Demonica's Trip Report & Photos (added Day 3)

Demonica

Mouseketeer
Joined
Jul 18, 2007
Me, husband Steve and daughters Mina (6) and Skye (2) - will get confused with the DD1/DD2 thing so will brave outing their names :goodvibes

Oct 12th

We spent the Saturday night at a Premier Inn in Dover and overlooked the sea ready to be near the Speed Ferries port for 7am. The ferry was on time and very smooth. We stayed on deck until it got too cold!

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The drive down was fine. Think the toll cost us about €17 from Boulogne sur Mer to Paris but don't quote me on that. We arrived at the Hotel Cheyenne around 1:30pm and were able to check in and go straight to our room in Soaring Eagle. We unpacked and flaked out for a few minutes before strolling along the riverside behind Cheyenne to the park.

We planned on eating in Annettes Diner but queue was quite long so we entered the park instead :yay: on strict instructions we were to find food first. After reading about the croque monsieurs on here we went to the Deli where I had a ham and cheese one, Steve's had mushrooms and tomato too and the girls had Mickey pizza. How scrummy are they?! We vowed to eat another one before leaving.

I'd read about Emma seeing the characters at 4pm in Disneyland Hotel so thought we'd head there but waited for the Character Express first and had a wave. Found the entrance to DLH really easily and it does have a stunning foyer, loved the staircase and chandelier! Unfortunately it was really busy, maybe being a Sunday? But at 4pm characters started appearing all around the staircase. They came down to music and had a dance with some children.

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Then they separated and went to different parts of the reception. We don't "do" scrums so wandered out but saw Chip with only one other family so went to say hello.

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Once we'd left it was coming up to parade time. We walked up to our usual spot up by It's A Small World - facing it. They rope off an area for "special" guests here but if nobody shows they free it up so you have tons of room. The parade was great as usual. Loved the Halloween part too, thought the horses were rather brave!

Afterwards we went on It's A Small World which Skye adored. She sat in open-mouthed awe. From there we went to Pirates of the Caribbean which is one of Steve and Minas favourite rides. Skye wasn't sure about it but didn't cry. As we came off we spotted Captain Jack Sparrow with a half queue/half mob thing going on. We hovered and waited while some other girls pushed past Mina. I tapped them on the shoulder and with a stern "oi, get back" they did actually listen :woohoo: The large family in front of us were just doing endless photos and autographs so thought all we would get was a quick picture. He ended up crouching down and chatting away to Mina. He said he liked her dress and Mina replied she had an Elizabeth Swan one too which really impressed him. He asked if she knew who he was and that made him happy because little girls never know who he is.

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He was really sweet and it's nice when they take the time to actually chat. Especially when there was a mob behind us. He also said he loved my Chip n Dale bag, that they are his fave characters and were round there earlier.

We were pretty shattered so headed back to the hotel after going on Phantom Manor.

The weather had been boiling so we sat outside the Red Garter Saloon and Steve had a beer while Mina and I shared a cocktail (juice!) pitcher.

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I bought Skye a Donald Duck soft toy and Mina a Minnie one and we were in bed at 8:30pm.

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Skip to - Day 2 Part 1
 
Awww! A lovely start! Love the pic of your DD with Jack Sparrow!

Bob xoxox
 
wow, what a great start and I'm loving the photos. Your daughters are just beautiful !!

I got to meet Captain Jack on Friday and told him 'he was my favourite', he was such good fun !

Looking forward to hearing more about your trip and seeing more photos :)
 
Awww, what cute girls! (And beautiful names!!) Lovely first day too!! :)
 


OMG i recognise your daughters i saw you guys in the park last week lol. i remember *** you were in front of me going into the park and my lil girl kept think your dd was wearing a bell dress and was calling her lol. great pics. it was really hot wasnt it!!!
 
OMG i recognise your daughters i saw you guys in the park last week lol. i remember *** you were in front of me going into the park and my lil girl kept think your dd was wearing a bell dress and was calling her lol. great pics. it was really hot wasnt it!!!

Aww that's cool. She was glued to her Belle dress, only got her in something different on one day, thank god it was reversible lol It was sooo hot on Sunday and I think Monday too? Got drizzly last couple of days but can't complain!

Thanks for all the comments/compliments :goodvibes Will work on day 2 tomorrow, just trying to cut down the photos a bit.
 


What a great start to your trip! Your girls are lovely:lovestruc . Look forward to reading more.
 
What a lovely meeting with Captain Sparrow- and your daughter so perfectly dressed- it's one of those lovely Disney moments that you couldn't plan for if you tried !
 
Oct 13th - Day 2 part 1

We'd chosen 7am breakfasts for every day to avoid it getting too manic but were surprised how busy it was. They hadn't opened up the extra rooms yet but the main area was filling up. We had a mix of cereals, cheese & ham and some chocolate croissants (mmm chocolate for breakfast). We walked to the park and got to the security gates at 7:50am and had to wait.

