New Years Eve at DLRP and more!!

[FPL]

The Cast:
Me: 29 – Speech & Language Therapist in a hospital – worked last New Year so wanted to do something exciting this year!
DH: 30 – Teacher – the reason we always have to go on holiday in school holidays!!

The Previous:
We went to Florida in the Easter holidays of 2009 – had a fabulous 2 weeks at WDW and have been itching to go back ever since. However funds will not allow for a little bit so when I was given 2 weeks off over Christmas I floated the idea of going to DLRP for New Year to see what it was like.

We were both a bit sceptical having never really had any good holidays in France (the last one was a bit of a disaster) and it obviously wouldn’t compare to WDW in the same way. But we decided to go with an open mind and see what it was like.

The Plans:
We live in the Midlands but we were spending from the 21st – 28th with different relatives in the South-East and decided to leave from Croydon and go on the Eurotunnel on the 28th December and returning on the 2nd January. Eurotunnel cost - £140 return. We particularly wanted to have the car with us!

We opted to stay off-site – on-site hotels were really expensive this time of year. We got a good deal at the Novotel Collegien – cost: £450 for 5 nights B&B in a superior room.

We also opted for Dream APs (cost about £320 for 2) so we could use EMH, discount on food/shops and particularly save ourselves 50euro in parking!!

We decided on 100euro a day for meals except breakfast and other spends.

Monday 28th December:
The alarm went off at 5.30am (eek!) and we wanted to leave at 6am (which in hindsight was a little early!!) for our check-in at the Eurotunnel of 8.20am. We left a lot of stuff i.e. clothes, Christmas presents etc at my Aunts house in Croydon as we were going to pick them up on the way back home.

We left with our thermos mugs of tea in tow and headed the 60miles to the terminal. It took just less than an hour so we were an hour early!!

You go through a booth and check-in. We went to the terminal building and bought a France road map as our SatNav was working properly and fitted the headlight adaptor things. We then headed over to the train when our letter was called.

We queued up and this Eurotunnel bloke was walking down to all the cars and when he got to us he told us (not very professionally) that the trains we all running at 70% capacity and we would get on the next train.....now I didn’t have a problem with this but I did feel a bit irritated that we weren’t told a check-in...Imagine in a few hours time the back log that would cause and they didn’t seem to be too keen on telling anyone.

The bloke was quite rude and said at least we wouldn’t wait as long as we would on a ferry – I think that is hardly the point!!

Anyway we boarded to an announcement of ‘there is only 1 toilet working on the train for which we are very sorry and this train has so many problems it will be taken out of service when it reaches its destination’....... now I’m quite easy going but imagine if you were claustrophobic or worried!!!!!

I played on my new Zelda DS game and the 35minutes flew by and we were straight out on the roads of France. A very easy 3hr drive and we were arriving at the Novotel Collegien hotel to check-in at around 2pm.

The hotel is situated in an industrial estate and it really doesn’t look like much from the outside but inside it was lovely. It was very big, clean, modern and very friendly. There is a free secure car park with a barrier and a card system.

I had emailed ahead to ask for a non-smoking room and within 1hour of sending the email I had a reply confirming this request. The hotel has the entire 2nd floor as non-smoking and we were quickly checked in and given room number 256.

The room was large and modern with a big double bed and sofa bed. A separate toilet to the bathroom which was surprisingly handy! The bathroom had no bath (which was fine) but a large walk-in shower with the biggest, hottest, most powerful shower I have ever encountered in an hotel!! It was fab-u-lous!!!!

We had a quick cup of tea and before we could flag we headed to the parks!

The only irritation of the hotel was that we never seemed to find a direct route...we literally we just off the A4 motorway, as was Disney, but couldn’t get our route right. We were always going in the wrong direction!!

Anyway, we parked up and headed to Movie Studios. It was bright and sunny but cold!

We went to the 4pm Moteurs first. This was really good and encountered our first show in Frenglish as we liked to call it.

After this we were going to go and do a bit more in Movie Studios but we were seriously starving so we went to Annette’s. Review in Annette’s post.

After this we went to Disneyland Park.

