A Canucks trip to DLP and UK

[absolut_mandy]

Hi Folks!

I thought that I would write up a little trip report on my trip to DLP and the UK! I just came back a couple of weeks ago and it was a great trip!
Hopefully this trip report will make you smile, laugh a bit and give you a bit of info on a Canadian's view of DLP

The cast of this trip:

Me (Mandy) a lover of Disney and all of the magic that goes with it. I am a true believer in Disney Karma and that is why I do some
designs on the Creative Disigns board here on the Dis.

Danielle (sister) she lives in the UK and will be our hotel for the UK part of the trip. She loves Disney too but not as much as me!
A couple of years ago we headed to the Food and Wine at Epcot for a week and it was a great trip! We made it our mission to do and see
different parts of WDW and it was fantastic (that we can remember b/c the drinks at F&W were so delicious!)

(I'm in the striped shirt)

Ciara (god daughter) She is nine years old and she loves disney too! I have made her into a professional Hidden Mickey hunter and she loves to hunt all of the time! This is a picture of her "driving" the monorail when i took her to WDW when she was 6.

This trip started this just an idea. It seems that most of my trips for Disney are well planned out and we know that we are going for a long time (see my Cruise this year, I booked the cruise in May 2011!) but this one was pretty quick.

I was speaking with my sister and complaining that I wanted to go somewhere in May. She said "Why don't you come over here and we can head to Paris" and I laughed and said "I should bring Ciara over" and she said "Sure!". All that I need to do was to convince her mom that I could take her for a visit.

Ciara's mom is my best friend from childhood. We have been friends for over 20 years and with each other for all of our major milestones. I have been lucky to become a godmommy to her children and I have made it my mission to spoil them rotten! (that's what good Aunties do right?) I have taken the kids on a couple of trips to Disney on my own. I took Ciara to WDW when she was 6 and then both, her brother, Gavin and Ciara down last year with my friend and her kids. Both of trips were amazing and I knew that this DLP trip would be great too!

The only sticking point for the trip is the flight. Ciara's mom is not a flier. She flew once when we were 17 and she hated it. She has not been on a plane since! On the 2 trips that I took the kids to Disney, we have flown down. During those flights, Ciara's mom followed the flights online, checked the Weather Network for thunderstorms and chewed her nails until we landed. I have been flying since I was 4 and so I don't want the kids to be nervous flying either, that is probably why I took them on their trips when they were so young. When I mentioned to Ciara's mom that I wanted to take Ciara over to the UK, all that she could say was "Over the ocean?" I have flown over to the UK, lots of time and I really have never thought that flying over the ocean was a bad thing (actually I always think that it is beautiful!) but for someone nervous about flying, I can understand her
concern. I left it with her for a couple of days, and finally she agreed that she would be able to go with me!

We wanted to keep this a surprise for Ciara for a couple of reasons. The first reason is because surprises are so much fun and the second reason is because this is the first big trip without her brother and we didn't want to make him upset. Now, if you asked anyone that knew me, you would be stunned that I could keep a secret this big but I did and it was well worth it!

Stay tuned for the surprise reveal, a couple of days in London, then off to Paris!

Thanks for reading!

Mandy

 

[absolut_mandy]

The big surprise! I really wanted to keep the trip a secret from Ciara. There were so many times that I almost spilled the beans but I managed to keep it a secret.

We went to pick her up after school. When we got to the house she was just walking in from a friend’s house. We distracted her brother (just in case of some jealous) with a quick ball game outside and gave Ciara a couple of clues.

First was a letter from her Brownie Owl (my mom) saying that she was disappointed that Ciara wouldn’t be at camp this weekend but Aunt Mandy had a surprise for her.

Second was a passport cover and inside was her allowance (in GBP). She looked at the money, confused and gave us a “huh?” look. We prompted her a bit and said, where would you use the money? She said “England” and we nodded, she still didn’t get it.

We told her that we were going to England right now and she started to scream. I apologize to anyone in a 10 block radius b/c I am sure that it shattered some windows. Immediately after telling her the good news, she ran upstairs to pack!