We were let in and there were only a handful of us. Was lovely having Main Street pretty much to ourselves.

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So I took advantage and we had some fun with all the decorations:-

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Seeing as it was fast becoming the "Mina show" I begrudingly had a snap taken.

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We stopped harassing Pumpkinmen and decided to get on some rides. We walked on to most of them and started on Buzz which is good fun.

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After doing some rides we went to check out the Dragon under the castle. The entrance was pitch black so even I was a little scared :scared1: The girls didn't want to go anywhere near him!

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We went round to queue for a Princess meet and greet as the line was getting long and it was only 10:10am. Skye was still nervous so she waiting with her Dad on the stone benches. Eventually a Princess appeared with a little friend...

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They had a nice little chat, Mina pointed out her sister who was in a Snow White dress. By this time IASW was open so we wandered up and got distracted by a load of characters who were hanging out up there. They were so funny. The Jungle Book characters were causing chaos and poor Friar Tuck was being tied up by Baloo..

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But we eventually freed him and went in for a hug

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After riding IASW we walked about for a bit and went to Frontierland because we had booked a table at the Lucky Nugget Saloon for noon (with the intention of getting there at 11:50am and getting food before the characters came out). The girls didn't know what was going to happen. We were only the second family in and were seated by the stage. The food selection was ideal for us and we got some ham, cheese, crisps and salad stuffs, ordered drinks and waited...

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...at bang on noon three characters came out by the stage door. Mina was soooo happy.

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It was nice to see all the characters but Tigger is always a nice treat because the scrums around him in the park can be HUGE. Because it was so empty they had lots of time to mess about. Pluto chased Steve when he went up for food. Goofy and Tigger took seats at a table..

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He started banging his knife and fork for service after browsing the menu. Mina went over and sat with him, mainly to inform him it's a buffet and he's meant to help himself. It's this kind of interaction that makes the price worth it. We had more food (chips, rice, chicken nuggets, tortilla wraps, ribs, pizza, bread) while the characters waved goodbye. About 10 minutes later the door reopened and Friar Tuck squeezed himself through. Shortly followed by Jessie..

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She loved it when Mina let out a loud "Yeeeeeehaaaaa!" during the photo

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The last character to come out was Claude Frollo who was hilarious, we loved him. His expression was great and he was sooo miserable. He shooed away any children that came near him and was appalled that I asked for a photo. We especially love his.. ermm.. gesture to the camera..

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Skyes face was mainly like this during the meal..

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She really wasn't sure about the characters but was shy more than terrified. She liked picking at the food.

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We went up for desserts. Ah lovely desserts (chocolate tart, coconut cake, doughnuts with yummy cream filling, brownie and some white marshmallows)...

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I need to take a break now! But will continue day 2 soon...

Skip to - Day 2 Part 2
 
Brilliant - I love the Lucky Nugget at lunchtime :love: .
 
wow, your trip is looking good !!!! we arrived just in time for the wet, drizzly weather you mentioned although our last couple of days were sunny.

Can't wait to see more pics and how cool that mummy2ash recognised your daughters !
 
Can't wait to see more pics and how cool that mummy2ash recognised your daughters !

I wondered if anyone here would recognise us! There were always a few families that we spotted all the time in the park and I wondered if any of them read DIS :teeth:
 
Day 2 Part 2

Will have to speed this up, gonna take forever otherwise!

So we really, really loved the Lucky Nugget. However afterwards we had a toddler/nappy related emergency so Steve took Skye back to the hotel and it was just me and Mina for a bit. We hung around for the Character Express...

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We'd never been there as it stops before so it threw us a bit when the characters got off. Suzy and Perla came off and took Mina's hand and we all walked round to near the Princess stage. Felt quite cool having all four of us hand in hand! I took some photos but Mina had her eyes shut on the first one with Suzy so retook it, hence Suzy looking like she's jabbing Mina in the eye!

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Once Steve got back we swapped over so he could take her on some bigger rides and I did IASW with Skye. We met them in Fantasyland where we had a rest because my feet were in agony from all the walking about!

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After doing some more rides we went to the Jack & Sally meet and greet. We were so glad they were there this year because we love the film, it's becoming our Christmas Eve routine to watch it. It was chaos though, they are more popular than I thought! It was mobbed with families pushing their kids forward and adults being just as pushy for photos :rolleyes: Sally could see we'd been waiting for ages and came over to Mina who had a pirates sword and took it off her! She was saying "what is this?" and took it Jack. More people pushed in for photos and we were about to give up when they brought Mina forward and started chatting instead of just the photo/autograph thing they were doing with everyone else :goodvibes For once everyone kept back and they asked where she was from. Mina said England so they asked where that was and how she got there, what door did she come through lol She said there wasn't a door, we went by car but they didn't know what a car was :laughing:

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I think some people were just in awe that you can actually chat with them, it's not all "quick quick grab a photo". We then went on some rides including the "funny cups" as Skye calls them. We watched Candleabration which is so lovely and had a little dance with the girls (not enough people dance along, we must look daft but who cares?!). I tried getting some photos but we were a little way off.