We were just in time for the Christmas tree ceremony at 6pm I think. We literally walked out of the shop at 5.50pm and stood in the middle of Main Street with our backs to the castle with only 1 row of people in front of us – we had the perfect view! This was lovely and magical and very Christmassy! And the snow!! And the song!! Just thinking about it puts a smile on my face!

We then walked back up Main Street to the Castle to watch Mickey’s Magical Party time and the Castle lighting ceremony – again beautiful and lovely but very very cold by this point!

We had a mooch in a few shops and found some things to buy at the end of our stay and decided to call it a night – busy day tomorrow!

We headed back to the hotel and lovely hot showers, unpacked and had an early night.

Tomorrow: Disneyland Park and Buffalo Bills Wild West Show!

 

[Ms Poppins]

That photo of the castle all lit up is just stunning!!

Your hotel looks really good...looking forward to reading more

Thanks for sharing

 

[markpsych]

Thanks, just set your castle picture as my new background

 

[luke]

Great pictures of the castle - none of mine came out as good!!

How cold was it on NYE tho!! We nearly froze alive!!!

 

[FPL]

I'm glad everyone finds the castle picture so pleasing!!!

Over the 5 days we were there it got colder and colder - our last day made me feel a bit ill!!

Day 2 coming up tomorrow!

 

[karenmoloney]

Great report so far. Looking forward to the next installment.

 

[FPL]

Tuesday 29th December: RAINING!

We set the alarm for just after 6am and awoke to pouring rain....woke up slowly and went to breakfast at 7am when it opened. We were the only ones there!! There was a wonderful choice of sausages/bacon, cold meats/cheese/yoghurt, cereals, fruit salad and juice, breads and pastries and toast and lots of lovely tea! We were very impressed with the buffet!

After filling up we went back to the room to double layer on the thermals! And we headed to Disneyland Park. We arrived at the car park just after 8am and parked right at the front of the car park. It was very wet......

After going through we headed straight for Discoveryland and we went on Buzz where I declared my gun was NOT working.... We then went onto Space Mountain 2 – this was soooo much better than the one in Florida! It was getting near park opening time so we headed round to Fantasyland but Peter Pan and Pinocchio were already heaving so we went on Pirates of the Caribbean (again far superior to Florida!) and Star Tours – bit of a shame it is totally in French, didn’t get the story at all. We then went onto IASW.

We had already got FP’s for BTM and Indiana Jones but as it was raining so much we decided against it!

We were hungry by now so we went to Videopolis for some food. It was 12.70euro each for a burger meal, fries, coke and cake pudding. The food was really nice but nowhere near warm enough.... The African tam tams were on which was nice. We were also given (as part of our receipt) a free hot drink voucher – worth checking for.

After this we headed to the 1pm showing of Mickey’s winter wonderland show....SO nice and festive. Absolutely loved it!

After this it has finally stopped raining so we had a mooch around the Christmas village bit and ended up in the queue for Father Christmas (which was very short) but being 2 adults we decided against it and ducked out!

We headed over to Fantasyland for a walk around and soak up the atmosphere and then went into Winnie the Pooh and friends too. I love WtP, especially Tigger, but I was a bit disappointed at this. In other shows characters use a mix of Frenglish, but in this certain characters were totally French or English. Tigger was French and I was so disappointed!!! Very sad of me I know!

We wandered back to Main Street and got a couple of cups of tea from the kiosk outside the bakery. Very odd they give you 2 cups of hot water, 2 tea bags and a cup of hot milk...bit tricky when people want you out of the way!! Had a little moochy in the shops, watched the snowfall!!

We then got into position for the parade on Main Street at about 4.40pm (5pm showing). There were not many people around but it filled up quickly. We positioned ourselves by a bin/lamppost so not to be pushed out of the way, although I saw very little of this. At one point a mother tried to let me have her child in front of me but there was really no room. It was all very civilised! Lovely parade with a Christmas bit at the end.

