Back on the 30th, thought i'd share my highs and lows :)

[inelegancex]

We stayed from the 25th to the 30th, so we had 6 wonderful days at Disney!

The highs:
-Jack was absolutely fabulous, although I didn't get to meet Sally () he was wonderful to talk to and he spent so much time with each child and even adults. He was by far the best character there and he was hilarious, definitely made my trip!
-The decorations were wonderful, I loved the halloween touch. And I was pleasantly surprised to see all the christmas things out, so we had the best of both worlds this time
-Cafe Mickey was excellent, all of the characters made a huge fuss of me on my birthday and it was the best evening by far!
-The weather was dry, and even sunny on some days. Very cold, but okay!
-The terrorific night was great, although SO scary we left after an hour! Haha. But I really enjoyed it, the costumes were great and everyone was such good actors.
-Dreams was AMAZING, so worth the wait. The first day we waited AN HOUR AND A HALF (there were people there much before!) to get to the front, but the second time we went in 5 minutes before and got brilliant places where we could see perfectly.
-Princess Pavillion was wonderful, we queued up SO MANY TIMES (probably around 8) and I saw 5/7 princesses which I thought was quite good! Also the cast members were so friendly, although they weren't supposed to they always told me if I asked who was there, to try and ensure I saw someone I hadn't seen! I did have a couple of repeats of course, I was devastated when I missed Tiana :'( but the day before my birthday, they honestly went all out to make sure I saw someone I hadn't! Ben was especially lovely, he waited an hour for me the next day to make sure he was there to direct me to a different Princess. Which I got, Cinderella! She made my day, she was so friendly and during the parade she said Happy Birthday to me which made my day!


The lows:
-The crowds and queues really were ridiculous, although I expected this as it was half term, the last 2 days we literally could not get on anything. The Thunder Mountain Queues were over an hour and a half long, and all the fast passes had gone after 11am! We couldn't even get on Snow White or Pinocchio which was very disappointing.
-Rude people; of course I expected this but could not believe how many times I was barged and pushed by people. On the bus I actually witnessed a small child get trampled (literally) and shoved around so much I was surprised she wasn't badly injured, to see grown adults throw a little girl out of the way was heartbreaking. The poor soul was crying her eyes out
-The shuttle buses were ridiculous, definitely never staying at NBC again! Whilst waiting for our bus, we would often see FOUR Cheyenne and Santa Fe buses in comparison to one of ours. One morning, the bus driver drove off without waiting for a large group of people, he then pulled over to let them on, and when everyone ran over to get on the bus, he laughed and pulled away. It was appalling!
-Overall the hotel was nice, but not worth the extra money over Sequoia. I actually preferred it, the hotel is far too big. We were the furthest away possible and it took so long to walk to our room! Breakfast queues were also painfully slow and large.
-The Princess Pavilion's new system I quite liked, although there were some people queining up literally 2 hours before it even opened to give out tickets! So it kind of defeated the object of having no queues.
-The cleanliness of the park this time of year, I have to say was appalling! I understand that with the large amount of people its hard to keep it clean, but I honestly saw so many disgusting things I was sickened. All the toilets had such an overpowering smell it was hard to go in there for longer than 2 minutes! A lot of blocked toilets, no toilet paper etc. In one toilet there just seemed to be overflowing dirty water all over the floor which hadn't been cleaned - instead someone had throw dirty discolored towels over the top of it and left it.



It seems that there were more lows than highs, but the highs DEFINITELY outweighed the lows! It really was a wonderful time and I enjoyed myself massively, I think the only thing would be now for us is that next time we will stay in a closer hotel (Maybe New York or DH) and not go during such a busy time. I was expecting huge queues, but we couldn't even get into Alice's Labyrinth, the queues were all the way down the path!

 

[DLPdaft]

Wow those are scary-sounding queues!
A colleague at work took her family to DLP for the first time at October half term a couple of years ago - they've never returned, and never want to, because it was so busy. I really think it takes some of the Magic away when its so busy because you get frustrated and stressed, having to plan much more so you get to do rides etc.

I know the toilets at DLP, like other places in France, are run using recycled water, but I really think this needs looking at, because I've noticed that even when the toilets are clearly being cleaned regularly, sometimes the smell is pretty bad, even in the park restaurants.

So glad you had such a great time though, despite the crowds .

 

[Jonjo]

The crowds are one reason why I never try to go during peak times. But we will be there over the weekend on our next trip so booked three days afterwards to ensure we could get everything done without rushing around.

I avoid the buses, and find it's quicker to just walk to the on site hotels. Used one once in the morning when we stayed at the Santa Fe - never again in rush hour! I though the Tube in London was crowded at rush hour those buses are just mad! Fine in the late mornings or early afternoons but never at peak times.

