Paris

My First Disney Holiday

Disney Diary, TRAVEL

It was a family holiday with my mum, dad and sister where we travelled straight into Marne-la-Valle on the Eurostar and stayed in the western themed Hotel Cheyenne. Back at the beginning 2000 I would have been 9 years old and really, looking back I feel I was even younger than that.

I do have a few memories of my own but loved hearing some forgotten ones from my mum and dad and looking through the photos. There are a few things that stood out on the holiday. I was like a kid in a candy shop in all of the stores there and left with a full lanyard of pin badges. I remember that it was fairly cold and it was definitely coat weather. I remember this because my chosen coast was a purple number with fluffy sleeves and collar. I remember this because I managed to get ‘plastic’, runny cheese stuck in the sleeves and somehow later threw up the contents of a jacket potato with cheese. Let’s just say the experience put me off melted cheese for a looong time. Now if I ever saw someone ladling runny cheese onto a potato I’m outta there.

I was tall enough and old enough to go on the rollercoasters on our first visit. The Indiana Jones Temple of Doom as I remember it was a great ride. It was also my first experience on ‘It’s A Small World’ and my mum must have been on it more than a handful of times with my sister being around 4 years old at the time. As much as I enjoyed the rides I think my slightly scared moment was on Rock ‘n’ Rollercoaster as I had never been on anything that started that fast before.

We recently watched The Imagineneering Story on Disney+ and I was surprised to see the content about Disneyland Paris. Our first family holiday covered the time when the second park, Hollywood Studios had just opened and I can honestly say that through my young eyes it was nothing but a great experience. Even going years later it was still a wonderfully fun place with the Tower of Terror and my favourite ride in Paris, Crush’s Coaster. I loved this ride so much I was gutted when I went with my now husband and it was closed for renovation.

What memories do you have of your first ever Disney holiday?

Reviewing My 30 before 30 List

LIFESTYLE

Well this is a tough one. I recently wrote a 30 before 30 list, ya know before everything, thinking I had from January until September to fit tonnes of activities in, days out and travel experiences in. As the current situations stands it does not look like we are going to be exploring a new place or treading familiar paths anytime soon, which is fine, it just makes me want to evaluate my previous list, and change it a little. So with this in mind, it won’t be a 30 before 30 list anymore, it will be a ‘When Lockdown Has Fully Lifted and It Is Completely Safe To Go Out’ list or the ‘WLHFLAIICSTGO’ list whichever rolls off the tongue easier. 

  1. Disneyland Paris Trip – as you may be aware we had our Walt Disney World Florida holiday cancelled due to the lockdown and as it may be off the cards for a while I would love to visit Disneyland Paris as soon as possible. 
  2. Head into Derbyshire on the motorbike. As passenger on the back of my husbands motorbike to be more precise. Spending the day drinking tea and cake in Bakewell, having some chips in Matlock Bath and take a walk around Chatsworth. 
  3. Visit friends in London. And hopefully go decorate some biscuits at Biscuiteers or go and do The Crystal Maze experience with the husbands.
  4. Go to Birmingham with my sister. Go shopping in the Bullring and watch a film at the Luxe cinema there. 
  5. Treat myself to a spa session.(It will be for my birthday after all.) I would love to have an overnight stay in a spa hotel and get to fully relax with some treatments and a sauna session.
  6. Take a friend to afternoon tea. Preferably somewhere we haven’t been before to have a catch up and eat all of the cake they have under those glass domes along with plenty of sandwiches of course.
  7. Spend a weekend in the Lake District. Take a tour around The Lakes Gin Distillery and go on plenty of long walks -not in that order though.

For now that is it. I think apart from seeing family, which will be first on the agenda when it is safe to do so, they are the places that I have missed the most over the past few weeks. I also read a book recently ‘The List That Changed My Life’ which had a similar narrative of things to do before the character reached 30. Completely different to my list however inspiring all the same.

You might also notice that there aren’t 30 anymore. Due to the shorter amount of time and the fact it will be September before we know it I have had to narrow it down. This hasn’t bothered me to be honest, I might not be able to get 30 things in but I may get other events in that are completely unplanned but that I am 100% grateful for. An impromptu picnic or an evening spent with friends at a great restaurant, sometime the best times are the surprise ones, what do you think?

Have you had to alter any plans or experiences? Or create a new ’30 before 30’ list?