The final part of our trip took us back to Parc Asterix, where I hadn't been since 2012 and Conor hadn't been since 1994! So the place was a lot different for him and for me it meant experiencing the park on a much calmer day crowd-wise. And it also meant riding Oz'Iris again to see if it lived up to my previous rides! Annoyingly I didn't take loads of pictures outside of the Oz'Iris area so I apologise for the lack of photos from other areas of the park!

Conor got all excited when we walked in as loads of memories came flooding back and he is familiar with the characters and stories of the Asterix brand, whereas I'm not, so there's lots of stuff he gets that goes straight over my head.

I was so happy at how quiet the place was compared to my last visit, where queues were spilling out onto walkways and you pretty much couldn't move for crowds. I could actually stop and take in the theming and surroundings! It's such a shame that my French isn't better because one thing Parc Asterix is great at is inserting little in-jokes and puns into pretty much any corner they can, and of course for someone who only speaks very basic French I don't get most of them, which is annoying because I feel like this is a massive part of the Asterix experience that I can't engage with.

We started our day with the Vekoma Madhouse (like Hex at Alton Towers for those who have ridden, for those who haven't I won't spoil it, it's a great ride experience in my opinion). I missed this attraction during my last visit and ever since it's one I hear loads about as being one of the best of this ride type (but of course Hex is still better ;D). I won't go into detail about what exactly happens but the pre-shows are hilarious and decadent - very Asterix!

The day was very chilled out, which is the best way to experience a park in my opinion. I think we did the ghost train Transdemonium next as my friend AJ and I loved it last time we visited. It's totally insane and descends into some real Tim Burton style horror imagery with a sense of childish whimsy to balance out the terror - very creepy/cute!

We spent most of the day riding the smaller attractions that we missed last time, mostly the water rides such as Le Grand Splatch which is a Tidal Wave style boat ride, a standard rapids and spinning water boat ride and the amazing log flume Menhir Express, which has a hidden airtime hill! I was gutted we didn't get to ride last time and it lived up to all my expectations! Such a fun ride and so well themed.

Finally we got around to the Egypt area and joined the queue for Oz'Iris! The queue seemed long but was very fast moving - something for which I am always grateful. And the queueline is very well themed too (and filled with lots of in-jokes I don't understand, yay!) so there's plenty to keep you entertained. We rode Oz twice, once in the front and once in the back. Admittedly riding in the front was a mistake, the back is so where it's at. It's so so forceful with such an elaborate and long layout, it just keeps going and when you think it's done it throws another element at you. And it has my favourite Zero-G ever. And it has an amazing dive into a tunnel of mist! It's just a great coaster, ticks all the boxes and looks incredible. Definitely still Top 10 material for me.

Last up was the wooden beast at Parc Asterix, Tonnerre de Zeus. I forgot how amazing this coaster is. As I've grown older I've noticed that I get less and less of the 'butterflies' feeling going down drops on rollercoasters - in fact I think only Oblivion in the UK still does it for me, so I was really shocked to find another coaster with a drop that intense! TdZ is everything a woodie should be, sort of rough but in the right way, relentless speed and great forces. I wish we'd had time for a few more rides because I enjoyed it way more than I remembered.

We had to leave slightly earlier than closing as we had a ferry to catch so we made our way out via the numerous tat shops (seriously Asterix is worse than Disney when it comes to exiting the park through the gift shops!) and did our 2 hour drive back to Calais!

I'm so glad we booked this last minute trip away. I finally got some parks done that had been on my list for ages, spent some time with a friend I hadn't seen in aaaaages and got to revisit Parc Asterix and Disney!

The agenda for our second day looked like this: go to Parc Saint Paul, knock out the coasters as quickly as possible and fuck off to Disneyland for the rest of the day. Considering how quiet the parks were on our first day I figured we'd be at PSP until 1pm, the latest. Wrong. We arrived and the park was absolutely HEAVING! I couldn't figure out why, but seeing as there was literally nothing we could do about it we parked up and just sucked it up and joined the throngs of people queuing for a ticket.

Turned out not to be so bad and people were just faffing and hanging around in that non-chalant DGAF style Europeans have, and we sauntered straight up to the SELF-SERVICE TICKET MACHINE! Oh yes, I can so get on board with these. Why don't more parks have them? It has only just dawned on me how behind the time theme parks are still having manned ticket desks.

There were 7 coasters to ride here (alright, 6 and one dubious one but I'm a whore for counting coasters so it was happening) and we started off our day on Aérotrain, a kiddie Vekoma not-quite-a-boomerang thing. The queue took a lot longer than expected (a pattern we would repeat 7 times today), but we amused ourselves by looking at the various silly bits of theming and pondering why the park was so so busy. I like parks to have people in them, because it means they're doing well and doing well means more rollercoasters in the future, so its beneficial to me in the long run, but today I really wished everybody would just fuck off so I could get me some Disneyland action.

