Finally, the time has come, 6 PM on 20 December 2015. The journey that I have been waiting for is about to get started. It has been the whole year that I have been preparing and planning including saving money especially for this journey. This is a very special trip of mine. I have never thought that we are able to travel to Europe this easy and I am super excited. Are you all ready? Let's go to Europe!




This journey is to travel to 2 countries, France and Switzerland. However, according to the recent Paris terror attack I have changed my plan for numbers of times in order to be safe and provide the better comfort to my girlfriend as my travel companion, and my family back at home. And we shouldn't talk about the expenses because it might bother you and you won't be able to enjoy everything as much. My original plan was to stay in Paris for 9 days and Lyon for 2 days. I have reserved all flights and train tickets already but I need to cancel some of them due to the incident mention above. At the end, my plan is as follows. We are going to fly to Paris (CDG) and take the Disneyland shuttle bus directly from the airport to Disneyland Paris. Then we are going to travel by train to Geneva, Chamonix, Lyon, and Annecy respectively before coming back to take the flight from Paris back to Bangkok. It sounds fun, right? hahaha


The day has come and we have arrived at Suvarnabhumi Airport quite early. We then head to King Power Lounge right away. We are very lucky to be upgraded to access the Platinum King Power Lounge for complimentary as my girlfriend's birthday period. We are served with complimentary free cocktail and we spend sometimes relaxing here before boarding. This is so good. hahaha


Once we have arrived in Paris, we are surprised that there are so many tourists traveling to Paris during this time. We have to queue up for the immigration process for a long time. After everything is done, we take CDGVAL to Terminal 2E to take Magical shuttle Disney to Disneyland Paris straight away. The shuttle takes about 45 minutes to get to Disneyland and the shuttle ticket costs 20 Euro per person.



Shuttle bus will drop passengers to different hotels in Disneyland area before approaching one of the train stations as the final stop. Actually, we miss the stop. We are now at the final stop and we should have gotten down earlier. Anyway, we take the free shuttle bus, a long yellow bus, back to Marne la Vallée-Chessy Train Station right away.


We have arrived at the Disneyland Paris finally but first we need to deposit our luggage at Marne la Vallée-Chessy Train Station. To deposit your luggage you need to go to the 2nd floor of the train station and look for the sign "Consigne". You can get your money changed into coin for the luggage locker here. The big locker costs 9.5 Euro and I guess it can last for the whole day. If I am not mistaken the cost of the locker depends on the locker's size and the deposit duration.


We are now at Parc Disneyland but it is not easy to go through the security check among the crowd like this. It seems to me that they are more strict on the security check due to the terror attack last month in Paris.



We have bought 1 Day 1 Park entry ticket online for 69 Euro. What we need to do is to show the hard copy reservation ticket to the staff at the main entrance gate (no need to scan voucher or anything before). We have just entered for only 10 minutes then the people both children and adult start to reserve spots to watch the parade already. They look very excited while begin to sing the Christmas songs along the background parade music.



Look at them! They are very concentrated in waiting for the parade.



There is a huge Christmas tree lightening up the festive season ambiance in the park.



Shops in Disneyland are all nicely decorated.



And the parade has finally arrived at the spot where we are waiting.



The parade has come to an end and people start to move to other parts of the park mainly to the iconic castle.



There are so many people taking photos in front of this iconic castle. In addition, you can find many zones that you can visit around the area. However, we have limited period of time so we are able to visit the castle zone only. We have spent about 1 hour here and we need to leave already. We need to travel to Gare de Lyon to catch the train to Geneva (French people call Geneva as Genève meaning that if you says Geneva, they won't understand hahaha).



The gigantic beanstalk...



We would like to say goodbye with this Mickey Mouse where it is located at the exit gate. It is a pity that we don't have much time here. Anyway, after so many changes on the plan at least we have managed to come here even it is just for a little while.



The mission in Disneyland Paris is completed. The next mission is to find Outlet La Valle near Val d' Europe station. It is only one stop away from Disneyland Paris. We don't have any photos during this mission though because we have to take care a lot of belongings. To get there, once you have arrived at Val d' Europe station you need to turn right, cross the street, and walk through a shopping mall. From my point of view, this outlet is not that interesting if we talk about the products and prices. That's why we can't find anything to buy here. We then have decided that we better take the RER to Gare de Lyon directly. The RER ticket is 6.90 Euro. We are going to take the train from Gare de Lyon to Geneva. We have reserved the ticket earlier and it costs 122 Euro. But on the way there, there is a French policeman getting into the RER after 2 stops and he said something which make all people get off the RER right away. Anyone please help! Help us to translate it into English! We just don't want to carry these two huge luggage again and again but we guess we will get use to it, get use to the big city as well.


For those who have planned to visit Disneyland Paris and have got to take the train to somewhere right after, we highly suggest you to spare 1.5 - 2 hours prior to the train departure time. It is not easy to get out from RER to find SNCF. We were sweating to be honest. I would say my trip in Paris this time is quite tiring because of the limited time and we are not well-prepared. So make sure you have study well and prepare well before you come.


Goodbye Paris and we will see you once again on the very last day of this journey.


The next chapter is about the journey in Geneva, please stay tuned!

I am a Runner

 Monday, January 25, 2016 10:45 AM

Comments