France & Germany! Day 4: Disneyland, Happiest Place on Earth

This was the day that the kids had been looking forward to - the happiest place on earth! Disneyland is 1.5 hr by mrt away. We wanted to be slightly earlier and aim to leave the house by 7am. It was still dark at 7am. 

Ah yee made us 5 ham and cheese sandwiches, full of butter, mayo, ham and cheese. Daddy Lim and the kids chomped 3 on the way to the station. While walking and eating, we went “thank you ah yee”. Hoho. 

Ah yee again gave us very detailed instructions to get to Disneyland. 

The train to Disneyland has a Mickey Mouse icon but the train is not fanciful like what Hong Kong has. It is just another old train.

It was a long ride and we saw beautiful sky along the way. What a good start already! 

The squeezey train seats. 

While I am sure private space is a thing with Europeans, that all seem to be put aside in their train. It is impossible to sit comfortably without touching somebody in their narrow seats.

Finally arriving - the next station! 

There are 2 parts to entering Disneyland - 1st to q for bag checks. Food and drinks are allowed into Disneyland. We still have 2 of ah yee’s sandwiches and plenty of snacks.

Then to scan the tickets. We got ours via Klook, which is very slightly cheaper than from the Disneyland website. What is more important is that Klook website is in English and super easy and straightforward to buy. The tickets are tagged to our passport. There is no more free Disney fast passes, replaced by some pay per ride premium pass. Ah yee had recommended us to visit on a Monday, which is supposed to be a quieter day and it is still school week, thus she thinks that we probably didn’t need any payable premium passes. 

I always have to hold my breath when trying to enter an attraction via tickets tagged to some ID, worrying that I may have made a typo mistake when booking. All good and we went through the gantry smoothly. 

Happy! Happy! Happy! 

Zaky is our official theme park guide. Ah yee had also downloaded the must ride advice to him the previous night. Zaky will check the app and tell us where to go and we simply follow. 

Our 1st ride - big thunder something is a roller coaster ride. It was a 5 mins wait. I was surprised that it went loopy loop. After the ride, Daddy Lim said that it was his ever 1st loopy loop rollercoaster. Congrats! He always avoid whenever I went on crazy rides with the kids.to think that he had been avoiding these crazy rides for so many years!

The 2nd ride, which was another 5 mins wait - Pirates of the Caribbean. This is somewhat like a mini water log ride with a storyline. 

Zaky said that these were the 2 main rides that he wanted to do. The other 2, some space mountain and some star wars ride were under maintenance. So we went for something silly. The maze is huge! 

We saw ducks and they must be the happiest ducks in the world. 

The ducks and pigeons in the park were all very fat. I think the amount of popcorn dropped on the floor explains it. Speaking of popcorn, ah yee loaned us the Disneyland popcorn bag. While it didn’t entitle us to any discount, the staff tried to stuff more popcorn into the bag and it was also much easier to carry around and keep. 

More other snacks, refuelling in progress. Zaky also finished the remaining 2 sandwiches along the way. I think he is getting fat. Hoho.

Ah yee said that it would be cold but I thought Chartres was colder. Maybe bcos there was little wind and so many people in Disneyland.

Next ride - ah tioh CY’s favorite ride - Small, small world. 

We got a proper family picture in Disneyland! Disclaimer: I didn’t stand properly, I am not shorter than Nana. Nana is the claiming the same too. Haha.

Lunch! 

Coincidentally, there was some performance in the restaurant. #赚到

Zaky’s favorite ride - Phantom Manor. Hantu ride ah.

I asked Zaky to find us a show and we watched a musical combined with acrobatics on Samba. It was so good. 

We came out of the theatre and saw the choo choo train. Let’s go! 

Another Star Wars ride, which is a 4D show. I thought the visuals were quite good. Daddy Lim came out feeling pukey. 

Lastly, the Pinochle ride, which is similar to the Elmo ride in USS.

Zaky said that we were done with all the rides, less the baby ones. We went for the Phantom Manor one more time. 

Ah yee and CY said that there is no turkey leg in Disneyland Paris. How come?!! Actually they do, just that it is sold in one of the restaurants and not much rave about it.

With that, we headed to park ourselves at a spot for the parade. 

There was so many people watching the parade. The kids had a good view perched on the railing and holding on to the roof of a closed refreshment store. 

With the end of the parade, we followed the crowd for merchandise shopping before leaving the park. Final pictures. 

That marked the end of our visit to Disneyland Paris. We had to return to Ah yee’s house the same way we came and that took another 1.5hr. We thought that the train would be crowded but it wasn’t and we had a comfy ride home. 

