A little disappointed, I hate to say!

[paris*]

We got back on Saturday after 2 nights/3 full days. We were in DLP around the same dates in 2009 and from 17-22 October 2010. On the leaflet it said that the following were closed during our stay:
Phantom Manor, Cabins des Robinsons, Indiana Jones
When we got there also closed were Armaggedon, Cinemagique and Adventure Isle was not the same. The pirate ship was covered up. There was green fencing in a lot of places around the parks. The Disney Railroad was not operating from 10 to 6 every day and the queues at main street were really long all the time. There was only one show a day in Central Plaza at 6pm which we never managed to catch as we were too tired from being in the parks since 8am every morning. There were very few scheduled meet and greets and more randon meets which just aren't the same as the characters can just take off at any time - or at least I feel that they can, there's no order and I'm always worried about jumping the queue or someone jumping in front of us! We were so looking forward to Cafe Mickey and due to 3 birthdays all the characters were distracted from their routes around the restaurant so we missed at least 3 and one was Captain Hook who is one of our faves. I definitely didn't feel the buzz and atmosphere I usually do in DLP.
The Dance Express was brilliant, really glad we caught that. A couple of other things had a negative effect on the trip which I can't blame DLP for : It will definitely be October or November for us next year. Was it my mistake to go in September? I remember it was quiet in September 2009 but it was our first time there, after being there for the Halloween season last year I feel like we missed out this year.

 

[kizzabel]

Sorry to hear you didnt have a great time. I thought Sept was meant to be quiet too. I loved the random character meets as we found we got to see lots more then we would have otherwise. I would have said it to a manager in CM about not getting to meet the characters

 

[DLPdaft]

if you get a lot of green fence and closures for refurb on your trip, it certainly can make you feel like the Magic isn't there so much - thats exactly how I felt when we returned after our March trip this year. At the time I was quite disappointed, but my girls enjoyed it so much that I did get over it - and we're going back next month, in my favourite Christmas season .

I love random character meets, I can't remember the last time we queued for a character, so in that respect March was great for us, as there were random character meets in large numbers (sounds a bit like your experience really).

 

[tinks_1989]

sorry to hear about cafe mickey we went the week before you and had such an amazing time x

 

[tinkertaylor05]

I understand, we had an amazing trip in Feb but with so much work going in it did take something away. Also you have to watch it in Cafe Mickey, I think if you get a cm who's not very good it can change the whole experience, we went for lunch one time and had such a miserable/useless cm I would definitely make a point of asking for the characters to come to our table if we've been missed out.

Let's hope that there's some fantastic visits without issue next year once the works all done

 

[Ware Bears]

Welcome back

Sorry you had a bit of a disappointing time - hope you'll have a better trip next year.

 

[paris*]

Thanks guys. I want to go back so it can't have been all bad We weren't there long enough, that was probably part of the problem I want to go for at least 5 nights next year.

 

[JohnnySharp2]

There are a lot of refurbs going on and it's probably just bad timing.

The problem is they let so much get into such a state they are panicking about getting everything spotless for the 20th year celebrations.
What they should do is have a schedule for regular updates and improvements which would help avoid the kind of situation we are seeing now.

I was genuinely shocked at the state of some of the structures and some of the hotels at least from the outside have been really left far too long.