loladelorean
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2010
- Messages
- 1,371
Day 2 - http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2597471
Day 3 - http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2600067
Day 4 - http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2603363
Day 5 - http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2603571
Day 6 - http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2603582
Well, here we go, this is probably going to be a long trip report as we were there for 6 days and did so much! I had intended to write it up whilst we were there but by the time we got back to the hotel at night I just kept crashing out.
On Saturday 6th November we certainly were 3 big kids as we travelled down to London from Glasgow – full of excitement, we had a really fun train journey. We upgraded to first class and had the carriage to ourselves the entire way down. We made plans for the trip, ate free biscuits, and watched Snow White and Ratatouille on the laptop!
The train journey seemed to go in quickly, we were soon at Kings Cross and got a taxi to the Royal Scot Travelodge (its within walking distance really, but we had far too much luggage. We SERIOUSLY regretted this on the return trip, we were loaded up like pack horses with DLP carrier bags lol).
The Royal Scot Travelodge is more like a hostel really, the room was a triple and very small and basic! But we got it extremely cheap, and it was just somewhere to sleep that night, it was clean and perfectly adequate. We got changed and went to meet our cousins who live in London for dinner. It was great to see them, we had a brilliant catch up and enjoyed fantastic pizzas at Fire and Stone in Covent Garden. Back to our little hotel room and there was finally only one big sleep to go!
Sunday 7th November
The big day was here! We got ready very quickly (in our matching Mickey Tshirts, how cool) and got another taxi to St Pancras. The check in wasn’t open yet so we got a posh breakfast in Le Pain Quotidien (yummy). We were amazed how quick and easy the Eurostar check in was, if only we lived nearer to London as this is a much preferable method to flying. There was about a 30 minute wait for the train, it seemed to last forever! There were lots of families around just as excited as us.
Here we are on the Eurostar!
DISer Kazzabelle recognised me and introduced herself on the Eurostar – how lovely to meet another DISer! We bumped into her again on the trip and I think she and her family had a great time too ☺
The Eurostar journey was also quick and pleasant, we watched Monsters Inc and by the time it was finished it seemed we were nearly there. The only slight annoyance was a man who stopped to ask us if we were really going with no children, and to openly laugh at us. How rude can you be?! Luckily we never saw him again once we got there!
At the DLP station there was Christmas music playing, and I thought I was going to burst with excitement! My mum struggled to keep up with me and my sister as we raced through the village towards HNY with our massive suitcases (it was drizzling with rain at this point, but we didn’t care).
Ooh it was amazing to see HNY again, it felt like coming home. I paused to sniff the lovely smell as we entered the lobby, which looked more beautiful than ever all dressed up for Christmas. There was no queue, we were able to check in straight away and our room was ready early! The CM (Armand) was lovely, outlined everything very helpfully. We were asked to choose breakfast time slots for the first 2 days and to get cards for the rest of our stay after that.
Our room was 2260, in Brownstones. This was great, last year we were at the far end of Gramercy Park and had a serious slog to the room, Brownstones is so much more convenient. And we had a lake view! It looks in this photo as though you can’t see much for the trees, but really it was a beautiful view.
Our room was lovely, but this was no time to be settling in! We were off to the park – here is a photo of me and my sister, very very excited to be back.
We oohed and aahed our way down Main Street, loving the Christmas decorations and feeling a bit like we were dreaming. I had thought about this moment so much that I could hardly believe it was finally here!
The hub show was starting just as we reached the stage, with the characters coming out at the side.
When we saw Tiana and Naveen my sister squealed “It’s Tiana!” and Tiana heard her, looked round and said hi to us. That’s it, we were firmly in the magic!
The show was great, we thought it was much much better than the Magical Party show last year. The Christmas addition is just one song at the end, but the whole thing was really fun.
After the show we were pretty hungry so went to Cable Car bake shop, where we ate our ciabattas and Mickey brioches out in the arcade, mmm this was a delicious lunch the chicken and sundried tomato ciabatta is gorgeous.
