Hetismij
Once close to small world the song stays with you forever.
I have been to Disney California but it was 25 kgms ago.
Don't remember much.
The swimming pool of the hotel is gorgeous. We'll be late at the park.

I hope he didn't drop a menhir on anyone's foot, annhig.>>

I think that the only menhirs were polystyrene, AA.

It's a shame that there's not more talk here of other French "theme parks" like Futuroscope and Le Puy de Fou. We particularly liked Le Puy de Fou and have been twice now and I'd happily go again.

Puy du flu is on our todo list since awhile.

Annhig- what are they like? Are they mostly vomit inducing rides or themed parks with coasters and attractions? (I like the themed thing, and I love coasters but I won't ever do universal Florida again)

MM - Futuroscope, near Poitiers [so far as i remember - it must be 15 years since our one and only visit] was far less about rides and more about science. It starts [started?] with a film taking one on a ride through France on a TGV and then there were a lot of other attractions that I can't replay remember except a very good son et lumiere in the evening.

However, looking at the website, it seems that it's much more like a theme park than it was when we went, with quite a few "rides" though there are still some "sciency" exhibits I think:

https://en.futuroscope.com/attractio...ills/aerobar-1

Le Puy de Fou is loosely based around the history of the Vendee so there are Romans racing their chariots round the Colosseum, Vikings raiding a village, knights defeating perfidious Albion, etc. etc. At the weekends in the summer they also do a son et lumiere called "CineScenie" which features over 1000 humans and beasts and was absolutely terrific - worth the trip by itself.

http://www.puydufou.com

No rides, but quite a few thrills so no spoilers.

Phantasialand next to koeln is great too.
Been when in the army.

Our trip is ending. We didn't like the second park. Wanted to see ratatouille (used our fast pass) but was broken down. There was a decent show though.
Then back to Disney park some more attractions - ok.

By the way just because I am stubborn : nobody asked our ID at the hotel - just showed mine.
In early dec when in Paris they asked for ID of everybody but only showed mine and my wife's.

Right now to finish an 'American' trip what best than to eat at planet Hollywood ? Then back in the car. Less than 3 hours normally.

Hot dogs and Tex-Mex

https://www.getyourguide.com/paris-l...oucher-t48333/

I'm still waiting for somebody to give us a report on Europa Park near Strasbourg.

http://www.europapark.de/en

I had ribs. Quite good.

we never made it to Europapark, Kerouac [and doubt that we ever will given the ages of our kids] but we did spend a day at Holiday park, near Bad Duerkheim:

http://www.holidaypark.de/en/attractions

I can't remember much about it, to be honest.

To end my trip report, a positive note : our eldest hadn't transformed our house into a pigstall.

First time ! There is hope for everyone.

our eldest hadn't transformed our house into a pigstall.>>

WoinP - when we started going away by ourselves and leaving our kid/s at home, I lost count of the times other people "joked" about this. It never happened. We learnt that we are totally expendable.

We learnt that we are totally expendable.>

except for your money to keep them in lap of luxury!

Some of my friends say the cleaner the house is after coming back with older teens staying home -the more suspicious they become of what went on!

Shoot I called a plumber and paid for it when the kitchen sink clogged up when my parents went on a weekend trip many years ago. If I hadn't told them I don't think they would have known. When we were in grade school my sister and I dropped a bottle of milk that we brought in from the front porch one morning before my parents woke up. We cleaned it up glass and all. My mom was concerned that we might have cut ourselves and told us to get her if something like that happened again. I think she was pretty impressed though a little worried. Must be some freakish responsibility gene from inherited from my grandpa.

Hey thanks for re-activating this thread.
I will add that several friends said I took some great pics at DLP : those who say 'don't go' have not seen the smiles of my daughters that I managed to capture on these pics.
Being a terrible photographer the smiles were there for a lot of pics to be shot.

"<i>those who say 'don't go'" </i>

Some people have the Disney gene and some just don't. What I don't get are those who assume wanting to visit Disneyland/World indicates some sort of character flaw

Wo, thanks for your trip report; I always appreciate your point of view. Glad to hear your eldest left the house standing!

I am curious as to how you found the prices, if you have any comment on that, and if you stayed in a Disney property?

Apologies if you already answered those queries; I admit to skimming the thread lightly. Thanks.

The hotel was inexpensive. 100 euros a night for the 5 of us including breakfast. Around.
We slept at explorers by Disney - outside the park but with goof shuttles.
The time before we stayed at the Paxton. Also about 15 min from the parks - don't know about shuttles. We took our car there.
Park was 70 pp per day.

<<I will add that several friends said I took some great pics at DLP : those who say 'don't go' have not seen the smiles of my daughters that I managed to capture on these pics. >>

WoinP, we just did some decorating that required us to move a lot of our old books which include some photo albums, [remember those good old days when you actually got photos you looked at rather than a load of images in you phone that you never look at all?] and of course we've spent a lot of time that we should have been using to put the books back looking at the albums. One of them is of our first trip to Disney Florida with our kids [was that really 20 years ago?] and by the looks on all our faces we were having a wonderful time.

We stayed on the edge of Disney but so far on the edge we would probably have been just as well off staying outside the park as it still took ages to get anywhere but I'm sure that things have changed since then.

We also took our kids to Parc Asterix a few years later and they loved that too - who wouldn't enjoy being hugged by Obelix?