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| The house of Blanche Neige (Snow White). |
Fickle spring weather did not detract from the magic of a
visit to EuroDisney, near Paris, for Pam Jones.
It's mid-March and technically spring.
But Paris seems not to know this as we cower beneath a deluge
of rain, wind and sleet en route to childhood utopia.
Peering through the grey we search for magic, fairytale
heroes that might guide us forward, and my husband smiles
helplessly as he turns, shrugs his shoulders and voices my
own wry thoughts out loud: "Welcome to EuroDisney."
Our visit to the European wonderland, in fact 32km east of
Paris, has been timed for the northern spring, in part to
avoid the summer crowds.
A previous splurge to EuroDisney by my husband and his
brother years earlier in the peak summer season had seen them
wait up to two hours to get on some rides.
So despite the rain, we are glad of our decision, as we
hurtle on to our first attraction, the famous "Phantom
Manor", complete with holograms and haunted house chants, in
less than 10 minutes.
In fact, we pack in that, a fantastic "Big Thunder Mountain"
rollercoaster and a stroll through Frontierland's "Legends of
the Wild West" in less than the hour and a-half that it took
my husband and brother-in-law just to get into their first
attraction.
With three children. aged 5, 7 and 9, this is important.
Obviously they are much easier to keep happier when waiting
10-30 minutes for a ride instead of one to two hours. But
money is also, of course, another huge factor.
A package of go-on-as-many-rides-as-you-like tickets for five
people for three days, plus two nights' accommodation at a
Disney hotel, has cost us a total of NZ$2000.
But all of a sudden we seem to have been given a whole heap
of extra rides for free, as we realise we will get to go on
at least twice as many rides as we would have had we come in
the summer.
The maths feels good, and we leave our first wonderful world
congratulating ourselves on our travel smarts, although we
did forget something crucial.
Our backpacks are empty as our "emergency" wet-weather gear
of four parkas, five polar fleeces, six polyprop vests, three
pairs of gloves and five hats are all donned frantically to
combat the cold.
But I knew I should have invested in that one extra parka
before leaving New Zealand. Predictably, Mum is the one
person left wearing absolutely nothing that is waterproof.
Grudgingly we hand over almost NZ$20 for a flimsy, bright
yellow disposable EuroDisney parka, the cheapest on sale and
more tarpaulin with domes than jacket, but continuing the day
without it isn't an option, and so I join the hundreds of
other people who also forgot their parkas, a herd of yellow
gnomes trudging through the wet.