The next few coasters were a serious of unsubstantial +1s, including a Zamperla Mini Mouse, another Spinning Wild Mouse and the best themed Big Apple I've ever been on, whose queue was hilariously interrupted by Conor barging through with a food tray full of weird yellow hotdogs and frites <3. I suppose the only things really of note were the Pax coasters, a Russian company whose designs somehow deliver some serious airtime despite appearing to look like every other bland kiddie coasters. So they were fun, and I'd probably have ridden them again if the queues weren't so hideous. Oh and the last coaster-but-not...thing, called Telepherique, which was essentially like a zipwire from a playpark but on a track, with a station. So it looks coastery, it does coast, it's probably not a coaster but it's on my count anyway because that's just the kind of person I am.

The queue for one of the Pax coasters was next to the 'Teen Disco' and it was here we discovered why the park was so heaving. Someone called 'Soprano' was performing today, and apparently he's a big deal in France (he's a rapper, so I'm told). Well, at least it means Disney will be empty (probably).

So much later than anticipated we jumped back in the car and headed further south to Marne la Vallée and Disneyland Parc <3. Parc Saint Paul was quite nice, thinking about it. A woodland setting is always a plus in my eyes and there was plenty of natural beauty to distract from the hideousness of the garish funfair facades catalogue bought rides insist on coming with. And it gave a hefty +7 to my count so that's not to be sniffed at!

We arrived at the apartment of one of my best friends in the world, who selfishly has decided to go and live the dream and work at Disneyland instead of continue being miserable in London for my convenience. Rude. Their flat is fab, who doesn't want to live on the gloriously manicured Disney property overlooking one of the most beautiful theme parks in the world? By the time we'd faffed and had some drinks and such it was 5pm before we set foot inside the Walt Disney Studios, where we obviously bee-lined for the Hollywood Tower Hotel. Not my favourite version by a long way (Florida holds that honour) but a Tower is a Tower and still one of my favourite rides in the world, even if I do know it word for word by now. 

Oh, and the park was dead. Most rides were walk on apart from Crush's Coaster, whose queue I have never seen drop to a reasonable length, and our other destination for Park 2, Ratatouille. The queue wasn't hideous at 40 minutes but I had another park to whisk round so single rider it was! Annoyingly I got put in the back row of the train so some of the effects were lessened but I still love this ride! So much fun. It appears Paris DO sometimes get nice things.

And with that we sauntered over to the beautiful Disneyland Parc herself. I adore this park, it's just beautiful, especially on a balmy summer's afternoon such as this. It's just such a pleasant environment to be in. Now, the park is undergoing some major refurb at the moment in preparation for the 25th anniversary in a few years, so I steered well clear of Discoveryland (the most affected area at present) as there's nothing that kills the magic more than bloody construction panels everywhere. A necessary evil though. 

Conor insisted upon It's A Small World, and seeing as it was walk on we endured. There's something weird about being the only group in the boat on this ride and I was left feeling fairly creeped out rather than magically inspired to bring peace and harmony to the world. 

I think we headed over to Pirates next, but all the time having our eyes peeled for the elusive Maleficent Minnie ears, that I saw last time I visited but foolishly didn't buy as I thought I could get them in the World of Disney shop on my way out =[. Having no luck, and the queue again being walk on, we jumped in a boat and set sail for the Caribbean. Paris Pirates is my favourite version by far, and not just because it hasn't been Jack Sparrowed yet like the others, I just find it the more thrilling ride. 

AJ wanted to see the Frozen Sing-A-Long show in English so we grabbed an overpriced but perfectly on theme blue slush and went to head into the arena, only to be told no food or drinks. What? Why? Such a stupid rule, everyone wants to slurp down on some disgusting blue drink that are SOLD OUTSIDE THE ARENA whilst watching Anna and Elsa sing, don't they? So dumb. Anyway, after quickly finishing and giving ourselves a brainfreeze, we headed up to our reserved seating (perks of visiting with cast members) and endured Let It Go for the umpteenth time. The show was fine, I'm not a massive Frozen fan but the staging was good and the sing-a-long portions were fun, plus there was 'snow' at the end so it was nice.

The dreaded time had come upon us where we must now choose somewhere to eat at Disneyland Resort Paris. Anyone who has been before can tell you, the food here, generally, sucks. Big time. The restaurants lure you in with their giant theming and pretty lights only to serve you some pre-heated slop in a bun and charge you €20 for it. So I'm always wary of where I eat when I visit. AJ and Michael suggested Billy Bob's Buffet in the Village as somewhere acceptable and seeing as I hadn't tried it before we thought we'd give it a go. I would definitely eat here again. Loads of BBQ style food, constantly replenished because it's so busy so everything is fresh, and CORN BREAD. This place can be added to the very short list of acceptable places to eat at Disneyland Paris, yay!

After another fruitless search for Maleficent ears we headed back into the park for some night-riding on Big Thunder Mountain and to get a good spot for Dreams, now with 100% more Frozen! As always Big Thunder was made 100 times better under cover of darkness and Dreams was magical. I could watch this show over and over again, one of my favourite Disney shows ever! The only thing spoiling it for me this time were the rude children who had decided that a flowerbed was an acceptable place to stand and enjoy the show and bloody phones and selfie sticks being shoved in my face (this did not end well for the owners of these devices). So happy they're being banned next month <3.

