It was an extremely sleepy day. The sadness of the finality of the cruise was lessened partially by the fact we were continuing on to Disneyland Paris but mostly by the fact we never really woke up.

 A final inspection of the room, a final shower (sans the liquid toiletries not provided by the ship, so chewing gum was a must) and we made our way down to Lumiere’s for our final breakfast at 7:45 in the morning.

 Laura and Andy were late, as they had promised they would be the night before, so we spent some more time getting to know the people at the table to our left. We had talked to them intermittently throughout the trip, mostly sharing our love of gluttony and need for sleep. They were a couple from New Jersey with their 17 year old daughter. They had been on tons of cruises, including a Disney cruise 10 years prior, when their daughter was 7, which immediately caused me to subtract 10 from my age and then not feel so old. As you may have already noticed, I’m not good with names at all. My mother is the oldest of fourteen children and each of her brothers and sisters generally have at least three children, with a bunch having four (no one’s broken five, yet) so that I’ve got so many cousins we don’t bother learning their names until they start talking. As a result, I don’t remember anyone’s names until I’ve seen them and used their name at least a dozen times. Don’t feel bad if I mention you here and don’t remember your name, you obviously left an impression, it’s just that I’m an idiot. Anyway, the man next to us worked in Nyack, which isn’t too far from where we live and home to the Palisades Mall, which we frequent. It was surprising how many people lived or worked near us throughout this cruise, who knows how many times we’d seen them before we got on a boat in Europe together. The couple and their daughter were spending some more time in Barcelona before returning home. Almost everyone had some sort of continuation plan spawning from the idea “Well, we’re already here”, even if they frequent “here”. A couple in the elevator on the way down to breakfast were spending a few days in Spain before returning to Italy for another two weeks. I briefly considered the Hannibal Lecter-style skinning and taking their identity, but I didn’t have any sharp utensils and I really didn’t have the murder lust that early in the morning.

 The dining room was alive, but nowhere near as alive as it had been during the cruise. It was full of people with matted hair, glasses where there had been contacts before, no makeup and their worst outfits. If anyone had walked into the room for the first time they would assume that we were refugees instead of vacationing. There was some life: Wilson, our server, and Melroy, our Assistant Server, were ready and raring to go. I asked if they got some good sleep and they laughed. Melroy had gone to bed at 3 the previous night only to check back in for work at 5:45. Wilson was able to get a luxurious 3 and a half hours in before working up the energy that I don’t have after 10 hours in bed. This was the life they led daily, not an aberration: four hours was lazy Sunday and five hours was unthinkable. The fact that they were able to do their jobs as well as they do, let alone be the liveliest guys in the room, dancing and singing their way through the shift, easily doubled their tips from us, and I’m sure most of the people who had the pleasure of their service. Both Wilson and Melroy would be working again if we were to cruise next year, and their presence made that idea more appealing.

 We ordered…well, Wilson ordered for us: although we had been to breakfast in the dining room only once before, he had memorized both our orders and recited them for us before we could open our mouths. He’s damn good. He also was leaving the ship that day for a visit to his in-laws who live in Barcelona. It’s a welcome respite from ship food and a lucky coincidence for him, since he can mitigate the long and lonely cruise with bi-weekly visit to family.

 Laura and Andy joined us, looking so exhausted that we seemed like speed freaks in comparison. They were in the same boat as us (sorry) with a flight to Paris 6 hours in the future with Disney kicking them out to the airport far too early. They were spending the remainder of their honeymoon in Paris proper, something that made Lisa insanely jealous, but I truly believe that we’re the kind of people who need an “in” to a place before we can enjoy it on our own and the small window allotted to us in Paris would leave us more disappointed than satisfied.

 We wolfed down our breakfast, joking around with Wilson, Melroy, Laura, Andy and the people next to us for the final time. Well, maybe the final time, since we seem to keep running into Andy and Laura throughout Europe. We said our fond farewells and stumbled our way to the elevator, carry-ons in tow.

