How much fun can one fit into one day .........

We got up pretty early and took showers, and by 7.30 were over at our favourite bakery shopping for breakfast. One of the shop assistants there speaks very good English and let us know that they would be closed the next day. This is when we got into a little conversation and we let them know that no trip to Paris was complete without a visit to their bakery. She was pretty pleased to hear that and told the baker about our comment when he came out to stock up more baguette. Now, armed with warm baguette, that filled the car with its wonderful scent we were on our way back. We laid the table, sat down and indulged in one more wonderful French breakfast, including baguette, camembert, goats cheese, Boursin cheese and the leftover ham. It was a wonderful breakfast and once we could not eat any more savoury items, there were still a few sweets left, which we had gotten at the French bakery. Tom had decided on trying a round Puff Pastry, filled with vanilla cream and a rim sprinkled with sugar. It was huge, and he enjoyed it very much. I had decided on trying a Caramel Eclair, which was wonderful. There were lots of cubed pieces of soft gooey caramel on top and it was just wonderful. I had not been able to decide between the Eclair and another Shue Pastry, so I had ordered both. it was filled with vanilla cream and the icing had some kind of alcohol in it. Needless to say it was really tasty. Once we had finished breakfast I made sandwiches with all the leftover items and packed them for our trip home.

The English speaking folks were the majority in the elevator, so the spiel during the ride was set to English, which I love, so much more fun than the French spiel. The ride was fun and when we left the elevator I handed the bellhop, who in Paris is the same that seats you, some chocolate. Now, the look on that CMs face was priceless once he realized WE were sprinkling some pixie dust HIS way.You have to leave the ride through a gift shop, so we had a good look around before we left, but there was nothing we wanted to buy. Then we walked halfway down to Rock'n'Rollercoaster, but decided against riding it. We had wanted to do Lights, Motors, Action, but since it was still raining we skipped it. We checked the tip board again and then decided to just change parks and walk over to Disneyland Park. Once we had arrived at the park I remembered that one of the perks of the Annual Pass is, that you can leave packages at guest relations, free of charge. So we got in line and handed over our purchases, then took out our annual passes again and headed towards the turnstiles. Once we were inside Tom noticed that one of the rubbish bins was on fire. Nobody seemed to notice, so I headed over to the entrance and notified a CM, who immediately got two other CMs to guard the bin, while she called for help. On our way up Main Street we walked through the shops again and finally reached the tip board close to the hub. We both didn't want to ride Space Mountain, which is fun but far too dark and we always bump our heads, which results in headaches.

Instead we decided to head over to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad to have a look for which return time the Fast Passes were.

They were good for only an hour later, which was pretty nice, since the standby line was 60 minutes. While we were waiting for our Fast Pass to kick in we walked towards the Adventure Isle and found that the false fassade they had put up around the pirate ship was actually really fun to look at. Once we arrived at the Pirates of the Caribbean Ride we saw that there was only a 10 minute wait and got in line. Within a few minutes we were seated in the back row and off we went. We love riding past the Blue Lagoon Restaurant and the ride was enjoyable as always.

Once we got off, we walked through Fantasyland, but didn't find anything we wanted to ride and since it was about time for our Fastpass to kick in, we walked over towards Big Thunder Mountain Railroad again. We got in the Fastpass line and the ride was a real walk on.

Tom asked if we could sit in the back of train and after a little pleading our wish was granted. It was a pretty fun ride, which was over far too soon. We got off and walked through the store one more time, then decided to check how long the wait for Phantom Manor was. It was only 5 minutes, so we walked through the grounds up to the Manor. We got in the next Stretching Elevator and were soon seated in one of the carriages. The ride stopped several times in the course of our ride, which made it fun to really check out the details in the ride. When we got off the ride we decided against walking through the cemetary and headed towards the hub again. Once there we again were left with the decision on where to head next.

We still had a little time left and walked up to the castle and through the Christmas Store and the Sweets Store again. We walked towards the Carrousel and noticed that the line for Snow White's Scary Adventure was pretty short. Instead of heading over to It's A Small World, we got in line for Snow White, and within 10 minutes were seated and on the ride. Once we got off we wanted to take one last stroll through the stores in that area and low and behold found a few more things we wanted to buy.