After this we headed over to the Village for Buffalo bills show. Collected our tickets from the box office and we were allocated to red team....however there was no one else in red team...bit suspicious we thought. We found out that red team was pretty much one large school party....our hearts sank (DH is a teacher!) however, they were very good and not rowdy (apart from the bits they were allowed to be!) The adult – child ratio must be very different in France. We saw only a few adults. A little girl of about 6/7 came to me asking for the toilet like I was going to help her as no other adults were around. A CM took her off to our horror only for an adult to go running after them.....very odd.

The show was excellent fun. Mickey and co were just right to add a Disney flavour. We were given a choice of diet coke or beer to drink (filled up throughout). A bowl of chilli to start, followed by sausage, rib, chicken, chips and corn on the cob. Pudding was apple crumble and ice cream followed by coffee and a chocolate coin! My only criticism was that it was very dark so at times difficult to see what I was eating which I didn’t want to be examining as I wanted to watch the show!!

After this we headed back to the hotel for hot showers and bed!

Tomorrow: Paris!

 

[Disneyfanswicklow]

Really enjoying your trip report - your photos are amazing! Sounds like you had great fun. Thanks for sharing.

 

[FPL]

Wednesday 30th December - cold, a little drizzly.

Today was the day we were going in to Paris!

After waking and breakfasting at 7am we headed to DLRP to park the car and get the train. We bought 2 Mobilis tickets which allow use of all trains/metros for 1 day. It came to about 24 euro I think.

All trains into Paris are on the line A. Trains are really easy in Paris - all lines have a colour and each one has a letter (if RER) or number (if Metro) and they are always marked by the end destination. So you look for red - line A - Poissy (our destination line for Charles de gaulle etoile for Eiffel tower). The trains leave from DLRP RER every few minutes.

The journey in was quiet and took around 50 minutes. We quickly hopped on the Metro for a few stops to the Eiffel Tower stop.

I had looked at the opening times for the Eiffel tower just a few days before we had left to find a new online booking system to reserve and pay for a ticket/time slot. We reserved and paid for the 9.30 slot and can arrive up to 10am. The ticket price to the 2nd floor was 16 euro for 2.

I'm soooo glad we did. We turned up and went down the 'ticket' aisle and went straight in and up on the lift. This is the queue for people waiting for tickets.....

The lift is a bit odd when you go up at an angle and when you get up to the second floor you can move around and there are toilets, shops and a cafe. The view was amazing and it was quite spacious up there which I wasn't expecting!

This is from the 2nd floor looking up to the top (which we didn't go to!)

You have to queue again for the top but we didn't fancy it. You get the lift back down and it stops at the first floor if you want a look but it's quite close to the second floor.

Here are a few photos from the base:

There are ALOT of street sellers of cheap tat but if you say no they leave you alone.

Across the street is the river Seine and there was a small kiosk selling the most amazing waffles and crepes. We had a cup of tea and some big fat gorgeous waffles dripping in chocolate over looking the Seine! The cost was only 10euro I think for 2 big teas and 2 huge waffles. You'd pay as much in Starbucks!

We then got on the Batobus which was warm and spacious.

And took it most of the way down to Notredam:

We had a little look aroud the area and looks at some of the streets and made our way to the Pompidou centre just to see what it looks like!

We then made our way slowly to the Louvre - Parisian streets were lovely and pretty and lots to look at!

It was early afternoon when we reached the Louvre and the queue was very long but moving very quickly but it was one of those queues where you never really knew where you were.....we queued for over an hour......

Anyway once we got in it was beautiful. Very busy but beautiful!!!

We saw Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa although it was packed around them!

My feet were hanging off so we really couldn't do the museum justice. You need a full day!! (reason to return!)

When we left we headed back the Batobus and took it back to the Eiffel tower as it was getting dark and we were very tired!! Just as we got off and headed for the train station the illuminations started!!!

This photo doesn't do it justice as it lights up and twinkles all over!! However, this is all that was done at midnight on NYE so I think I would have been disappointed if I were there!

We queued to get into the Metro and this was the one and only time I saw people pushing into the queues. We quickly got a train back to DLRP which was heaving and we had to wait til we were out of Paris before getting a seat.

Once back we headed straight back to the hotel and realised we hadn't eaten since our waffle late morning!!