This is what she looked like after she got the news:

When we were about to set off, we realized that Ciara hadn’t told her friend that she would not be coming back for the night. When she was speaking with her friends, she screamed “I’ve got to go, I’m going to London”, her friends yelled back “London, Ontario?” and Ciara screamed “No, the real London!” We just about doubled over laughing. No offence to you London Ontarions, but it was pretty funny!

We live in Kingston, Ontario, Canada about 45 minutes away from the border of the US at the 1000 islands, and it is a further hour and half to Syracuse, NY. I love living so close to the States and especially love flying out of Syracuse. Syracuse airport is the easiest airport to get to (straight down I81), and to fly out of. The airport is small but it has lots of flights!

My parents were happy to drive us down to Syracuse so we made our way over the 1000 Islands Bridge. The area around the 1000 Islands is just beautiful. I love living right on Lake Ontario and always love the view! This is what the bridge looks like from above:

but obviously that is not my picture! This is my picture (so I guess you will know why I used the other one!)

We made our way down to Watertown, NY and had a great dinner at Texas Roadhouse. I swear we go down to this restaurant every month because you have got to love $2 beer and delicous steak! We even had a couple of peanut shucking and eating races. One thing that I did learn is that I am the only at the table that doesn’t cheat!

My mom and Ciara during a peanut eating contest:

Can you guess the winner?

We made it down to Syracuse with lots of time, we decided to spend the night at the hotel at the airport b/c our flight was early. The hotel was a Best Western and it was nothing special. It is 2 minutes away from the airport so the location was the key. It had a great breakfast in the morning and it was free

On to departure day....

 

[absolut_mandy]

As I said previously, I love flying out of Syracuse! The airport has this wonderful exhibit about all aspects of flying (eg how planes fly, what is wind sheer, the various jobs of the airport workers.) The best part of the exhibit is the hands on things. You can hop into a cockpit and fly the plane, you can hop on a baggage cart and so many other things. Here are a couple of pictures of the exhibit and even though we didn't get to play this time, we spent over an hour there last visit with the kids!

We took the free shuttle over to the airport and we arrived an hour and half before the flight (this is usually more that I do normally!) but the airport was packed! I can’t believe the amount of people that leave Syracuse in the morning. While we were in the line, the attendant yelled out “ if there is anyone for the Newark flight at 6:50, you better get up here now or you will miss your flight!” Now, I think that I am a seasoned traveler, I don’t get too nervous about flying and all that good stuff but the people behind of me freaked out.

They almost bowled me and Ciara over to get to the check in! When they made it up to the check in, it was the machines and they didn’t know how to do it and very loudly complained to the poor guy at United. I scooted through and got the boarding passes and left. The line up to go through the security check was even longer! There was a time that I was just about getting freaked out. Our flight to London left an hour later when we arrived into Newark so I knew that if we missed it, we were euchred but alas, we made it without a problem!

This was Ciara’s first time a propeller plane and she was a little bit nervous. I am a flyer, I love to fly. I would fly to the next town if I could (hello Bellevile!). Ciara’s mom is not a flyer and this is why I am taking her on the trip alone. It was Ciara’s first time walking out of the plane (rather than the jetway) and she thought that it was really loud but really neat. We snapped some pics along the way and I tried to explain all of the components of the plane and all of the sounds.

The flight was not an issue. Just enough time to get up, get a drink and get back down. It was a foggy morning so when we came into the Newark, we could barely see NYC. We did see the Empire State Building though!

When I booked the flight to London, people always asked me if Ciara was going to have a tough time on a 7 hour flight. Well let me tell you, there was no issue at all. A couple of weeks prior to the flight, I bought her a Barbie designer book (for all of the people from my generation this is like Fashion Plates) and she spent most of the time creating new looks for Barbie. We watched a couple of movies, listened to our music and arrived into Heathrow around 9pm their time.

I am a firm believer in day flights when going over to London. I never get sleep on the night flights (too much movement around me to get a deep sleep) so when you get on a day flight, it is fanatasic! By the end of the very long travel day, it is only 8pm our time when my head hits the pillow but I am exhausted. This way, I have never had to fight with jet lag!