The first ride in our mind was BTM, this is the only bigger ride that my mum will do, so we swung past for fastpasses. We had been expecting the park to be really busy with it being Sunday but it wasn’t bad at all.
We knew that Snow White was going to be shut after this day, and had never been on it before so this was our first ride. It was especially good because we had just watched the film on the train. We thought the ride was very focused on the witch though, doesn’t seem to feature much of the happy side of the story! Of course we had a little wander around Fantasyland too, drinking in the magic. After this, we made our way slowly back to BTM through Adventureland, admiring the scenery and taking in the Aladdin walkthrough. BTM was every bit as fun as we remembered, we all loved it and this was to become a daily feature of the trip!
By this time it was 4.30pm so we staked out a spot on the corner by the Emporium to watch the parade, tree lighting and Fantillusion. We didn’t take any photos of these because we just wanted to enjoy them. Just Like We Dreamed It had us welling up, we were so happy to be back! And the Christmas addition to OUAD parade is fab, it snowed on Main Street as Santa went past and we were overjoyed lol. After OUAD it was getting dark and we were pretty chilly, so I jogged back to HNY to get hats, scarves and gloves, which we had been in too much of a hurry to remember at the start. I made it back just in time for tree lighting, wow this is so magical! There were loads of characters on the mobile stage, and they danced to a medley of Christmas songs before choosing a lucky child to help light up that magnificent tree! We felt so lucky to be seeing the very first tree lighting of the year, and it was breathtaking.
We stayed in the same spot to await Fantillusion, so we just saw the castle lighting from a distance – we would see this better on other nights! This was the first time we had seen Fantillusion and we loved it – we realised when we got back that we didn’t take any photos of Fantillusion at all, every time we watched it we were just mesmerised by it.
As the park closed, Santa was up on the railroad platform, waving goodbye to everyone. We had had a truly magical start to the trip, and couldn’t wait to get to Café Mickey for dinner. We showered and quickly changed in the hotel and made it just in time for our 9pm booking. We were seated in the terrace area downstairs, and had a very nice waitress (phew, no creepy waiters like last year). The restaurant was very busy with LOTS of birthdays, the waitress said they had 15 that night. We got loads of characters though – Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Stitch, Gideon, Pluto, Tigger and Chip and Dale.
My mum and I shared a nice bottle of rose wine, we were pleasantly surprised by the wine prices everywhere at DLP, we had expected it to be really expensive but it was just about the same as a restaurant at home, 5 euros for a large glass. I had the Ariel’s Delight (or something to that effect) seafood dish, it came out looking a bit messy on the plate but tasted lovely, really nice risotto with salmon, cod and prawns. The fish was all cooked perfectly. My sister had carbonara which was a massive portion, and my mum had Fish and Chips which she found to be too oily. She is a really really fussy eater though (isn’t it supposed to be the kids who are fussy?!) and thought most things were too oily or too something all week, so actually the fish and chips were probably fine!
We were seated next to a lovely Irish family with a young son and daughter – their son was scared of the characters and hid under the table when they came along. They said he had been really looking forward to meeting the characters before the trip but just found them too overwhelming and had hid from them all weekend. Most of the characters let him be when they saw how scared he was, but one of the chipmunks got down on hands and knees and joined him on the floor. Don’t know what he did, but soon the little boy was laughing and hugging him! It was amazing to watch – after that he couldn’t wait to hug all the characters. His mum and dad were over the moon! It was his big sisters birthday, and she looked like she was in heaven as all the characters came over with her chocolate cake! They were kind enough to give us some too, so we didn’t need desserts. The cake is really delicious!
We enjoyed Café Mickey, a great start to a week of fantastic meals, and it was made even better by befriending this lovely family and sharing a little in the great character moments with their kids.
We had a quick look in the Village shops but we were pretty dead on our feet, and we were asleep about 11pm! Ready for our first full day in the parks...