We tried the hotel restaurant. We were given a lovely big basket of bread which was replenished after we had eaten it all! DH had steak (& peppercorn sauce) and chips which he said was amazing and I ordered penne bolognaise which was huge, loads of parmesan and a massive bowl of gorgeous hot juicy chips! (these weren't expected!!) with 2 cokes and service charge came to 34 euro - not cheap but ok for a hotel price.

Hot showers and off to bed!

Tomorrow: NYE, lie-in and the all important question....will Disneyland park be full to capacity when we arrive......

 

[J Marley]

I'm enjoying reading your trip report...the piccies of Paris are brilliant.

Look forward to more

 

[brightstar]

Great trip report, looking forward to the next day

 

[IsobelJackmummy]

Great report, lots of lovely pictures, thank you for sharing!

 

[Verity Chambers]

Really loving your reports keep them coming!

 

[tashybea]

Great report, looking forward to the next installment

 

[FPL]

*not many photos today - tooooo cold!*

Before we left for DLRP I had read about the park closing to capacity on NYE but we couldn't find out what time this happens etc. So we decided to just stick with our original plan and see what happened!

We had a lovely lie-in and woke at about 9am. I was starting to feel quite jaded after Christmas and three full on days so a lie-in was very welcomed. We wanted to conserve our energy to make it to midnight!

We had a lovely long breakfast (even though it was very busy at this time!) but always a spare table. We were trying to spot people who might be going to DLRP and trying to second guess whether we would get in or not!!

We went back to the room and agreed to leave at 1.30pm for Disneyland park. We actually really needed the break and spent the moring reading, watching BBC world news and France 24 which is in English. I played more Zelda on the DS and generally massaged my tired feet!!

We left as planned with many may layers on (full base thermal layers inc. socks, top clothes layer, walking waterproof with fleece zipped inside, thick hat, scarf and 2 pairs of gloves!!). When we arrived at the car park we parked about half way back and it certainly wasn't as busy as we had envisaged.

It was very cold. I think this was the start of the current 'big freeze'! We headed to Disneyland Park and went straight in...no concerns over being full to capacity...in fact if it did close we were never aware and at no point did we find it THAT busy (my barometer for this is different though, as DH is a teacher we only travel in school holidays and DLRP on NYE was quieter than WDW at Easter!)

Now I have to admit something......we bought some FPs off THAT internet auction site. I was worried we wouldn't get on the big rides and though what the hell - give them a go but they probably won't work. I apologise to all those that hate me now.

However, we thought arriving at 2pm there wouldn't be any FPs left....we were very wrong!

We had a reservation for Plaza Gardens at 3.30pm so we went for a walk around the park to see what FPs we could get.

We got FPs for BTM at 8pm, Indiana Jones for 5.30pm I think, Buzz for 6pm and Peter Pan at 9pm. We were going to get Space Mountain too but only one machine was working and it was taking forever to queue!

Then we headed to Plaza Gardens. When I phoned to make this reservation I basically asked - when was the last 'normal' reservation time before the extortionate NYE dinners start. 3.30pm was the latest. We actually arrived at 3.10pm and we taken straight to a table.

The place was carnage. We knew this would be the case and we just wanted a meal in DL so we were in for NYE if you know what I mean so we didn't care!

It was very busy but the waiters were working really hard. We ordered 2 cokes and we told just to go up when we were ready.

To start I had a big plateful of salads (very nice after chips with everything!). DH had bread and cheese.

After this they shut one half of the buffet - I guess to get ready for the main dinner (as people were leaving tables were being table-clothed etc!)

The queue for the main dishes got really long because of this but we were in no rush! I had a mixture of pizza, nuggets and chips (classy!) some chicken, creamy cheesy potatoes and pasta. There was more meat, lasagne and chilli and rice.

After this we hit the pudding buffet (no queue) and had truely gorgeous crepes and choc sauce and also a square of the BEST chocolate cake - a bit like tiramisu with no coffee and a crunchy base - divine!

The buffet was 20.80euro a head (I was told 18euro when I booked...) with drinks, tip and our AP discount it was 45euro. I think this was fine for prime time, NYE, stuff your face, no need to eat for the rest of the day fare! Not sure i'd pay that if it was just for a bog standard meal - it was quite similar to an all inclusive type buffet on a sunshine holiday - fine because it's included/feels free!!