 We picked up our bags in the Chip & Dale lot. We knew that insane excess baggage fees were in our future, so we stopped at UPS. It would be at least 280 euros to ship only one of the bags home, so that certainly wasn’t an option. In retrospect, it might’ve been a steal. More on that later.

 The bus ride to the airport was uneventful. I much prefer the depressing Magical Express ride to Orlando airport as at least the depression is accompanied by a DVD. Lisa slept most of the way while I finished Miranda July’s new book and played Puzzle Quest, an insanely addictive DS game that combines the simplicity of Bejeweled with the micromanagement of an RPG to create a monster that I’ve had to force myself to put down on more than one occasion.

 We got to the airport at 9:00 and dragged our bags to the line to check in for Easyjet. After a good half hour of waiting, we had our bags weighed for check-in. We knew we would have to pay excess baggage fees as we were allowed 20 kg per person which we had just barely exceeded with our two bags and now we had an additional 20 kg in gifts purchased for everyone back home. We were prepared to pay a token amount for Easyjet since their website said we would have to pay a reasonable additional baggage fee for excess. We were more concerned with Ryanair as it had an insane baggage limit of 15 kg each with an 8 euro per kilogram charge on top of that. Of course, since the odds were against us with one, the other decided to get in on the action: Easyjet’s restrictions changed at the airport and we were forced to pay 180 euros just to get our bags on the plane, probably more than we paid for the flight itself. Lesson learned: don’t fly the cheap airlines within Europe unless you’re backpacking. We’re not looking forward to Ryanair.

 Security in the airport is at an absolute minimum. The security guard that was manning the entryway to the gates was more concerned with keeping the line moving than anything else. Lisa was trying to show him the boarding passes when he yelled for her to move. The actual security check is fairly standard, but the liquid restriction doesn’t seem to be rigorously enforced and they don’t check the shoes at all. The airport security all over Europe has been like this (except in Dublin, when I needed to get it over with quickly) and even in the US it took less time to get through security on my way to Europe than it does when I’m flying to Florida.

 Time passes slowly when you’ve got 5 hours to kill at an airport. There are only so many Toblerones you can consider buying before you’re driven insane. The airport had designated WiFi areas which we took full advantage of for the hour or so before the laptop battery died. The rest of the time was filled with snacking (a Snickers bar for me, a sandwich for Lisa), people watching and Puzzle Quest playing. As our flight time got closer we finally got a Gate number and then we realized that we had no seat numbers. I sent Lisa up to check on this and the next time I looked up from my DS, she was at the front of a line stretching one end of the terminal to the other. It had been fortuitous timing on our part: despite a lack of announcement, boarding was about to begin.

 The line for boarding was a standard line, something that I feel comfortable now calling an American Line in light of what was about to happen, people standing one behind the other, single file. This must have been a mere formality, for as soon as the boarding began, the entire line went to the front, forming a mob in front of the single attendant taking tickets. People not previously standing in line snaked into the crowd and everyone was pushing forward to board. An American family in front of us was shocked by what was going on but the father’s disgust led him to force his way to the front. The sheer force of his American determination somehow parted the mob of inconsiderate passengers and Lisa and I rode in their wake, among the first 10 or so people on the plane. We still had no idea what our seats were so we asked the bold American father if he had his seat numbers and they informed us that it was open seating. This helped explain the chaos we had just witnessed but honestly, what happened to common decency? I understand the desire to get a good seat but people were literally shoving children aside to get to the front. The American family said this is how Southwest Airlines does it in the states and I hate to be all ethnocentrist again but I can’t imagine the people behave the same.

 We sat four rows from the front on the right side of the plane, me on the aisle, Lisa in the middle. A few minutes after we sat down, an elderly woman asked for the window seat and we gladly gave it to her: she couldn’t have weighed more than 90 pounds and so didn’t crush Lisa. She was quiet for the entire trip, which Lisa and I slept through in alternating shifts, not by any conscious decision, it’s just how it worked out. It was probably because the first time I fell asleep I started to drool to the shock and horror of Lisa, who promptly woke me up. I think she decided to remain vigilant for the rest of the 1 ½ hour flight. The rest of the passengers were wholly unremarkable with the exception of the woman on the aisle across and one row back. She spent the entire flight, and I’m not exaggerating when I say the entire flight, blowing her nose. Long, wet blows that were accompanied by visions of the superbug I would contract from her airborne snot globules, so I held my breath and imagined kicking open the airlock and throwing her out, leaving her to rethink flying while sick, or at least considering going to the bathroom where she couldn’t infect anyone else.