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The castle looks stunning in the dark and my camera couldn't do it justice.

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We walked back to the hotel absolutely shattered and were all in bed by 8:30pm again!

Skip To - Day 3
 
Awww lovely. :goodvibes I'm so glad Mina got rewarded for her patience with some great character interaction.
 
bless ur girls!!! mina looks like she enjoyed herself, and i do like hearing about patient children who are rewarded - bugs me so much about pushy children lol i found that if ur patient, the characters DO notice - goofy pushed ppl away when he saw ds1 had been waiting patiently, and jessie was the same too....

loving ur report - more more!!!
 
Oct 14th - Day 3

Got up early again and went straight to breakfast. Because we were so knackered we thought we'd take the bus this time so walked out the front to find Mickey dressed up with almost nobody about. This time we were going to brave taking Skye round to see him, Steve stood at the exit ready to come and claim a screaming child. However Skye surprised us totally by yelling "Mickey!" and run forward arms outstretched, even beating Mina to him!

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I was so happy and shocked that a tear almost came into my eye, sad huh?! After much hugging and photo taking we caught a mostly empty bus and got to the gates around 8am.

The park was so quiet and we ended up doing about 6 rides in under an hour. Me and Skye sat on "funny cups" for three rides in a row because noone else was about. We also had a look around some shops and found Cinderella's Coach.

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We left the park to head for the studios, meeting Minnie was top of the list along with Stitch Live and a tentative thought about doing Tower of Terror. Minnie came out for a meet and greet around 10.15am. Skye had exactly the same reeaction and gave Minnie a huge cuddle. To be honest I'm pretty sure she thinks Minnie and Mickey are the same mouse, yet to understand the boy/girl thing.

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After the Minnie meet we found Stitch Live and only had to wait 15mins for the English showing. It's fantastic fun isn't it?! It has to be a must-do if you haven't watched it before. Skye was in awe and we were in fits of laughter. It was all very clever and I'm not sure if we were relieved or sad that we weren't picked on! But I'll say no more about it.

From there we met some characters while Steve rode Rock n Rollercoaster. I would have tried it but am saving it for our Nov trip. We met Donald and Daisy Duck plus Dale in a fetching suit. We also queued for Sulley, he's gorgeous, he's massive, very cuddly. Unfortunately Skye was petrified of him and a nice couple behind were ready to take Mina's photo if I had to back off. In the end it was okay and Skye even went as far as touching his arm, he knew she was nervous so he stayed low down and didn't go "rar" at us like with some others.

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Skye had a tantrum after that and Steve returned so he got her off to sleep and me and Mina went to brave TOT. The queue was about 30mins and Mina was very worried about it. At one point inside she looked up at me and said "mummy, I'm nearly crying with the fear". She can be a bit dramatic. I promise I didn't drag her on! Even I felt butterflies too. I'd gone on a similar fairground ride and hated it. Her face was like this for the last 15mins of queue.

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Our cast member on it was really funny, he helped make the ride. We finished bouncing about and Mina looked at me and said she LOVED it and could we go again lol I liked it too, I was next to the wall of the lift and had a handle which I was grateful for! I'd def do it again.

We ate lunch at Annettes Diner. We had nachos (burnt, should have complained really as they weren't very nice) and burgers. The burgers are scrummy. No photos, we were so hungry I forgot - sorry!

Went back to the park and did some rides and watched the parade.

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Skye was entranced by Ariel, I think I've passed on my love of mermaids to her because she liked the mermaids on Peter Pan ride and IASW.

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We left early and stopped in the Disney Store in the Village and got a fridge magnet and some chocolate. We walked back to Cheyenne and I took a couple of photos at dusk.

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In my opinion it really is the best hotel theme. We were in bed around 7:30pm - the early starts were taking their toll!
 
excellent day 3!!!!!!!! am really gonna have to check out the front of the hotel when we go in dec, *** in june we just walked to the bus stop never goin near reception, so looks like we missed out - am guessin u were there about 7.30am ish???

so glad to hear skye loved mickey - i think if ds2 does that this time i WILL cry, as he wudnt go near any of the characters.....
fab pics again, and love the ones of the parade - makin me want to see halloween!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

lovin ur reports - the children really 'make it' dont they??
 
We were there the same time as you, in the same hotel. We were in Jesse James. The weather was great for most of the 5 days.

Where did you find Cinderella's coach?
 

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