After this we slowly (bulging bellies!) walked around the Castle:

It is stunning inside and the outside balconies were really quiet and we had a good look over the crowds!

We were due to go on Indiana Jones with FPs but I was too full still so we gave our FPs to other people and got 2 more for about 10pm!

We then queued for Phantom Manor - it took about 30mins but I really wanted to go on it. It was far better than WDW!! Here I noticed a few smokers in the queue which was annoying!

While we were waiting for our Buzz FP time we watched the castle lighting ceremony again from Discoveryland:

After this we went on Buzz with FP - my gun was working but clearly NOT properly......

We then went on BTM - again FAR better than WDW. Brilliant views over the park in the dark - just brilliant! (not that this photo was taken then!)

It was just after 8pm by now and Fantillusion was on at 8.30pm. We knew we wouldn't get 'front row' so we just thought we would see if we could see over peoples heads! But as we came across to the path than runs off main street parallel to Casey's there were some spaces at the front still!

I think people thought they would rope the road off but they don't. So we were at the front but had to look left and watch the parade go in front of the opening at the top of the street. For 20mins before the NYE parade - we were quite pleased!!

I was so impressed with the CMs - they were stopping people from trying to push in and actually ushering them away.

Fantillusion was good, very good actually....but a bit short???!!!

After this we did Snow White and Pinnochio (5min wait each)

Then used our FPs on Peter Pan....again far better than WDW. The sensation of flying was so much better and the detail was stunning!

We had a little wander round the christmas village and then headed to Indiana Jones - this was good but quite short and we were waiting to get off the ride longer than the ride itself!

By this point it was 10.15ish and we had 'done' all our planned rides. Some areas, particularly near Indiana Jones, were so empty, it was like the park was closing!!!

We headed to Videopolis for a warm up and hot drink - however many people had the same idea. I think alot of people hadn't thought out the eating situation on NYE and were standing up eating burgers!!

We got hot chocolate off the machine and luckily found a space on the wall. We stayed here for about 30mins warming up and watching old cartoons. I think this place is such a good idea given the climate in Paris!

Feeling refreshed we decided to head for the party on Main Street!

Main Street was busy with people but not crowded at all at this point. There was a DJ doing music from an upper balcony on the corner of Main Street and the lights/castle lights would dance at times to the music!

Champagne was being sold by many carts in plastic glasses (9euro a glass I think....we were too cold!)

It was a fab atmosphere....people were dancing - me included! DH doesn't do dancing but he did do the zombie when Thriller came on!!! There was quite an eclectic mix of people....teenagers, mothers dancing with children, kissing couples etc!

It was a bit of a shame that by around 11.45 the DJ went a bit euro trash with the music and the cold started to set in if you stopped dancing!!!

It was at this point that Main Street was really packed. There was no point trying to move. By 11.30pm you need to pick a place and stay there really!

Disney music and countdown came over the speakers and that led into the fireworks.

The fireworks were sensational!!! (no photos of this time - too cold to get camera out!)

After the fireworks it was a mass depart. At first the crowd didn't really move. We turned round from the castle to face the Christmas tree and waited and shuffled feet when we could.

I guess this was scary if you had kids but for 2 adults it's no worse than leaving Wembley after a Take That concert! After about 5 mins the crowd thinned and we were moving freely.

I will always remember walking down Main Street, with snow, dancing to Black Eyed Pea's - 'I gotta feeling' with everyone singing along!!

It was suprisingly quick to get to the car and out. We were back at the hotel just before 1am. The hotel was very busy with people with DLRP bags and checking in probably just for the night.

We fell into bed after a great great day!!!

 

[FPL]

Well today was our last full day

After last night, we decided to have a bit of a lie in! we woke and had breakfast at about 8.30am and left at around 9.30am.

You could tell it was very cold. I was still feeling quite jaded but the cold was catching in my chest and making me feel a bit fluey. However, wrapped up as best we could and we headed to Movie Studios.