Day 3 - http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2600067
Day 4 - http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2603363
Day 5 - http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2603571
Day 6 - http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2603582
Well, here we go, this is probably going to be a long trip report as we were there for 6 days and did so much! I had intended to write it up whilst we were there but by the time we got back to the hotel at night I just kept crashing out.
On Saturday 6th November we certainly were 3 big kids as we travelled down to London from Glasgow – full of excitement, we had a really fun train journey. We upgraded to first class and had the carriage to ourselves the entire way down. We made plans for the trip, ate free biscuits, and watched Snow White and Ratatouille on the laptop!
The train journey seemed to go in quickly, we were soon at Kings Cross and got a taxi to the Royal Scot Travelodge (its within walking distance really, but we had far too much luggage. We SERIOUSLY regretted this on the return trip, we were loaded up like pack horses with DLP carrier bags lol).
The Royal Scot Travelodge is more like a hostel really, the room was a triple and very small and basic! But we got it extremely cheap, and it was just somewhere to sleep that night, it was clean and perfectly adequate. We got changed and went to meet our cousins who live in London for dinner. It was great to see them, we had a brilliant catch up and enjoyed fantastic pizzas at Fire and Stone in Covent Garden. Back to our little hotel room and there was finally only one big sleep to go!
Sunday 7th November
The big day was here! We got ready very quickly (in our matching Mickey Tshirts, how cool) and got another taxi to St Pancras. The check in wasn’t open yet so we got a posh breakfast in Le Pain Quotidien (yummy). We were amazed how quick and easy the Eurostar check in was, if only we lived nearer to London as this is a much preferable method to flying. There was about a 30 minute wait for the train, it seemed to last forever! There were lots of families around just as excited as us.
Here we are on the Eurostar!
DISer Kazzabelle recognised me and introduced herself on the Eurostar – how lovely to meet another DISer! We bumped into her again on the trip and I think she and her family had a great time too ☺
The Eurostar journey was also quick and pleasant, we watched Monsters Inc and by the time it was finished it seemed we were nearly there. The only slight annoyance was a man who stopped to ask us if we were really going with no children, and to openly laugh at us. How rude can you be?! Luckily we never saw him again once we got there!
At the DLP station there was Christmas music playing, and I thought I was going to burst with excitement! My mum struggled to keep up with me and my sister as we raced through the village towards HNY with our massive suitcases (it was drizzling with rain at this point, but we didn’t care).
Ooh it was amazing to see HNY again, it felt like coming home. I paused to sniff the lovely smell as we entered the lobby, which looked more beautiful than ever all dressed up for Christmas. There was no queue, we were able to check in straight away and our room was ready early! The CM (Armand) was lovely, outlined everything very helpfully. We were asked to choose breakfast time slots for the first 2 days and to get cards for the rest of our stay after that.
Our room was 2260, in Brownstones. This was great, last year we were at the far end of Gramercy Park and had a serious slog to the room, Brownstones is so much more convenient. And we had a lake view! It looks in this photo as though you can’t see much for the trees, but really it was a beautiful view.
Our room was lovely, but this was no time to be settling in! We were off to the park – here is a photo of me and my sister, very very excited to be back.
We oohed and aahed our way down Main Street, loving the Christmas decorations and feeling a bit like we were dreaming. I had thought about this moment so much that I could hardly believe it was finally here!
The hub show was starting just as we reached the stage, with the characters coming out at the side.
When we saw Tiana and Naveen my sister squealed “It’s Tiana!” and Tiana heard her, looked round and said hi to us. That’s it, we were firmly in the magic!
The show was great, we thought it was much much better than the Magical Party show last year. The Christmas addition is just one song at the end, but the whole thing was really fun.
After the show we were pretty hungry so went to Cable Car bake shop, where we ate our ciabattas and Mickey brioches out in the arcade, mmm this was a delicious lunch the chicken and sundried tomato ciabatta is gorgeous.
