Up until now I have somehow avoided the Disney theme park phenomenon.
 In January I decided this would be the year to put that right.
 Disneyland Paris were offering some good deals on their
website - 3 nights/4 days for the price of 2 nights/3 days plus a further
15% off.
I did a bit more research and found it would still be cheaper to book it
independently, travelling on Eurostar
and staying in the Holiday
Inn just outside the resort for the bargain price of €60 a night.
With everything sorted, I set out to the House of Mouse with Paul on
Saturday.
We arrived at Waterloo International ready to catch our train
...
... direct to the heart of the magic on the special Disney
train.
We were in Coach 16 - about as far as you can walk along the
platform. I don't think it would have been much further if we'd walked all
the way to Disneyland.
At least we weren't going anywhere near there - we were going
to Disneyland. Disneyland, erm, what? Disneyland Paris? Oh.
 As
well as my first time to Disneyland Paris, this was also my first time on
Eurostar.
I'm not sure exactly what I expected, but the journey through the tunnel
itself turned out to be a bit of an anti-climax.
It's just a long train tunnel. Although it's a lot quicker than the
ferry, it doesn't have much of a view.
The big advantage Eurostar has over the ferry is its speed. The journey
from Waterloo to Marne-la-Vallée took under three hours.
We arrived on time - something of a novelty for those used to
British public transport, although the myth of efficient timely French rail
services would be busted later.
The station PA was playing a variety of Disney music as we disembarked, which
was a nice touch. Not that most people were paying attention. We
were all having much more fun trying not to slip over on the rain soaked station
platform. Why an undercover platform was so wet will probably remain
forever a mystery.
After an extremely bizarre conversation with one of the Disney
hotel representatives, we made our way past the welcoming party of
armed French soldiers and on to drop off our luggage.
Disney really try hard to make things easier. Rather than
needing to go to our hotel to drop off our bags, they provide a place
to leave them for a reasonable enough €2.50 per item. I can
but guess that this "Guest Storage" service is also used to
store spare park customers.
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