June Update

Apart from work, I haven’t made it to the parks since my Starcruiser stay, but last weekend a friend of the kids was in town, so they spent some time at Epcot. 

On Saturday afternoon they went to the Studios, and ate at the new BBQ restaurant in Toy Story Land.

On Sunday they visited Animal Kingdom, and on Monday hung out in Disney Springs. 

There wasn’t a lot of rain this spring so the water level in the pond next to our house has gotten a little low. One of our alligators has taken to lying on a head wall that’s usually underwater. 

Today Jenn released her fourth novel. She continues to sign her books at the Barnes and Noble where she works part-time.

Europe Day 22 & 23 London Again

Tuesday morning we headed out to Camden Market and walked through the shops and stalls. It was interesting seeing how they had repurposed some of the old buildings and some of the stuff for sale. A lot of the food booths smelled pretty good but we had eaten a big breakfast at the hotel. 

Just before noon we took the Tube down to St Paul’s cathedral. It was over $20 to take a tour however, so we decided against it. We walked over the Millennium Bridge and looked at the Globe Theater then continued on down river to the Tower Bridge.

We then took the Tube to Freemason’s Hall. They weren’t offering tours, but we were able to look through the museum and library. We ate a late lunch at a nearby pub, then walked to Covent Garden. From there we took the Tube back to the hotel and started packing our bags for the flight home. 

Yesterday morning after breakfast we walked to the Imperial College, which I used to frequent during my college program. We then walked up to the park so Susan could see the Royal Albert Hall and Albert Memorial. From there we headed back to the hotel and called an Uber XL to take us to the airport for our flight home.

Europe Day 20 & 21 Glasgow and Train to London

On Sunday, since our plan to visit the Highlands died with our rental car, we spent the day on the hop on hop off bus, seeing and learning about Glasgow. If you like museums, Glasgow has several that don’t charge admission, and one could easily spend a day doing that. We also checked out some bookstores and other shops and had lunch at the Hard Rock (No 41).

After lunch we visited the cathedral, one of only two medieval cathedrals in Scotland to have survived the Reformation virtually intact. It had many beautiful stained glass windows.

This morning we got up early to catch the 7:15 train to Edinburgh. Once there we transferred to a train to London Kings Cross. It was about a half hour late. We arrived around 1:30 and took the Underground to our hotel. Around 2:30 we checked into the same Kensington hotel we stayed at on our first night.

We dropped off the bags we took to Scotland then traveled across town to grab the luggage we had left in London. While doing that, we learned something new about the Underground - you don’t have to buy tickets. A gate attendant told us that if each person in your party has a unique international credit card, you just tap it going in and going out and it charges less than buying a paper ticket. If only we had learned that at the beginning of the trip. By the time we got back it was almost 6 so we had dinner at the hotel and retired for the night.

Europe Day 18 & 19 Scotland

Once we arrived at the Edinburgh train station we made our way to the car rental area and picked up a car. The agent said we could leave our luggage in the car and walk around the city a bit, so that is what we did. Our first stop was at a nearby pub he suggested, the Brewdog, where we enjoyed burgers and drinks on the patio. From there we walked up the Royal Mile to the castle. Tours were sold out for the day so we started back down. 

We stopped at the Hard Rock for a drink (No. 40), then walked back to the rental car and drove to Glasgow and checked into our hotel. 

This morning after breakfast we drove about 45 minutes northeast to Doune. We toured Doune Castle, home to Duke Robert of Albany, a powerful lord in the 15th century. It was used to film Monty Python and the Holy Grail and the series Outlander. We spent about an hour touring the castle, and could have spent another hour if we wanted to hike the paths to the village and back.

When we went to leave the car wouldn’t shift out of reverse. We called the car rental company and they said they’d send someone out in an hour or two, so we sat in the car and worked on contingency plans. My plan had been to visit Stirling next then drive back to Glasgow to check out downtown. On Sunday we were going to drive along Loch Ness to Inverness, then stay the night in Aberdeen. All that went out the window. 

Instead we waited 3 hours for a tow truck to come and then he drove us to a lot in Falkirk. We did get to see the Kelpies and Stirling castle from the motorway as we drove to the lot. From there we had to take a taxi and a train and an Uber to get back to our hotel. By then it was after 5 o’clock. We were able to cancel our hotel in Aberdeen and extend our Glasgow hotel one day. We tried booking a day tour up to the Highlands for tomorrow but they were all sold out. We decided to have dinner at the hotel restaurant and just check out Glasgow in the morning.

