney Paris Main Street and Belle’s Castle shimmer. Also, something we found out at some point while walking around is they actually make it snow on Main Street! Of course it was bubbles of some fashion, but even for 2 adults in their late 30s and early 40s, it was pretty magical to see. The park did retain that part of the Disney magic!
Onto the Rides! And, I was able to fit in them ALL!
Of course one of the main reasons I wanted to do Disney Paris for my birthday is I’ve had all this liposuction done. I can now fit into the really uncomfortable chairs on Dutch terraces (they’re still uncomfortable, I’m just not stuffed into them anymore). I can now fit into airline seats for a slightly more comfortable flight.
Now it was time to test amusement park rides! The first two rides were the Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion. The 
line for Pirates was about 40 minutes but kept moving. The line for the Mansion was 15 minutes. So standing around already wasn’t too bad. I also fit on both rides just fine. Now the tall dutchie? Well, he has practice folding up those long legs and it was only for a few minutes each time. He lived.
After this we decided to go over to the other park and get some food…I won’t go into details about that but it was manic. We ended up having to walk back to the Disney Park because there was no way we were going to get close to the food counter in any less than an hour. It was something like 40 people deep already and no place to sit to eat.
Once we ate, we decided to hit up the Indiana Jones roller coaster. This one I had slight anxiety over because it was one of those harnesses that came down from above. The bottom part rested on your stomach and well, my stomach is still pretty big and an obstruction. Luckily, it didn’t pose any issue what so ever and I rode with only the issue of being short, which means I get my head knocked against the sides of the harness.
After Indiana Jones we went and rode Space Mountain (which is slightly different at Disney Paris than the other parks), in which my husband has said NEVER again. Once again, I fit on the ride just fine. However, once again I was knocked side to side and my ears got a good boxing and I got a bit motion sick. However, unlike my husband, I had the foresight to close my eyes for the duration of the ride. That helped a lot.
At this point we decided to head back over to the movie studios to see how long the wait for the Tower of Terror was. Since it was only 40 minutes, we decided to go ahead and get in line. Not only did I fit in the seat, but there was room to spare in the seat belt. It really could have been tightened a little more! So that was yet another win.
Since there was no wait, we did the tram thingy that showed you the behind the scenes (where I caught my husband playing Pokemon Go) and then we did the single rider line for the Ratatouille ride. This one had a lap bar which fit just fine, though it pushed against my stomach a bit.
Really, there was nothing I didn’t fit in comfortably. So that was a win!
Overall at the end of the day I clocked in at 27,000 steps which translates roughly into 19km (11.8 miles) walked. This of course doesn’t account for all the standing around. But, even though my legs were fatigued and my feet were throbbing by the end of the day I didn’t hurt like I would have pre-liposuction. Also, the next day while I started out sore as hell, by the time we hit Gent, BE I suggested since we were passing it to stop in and go to the Christmas Market. That was 
another 5km (3.1 miles) walked.
Today, there was no soreness upon waking. While at the gym doing squats I could feel that my quads were way more tired than they usually are after the weekend, but that was about it.
I can say that I’m incredibly happy I decided to go the liposuction route. I may kill myself trying to do all the things I haven’t really been able to the last 6 or 7 years, but it’s worth it!
PetraAnn
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