We just missed going through Customs with a jumbo flight from Doha and if we didn't get ahead of them, we would have been in the que forever! Luckily, we hopped ahead of them! The best part of the que was that a worker from Heathrow came up and spoke with Ciara about the flight and Ciara mentioned that she was tired. Just then, he opened up the gate for us and told us to go ahead. I was stunned but thanked him as we jumped ahead. It was really nice that someone would realize that traveling is exhausting, especially for kids!

We breezed through customs and the baggage claim and met up with my sister!

up next, A day in St Albans

 

[HappyPanda]

Really enjoying to your Trip Report so far! What a great God-Mommy you are! Hope her brother wasn't too jealous when he found out!

Looking forward to your next update, I am from Watford and St. Albans is about a 10 minute drive from my house, so we spend a lot of time there - I hope you enjoyed it!

 

[Mum to Belle]

Love her little face when she got her surprise!!

You are a super God-Mummy!

Can't wait to hear what you got up to.....

 

[Ms Poppins]

Wow, what a wonderful surprise for your god-daughter

Look forward to hearing more

 

[absolut_mandy]

My sister lives in St. Albans. It is a great city that is about 20 minutes north of London on the train. It is an old Roman town with an amazing cathedral and many other great things.

Today we spent the day wandering the city. We started down by the park and spent a hour down by the pond. Ciara thought that it was amazing that the ducks and swans would come right up to you (obviously looking for lunch!) I guess it is pretty cool to see that many swans, obviously Kingston, Ontario does not have a huge swan collection! We spent a lot of time at the pond, just looking at the birds. Now if you knew me, you would be amazed that I would want be around birds for that long. Yes, I am one of those people that are nervous (not afraid) around birds. I don’t know why I am nervous, I didn’t get attack by chickadees when I was a kid, I guess that it is just an irrational fear!

While we wandered the park, we came across the remnants of a roman wall. I am a major history buff and I love all things old so this was right up my alley. I found that it was a struggle this trip to inform Ciara of all of the cool history but not bore her to death with dates and facts. I stressed that the wall was so long, so thick, so old and she was concerned with how they built it. This is a good step! I tried to explain (with my limited knowledge of construction) how they built it and kept stressing that there was no machines like we have now. She thought that it was cool (me too!)

This stretch of the Roman wall was built between 256-270AD and it protected the city of Verulamium

Next we walked up to the Cathedral. The Cathedral of St Albans is a magnificent sight. It is high up on a hill and is just beautiful. The stained glass windows are amazing and Ciara asked how they built the windows, how they only shine from the inside, etc, etc. I answered all the questions but I am not looking forward to when she starts fact checking me! At 9 she believes me, but I don’t want to see it when she is 14!

We headed up the High Street for a bit of shopping and lunch. I really stressed on this trip that Ciara would be experiencing different things, so for lunch we headed to a noodle bar. The restaurant is called Wagamama and they have them all over but it was new to us. Being a Saturday, it was packed with families but we quickly got a seat and tucked into some delicious noodles! The noodles were a success and she loved them! She got a noodle bowl with chicken, veg, pork broth and noodles and ate them all up!

The rest of the day was spent wandering the market and then back to the house. Here are a couple pics of the city:

up next A day in London

 

[absolut_mandy]

It was bit of a early start for us today. We were heading into London for a visit and wanted to make sure that we would get there before the crowds. The weather was chilly and grey (perfect London weather!) so we all bundled up and headed into London. Ciara had her first tube ride on the Circle line

The first stop was the Tower of London. Both my sister and I have been to the Tower before and loved all of the stories and this time did not disappoint. After spending an arm and a leg (not a head (I know bad joke!)) to get into the Tower, we waited for a Yeoman tour.

Our tour guide was magnificent. For all of you visitors to the Tower, please make sure that you go on the tour. There were so many people that were passing us with their audio tour handsets but they missed the best part of the Tower and yeah, it’s free! The Yeoman retell all of the stories with such flair that even the least interested person would soon become enthralled!

Good news for the kiddos of the tour group, they were invited up to front and always had the front row seat to the tour. The tour lasted about 45 minutes and it seemed to fly by. I could gush about the tour for the whole post but I won’t. Just know that if you go to London, please go to the Tower and do the Yeoman tour.

Another reason to go to the Tower is to see the crown jewels. As you walk into the rooms with the jewels, you can’t help but marvel in the atmosphere. The crowns, the rings, the necklaces are beautiful but so are the spoons, the goblets, the plates. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to wear those crowns.