 ORLY airport was nice, but we weren’t there to admire it, we were there to leave it. We gathered our luggage (everything, thankfully, in one piece, so far) and searched for the VEA shuttle to Disneyland Paris, which was, of course, not where the website said it would be. The transit map said it was out Door G, Quoi 2. Each successive door leaving the building had a letter assigned to it and we made our way to G, passing food that was calling out to us, because it was 4:32 and the bus was scheduled to arrive at 4:30. Quoi 2, thankfully, was labeled clearly once we got out, but the bus was nowhere to be seen. We accepted that it probably had left already, knowing that Disney’s legendary efficiency comes through only when we don’t want it to, and sat on the bench to wait.

 The young family that had been sitting directly across from us on the plane came with their bags shortly after we sat down. They, too, had come from the cruise and they, too, were heading to Disneyland Paris. I delivered the bad news about the hour wait and they offered a glimmer of hope: they had seen what appeared to be the Disney bus at the corner in the distance, seemingly headed this way. Lo and behold, it was headed this way, and it pulled up to cheers from us and the only other family waiting for it. A squat little fat man with more hair on his stubbly face than on his head popped out of the bus to help us load our luggage underneath the bus. As soon as he had done so, he informed us in French with liberal gesturing that he would return in 20 minutes and we couldn’t get on the bus until then.

 Over an hour later, he returned. In the time he was gone, we learned that the young family was Leo and Jamie with their son Jack. They were all from Chicago and had enjoyed the cruise as much as we did, their first Disney cruise ever, and were considering the Caribbean for the following year. We talked at length, comparing our various excursions and experiences, while Jack, with boundless energy, constantly tested the attention and restrictions of his parents. Despite the pleasant company, all of us were constantly checking our watches in disbelief over being abandoned. I theorized he must be napping in the bus, but he wasn’t in the driver’s seat, which is nice since that would’ve been all that more insulting since we couldn’t get on the bus. The time passed incredibly slowly, but when he showed up, we were just happy to be on our way and didn’t utter a single complaint, at least not to the driver. He had, of course, now put us square into rush hour, and so our journey took over an hour, with the industrialized zones on either side of the highway offering little to appreciate in the way of scenery, so that the most interesting moment of the journey was seeing a McDonald’s.

 The entrance to the Disneyland Paris Resort area does nothing to get you excited. There’s a faded sign, clearly aged by time and weather, that is a bit smaller than the road signs, only on the right side of the bus, that would be easy to miss if you weren’t paying attention. There wasn’t much in the way of pre-show, and suddenly we were at the first hotel, the Newport Bay Club, a hybrid Beach Club/Yacht Club that was big and boxy with just enough themeing to evoke the seaside resort it was aiming for. This seemed to be the norm here: our hotel, the Sequoia Lodge, a hybrid of the Wilderness Lodge and the Grand Californian, was big and boxy and themed just enough to evoke the National Park lodges it was aiming for. The interior of the lobby was more impressive than the outside, though, and I left Lisa to take (terrible) pictures of it while I checked in.

 The people working at the front desk were multilingual, with at least French, Spanish and German spoken before I got up there and they spoke English. The long wait to get there, though, was long, but it was moved along by Mickey, who had come out to the lobby, seemingly unattended (a cast member came out from the shadows when it was time for Mickey to go), and dancing to the lobby music whenever he wasn’t entertaining a child. He was lively, far livelier than the people checking into the hotel, and when he was alone except for one little girl, he danced a waltz at length with her, making her day. The check-in process went smoothly: any fear of a language barrier was nonsense, the only fear you should have is of the shame that these people can speak most of your language while you struggle with just a few words of theirs.

