Family holiday (part 1)
Train travel with small children – fantastic in that they are not strapped into a seat, they can colour and draw as they have a table, can get up to go to the loo and there are interesting things to look at out of the window. Drawbacks? They are not strapped into their seats (!) and I have a horror of impinging on other people’s peace and quiet.
We travelled from Chester to London, arriving around lunchtime – dumped our bags at the hotel and made our way to the Natural History museum. Brilliant, but unfortunately the entire under-13 population of London had chosen the same day to visit so although we spent time in the fascinating geology section and saw the whales, some of the mammals and some ichthyosaurs, there was a huge queue for the dinosaurs. Of course, with hindsight and post-disney, a 45-minute wait is nothing and we should have just queued and looked on it as good practice and getting our eye in.
The next morning saw us trundling cases to board the Disney Express!(I seem to have neglected to photograph children with backpacks, which is a shame because I may be biased but they were damn cute). Momentary excitement at the Eurostar terminal as Cameron spotted half of the Magic Numbers (I didn’t come over all groupie and ask for autographs, though I was tempted), then later, on his own, the other half, the Cooks (?) and Damon Albarn (he also refrained from gazing star-struckly, but only just). Then major excitement as we spotted a million small children and heard a jazz band pom-pom-pomming the Bare Necessities. The disney express, naturally, was a riot and nobody cared about noise; although it was very kind of the little girl the seat behind to give my children a lolly each, I could have done without her grabbing Tamsin repeatedly by the hair.
We arrived, greeted by Chip and Dale (T very nervous of dressed-up characters, as predicted), dropped our luggage, had a ludicrously overpriced panini, and headed into the park, where we also spent the next full day.
Hits: lunch with the princesses, the flying elephant ride, the small world, Aladdin’s cave, and most of all the old-fashioned carousel* and the parade, which we had to see twice. The fountains.
Misses: the Peter Pan carpet ride, the Alice maze, ice lollies (?), walking
(*Sigh. We could have stayed here and gone to the fairground.)
It was gloriously, almost too, hot and sunny. Unexpectedly, queuing didn’t faze the children one little bit: while C and I balked at the idea of standing for 45 minutes in order to go round and round and up and down 5 times, they couldn’t have cared less. Tamsin disliked most of the characters, though was really keen for them to sign her autugraph book – Wiggley** Pooh being her absolute favourite, although she did not want to approach within a few feet. All she really wanted, for the entire 4 days, was for Minnie Mouse to sign her book…fortunately we spotted her on the last morning! I was braved ready to pick T up reassuringly and help her but for some toddler-logic reason, Minnie is not scary and she rushed forward very confidently.
We spent part of Friday in the Walt Disney Studio Park, for some variety and because there was a High School Musical show, which clearly was not to be missed. Here, we traumatised the children by taking them on a ride where they demonstrated special effects – so we were nearly drowned, caught in an explosion, then singed by dragons. The “animagique” show was mixed – pink elephants bad, fish good – and the cinemagique one was also very scary (you shouldn’t have taken us to that should you mummy). All soothed by a cuddle from Daisy Duck and a trip on some flying carpets.
I suspended all cynicism – to be honest I don’t have that much anyway – apart from this photograph, which I had to take and share joyfully with Mia and Karen in particular – and found that I loved it’s a small world. Even C found things to enjoy…at the end of the day, if the children are happy, we are happy. All that said, by Saturday I was ready to go somewhere where we could relax a bit – there were so many people at Disney that I was hawklike over the children the whole time, both so as to not lose them and so they wouldn’t annoy anybody (I have no idea why I am so sensitive to this. Uniquely so, it seems.) – I felt I was having to reign them in more than I wanted.
(**Winnie the)
Selected rest of photographs here.