We said goodbye to the castle and vowed to be back in the spring, before we left the park for good this time. We weren't too hungry, but knew we had to eat before heading to the airport and we knew exactly where we wanted to have lunch, Earl of Sandwich. So after leaving the park we walked to guest services and picked up our other shopping bag which was held there for us, before heading over to the Disney Village.It takes about 5 minutes to get from the parks to the Village and all the way through to the other end, where Earl of Sandwich is. This time the restaurant was a lot busier than the first time around and while we were waiting in line we could make up our mind about what we wanted to order.  As always we decided to share two sandwiches.

So we ordered The Original 1762, fresh roasted beef, cheddar and creamy horseradish sauce and The Full Montagu, roast beef and turkey with sharp cheddar ceese and aged Swiss cheese, romaine lettuce, roma tomato and Earl's mustard sauce and a side of Coleslaw as well as two Diet Cokes. We paid our bill and were handed a buzzer, then went off to find a table. Tom tried to connect to the internet again and we even got a weak connection which went on and off. It did not take long until our buzzer went off and I went to pick up the sandwiches and drinks. We took our time enjoying our food, even though it started to get late. A little later than we had hoped to leave we walked back out into the Disney Village and over to the parking garage. Once we had arrived there we loaded all our new purchases into the suitcases before I headed over to pay our parking fees. Parking ticket in hand I hopped into the car and off we went to fill up the car for our drive to the airport. We used the gas station on property, filled the car up and didn't even forget to ask for a receipt to show when we returned the car to Hertz.

All set we programmed the GPS and started our drive towards Charles de Gaulle airport. About 2/3 of the way went without a hitch but then suddenly the traffic got thicker and then it came to nearly a standstill. Since we had started out late, this was not in our planning. Slowly, very slowly we crawled forward until we saw that there was a pretty big accident blocking 2 lanes of the motorway. Once we had passed the accident traffic got better and we made our way to the airport in time. We entered the rental car return lot, parked the car, got our paperwork done and went down to the departure area. I had checked us in online, but still needed to print out our boarding passes. There are booths were you can do that, but they NEVER cooperate.

So I tried, didn't work, I tried again, didn't work and then I had to wait until one of the Lufthansa ground personal had time to help. Wasn't all that easy, as most of the people had the same issues. Finally, boarding passes in hand we headed over to check in our luggage. We had a laugh as handing over our luggage actually took longer than it took to check people in all the way. We still had about an hour to kill until boarding time and when we came across a Starbucks we knew what we were going to do. Tom ordered a Cappuccino again and I had another Creme Brulee Macchiato. We sat at a tiny table and Tom tried to connect to the Internet again, but the connection was weak again, so we gave up and just chatted until we had finished our coffees.

About 30 minutes before boarding we made our way over to the satellite where our gate was. There is always a long line for the security check and that day was no exception. It took a while until we got through and when we had finally found our gate they were just starting boarding. We found our seats, got comfortable and very soon we were on our way to Düsseldorf, which was the better connection on the way home. It didn't take long and the flight attendants were serving drinks and handing out snacks. This time we got a Ham and Cream Cheese Sandwich, which was really nice. The flight was just 50 minutes long, so once we had finished our sandwich it was about time to get ready for landing.

It didn't take long and we were on our way over to our connecting flight. We sat at our gate and played a few games until it was time to head to the bus which took us to our plane, and Austrian Arrows plane. We haven't flown on our national airline in a long time, so that was a pretty nice surprise. This was another 1 hour flight and once we were off we were served hot and cold drinks and were handed another sweet treat. This time we got a Milka Choco Wafer, which is actually several layers of thin wafers, all sandwiched together with a chocolate filling and then covered in smooth, silky, Milka milk chocolate.

We enjoyed our treat and some Coke and in no time we had to get off as we had arrived at our home airport. We rented a cart to put all of our luggage on, then headed out to the car park, loaded everything into the car and off we went. Once we were home I helped Tom to get all the stuff into the house, said "hello" to Pixie and then headed back to my car to drive home. We had only had two short days of fun in Paris, but the trip to Disney had been so worth it.