The Decision: Well, all I can say is that the HK trip did a lot to refresh my enjoyment of Disney and when there was an airfare sale in Dec for travel to Europe in Mar I decided to go ahead and check off 2 of the 3 parks I had not yet been to.

20060316, Day 0, Going to the Airport
OK, I should have known this wasn't going to be a smooth trip. The week before leaving the person who was originally going to drop me off at the airport totaled his car. And two-days before leaving I managed to damage my left elbow somehow so that arm was of limited use. This also meant that pretty much all the photos were taken one-handed so any attempt at trying to get a decently lined up photo was pretty hopeless...

20060316, Day 1, Freezing in France Pictures
I made it to France fine. My luggage however decided to stay in Miami. Now this wouldn't normally be a show-stopper, I'm paranoid enough to keep a few essentials in my carry-on for just such an occurance. But I had packed my coat in my luggage, and it was COLD! Got to the Hotel and got my gate pass, so I ran over to Disneyland to hit Main Street to hopefully get a new coat. Nothing in my size though, so I headed back to the hotel and waited for my room to be ready.

20060317, Day 2, St. Pat's in Disneyland Paris Pictures
Oh, this just gets better and better. I'm pretty much stuck in the hotel (that being as far as I care to go without insulation) and the place doesn't have a restaurant that serves lunch! What kind of Disney hotel is this??? Luggage finally arrives around 3pm and I grab some pics of the hotel before heading back over to Disneyland to advance beyond Main Street!
I like the look of their "Discoveryland" overall, but man did Space Mountain have a rough ride. Bruised my ear pretty badly... Had trouble finding food, lot of places were closed down. Found out later that France has this odd law where restaurants have to close one day a week. What??? Park layout wasn't as nice as ours, was a bit hard to figure out how to get some places and there were places that looked like they connected on the map that didn't.
Finally, I know Phantom Manor is in Frontierland and all, but why was there a Western Town inside the graveyard??? I'm sorry, the "ghost town" was just silly.

20060318, Day 3, Paris Pictures
Headed into Paris for the day. Visited Notre Dame and got some pics but a lot of them didn't come out. Paris is kinda neat, because you can be walking along looking for a Metro station, and you will just run into a huge decorative fountain in an intersection. Once I found the station I went over and hit the Eiffel Tower. Long lines, but worth it for the view. Ended up by finding the Hard Rock Cafe and getting the requisite pin. Grabbed a few pics of the room since it had been cleaned. I loved that bedspread, nice and subtly Mickey'ed.

20060319, Day 4, Euro Studios Pictures
Hit my 10th Disney park today! Boy, was it small! Their Tower of Terror is still under construction also. Biggest surprise was that one of the restaurants had a truly amazing carved ham dinner. Yum! Finally saw the Motors! Action! Stunt Spectacular. Pretty cool show, it will be interesting to see how ours is different. It was a really nice day so I decided to ride the PanoraMagique balloon. That was a lot of fun and gave a really great view of the area.

20060320, Day 5, The Louvre Pictures
OK, culture time! Today was the visit to the Louvre. Initially I made a bee-line for the Mona Lisa (La Jaconde) for the requisite viewing. Then I hit the large-format section (and by large they mean something over 20'x15') before looping through the third floors of two wings. By that time my brain was full.

20060321, Day 6, London Pictures
Got up early to head to the Paris Nord station and catch my train for London. Trip wasn't bad at all, the seats were quite comfortable. Met up with my Guide and grabbed some Pounds Sterling. It was so cold and windy that day I declined going in most places, although I had to hit the Tower of London. Shew dropped me off at the Londdon Hard Rock and from there I did some shopping (unfortunatley, the Orc's Nest didn't have a shirt in my size) before heading back to the station for the return trip. Got back way late, and had to over-pay a taxi driver to get to my hotel from the station since the shuttle busses weren't running nay more.

20060322, Day 7, A Last Day in Disneyland Pictures
Bit of a drizzly, miserable day. Hit Disneyland and did just about everything else I missed on my short day. I really like their Big Thunder Mountain! You load at the mine-head, then go under the riverboat river to get to the island where the majority of the coaster is.

20060323, Day 8, The Return Pictures
Oh man, was the trip back horrendous. About the only good part of the day was that I finally got a couple pics of the Bunnies that lived on the hill above my hotel. Plane boarded 30 minutes late and when we got to Miami there was a severe storm going on. So we circled for a while until they had to detour for fuel. To Orlando. And they wouldn't let me off the plane! That's right, I had to sit in an airplane at my home airport for about 2 hours in order to fly to Miami to get a flight back here. Luckily, if you can really call it that, Miami was so messed up that I actually caught my origianlly scheduled flight, which left Miami 4 hours and 38 minutes late. I felt sorry for Pat, since when I originally asked him to pick me up it was supposed to be around 7pm, not midnight.