Breaking the Rules, Canadian-Style

This past weekend we went to Disneyland Paris.  We stayed at the Explorers Hotel, a partner hotel of Disneyland, but not an actual on-site hotel.  We encountered many French people, a very nice family from Scotland, and heard Spanish spoken frequently.  With the exception of seeing one man wearing a stars-and-stripes polo shirt during brunch on Sunday, we did not note anyone from North America.

We enjoyed the place, found it clean, etc.  In the pool there was a super fun-looking Aquaplay area plunked right into the shallow end, in the shape of a pirate ship.  It included water canons and squirt guns and a slide all its own, and up in the crow's nest of the ship sat a giant, bowl-shaped pirate's head that filled with water.  Every two minutes the water would tip and crash down upon the Aquaplay area.

A sign warned us that ages 0-6 were not allowed in Aquaplay.  There were two other waterslides in the deep (4ft.) end, but those were also restricted to kids over the age of 6.  Thus, for our kids, that left only the deep end as a place to play, with no pool noodles or rubber toys or anything.

I asked the man supervising entry to the pool about the logic of that, and when I didn't like the answer, I then asked the front desk for further clarification.  Could we, for example, be responsible for our own kids and take them personally into the Aquaplay area to have some fun?

Big discussions ensued; I won't bore you.  In the end, it was deemed to be our choice, but I was encouraged by staff to follow the rules for everyone's safety.  I returned to Trevor with the news, at which point he pointed out to me all the young kids running through the Aquaplay area unsupervised, all the boys climbing up the waterslide and log-jamming other kids as they tried to come down, and the many kids being encouraged by their parents to practice diving in the shallow end. 

This bothered me.  "The only difference between us and them," I concluded to Trevor, "is that Canadians ask if they can break the rules."

For some pictures of our fun weekend, please link to Trevor's site at odettembainfrance@blogspot.fr