Ah yee cooked dinner. We were all hungry for Asian food and home cooked food. Yum, yum. 

We finished every bit of it. Hoho. With that, it was a little more monkeying around as their dear mother/ wife packed up. It was our last night at ah yee’s house. Thank you for hosting! 

Mummy Lim

France & Germany! Day 3: Chartres Somemore

Bcos Europe hotels are so expensive, the budget ones barely come with much amenities. There was no water, no cups, no kettle, no toothbrushes, etc. The hotel does provide bfast but ah yee said that it would cost at arm. Ah yee googled and found that the bakery is opened from 7.30am and the supermarket at 9am. 

Bcos of the bad sound proofing at ah yee’s home, I was told no HiiT. It is funny how we all needed to be constantly quiet at her house. Maybe one sources of entertainment is to listen to your neighbours quarrel or scold their kids. Lol. Now that we were in the hotel, I took the opportunity to finally do my 1st exercise in days! My 1st sweat. It felt so good! 

Ah yee got us nice croissants, pain au chocolates and some of the local pastries. We were just happy to have food. Ah Yee and Athena came to our room for bfast bcos their room smelled funny and was very dim. They tried changing their room but with European customer service level, it was a tall order. Ah yee said that it was sewage smell, bcos the building was so old. It was a 500 YO building. Our toilet smelled really funky too. 

It was about 9am and we decided to check out, then to come back by 10am. We chanced upon a market selling all sorts of old stuff. 

Some of the stuff were so old and/ or useless and it is surprising that there would be sales. Well, our kids bought some pins and vinyl. Seriously? We don’t even have a CD player, let alone for vinyl. The kids said that it is for decoration. Ok lor. 

Ah yee brought us macarons and we eat somemore. These are the mini vinyls that the kids eventually bought bcos they are cheaper than the original size ones.

We didn’t have an agenda in mind but very much walking and exploring the city center, which isn’t big. 

We visited the oldest cathedral in Chartres and while it looked grand on the outside, it was actually quite small. These was a mass ongoing and the congregation was small as well. Plenty of toddlers were running at the back of the cathedral and I didn’t feel so bad disturbing the mass. 

It was too early for lunch and we therefore stopped for coffee and took a break. Right after coffee, it was lunch time. Eat again! Lol. I barely had the chance to feel hungry during the trip. We had Thai fast food this time, so that we didn’t have to go to a proper restaurant, where everyone was sort of expected to order a meal. 

Zaky was whining about “Thai food”. Thai or not (didn’t taste quite Thai anyway), it was Asian food and we had rice!!!! Even Zaky finished his rice bowl, which came with a lot of vegetables, and he managed to pick most out. Our tummies were so full but it didn’t stop us from ice cream. 

A little bit more of walking here, window shopping there and it was nearly the time of our departure. Daddy Lim and I had a train to catch at 3ish. We headed back to the main cathedral and had the chance to visit it.

The stone craving of Christ’s story. 

Some of the heads and fingers had unfortunately dropped off due to age but the details of the stone craving is intriguing. 

With that, Daddy Lim and I headed off to the station and almost couldn’t find our way bcos we didn’t know how the station looks like, despite it being the same one that we arrived at. We simply arrived and walked out. We had to call ah yee for help, who sent us the station name so that we could google map it. 

Staring intently at the screen to make sure that we got the train number, platform, departure time correct. Ours was the 1536hrs train.

Again ah yee said that she booked us on a direct train but this one has many stops and in fact more stops that the one who came on. There was the train conductor somemore, who checked our ticket and passed us. We got back successfully and safely. Then it was the same mrt rides back to ah yee’s place. 

The car ride people had made it back much earlier than us. 

I was told that Nana took round 1, aka Barbie doll playing and Zaky was at round 2, board game playing. He was still at the board game when we arrived home. 

Ah yee met us at the mrt station to top up our transport cards. Ah yee is attempting to take sec 2 French soon, something about it being a prerequisite for her visa renewal. I thought she speaks French so well now. I hear her conversing in French smoothly and when she was trying to top up the cards, she used the machine in French! So impressive! 

We had French home cooked dinner. It was a combination of potato, ham and a lot of cheese. 

The cheese is melted and then poured onto the potatoes. 

Hey, we have one of those machines at home and I bought it, thinking that it is for grilling meat! Lol. There was a lot of cheese. CY ate a lot more cheese than all of us. After a while, we were all a little sick of the cheese. Ah yee was concurring so much with us and commented that the French man had asked her to make this once every 2 weeks. Lol. 

With the nice dinner, we packed up and got ready for Disneyland! We also tried to pack as much as possible, bcos Disneyland was supposed to be a long day and we were leaving the next. 

Mummy Lim