 We had booked through DVC and so our admission was included. Originally it seemed that the stay was a bit pricey point-wise but once I factored in the admission it was actually more than reasonable. The stay also included a continental breakfast every morning of the stay and I had opted for the breakfast in Fantasyland that would allow us to get into the park an hour early. I was handed two vouchers (we would be leaving too early the third morning to take advantage of the breakfast) that would get us into the park. Nothing really seems to be linked up here: in addition to the vouchers, I was given a room key, two park tickets, and two separate “Hotel easy-passes” that seemed identical but one proved that I was staying in a Disney hotel for Extra Magic Hours (which were only going on the night we checked in, when we didn’t plan on taking advantage of them) and the other allowed us to charge things to the room. Back in good ol’ Walt Disney World, all these are rolled into the room key, which, of course, I prefer.

 We were in the Yellowstone Lodge, the first of six buildings off the lobby, in room 119. It was just through a covered bridge over a stream, complete with little waterfalls. This, combined with birdsongs that we’re unsure were actually real, gave the place the charming nature feel that we’d hoped for. The Yellowstone Lodge wasn’t so charming, though, with moldy doors that stuck when you tried to open them and a dark hallway with ugly wallpaper. The room lock was the card-reader type, but it was almost impossible to slip the card in properly, so that you feared snapping it in half as you tried to find the millimeter slit that was secreted away in the middle of the box.

 The room itself was serviceable, but nothing special beyond its spaciousness (relative to the only other hotel room we’d stayed at in Europe, in Barcelona, where the small space was mitigated by its sharp decoration). There was a very nice bathroom with a tub and shower that seemed brand new, which was nice. I don’t remember if this was considered a “Moderate” resort (I think it was), but since Wilderness Lodge back home, its spiritual sister, is a Deluxe Resort, we were expecting more than the sparse decoration. I may sound down on the hotel as a whole, but I would actually stay here again (I’d like to try Disneyland Hotel next time, it really is built on top of the park) but with more realistic expectations about what we’d be getting.

 There was no time to dawdle in the room: I had made reservations at King Ludwig’s Table, a German restaurant in Disney Village (their Downtown Disney) that Lisa had latched onto as a place she HAD to eat at when she was looking at some review sites in Barcelona airport. I had tried to convince her otherwise, especially after the clerk at the Front Desk told me that it wasn’t owned or operated by Disney, but she was steadfast in her resolve. My inability to read an analog watch (I don’t know why I wear them, especially the one I have now which has no numbers, leaving me to guess what time it is plus or minus an hour. Don’t ever ask me the time, I’ll stare at my watch for far too long, panicking, and then I’ll finally give you the first number that comes to my mind, regardless of its relation to what I’m seeing on my wrist) meant that we were rushing from our hotel room at 7:30 PM for a 9:00 PM reservation, thinking it was 8:30 PM. We made our way through the hotel lobby (we would later find on our own that it was quicker to avoid the hotel lobby altogether and just head down the path alongside the waterfall stream) to the Promenade du Loc, the walkway surrounding the main waterway surrounded by the Sequoia Lodge, the Newport Bay Club and Disney Village. There were shuttles that left the Sequoia Lodge every 12 minutes, but unless you’re able to get on the shuttle without waiting, it was actually quicker to walk, which we did.

 The walk from the Hotel Lobby opens up to the Promenade du Loc after you pass several pine trees, which cover the grounds of the Sequoia Lodge. Directly in front of the hotel is what seems to be a dock, but it is unattended and seemingly unused, as no boats of any kind are in the water. There are vestiges of a time when watercraft may have been out on the lake: buoys with solar powered lights floated near bridges with ample headroom underneath. I wonder, though, what the purpose of the boats might have been, as the lake isn’t all that big and it doesn’t connect in any way to the parks. What is probably the former dock that accepted the boats near Disney Village currently holds a giant hot-air balloon celebrating the 15^th anniversary of Disneyland Paris. The balloon is pretty well moored and is also unattended, though it looks as if they might fly it during busier times of year.