When you go by the main crowns, you are on a moving sidewalk so it doesn’t allow too much time to gawk but the best thing is that you can go around again if you want. We went through a couple of times to get a better look at the crowns. My favourite was the Queen Mum’s crown. It was simple, small and full of diamonds!

Not my pic, but this is what it looks like:

We wandered the Tower for about an hour more and then headed off towards Trafalgar Square.

Quick stop at the gift shop! Here is my little King Henry!

A couple pics around the tower:

And finally, a totally tacky pic but it had to be done! The grass behind the girls is Tower Green, I guess you can guess by the girls what happened on the green (please Anne Boleyn, do not haunt me!)

up next, continuation of Day in London

 

[absolut_mandy]

Now one of the requirements for any trip to London is to ride a double decker bus. (preferably in the front!) Right outside the Tower you can take the 15 bus towards T Square and on this route there is an old fashion Route Master bus. This is the typical old bus with a driver in front and the toll collector on the back and you just hop on the back of the bus.

Now, of course, when we got to the bus stop, we just missed a Route Master but we waited out 3 buses and finally got on the bus that we wanted. We were the only ones on the bus so it was straight up and to the front.

The front of a double decker bus is the only way to see London! We went along passed St Paul’s and ended in Trafalgar Square. It took about 20 minutes to get to T Square and it was a harrowing ride! I can’t believe that it is possible to drive a bus through those streets! Ciara loved and wanted to ride the bus every where!

When we got to T Square, we were serenaded by the USC band. I guess they were in London for a visit (we actually saw them in the Eurostar departure area a few days later) and they were putting on a free concert for us and a few hundred people in T Square. We boosted Ciara up to get the obligatory pic on the lions at Nelson’s Column, listened to the band a bit and head to the Mall.

The best part of the band was when we were watching across the street and we heard that they were playing Lady GaGa’s Bad Romance. Ciara, like all 9 year old girls, loves GaGa and thought that it was really cool that a band could play it! I don’t think the people around us love it though when we were singing but it was fun for us! (we are bit tone deaf, but what we lack in talent, we make up for in enthuasism!)

The Mall, in case you guys don’t know, is the street that Buckingham Palace is on and it is pronounced “Mail” not Mall for us Canadians. The mall was closed about halfway down so we could walk down the centre of the street. My sister was lucky enough to be on the Mall when Will and Kate got married and explained where they were standing when the couple kissed. It would have been amazing to see that many people there celebrating!

Anyways, back to today! They were setting up for the Queen’s jubilee when we were there. Pardon the construction in the pictures. The Queen was not in B Palace b/c the union jack was flying and not her flag. The yeoman at the Tower told us that she was down in Windsor for an event but it was great to see the palace. My sister and I have been inside B Palace a couple of years ago. We happened to get a couple of tour tickets for a visit and it was beautiful inside. (whatever you are imagining it looked like, it really did! There was tons of gold everywhere and everything was lush!)

We didn’t get to see a changing of the guard this time but we did get to see a couple of guards in their uniforms. Ciara stared at the palace for a while. I think that this is one of the things that she really wanted to see and she was picturing herself on the balcony waving. Yes, she is one of those girls that believes that she should, and will be, a princess one day!

We headed through St James’ Park up towards Parliament. One of the other checks on the bucket list for Ciara is to see, and hear, Big Ben. We spent a lot of the trip telling Ciara to look up b/c she was always looking down and, of course, all of the sights are up, not on the ground. As we were walking to see Big Ben, she spent the whole time looking down and finally with BB in our sights, she looked up and started glowing!

The London Eye was a must to see and do for Ciara. The Eye is huge and every time that I see it, I am amazed at the size. The line to get the tickets took about 20 minutes and it would have been cheaper and faster if we purchased the tickets online. The reason that we didn’t do this for the Eye is b/c we were scared that the weather would be rotten but we did do this for the Tower and Hampton Court Palace and it did save a lot of money. The best part is that you don’t have to wait in line, just go to the will call and pick up the tickets.

