This year has been a funny year in terms of travelling. For the most part, we had a trip planned every two months starting in February. We did not plan it like this on purpose. It just so happened that what we wanted to do, fell like this. We did however have a four months gap from mid-May to mid-September. This is nothing unusual as we don’t tend to travel during the summer months. Then a friend mentioned that they were planning to go to Disneyland Paris for his birthday in mid-July and that they would love us to come along. My leave for this year was maxed out, but I had the weekend in question off and an early shift the day before. A quick at flights showed that this was entirely doable. Suddenly that gap during the summer months was closed.
This was only a mini trip, but it also required very little planning. Sure, I had to get us there and back again and find somewhere to stay, but that was the grand total of the planning that was required of me. Our friends ran certain things by me, but I was quite happy to just go along with things. Once we got there, the only requirement was that I was present. That was actually very refreshing.
I had been on an early shift the day we were leaving for Paris and Graham had taken the day off. My original plan had been to just take an Uber to the airport as the trams were on an amended service pattern that day. The reason for that was that there was an Oasis concert in one of the public parks in Manchester later that evening. I then found out that the gates would open for the concert at 15:00 and figured that this would affect the availability of Ubers. I decided to walk and arranged to meet Graham at the station.
There are two walking routes into the airport that I was aware of. One goes from straight opposite our office, past the airport pub and along the perimeter fence until it ultimately comes out at terminal 3. If I was heading to terminal 3 or even 1, this would have been the best route. The other route was along the footpath that runs alongside the business park where our office is and then along the main road. That route ends up by the first of the onsite hotels and near the bus station. This was better for what I was trying to achieve. The drawback with this is that there is a whole rabbit warren of traffic lights to negotiate. I found a third route by accident in the wish to avoid some of the traffic lights. At the end of footpath for the business park, there are 6 traffic lights to negotiate to get on the right side of the road for the airport and then the same again nearer the airport to get to the station. I know that closer to the office, there would be only two traffic lights. I decided to try this. I took a path across the tram lines that ended right by those traffic lights. Unfortunately, once I had crossed, I realised that there was no footpath alongside the main road that far up. There was however a footbridge that led in the general direction of the airport. I decided to check this out and came out by some of the newer parking structures at the airport. In terms of distance, this was probably slightly further than the original plan, but it involved a total of 4 traffic lights instead of 12 and was therefore still quicker. It was also the nicer route.
I arrived at the airport station exactly at the time, I had arranged to meet Graham, but there was no sign of him. I had arranged to meet him at the upper level of the station. With that I meant the level were the ticket office was rather than the platform level. It did occur to me that Graham may have thought that I meant the Skylink level where the footbridges for the terminals go from. I tried to call him, but he did not answer the phone. In the end, I decided to head up there to check if he was there. He was indeed and we headed off towards terminal 2.
Even with this misunderstanding, we arrived at the check in area for Air France exactly at the time they were recommending on the app. We were travelling with hand luggage only and I had done online check in, which meant we could head straight to security.
Security was busier than I had expected, but not bad by any means. I think this had something to do with the fact that one side of security was closed. There was plenty of staff about to direct people. Not long after we got there, we were sent to a scanner and shortly afterwards we got directed to a scanning station. Graham was through very quickly. I unfortunately was behind some people who had obviously left their brain at home. There were two people in front of me. The first person had put his jacket, mobile phone, keys, belt and even his shoes in a tray, but then walked off with his trolley case. He was duly sent back. The person right ahead of me had a hard time figuring out what he should be doing. He stood in front of the belt rummaging in his carry on even though he was repeatedly told to leave everything in and just put it in a tray. The member of staff then had to tell him every single item that he needed to put in the tray. In the middle of all this, Mr Trolley Case came back and pushed ahead of him. This derailed him completely. I was sorely tempted to offer to take care of things for him.
Eventually, it was my turn. I quickly put my backpack and handbag in trays and headed to the scanner. I passed muster. Graham, who at that stage was about 10 minutes ahead of me, was just getting his backpack. For some reason, the luggage scanner had become backed up. I got my stuff about 5 minutes later. We were finally free to head into the departure lounge.
Even with all this fun and games, we had time for an early dinner. I picked San Carlo. After the delicious breakfast we had there in April, I was keen to try dinner. Graham had baked salmon fillet with black olive tapenade, served with sundried tomato, caper & parsley dressing. He ordered some fries to go with it. I was torn between a few options, but ultimately decided on Spaghetti Carbonara. We both enjoyed our food. I figured it would be a crime to go to an Italian restaurant and not have an Aperol Spritz. It also was a Friday and technically I was on holiday. Graham had an elderflower tonic. We both had some water. Ironically, our food came out before the drinks did. Still, we had plenty of time to enjoy our meal and drinks.
When we had finished our meal and paid, our gate still was not listed. We expected that our flight would depart from the A gates and headed in that general direction. We stopped at a bathroom on the way and by the time we came out, our gate was listed. It was indeed leaving from one of the A gates. In the end, the inbound flight arrived nearly one our late. We had some amusement as for every flight, some people were running late. When our flight got there, they turned it around really quickly and we departed only about 30 minutes behind schedule.
The flight was very smooth. It was a beautiful clear day, and we had a view for the entire flight. We managed to make up the delay. I read for most of the flight. They served us a sandwich with cream cheese and Mediterranean vegetables which was really nice. I had a Coke with my sandwich and Graham had some water.
We landed out by the satellite terminal. I was impressed as instead of a portable staircase; they had a portable ramp which makes life so much easier. I had switched aircraft mode off on my phone while we were waiting to get off and I had a message from our driver to let him know when we had landed. I messaged him back that we had arrived and were waiting for our bus to the terminal.
The bus arrived shortly afterwards and soon we were on our way. He messaged me again asking me to let him know once we had our luggage. We had no luggage to content with, but we still had passport control to clear. This was a bit of a mess. I had read shortly before this trip that a deal had been struck so that we could use the egates in France. The signage was already there, and they had installed a lot of extra egates. However, they were not yet operational. We followed the signage for passport control, but then were guided to another area. When we got there, we were all walked to a third area for passport control. It seemed we were finally where we were supposed to be. Once we were finally in the right area, passport control was quick and efficient.
We stopped quickly at the bathroom. When we reached the baggage hall, I messaged our driver again with an update on our progress. He asked me to ring him once we were landside. When I did so, it went straight to voicemail. I was going to message him again, but he called me straight back. He was just coming down the corridor opposite us.
We headed to the car. We had a clear run to the hotel passing some familiar places. I had got a good deal at the Radisson Blu Marne La Vallee and decided to try this. Based on the address, I had thought that it was in the same general area as the good neighbour hotels that I had stayed at previously. However, it turned out that it was actually closer to Val d’Europe. The hotel is next to a golf course and has extensive grounds of its own. It is a beautiful setting.
The hotel features a very impressive lobby that gave off some Disney vibes. We checked in and headed to the room. The room was a bit old-fashioned. It had the same feel as a Hilton hotel. It was however clean, and the bed was comfortable.
We relaxed for a while. I was messaging with my friends that I had gone to spend time with. Then I read for a while. Graham saw some of the fireworks from Disneyland. Once they were over, we got ready for bed and settled down for the night.
Dolphingirl’s Travels 
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