 The walk is fairly quiet by the Sequoia Lodge, with only a few signposts directing you to the action lining the sides. Once you cross a bridge toward the Hotel New York, a hotel designed to resemble the New York skyline (which fails miserably), it becomes slightly more lively, with a concession stand selling ice cream and several concrete steps leading down to the lake (with no barrier at its edge, forcing tons of parents to chase their children, eager to join the many ducks lining the banks, down them). As you walk further, the place livens up a bit more, and the strangeness of the Disney Village becomes apparent.

 Lisa said it reminded her of Six Flags, which I can understand. There’s a sense of cheap opportunism in the barely-themed attractions you’d expect to find at a State Fair than in anything Disney, although I guess there’s precedent in the fairly awful Midway at California Adventure and the equally bad (in parts) at Dinoland USA at Animal Kingdom. Nothing is free, which would make it more tolerable, so all you’re left with are overpriced children’s rides that look like they were rented for a birthday party of a spoiled child. There’s the ever-popular trampoline-and-bungee-cord thing, the kiddie go-karts complete with dingy-plastic dividers, and a tiny plastic mall carousel. Then you reach Disney Village.

 Disney Village was our first introduction to the bizarre view of America that was pervade the entire Disneyland Paris property. The USA is made up of, in its entirety: New York and Hollywood, populated by Cabbies, Celebrities, Cowboys and Indians. I imagine it’s the same as imagining the streets of London filled with cockney urchins or Paris with lanky beret-wearing men with pencil-thin moustaches in black and white striped shirts, baguettes under their arm. I guess we come out pretty unscathed, but that might just be because I live in New York and get some recognition, despite my lack of cowboy boots.

 The love of the Wild West is evident everywhere, with a Wild West dinner show, a country western saloon, and Billy Bob’s snacks and Tex-Mex buffet. Representing the New York side of the US is New York Style, proudly offering Pastrami and Corned Beef. The Hollywood side is represented by Planet Hollywood, which seems to have a stranglehold on Disney properties, despite its total lack of modernity. Its facade is covered in cutouts that probably seemed dated when it opened in 1992 especially with its not one, but two appearances of Wesley Snipes in his embarassing White Men Can’t Jump costume. There’s also a shoutout to the 1950s, our go-to decade for Americana, with Annette’s (a reference to Annette Funicello, I’m sure), a diner that Lisa tells me is their version of the 50s Primetime Café in MGM Studios. There are also, of course, shops mostly Disney merchandise but also outposts for Planet Hollywood, King Ludwig’s and the Wild West Saloon. There’s also a McDonald’s (which, like in America, you’d be shocked how many people run to as if it’s the first they’ve ever seen) and a Rainforest Café, but the less said about both, the better. There was some insane entertainment in the middle of it all, with a giant woman on stilts with fruit on her head slow-motion chasing three smaller men, two with smaller stilts and one with no stilts at all. Their actions were broad, as if they were mimes, but they spoke a lot in French. I’m not sure it made sense even to the people who understood the language.

 A digression: a stunning amount of people, men and women alike, had the tiny mohawk (is it really a mohawk if you keep the rest of your non-mohawked hair?) with frosted tips that Sacha Baron Cohen has when playing his Bruno character. It’s insanely stupid-looking. It takes all the non-conformist rebellion of the mohawk, throws it out, and replaces it with “Look at my big, dumb, gay head”. Okay, now we may continue.

 Our destination was King Ludwig’s Castle, contained in a stuccoed beige castle that didn’t do anything to assuage my fears about eating here. The menu was a thorough meat and potatoes affair, though, something I look for in my German food, and I didn’t feel like walking anymore, so we went in.

 Lisa committed the mortifying faux pas of immediately speaking to the woman seating us in English without asking if she spoke it, or even greeting her. I had taken the reigns so far, mainly because her pronunciation of French was horrendous, but for some reason she felt comfortable enough to force herself on this person. Seemingly everyone here (in Disney, outside they still speak it but the vocabulary varies from person to person) speaks fluent English, so I can understand why, but I was still caught so offguard that when the woman looked at me I couldn’t respond, like a deer in the headlights, and only after a few seconds was able to spit out a proper greeting and a polite request for a table for two. We were seated and Lisa, who had noticed my horror but hadn’t put two and two together, asked me what was going on. I explained it to her as if it had happened the other way around, and how you probably wouldn’t be all that offended, but you’d certainly wonder how smart a person who talks to you in a non-native tongue right off the bat must be.