We headed straight for Crush....wait time was posted at 85mins . However, it didn't look that bad so we just decided to queue - it was the only time we were going to get a chance to ride it! We waited about 30mins

This ride is cooooool!! Personally, I don't think it's a 'kids' ride so much. It's quite dark and more of a roller coaster than a themed ride. My DH has a stronger stomach for coasters and he said he felt a bit sick after it!! It is seriously cool though!!!

After this we headed round to Catastrophic Canyon and as we were walking round Remy was in his spot with no one to play with!!! I could resist getting a photo!

We went onto the ride which was pretty cool. Note as you get on the carts, the first one in i.e. who sits on the left is the one who gets wet!!! You can tell by the water left on the seat from the people before. It was cold and I refused to move over - luckily it was quiet!

After this we went to Armageddon but it was shut for some reason. So we went to Anamagique instead. This was very cool. Amazing the way they do it - even more exciting that Donald Duck speaks all English and so do lots of the other characters!

We considered ToT:

But I didn't like it in WDW so we decided against it. We were quite tired and hungry so we had a bit of a look round the shops and took some photos:

Then we headed to Cafe Mickey for our 1pm reservation.

We were shown straight to a table in the middle section. The restaurant was totally full but there were only Rabbit and King John out. Initially I was a bit worried that there wouldn't be many characters as it was lunchtime but it did get better.

Mickey, Scrooge McDuck and Goofy also came out. They worked round all the tables and didn't discriminate against 2 adults!! In fact we had a French guy next to us eating alone who was clearly a BIG fan and he was hilarious saying things like Mickey was his brother!! he was a bit camp and the characters came over to us frequently!!

After we ordered we were given 3 little baguettes with butter to nibble on which was lovely (one very good thing about eating out in France!) We both had a pizza and a coke which was really lovely. And then DH had the creme brulee and I had Snow Whites Apple tart thing with ice cream which was also very very nice.

The characters come around regularly and at one point someone had a birthday cake brought out and all the characters were dancing in the aisle and Mickey started doing the 'Saturday Night' dance!!!!

Cost with tip and AP discount was about 50euro so quite expensive but really good quality food, excellent service and surroundings and wonderful characters!!

Just as we were leaving lots of birds came in.....

Which was weird.

After this we had a wander round the Village. There were lots of these photo spots around the place which was nice:

We decided that we would spend our last afternoon doing the shopping that we had planned on through the week. Now if you remember back to the start we brought 500euro (100euro a day to spend) Well, by day 5 afternoon we had only spent 250euro.......granted the meal in the hotel had gone on the room and not paid for in cash but we thought that was rather good!!!!

We did go a bit mad shopping though! We bought:
- 2 thermal mugs (Mickey for DH, Grumpy for me)
- DH got a mug, Star Wars t-shirt, Indiana Jones t-shirt
- I got a soft grey Mickey hoodie, Donald duck pen, 2010 Mickey bookmark,
- For the house, a Mickey placemat to put the cats feeding bowls on!, an old style black and white alarm clock for the spare room, a really nice silver star christmas tree decoration where each bit of the star was actually Mickey ears! a Winnie the pooh and 2010 pin and a Mickey head bottle opener.
- The most exciting thing we bought was a Mickey cake mould!! oh the fun for birthdays cakes to come!

You get 20% off with AP and we saved about 50euro!

We bought all this in the shops in the village but we always get a Mickey from the parks - we have a themed one from each park at WDW and we wanted one from DLRP. We had seen a limited edition Steamboat Willie one in Frontierland and we decided to trek back over to DL to get it. On the way we took a few photos:

We had to look in a few shops to find the one we were looking for (moto: if you see something you like - buy it there and then!) but we got our no. 510 of 1785 made Steamboat Wille Mickey!

After this we were well and truly spent. It was getting dark and we were tired so we said goodbye to DLRP and headed back to the hotel.

I had a shower and fell asleep for 2 hours! We then packed our bags ready for the morning and had an early night.

 

[FPL]

The final day (Sat 2nd Jan) is very boring.

We were up, breakfasted and checked-out by 8.30am. Drove the 3hrs back to Calais. I forgot to say before that most of this is a toll road and it cost 20.20euro. Bit steep but a very clear run and my understanding is they don't have road tax in France??