I always thought it would be nicer to get rid of the buses and replace them with trams, vintage style ones would look great.

Sounds like you had a great trip with the crowds and the Princess Pavillion clearly made up for the smelly toilets.

 

[Tink'sMum]

yes your 2 things for next time are mine too - stay closer and go off-peak!

I agree about the toilets - the smell in some of them was truly disgusting. There was a huge queue for the one in the Studios just near Cinemagique.
And yes, unless you got there early for the FP's they were gone, or else deal with a queue of 80/90 mins.
I didn't have much to do with the shuttles - we were getting the one for the Adagio and that was so infrequent it was very poor, but the queues for partner hotel buses were really scary. Literally walls of people all waiting just for the one bus! I wouldn't have liked to try to get on that bus.
This was all just after Dreams of course when it was really busy but unfortunately as Dreams was on at 10pm, nobody's going to hang around in near freezing temps waiting for the crowds to be gone before getting the bus. All you want to do is get back to the hotel asap and get warm and fall into bed!

 

[tennisfan]

I haven't been October half term for several years and sometimes glad of this as it used to be relatively quiet when I went then.

Glad you enjoyed most of your trip

 

[Carrie_Cat]

Yep agree with the queues on Tuesday ...I took photos of the times at 15.00 and BTM was at 100 mins from the sign

Glad you had a great time and tried out the Terrorific night in the end

 

[inelegancex]

Wow those are scary-sounding queues!
A colleague at work took her family to DLP for the first time at October half term a couple of years ago - they've never returned, and never want to, because it was so busy. I really think it takes some of the Magic away when its so busy because you get frustrated and stressed, having to plan much more so you get to do rides etc.

It really did take a lot of it away! I'm so glad the first couple of times wasn't very busy, because honestly if it had been my first time last week I wouldn't return because it was horrendous!
Looking at my photos from last year, I couldn't believe how empty it was! We would get at the park around 9am and it would be near enough deserted - to think that this time the amount of people there at 9am was more like a peak time during the day- during term time! It's definitely more special when you can take a lot of pretty photos without having 10 people glaring into your camera!

And Thankyou for all your comments!

Unfortunately even after going to Disneyland four times, we had never walked to the parks from our hotels! I was ashamed when I realised how close they actually were - most of the time we were always so tired we thought we couldn't face another 15 minute walk (little did we know it was more like 5!) so next time we will definitely be using the safer option, I have bruises from being elbowed by grown men who towered over me just to get in front of me on the bus.

But overall, it was still lovely. I mean even with all these lows, it is still Disney! and the best thing is, after experiencing such horrendous queues and so much walking, my mother is definitely now convinced that paying the extra to stay in the DH is worth it, just for the short distance to the park and being able to pop back to the room rather than it being a 30 minute journey etc!

 

[inelegancex]

Yep agree with the queues on Tuesday ...I took photos of the times at 15.00 and BTM was at 100 mins from the sign

Glad you had a great time and tried out the Terrorific night in the end

Hopefully the queues didn't ruin it for you either! I was shocked at the time for Phantom Manor also - never seen it past the porch and yet all the queues were coming down the path to the entrance. Unbelievable!

Same with Small World as well, why they are now waiting until 10am to open a lot of rides in Fantasyland that have always been open as a part of the extra magic hours, is beyond me. Seeing a huge queue 45 minutes before Small World was even open, was such a huge off put. That was always the ride we could just practically walk on without any queue and then it was a 25 minute wait! So silly! I don't know what Disney were thinking this year with all those closures, it just meant the very few rides that were open had massive queues.

 

[TotallyAngelic]

Have to agree with the comments re the toilets, the odour of stale urine was very overpowering in most of them, and there was toilet paper on the floors of most cubicles. I don't think I ever saw a cast member cleaning any of the toilets on any visit.

 

[Tink'sMum]

I saw one I can't remember where though. Possibly the toilets near Col Hathi's..

 

[cherrymarzipan]

Hmm... DLP must be doing well for visitor numbers this year. Weekends were really busy in September and like tennisfan we used to go for October half term a few years back and the crowds were not that bad then.

I so agree with you about the shuttle buses, especially for the NBC. We only tried it once and had the same experience as you - fewer buses to the NBC and then overcrowded and a much longer trip after calling in at the HNY and SL first. DS is disabled but nobody gave up a seat for him and so as soon as the bus pulled off he fell over and I just had to try and hold him up for the journey. It was ghastly. One of several reasons I have been converted to the SL as my favourite hotel.

Some lovely highs there - nice to have a BOGOF on seasonal decorations! Character interaction sounded great too. Glad you had a great time overall.