 We greeted our waiter, asking him if he spoke English properly this time, which of course he did. We ordered an appetizer whose unpronounceable name and bizarre ingredients would never lead you to believe it was the flatbread pictured alongside it. I ordered the Choucroute Royale, a plate full of sausage on a mountain of sauerkraut that got my pick because along with the sausages was a slab of thick cut bacon, and bacon is good. Lisa ordered the Choucroute Wagner, which also had a ton of sausages but didn’t include any bacon, and so I passed it up. We took in the atmosphere: it was a two story dining room lined with tapestries knights doing knightly things and those little flags that knights ride into battle with which I know the name of and would blow you away with my refinement and intelligence if I remembered it and busted it out, but since I can’t, you’ll just have to take my word. It was nice, but not so nice that you didn’t consider the possibility it might be the Outback of German restaurants. The bathrooms were atrocious, cavernous affairs that managed to have only one or two actual toilets that produced a swampy floor. The garbage by the towels was overflowing, looking like the trash can of someone with a head cold. This held true of bathrooms throughout the resort: seemingly abandoned after an initial cleaning every morning.

 Our flatbread was amazingly good, which was wholly unexpected since we chose it based solely on its weird name. It was delivered by a person other than our waiter, something not unheard of in the states, but this person was one of many that would serve us that night. In fact, we would never see the same person twice, making ordering more drinks impossible as we expected to see our waiter at least once more during the meal, but it was only when he appeared about twenty minutes after we had finished that I was able to flag him down from someone else’s table. The poor service (although, again, this would be our experience again the following day, so it might just be the norm) was more than made up for with the great food. The sausages were exactly what we were hoping for from a German restaurant, in great variety, all tasty. They were served alongside some miraculously tasty boiled (!) potatoes that complimented them wonderfully, moreso than the mountain of sauerkraut (that’s what it was called on the menu, a mountain, and it truly was) that the sausages were served on top of. We were filled to the brim by the end of it all and skipped dessert, just wanting to get back to the room to unpack what little we had to unpack and get to sleep.

 Well, Lisa unpacked while I typed recaps and watched the Top 10 Disneyland Paris channel. Lisa absolutely hates these channels in Walt Disney World (Top 7 there) for their corniness and relentlessly cheerful hostesses, but I eat it up like candy. The Top 10 channel in Disneyland Paris is her worst nightmare: not only is the hostess relentlessly cheerful, there’s more than one, at least five that I’ve seen so far, each speaking a different language. There’s two channels, one rotating between French, English, German and, I think, Dutch, and the other rotating between Spanish…well, I’ve spent more time on the first channel so I don’t know what else is playing on the second one besides Spanish.

 If you’re of the mindset that Disney is all innocence and eternal childhood, read no further. Seriously. You might even be creeped out if you don’t think like that and read it anyway. Go ahead, here’s your chance to click away.

 Okay, so there’s a widespread consensus, couched in euphemism, double entendre, and sly phrasing, but widespread nonetheless, that the Top 10 channel girls are the best batch material in Disney. You’ll find debates in the forums and download sites about which girls are preferred for satisfying the baser needs, with most men preferring the previous Walt Disney World Top 7 girl to the current one for her, shall we say, larger assets. I prefer the current one, but I can see the appeal, as I lean that way generally, but there’s something about the new girl, perhaps how much “Pretzels und Beer!” annoys the hell out of Lisa.

 Anyway, the Disneyland Paris Top 10 is a wonderland of women with its bevy of beauties, exotic in their foreign tongues. The hottest is the German one, who sounds perpetually furious at Disney because of her native tongue, and I annoyed Lisa by throwing out awful euphemisms like “I’d Cruise her Jungle”, “I’d take her to Fantasyland”, and “She can ride the Tower of Terror any day.” She wondered aloud why she ever married me and I told her it’s because I rocked her small world.

We went to sleep after that.