The first ride in our mind was BTM, this is the only bigger ride that my mum will do, so we swung past for fastpasses. We had been expecting the park to be really busy with it being Sunday but it wasn’t bad at all.
We knew that Snow White was going to be shut after this day, and had never been on it before so this was our first ride. It was especially good because we had just watched the film on the train. We thought the ride was very focused on the witch though, doesn’t seem to feature much of the happy side of the story! Of course we had a little wander around Fantasyland too, drinking in the magic. After this, we made our way slowly back to BTM through Adventureland, admiring the scenery and taking in the Aladdin walkthrough. BTM was every bit as fun as we remembered, we all loved it and this was to become a daily feature of the trip!
By this time it was 4.30pm so we staked out a spot on the corner by the Emporium to watch the parade, tree lighting and Fantillusion. We didn’t take any photos of these because we just wanted to enjoy them. Just Like We Dreamed It had us welling up, we were so happy to be back! And the Christmas addition to OUAD parade is fab, it snowed on Main Street as Santa went past and we were overjoyed lol. After OUAD it was getting dark and we were pretty chilly, so I jogged back to HNY to get hats, scarves and gloves, which we had been in too much of a hurry to remember at the start. I made it back just in time for tree lighting, wow this is so magical! There were loads of characters on the mobile stage, and they danced to a medley of Christmas songs before choosing a lucky child to help light up that magnificent tree! We felt so lucky to be seeing the very first tree lighting of the year, and it was breathtaking.
We stayed in the same spot to await Fantillusion, so we just saw the castle lighting from a distance – we would see this better on other nights! This was the first time we had seen Fantillusion and we loved it – we realised when we got back that we didn’t take any photos of Fantillusion at all, every time we watched it we were just mesmerised by it.
As the park closed, Santa was up on the railroad platform, waving goodbye to everyone. We had had a truly magical start to the trip, and couldn’t wait to get to Café Mickey for dinner. We showered and quickly changed in the hotel and made it just in time for our 9pm booking. We were seated in the terrace area downstairs, and had a very nice waitress (phew, no creepy waiters like last year). The restaurant was very busy with LOTS of birthdays, the waitress said they had 15 that night. We got loads of characters though – Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Stitch, Gideon, Pluto, Tigger and Chip and Dale.
My mum and I shared a nice bottle of rose wine, we were pleasantly surprised by the wine prices everywhere at DLP, we had expected it to be really expensive but it was just about the same as a restaurant at home, 5 euros for a large glass. I had the Ariel’s Delight (or something to that effect) seafood dish, it came out looking a bit messy on the plate but tasted lovely, really nice risotto with salmon, cod and prawns. The fish was all cooked perfectly. My sister had carbonara which was a massive portion, and my mum had Fish and Chips which she found to be too oily. She is a really really fussy eater though (isn’t it supposed to be the kids who are fussy?!) and thought most things were too oily or too something all week, so actually the fish and chips were probably fine!
We were seated next to a lovely Irish family with a young son and daughter – their son was scared of the characters and hid under the table when they came along. They said he had been really looking forward to meeting the characters before the trip but just found them too overwhelming and had hid from them all weekend. Most of the characters let him be when they saw how scared he was, but one of the chipmunks got down on hands and knees and joined him on the floor. Don’t know what he did, but soon the little boy was laughing and hugging him! It was amazing to watch – after that he couldn’t wait to hug all the characters. His mum and dad were over the moon! It was his big sisters birthday, and she looked like she was in heaven as all the characters came over with her chocolate cake! They were kind enough to give us some too, so we didn’t need desserts. The cake is really delicious!
We enjoyed Café Mickey, a great start to a week of fantastic meals, and it was made even better by befriending this lovely family and sharing a little in the great character moments with their kids.
We had a quick look in the Village shops but we were pretty dead on our feet, and we were asleep about 11pm! Ready for our first full day in the parks...
love your photos in Cafe Mickey.
I was there at the same time - Fantillusion was really nice wasn't it!!
hope Chante C'est Noel is playing when you arrive on your trip
