Disneyland Paris and Château Thierry, France

Friday saw us wake up in Bapaume and drive for a few hours onto Disneyland. Myself and Lucy did not actually leave the van at all in Bapaume but Neil assured us it was a nice place as he looked briefly around on Rory’s dog walk.
We made it to Disney for lunch. Over the years visiting Disney we have seen Motorhomes right near the entrance in the closest car park, we often wondered how they got there and how we could. After watching and listening on our last visit we realised the Motorhomes had dogs, it must be kennel parking so this time when we arrived we requested the kennel parking barrier code half expecting to be told no but sure enough he gave us the code! Result, closest possible parking and free with our annual passes. Was worth bring Rory after all 🙂

After lunch we met up with my brother Mark, his wife Susan and baby Lauren who had flown over from Southampton. The rest of the day saw us doing Disney stuff and finished off with a lovely meal in The Rain Forest Cafe.

Saturday was a full on Disney mayhem day, parades, shows, rides and the obligatory shopping!

Of course Disney would not be complete without happy hour with steins in King Ludwig castle followed by character dining in Cafe Mickey. Lucy learnt a life lesson in a very busy Disney Village, do not keep walking when your parents stop! Lucy failed to notice we had stop to check football scores on a large screen outside the sports bar and we failed to notice she kept walking. Literally a few moments passed but once she realised she was lost it felt like hours. Luckily she was sensible enough to stand still and with my big mouth shouting we were reunited and her tears of relief began. The rest of Disney she was stuck to us like glue.

Sunday flew by and after lunch in Mickey’s Wild West BBQ Mark and Susan checked out and headed to the airport. We decided to stay and watch the scary Halloween stage show and another parade then feeling very Disney’d out we headed back to the van to move on.
We made a good choice, leaving after dinner on a Sunday evening meant we saw no lorries and hardly any traffic at all. We arrived in a lovely Aire (right next to McDonalds but once parked up you wouldn’t notice), more like a mini campsite in a quiet town called Château Thierry. We had read a review which advised the town was rubbish but we went to look for ourselves.

Following a 2.5 mile walk around the town we found ourselves agreeing with the reviewer about the town being rubbish as there was not one bar or pub to be found. The highlight of the walk was whilst crossing the river Lucy shouted look at that dog swimming or is it a rat, it was known as a rat dog from then on, we actually think it was an otter. We ended up back in the van to plan for the next leg of our adventure.