Danni @ Disney!

To make the journey to Paris, we had to be outside the college at half five in the morning to catch the coach! We shared the coach with welsh students who were still attending at school.

This is our actual hotel!

When we got to Paris we were booked into a lovely hotel called hotel Cheyenne. The hotel had a cowboy theme. Once we had all settled in our rooms we were given passes which allowed us to go into the theme park itself and go on as many rides as we could possible want.

When Pluto arrives at your hotel, you know its photo opportunity time! Daniella and Kerrie jump right in! Who cares if you are the oldest having your pictures taken with him by about ten years!

We all had to attend a study meeting at 7.00pm on Monday – the first day. This was held in a huge cinema auditorium. There was one lady giving the lecture and going through presentations on how the theme park uses computers and IT. For examples most of the rides used graphics and we were taken through their production. After the presentation we got the bus from outside the park which would then take us straight to our hotel. We could either go back to our rooms, play games and chat with the teachers or there was an arcade in the hotel lobby itself. At eight in the evening we had dinner in the lobby. There were all different types of food to suit everyone’s taste buds.

Healthy eating was very important on the trip. That's mineral water in those cans! Honest! Pictured from left, Cavell, Lesley, Kerrie, Jesse, Daniella and Raman.

In the hotel there were numbers of colleges staying, all younger than us. As they were their sharing the same experiences as us, we had to behave and show them how to behave by example. The hotel also had other guest staying too, mostly families from other European countries.

When you wish upon a star!

Breakfast was served at eight the next morning, just through the main lobby. We had to be at the cinema which was in the theme park to attend another study presentation - the first one was at 11.20 and the next session was at 7.00pm. These sessions were taken by a man, and were about communications and how important they are when working in the Paris resort. They were also about networking and distributed software systems. We learned some amazing facts. There are 49,000 jobs at Disneyland Paris and 12,300 are cast members, which involves a lot of IT! He also mentioned the dates of when each park was opened. For example in 1992 Euro Disney opened this was then re launched to Disney land Paris in 1995. Disney land Tokyo opened in 1983 and in 1971 Walt Disney America opened. He took us through how technology developed through the decades.

Get the sick bag ready! Front row Damien and Kerrie, second Jesse and Raman, third Olumide and Jesse. Here we gooooooooooooooooooo!

Disneyland isn’t just about rides and attractions – much more goes on behind the scenes. The presentation included the history of the place and the park, and the man behind Disney land, Mr Walt Disney. A lot of time and effort has to go into each and every ride and huge amounts of Information Technology are used. In one of the presentations we went behind the scene of one of the main attractions - a 360 degree ride based on the music of Aerosmith, the Rock And Roller Coaster. They showed us how IT is used and how computers are used, for example in creating the lighting and the sound effects.

Planning what to do when Queen!

After the first sessions of the second day our wonderful teachers took everyone to lunch at McDonalds as a thank you for our good behaviour. After that we all spilt up, some of us stayed in the park, others went back to the hotel to catch up with their sleep and others went actually into Paris itself.

Jesse, Raman and Cavell ignore the parade and pose for the camera

We all meet up at 8.00pm for dinner in the hotel restaurant. We all went into the arcade for a few hours then all the students stayed up all night in one room watching telly and talking about the trip.

So, here is some of the parade without them!

At 6.30 we all left the room we were in and went back into our own rooms, to make sure we were all packed and ready to board the coach at 8.15 along with the other group which was on our coach on the way to the resort. We all had breakfast at 7.00 and got ready for the long journey back to Lewisham College.

A completely natural and unposed picture! Daniella and Kerrie get friendly with a hippo made from plant life!

From the trip we all got different things out of it, we all communicated more and made new friends, we know what its like to go behind the scenes of the Paris rides and find out how each part of the park uses IT and computers. It also gave us lots of ideas about the things we can do for careers in the future.

To finish, here is a quote from one of the lectures. It is a good one to remember!

“Nobody is good at everything, but everybody is good at something.”

Article written by Daniella Guest