The Professor Errant

For Spring Break this year (2025, I’m way behind), we took a long anticipated trip to Paris! Of course, Rob and I had long wanted to see Disneyland Paris, Disney fans/adults that we are. Plus, who doesn’t want to go to Paris? (Stupid people, that’s who!)

Booking

I got our Amex Gold in order to rack up enough points for a business class flight (LAX to Paris CDG) on Air France. At the time the flight cost 50,000 Flying Blue miles per person. In the end, I paid for the bulk of the award tickets (100,000 for both of us) with those Amex Membership Rewards points (supplemented by some Capital One miles and Bilt points), transferred to Flying Blue. The price for the same business class award is a bit higher now, still a good deal, although I’ve heard availability isn’t great these days.

I scored our flight by setting up an alert on Seats.aero. We had limited date options, since we wanted to go during my Spring Break (ahh, the professor life…) but we had some wiggle room around a certain weekend (the last one in March). I put the alert for availability Friday – Monday of the weekend in question, Friday or Saturday being the most preferable.

Seats.aero came through for us, with an alert for Saturday afternoon seats, as we were driving to our hotel for the one night we were in Austin, Texas, for the April 2014 solar eclipse. I knew I needed to use my laptop to book, so since we were 5 minutes from the hotel, I tried to stay calm and not freak out. Then we got to the front desk to check in (this was a Courtyard) and the only person working there spent what seemed like hours (probably only 10 minutes) going through every possible variation of “I can’t help you with that, sorry” with an asshole customer on the phone. Finally we got checked in and into our room. I only screamed “WTF is my password?!” at Rob a couple times before I had all the points transferred and got our two business class seats booked. (He survived with all appendages still attached.)

For the way back, I looked for some good use for the big stash of Capital One miles I still had. Premium Economy on Iberia (via Madrid) seemed like a great choice. Capital One transfers to British Airways Avios, which can be then transferred over to Iberia. Easy! It was a great plan, until I realized I had overlooked/missed an important rule. Your Iberia account has to have been open for at least 90 days before you can transfer anything from BA. At the time I wanted to book, my Iberia account has not old enough. I already had the points transferred to BA before I realized my mistake.

So I was stuck looking at what I could get with my BA Avios. I found economy seats on a BA A380 from Heathrow to LAX (with short hop from Paris over to London). Their A380 has an economy cabin on the upper deck in the very back with a 2-4-2 configuration. Two seats like that are what Rob and I love for long haul economy. Plus I REALLY wanted to experience flying on an A380! So it turned out alright in the end.

Getting there

Flying Air France business got us access to the new Air France lounge at LAX. We were so looking forward to it! Granted, it’s located in the West Gates of Tom Bradley International Terminal, which is always an annoying hike but since we were taking off from there anyway, no biggie.

While dropping off our bags, we encountered the only truly rude French person of our whole trip: the Air France check-in agent. (I do realize that they are contractors and not AF employees) She insisted in a very annoyed tone that our tickets were on separate reservations (they weren’t, I booked them together and they had the same record locator) but it was fine (eyeroll – her), since we were sitting right next to each other. I decided not to argue with her about it, because what would that accomplish. We checked our bags and headed to the tunnel for the long walk to the West Gates.

The Air France lounge was fabulous, and, yes, worth the walk! Yummy beef bourguignon, great drinks, tasty desserts. It was a lovely way to start the trip. (Pooh had a ball!) I actually used the time to make sure all our bills were paid, since it was right near the first of the month. (You gotta do what you gotta do!) The people working there were much nicer than the snooty check-in lady.

Too soon it was time for boarding!

We were seated in the middle seats of the second row of business class, right after a small La Premiere first class section. This was one of their 777’s, which don’t have the latest and greatest seats, but we found them very comfortable.

We had a lovely French dinner…I swear the flight attendant who helped me the most had hair like Anson Mount on Strange New Worlds!

I managed to get some sleep, a few hours, though I awoke abruptly to what sounded like a loud clap over my head. Hopefully, it was just a dream. Because if it was crew or passenger…what a total dick move. I couldn’t get back to sleep for the rest of the flight. (I looked around when I woke up but there was no obvious culprit nearby.)

Upon landing at CDG, we made it through customs and got our bags with no trouble. And quickly found our way to the bus I had booked to take us to our hotel at Disneyland Paris.

Disneyland Paris

With Rob’s cast member status, we got into the two parks of Disneyland Paris for free (yay!). We also got a 50% discount at their hotels (bigger yay!). When we were booking we asked about the Disneyland Hotel (big fancy one at the entrance to Disneyland Park) and the rate they gave us was about 1000 euros for two nights. Yikes! We asked what the rate was for the next tier hotel down… 500 euros for two nights at the New York – Art of Marvel hotel. Yes! Much more reasonable. So that’s what we went with. Since we are big New York/Marvel fans, it seemed like the perfect fit.

And it was! The hotel is resplendent with Marvel art and memorabilia, perfect if you are into that. We got to our room, set stuff down, rested a bit, and then made our way to the parks. ‘Cause we had a dinner reservation to get to! Our passes to the parks were pretty easy to obtain; we just had to find the right guest services window for Disney cast members to get their free tickets from. Rob flashed his credentials and we were good to go.

One of the hottest tickets, dining-wise, in Disneyland Paris is the Ratatouille restaurant, Bistrot Chez Rémy (in the Walt Disney Studios park). It’s tough to get reservations so you have to snap them up quick when they become available. And I…didn’t. But since cancelations almost ALWAYS happen, I just kept checking back and about a week or so before our trip…a table became available on our first night there. Woo-hoo!

We, of course, both got the roast cod ratatouille; I had some yummy soup, Rob had pear, chestnut, and duck pate for starters; and we both finished with the chocolate mousse. How could we not?

Rob was keen on seeing if he could get a special Avengers Campus cast member badge, since they don’t have them at the California one where he works (they just have regular cast member badges) but it was a no go. Their version of the Campus was nice, though. Maybe even better than Rob’s?

We went to the main park the next day. Their version of Space Mountain has an inversion (CA and FL versions don’t!) and made us a little queasy. God, we are getting old! Walks through the Nautilus (from 20,000 Leagues) and Alice (in Wonderland)’s Curious Labyrinth were neat. We also rode the DP version’s of Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion (Phantom Manor). Both cool! Phantom Manor is pretty unique and their Pirates is better than Florida’s (California’s is still the best!).

We had lunch at Plaza Gardens. Very similar to Plaza Inn in California but with a big (awesome) buffet instead of counter service. Then we headed over to the Walt Disney Studios side to ride the Ratatouille ride. We’ve ridden the one in Florida, but, hey, this one is in French!

We discovered that Disneyland Paris has no place selling ice cream that is open late…in fact everything at the park closed earlier than we’re used to. We settled for a late dinner at the Marvel Hotel. Expensive but great buffet; not something we would pay for every night if we were staying longer, though.

The next day we made one last short excursion into Disneyland to see the dragon that lives under their castle. It was the one thing we missed seeing (err…forgot) the previous day. Then we checked out and got an Uber into the city for the second part of our trip…