Taking the Kids to Disneyland Paris (With a VIP Tour, Obviously)

When you’ve worked for yourself your entire adult life, you quickly learn there is no one coming to save you from your own laziness.

There are, however, two reliable ways to force yourself into doing things:

1. Have children.  They will drag you into activities you didn’t know existed and certainly didn’t ask for.
2. Publicly commit to writing one article a week, thus weaponising shame as motivation.

This post is the intersection of both.

I’ve been travelling, working, and, most time-consuming of all, procrastinating — and now have five unfinished reviews awaiting my attention, one of which is currently attempting to murder me via writer’s block.  So, instead of dealing with that like a responsible adult, here we are: Disneyland.

And yes, it can be luxury.  No, honestly.  No sniggering at the back.  We came via Eurostar Premier (business class), followed by two nights at Peninsula Paris, and a Disneyland VIP Tour.  What is a VIP tour?  It’s having a guide who stays with you all day, threatens the general public, and lets you skip every queue imaginable, turning a day of loitering into a memorable event.  Even the restaurants had queues.  Well, for the rest of the visitors, it did; we were bulldozed to the front.  I need this person in my life as a permanent fixture.  

Was it worth spending five figures so my children could meet a handful of princesses and go on a load of rides, some of which might have been a bit too scary for them and have now traumatised them for life?

You’re goddamn right it was.

If you can stand in Disneyland, see your 3- and 4-year-old watch the parade (at the front in their own roped off section, obviously) — eyes huge, waving like their arms might fall off, hugging characters like they’ve found God — and not feel something, then you are dead to me.  Dead.

We will not be discussing Peninsula Paris in depth here.  Yes, it still serves the greatest French toast in recorded history.  Yes, everything else is ok.  And Eurostar… oh Lord.  Since the stupidity of Brexit, entering that terminal feels like attempting to escape a failed state in the midst of a national crisis.  The only reason we made our train is because we were in Premier.  If we hadn’t been, I would still be in that queue right now, balancing this laptop on someone’s face to still meet my self-imposed deadline.

But the point —the actual point —is this: Luxury is time.  Time not spent queuing.  Time not spent negotiating with overstimulated-sugar-fueled-meltdowns as you’re in yet another three-hour-long queue.  Time well spent with your kids while they are still at the age where magic is real.

No brand is paying me to say this (Disney doesn’t even pay travel advisor commission), but if this is at all within your realm of possibility: do it. It’s the difference between surviving Disneyland and actually enjoying it.  Also: content. It gives me something to write about that isn’t yet another generic safari lodge.