Parc Asterix - Thursday, 17 April 2014

Early in our planning for this trip, we thought we would include a visit to Euro Disney, but as we researched further, we started to consider Parc Astérix as an alternative.  Our best source of intelligence was the Ryan family, who had recently been to France and done both parks, and they strongly advised us that Parc Astérix was the better, and more French experience. 

We thought our third full day in Paris would be a good time to go – we should all be sufficiently time-adjusted by then.  Alas, Xavier managed only to extend his wake-up time from 4am to 5am, so we then debated whether the excursion was still on, and if so, would we all go.  Elle insisted that this was a one-in-all-in family event, and so it came to pass that the five of us trekked out to Charles de Gaulle on the RER train, and from there took a bus transfer even further out of Paris, and found ourselves in the wonderful world of Astérix and Obélix.

I’ll admit to not being an aficionado of the Astérix books (cue gasp!), but whatever the pretext, it’s really all about the rides, right?

We started with a gentle cruise past the Astérix characters on Epidemais Croisiere.

Xave loved Les Petits Chars Tamponneurs (tiny dodgem cars), LesEscadrille des As (little planes), and LeMini Carousel (which he nearly fell asleep on).

 

La Trace du Hourra proved horrific indeed, mainly for the hour-long queue that didn’t look that long when Andrew, Grace and Will joined the end. This put us off most of the “big” rides for most of the rest of the day. 

 La Petite Tempête and Les Chaises Volantes were little, smaller rides with short queues to help us get some more runs on the board after the horror of the Hourra.

 

Happily, in between rides, we got to meet Astérix himself.

Then another ride that horrified, Le Transdemonium, some kind of haunted house/ghost train experience.  Will recovered from this by kindly accompanying Xave on Les Petites Chaises Volantes and Les Petits Drakkars, while Grace braved La Galère (the Pirate Ship) by herself.

Elle and Xave got another peaceful boat ride on La Rivière d’Elis, while the “big kids” did Le Vol d’Icare (Mad Mouse).  Xavier loved La Forêt d’Idéfix, and especially the Enigmatix.

Being Australian, and having had a fairly-recent visit to SeaWorld, we were tempted to go straight past the dolphin show, but a quick stop proved very rewarding, with some up-close glide-bys.

Le Grand Splatch was a last-minute, end-of-the-day ride that we took three times in various combinations (Xave being too short). 
 

It was well-worth delaying Andrew’s scheduled departure time by 30 minutes, although the crowded, mostly-standing train journey home with an exhausted toddler (newly-armed with a sword – what was his mother thinking?) made us regret it temporarily.  However, when all the kids slept until 7.30am the next day, we were all able to look back at our day at Parc Astérix with a lot of satisfaction and memories of a very fun day.