Once we got the tickets, we literally walked on the Eye. The whole “flight” takes about 30 minutes so it is lots of time to get the perfect picture. We got Ciara a booklet that was only 1 pound for Ciara. (mostly for a souvenir but it was pretty neat). It amounted to a large round poster that gives you a view of London from the Eye. You would supposedly look at the pic and line it up with the city view. Well worth 1 pound! We ended up being the tour guide for everyone in our pod b/c we know London so well but it was a great time!

After the flight, we walked along the Thames and ended up in a performing arts building that we thought that we would have a seat and relax. We obviously the rest of London had the same idea so we couldn’t find a spot to sit so we headed home. The best thing about this building was the elevator. You are probably thinking “elevator? Really they don’t have elevators in Kingston” and I can say that we do not have this kind of elevator! The elevator sings! Every floor it goes on, it will sing you the number. But the kicker is that if you are on the bottom floor, the voice is really low and the higher you go up the higher the voice goes. It was hilarious when we reached the 6th floor. We loved the elevator so much that we ended up riding it a couple of times with another family. We laughed the whole time!

up next The DLP Surprise...

 

[absolut_mandy]

Another surpirise for Ciara was coming up! We did not tell her about Paris and DLP. The reason for this is that we wanted to centre her and if we told her about Paris, while we were in London, she wouldn’t really concentrate on London. The only tricky thing that we had was, of course, telling her before we got to St Albans b/c there was a Duffy Bear waiting for her at home. We had to tell her on the train home. As I said previously, I dabble in designing on the Creative Disign board here on the Dis, so in order to tell her, we hander her a letter.

Before the letter, you can see she is pretty tired out:

As we handed the letter to her, we told her not to scream (we didn’t want to scare the whole train!) and she just smiled the biggest smile I have ever seen!

After the letter:

She had lots of questions about DLP and Paris but the main questions was ‘will I have to go on Rock n Roller Coaster?” The background to this is that the last time we were at WDE, she chickened out. Now she was only 8 so I wasn’t going to push her but as soon as I booked this trip, I began planting the RnR seed. She promised me that she was so excited about the ride and that she would go on it. I thought that she would love it (stay tuned to see if she does!)

Duffy bear surprise!

In all of my trips with the kids, I have always gave Tink presents. Tink presents, in case you are wondering, are little presents that “Tink” beings to them while they are away from the room. I love to see their reactions to what Tink brought and what the next thing they would be doing (as per Tink’s instructions!) Another reason for the presents is that it is cheaper to buy things here than at WDW. A couple of example of a Tink presents are hair elastics, googles for the pool, stuffies and temporary tattoos.

The main Tink presents for this trip was a present from Mickey. When we went to WDW last year, I fell in love with Duffy. He was so cute and cuddly and I love the story so much! With a quick shop at the Disney Store website, I picked up Duffy and an outfit for Ciara.

Okay, back to the Duffy surprise! So we wanted to surprise Ciara witht eh Duffy bear so I created a letter from Mickey and left the letter and Duffy on the pillow of the bed. We thought that this would be a great place to put it b/c we were coming home late and I thought that she would go up and change into her pjs as soon as we got home. Well, of course, she did not take the bait and we had to shoo her upstairs! We thought that she would see Duffy right away but it tooke her a couple of minutes to find him. Rest assured when she did find him, we heard a scream and you could almost hear her reading the letter. This is what she saw:

Once she read the letter, she ran down the stairs and screamed ‘Mickey send me Duffy!” and began to read the letter. My favourite thing about Ciara and Disney is that she stills believes. When we first went to Disney when she was 6, I remember her asking me if it was real. My response was simple. Disney is magic and all of this is real. From that moment on, the 5 ft mouse became real (and hopefully will be like this forever!) Who doesn’t want to believe? I know that I do!

up next: Eurostar to DLP!

 

[Ms Poppins]

What a fantastic trip

I love the London part. We're going there in July for a few days and my ds is desperate to do Tower of London, so this is very useful for us

Look forward to the DLP part too

 

[TheTizardFamily:0)]

Fantastic trip with great pics!

You are one special God-Mummy!

 

[disney_princess_85]

Lovely report. Looking forward to reading more!

 

[SleepingX3Beauty]

Lovely tripreport to be reading! I'm waiting for more!

 

[DLPdaft]

fabulous trip report, more please !