And with that our fews hours at Disneyland Paris were over and we slowly sauntered out of the park and headed back to the apartment. It's always funny to me visiting the park for such a short amount of time because I can't shake the feeling that I'm missing stuff, despite having done it all a million times before. Disney just has that effect on me I suppose!

Part 3 up next involving a longly awaited return to Parc Asterix!

We got up at gross o'clock on Saturday morning and caught the (mega cheap) ferry from Dover to Calais where we whiled away the time by 'lounging around' on a sofa, much to the disgust of another passenger, who was clearly jealous she hadn't managed to nab a sofa for herself to lounge around on.

First up we headed to Dennlys Parc, a small park about 45 mins from Calais, with the help of Google Maps courtesy of 3's Home Away From Home service that lets you use your normal phone package with no extra cost! We ended up arriving a few minutes before opening so had to hang around the cute little courtyard entrance before making our way in.

I wanted to head straight for the 'big' coaster - a Mobius (where the coaster has two tracks but the train ends up at he opposite station to the one it departed from) cred called Nitro, but it wasn't open yet so we headed to the mine train, Furio. As mine trains go, it was Soquet (coaster joke). It's really picturesque though so despite being a bit boring at least it can sit there and look pretty.

Next up was the New For 2015 coaster Voltigo, which is one of those spinning family coasters that are popping up everywhere. It was very cute and the spinning coasters make a bland ride into a coaster that all of the family can enjoy.

Opposite was a terrifying haunted house walk through thing that was so dark I had to illuminate our path with some artificial iPhone torchlight, only to reveal a bloody great WELL in the middle of the room! So dangerous XD

The big coaster still wasn't open so we filled our time with the cute tractor ride, faffing with some interactive water stuff and a weird spinning barn flat ride operated by a demonic horse.

Then finally we saw a train go around on Nitro so we joined the queue. I figured we'd have to get off and queue again to get the other side done but it sends you around twice, hooray! It's fun, some nice floaty airtime but the pinched in transitions lead to some brutal slamming of the trains so its not terribly rerideable. Cool concept though!

We wanted to grab a magnet from the tat shop but it was closed due to a staff meeting, which was a shame because some of it looked quite fab! Oh well.

After just an hour and a half at Dennlys Parc it was time to say goodbye and head to our second destination of the day, Bagatelle. I had visited this park once before with school when they lied to us and said we were going to Parc Asterix, so my memory of the place was a little bit tainted. We used our Plopsa Annual Passes for a nice 40% off of entry and wandered in, but not before noticing a sign stating that Triops, the Vekoma Inverted Boomerang, was 'fermé'. Balls. What is it with these coasters?! I've never once been to a park that has one where it has been operating. Spite.

Bagatelle had 2 New For 2015 coasters, the first of which was a Wacky Worm whose budget had apparently only allowed for one section of the track to be painted. Either that or they're waiting until 2016 to finish it and can then market the ride as newly refurbished for 2016! I'm blabbering on because it was an unremarkable +1.

The park itself is a lot prettier than I remember it being, lots of trees and a real holiday camp in the woods feel, a lot like Duinrell in the Netherlands, which was a pleasant surprise as my memory of the place are of it being a bit more of a concrete paradise.

We grabbed some lunch in the European theme park style (tray, load up with salad, drink, bread, whatever, choose menu number, get hot food with loads of mayo, eat) before knocking off the creds. 

The park has a couple of Soquet creds, one is themed to a crab in a tornado(?) and the other is Gaz Express which is really fab and has loads of fire/water effects and has a really loud colour scheme. There's even a bit where you get 'submerged' and are surrounded by fountains! Like all Soquet coasters, it's not the best ride in the world but it just looks pretty. Must be something about the track shape that I find pleasing to the eye.

Some parts of the park have made a bit more of an effort with theming, like the rapids (avec whirlpool of doom) and the pirate ship. A little rockwork goes a long way in my opinion and can make a whole area feel so much more attractive and immersive thematically. Whilst queueing for the pirate ship we caught a bit of the diving stunt show, which had the most unenthusiastic man-seting-himself-on-fire bit I've ever seen XD. 

We walked through the inverted boomerang of spite back around to the other New For 2015 coaster, the tarted up Spinning Wild Mouse. I like it when smaller parks get a bit of money and provide some TLC to their older attractions, and Famous Jack does looks quite well for a lick of paint and a few wooden fences from B&Q. However it is still a Spinning Wild Mouse, a fact I found hard to forget as I joined the 30 minute queue. Not the end of the world, it's not like we had anything else to be getting on with! 

After grabbing a few rerides on the better attractions we made our way back to the car, realising it was stills really early! We got to our hotel in Amiens and headed into the picturesque town centre for some alfresco dining and culture.

That's it for Part 1, Part 2 coming soon featuring a hideously packed Parc Saint Paul, a fleeting visit to Disneyland and a revisit to Parc Asterix!