On the way up, there were varying weather conditions and quite heavy snow. The problem with empty roads is no traffic to melt the snow!

We arrived at the Calais eurotunnel at around 11.50am - 1 hr before our departure. We did the self check-in and this prints off your tag that you hang on the mirror and went thorugh to the terminal building. We used the last of our change up on 2 lovely big cups of tea (must be getting near England!) and 2 pecan brownies. As we were heading back to the car to have them the car park warden said we should head straight through to the train even though it was about 45mins before leaving.

I'm glad we did because passport control is a bit longer this side. On the way to France we had a fat man sitting in his fleece taking the odd glance to check you even had a passport and waving you through but coming back to England it was guards with guns, sniffer dogs and full vehicle searches if you were unlucky - as we said - you don't often find illegal immigrants trying to leave Britain!

We were on and off the train quickly and drove an hour back to Croydon for a hot meal and to collect all of our Christmas luggage and presents. We then did another 2.5hour drive back to the Midlands and my own bed. Aaaahhhh!!

Thoughts:

After lots of research my main worries about going were: crowds, smoking, cost, everything being in French, rudeness, being rubbish in comparison to WDW. Here is my views:

Crowds: as I said my barometer is different but I really didn't find this a problem. If you have a plan, get up early and use FPs you can do what you want. We did see times for BTM or Buzz at 90mins etc but we just wouldn't attempt that - get a FP instead! I also didn't see ANY queue jumping in DLRP. DH actually said he thought this was better than at WDW. I found it to be very civilised. I also didn't see many characters out and about apart from at organised times so we didn't any of the 'scrums' i've read about.

Smoking: I found there to be a general aroma of smoke rather than people shoving fags in my face when up close and personal in a queue or waiting for parade. People definatly smoke when they aren't supposed to but the worst offenders I saw were 3 English girls on Main Street on NYE so it's not just a French thing. It's the CMs that need to do something about it but it didn't really bother me. The smell wasn't so strong that our clothes ever smelt at the end of the day.

Cost: Expensive but no more than any other park/event. If you know what the cost is before you go and accept it - no problems. That is why these sites are so good for keeping people informed!

French: I don't think the fact it is French is a problem so much as you just wish everything is in your own language!! I bet the french wish it was all in french and not english as well! There was the odd time it annoyed me - Star Tours was completely French so I had no idea what the story was but generally it is done well in a mix of languages.

Every single person we met spoke english but was warmer if you dropped the odd french word in i.e. thank you etc.

Rudeness: CMs were definatly less friendly than Americans but as a culture not individually. Visitors were no different! you get rudeness and irritation wherever you are in a mass of people.

WDW: We tried not to compare to WDW but we found that many rides were far superior than WDW, I guess because they are newer: BTM, Space Mountain, Peter Pan and Phantom Manor. The castle is so gorgeous and the detail around the parks was much more.

I read people thought it was quite shabby at DLRP but I never saw this. It was detailed, beautiful and sparkly.

WDW is a hot 2 week holiday with 4 parks, 2 water parks, other parks not WDW, shopping, golf, spa etc etc etc. DLRP is a european mini-break. The 2 should be treated as very different and enjoyed in their own right.

Other thoughts:

APs: we had to buy dream ones for our dates, not cheap, but we worked out that we had recouped the cost of 1 pass based on the savings from free parking, food, shopping and Buffalo bills tickets. We never did try a free apperitif though! But, totally worth it.

Our off-site hotel: loved it! cheap but you wouldn't think it. I'm not sure I could justify the disney hotel prices in school holidays.

Travel: driving and eurotunnel was easy and totally fine as we were in the south for Christmas but I think I would fly from Birmingham if we went again for ease.

Would I go again??? HELL YES! as we have APs till the end of the year I would love to fly down for a couple of days over the summer if we can. It was a great holiday and there is so much to see and do not just at DLRP.

Thanks for reading!

 

[dawnydoo]

Great job on Your T.R. I am really enjoying it. Your enthusiasum is very infectious & I can`t wait to go in March now. YIPPEE!