Europe Day 17 & 18 Trains to London & Scotland

We got up early yesterday and took the train to Disney, then boarded a high speed train to Lille Europe, where we transferred to the Eurostar for the trip back to London. The first leg of our journey from took about an hour, the second an hour and a half, but we gained an hour due to the time change, arriving in St Pancras London about 10 am. By the time we made it out of the station, called an Uber, and checked in at our hotel it was 11. Our hotel was on the north side of London, just northwest of Regents Park.

We took the underground to Oxford Street to look at the Disney Store, then headed to Piccadilly Circus to check out the Waterstone book store and eat dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe there (Number 39). 

This morning we were again up early, this time to head to Kings Cross to board a train to Scotland. We probably should have used Uber to get to the train station, since buying three underground tickets cost about the same as the Uber ride would have, and took a little longer. We left most of bags at the hotel in London, which made it easier to get to the train as well as store our luggage on the train. Because we didn’t decide to go to Scotland until we were already in Europe, the seats I purchased weren’t together, although they were in the same car.

The train made a fair number of stops, so took almost 5 hours to arrive in Edinburgh.

Europe Day 16 Disney Paris Resort

Today was our last day at the Disney Resort. We spent the morning in Disneyland, starting in Frontierland with Big Thunder Mountain. We then made our way around the park riding a few rides we hadn't done yet.

Disneyland Paris has several cool walk-through areas that we enjoyed exploring again, like Adventure Isle and the Alice in Wonderland maze. Unfortunately the dragon's lair under the castle was closed for refurbishment. 

At Disney and in Europe generally, people aren’t allowed to smoke inside anymore but make up for it by smoking near building entrances and at outside tables. We saw several nice beer gardens and sidewalk bistros that would have been nice to stop at but they all had smokers at them. At Disney most smokers stuck to the designated areas, but they were often near restrooms so we had to pass through a gauntlet to use them.

This afternoon we walked through Disney Village and checked out some of the hotels. They were nice but not as grand as those in Orlando or Anaheim. I did enjoy the Art of Marvel at the New York Hotel. We had dinner at the Rain Forest Cafe, then headed back to our hotel for the night.

Europe Day 15 - Walt Disney Studios Park

The Paris resort consists of two parks, a retail area with some restaurants and a cinema, and a half dozen hotels. Our cast tickets allowed us to hop between parks so that’s what I did. While Susan and Jenn looked at the stores in Disney Village I went over to the Studio park. Just recently Disney revamped the Backlot area of that park into an Avengers Campus. I rode Avengers Assemble Flight Force, a revamp of Hollywood Studios' Rock n Roller coaster. 

 

The girls then headed back to hotel to rest and I went back into Disneyland to ride Star Tours and Hyperspace Mountain, which is their version of Space Mountain with a Star Wars overlay.

 

Today the parks opened at 9:30 so we slept in a bit and left the hotel around 9. We went into Disneyland and rode a few things, then went to the Studios park, mostly to ride the new Spider-Man ride in the Avenger Campus.

The Walt Disney Studios Park is still fairly light on attractions, but they are currently working on a Frozen expansion and supposedly are planning more. The Toy Story area at the Studio park is just flat rides, so we walked through it without riding anything, just like we did in 2014. The old “backstage” tram tour is now a Cars Route 66 ride. It’s kind of lame. Two of the most popular rides at the Studios are Ratatouille and the Crush Coaster, and we didn’t care about doing those. Crush Coaster is a spinning mouse we had done in 2014, and it was a one and done for us.

The Spider-Man ride was similar to Midway Mania and the Avengers coaster was a bit dark and rough. We didn’t eat at any table service restaurants in the parks; there weren’t many reservations available and the menus didn’t appeal to us. It was fairly cool both yesterday and today, with highs in the mid 60’s. Crowds weren’t too bad, most waits were in the 30 to 60 minute range and some were walk on. There was a fair amount of construction walls up and several attractions were closed. I would have liked to watch the fireworks show, but it wasn’t until 11 o’clock.