crim1978
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Mar 25, 2004
- Messages
- 300
Part One – Sunday 18th – Day One
The gang are as follows:
Me (29) Self confessed Disney-holic, have visited WDW twice but never DLP, I enjoy all the rides in particular the “bigger” ones, obsessive planner, can’t sleep the month before the holiday.
DW - Debbie (27) Equally as much of a Disney-phile as me, Debs has visited WDW three times but never been to DLP either. Puts up with my obsessive planning and enjoys ever part of a Disney holiday and says she will do the big ones this time.
DS, Liz (Yay) Been to WDW once and DLP twice, has been booking meals, tickets, and planning as much as anyone. Has become slightly addicted to websites and guide books – but this is a good thing. Looking forward to the parades and getting snowed on at Main Street aswell as meeting as many characters as possible.
BIL, Martin, A usually calm and collected kind of guy is suddenly suffering from sleepless nights and fits of giggling for no apparent reason. Really impressing everyone with his embracing of the Disney spirit, particularly impressive as he has to pay for five people.
Niece 1, Josie (14) Disney mad, enjoys characters, rides, parades and shopping – what 14 year old doesn’t. First Disney trip after becoming a teenager, hope she still “gets it”.
Niece 2, Christy (11) Imagine a blonde Tigger and then double it and you are nearly getting towards how excited Christy is about this trip. Adrenaline junky in the making and huge Tinkerbelle fan.
Niece 3, Naomi (9) Big Princess fan, has bartered with her Dad and is now taking four princess dresses with her, not the six she wanted to but not the one her Dad wanted. Enjoys all parts of the Disney magic.
So onto the trip.
We are driving the whole way from Nottingham to Disney in Martin’s seven seater Mazda 5, it is a long way but the transport costs on the tunnel verses flying mean we can go for the whole week.
We have arranged for Martin, Liz and the three girls to pick us up at 2:00am and they actually arrive ten minutes early, which is impressive as they are not always the most punctual people in the world. We have already packed the roof box the night before so only have toiletries with us in the car and set off, with me driving at 2:00 exactly.
Straight forward drive down for the first two hours then we pull into a services for loo breaks and Martin takes over the driving down to the tunnel. It is obviously still dark and very cold, two degrees according to the car thermometer, and amazing ly after very little or no sleep the night before all seven people stayed awake pretty much the whole time.
Martin drove us down to the tunnel, we had a 6:50 crossing and was supposed to check in at 6:20, we arrived at 6:00 and briefly looked around the shops and had another loo break. It was quickly time to board and we drove onto the tunnel, now I haven’t been on this before and didn’t really know what to expect. I wasn’t disappointed it is just a bit of a nothing kind of trip, half an hour sat in your car and then drive off.
Anyway we leave the tunnel and emerge into daylight in Calais at 8:30 French time after adjusting watches and start the trek off to Paris. We made one slight detour whilst looking for a service station but it resulted in a very pleasant trip through a few small French villages and as it was only about 9:30 on a Sunday morning not a problem. I took over driving about half way and took us the last hour and a half to arrive at the Holiday Inn at about 11:30 and then the holiday really starts.
We check in, but the room isn’t ready, we didn’t expect it to be anyway as we are three hours before check in time but the lobby looks very nice indeed and we head off to the parks. Now we have heard a lot about the transport strikes and there is a sign on the hotel door and reception desk saying that there are no shuttles. However the lady at reception tells us that the alternative buses are running every 30 minutes from 8:30 until 20:00 starting tomorrow. So we decide to drive to the park as no-one wants to walk and there is no reason book a taxi when we have the car. The drive in is easy, 5 minutes tops, we park at the village in the multi-story and suddenly we are standing in front of the pink hotel.
Wow! The hotel and park entrance looks amazing, and we can’t quite believe that we are finally here at Disneyland after planning for nearly a year. We are all buying Annual Passes as we plan to come back next year and it’s nearly as cheap as a week ticket anyway. We have sponsors from two lovely people on the Dis boards and head to the ticket office forms and cash in hand. This is where it gets a little confusing, we find a trainee lady behind the ticket window who is very polite but doesn’t really know what we are talking about. She checks with her supervisor who tells us to get through the gates and to the AP office. We think this is a little strange and of course are correct as we cannot get through the turn styles without a ticket and go back to the ticket office but to a different window. Where we are met by the same trainee lady, we explain that this time we want to buy seven one day tickets and go through the gates and into the parks – Wow again!!
I have seen Main St USA in WDW and I have seen Main Street DLP in pictures and on video several times but in real life it truly is beautiful. The detail is amazing, the building are fantastic, the banners and Christmas decorations brilliant and then there is the castle. People had said that it was ‘better’ than the other Disney castles but until I actually saw it I wasn’t so sure, but it is actually beautiful. The detail, the size, the colours, the gold, the lights, all amazing.
Anyway, back on track, we went over to the AP office and upgraded our one day tickets to AP Dream’s; we used the sponsors for our two. But the very nice gentleman who served Liz and Martin explained that a family pass was cheaper than using their sponsors, which we thought was nice as he could have just taken their money.
We then went to Buzz Lightyear’s pizza planet for our first and most disappointing meal at DLP of the week. We had all read reviews of Buzz’s and thought that the theme-ing and the food sounds good – it wasn’t. Sorry if anyone likes this place but we didn’t, the theme-ing is okay with the big machine in the middle but the food was poor. I had a pizza and a beer, the pizza was cold (and I mean stone cold) I took it back and it was swapped for one which was just warm and cold in the centre. I didn’t bother taking it back a second time but eat the bit I could and drank the beer. The rest of the group had similar experiences with either cool, cold or luck warm food.
We left Buzz’s and headed straight for Pirates of the Caribbean as it was due to close the next day for a week of refurbishments. We where on after about a ten minute wait which was a good sign as it was Sunday and the park looked quite busy. The ride was excellent as ever and had the new details that we hadn’t seen before, Jack Sparrow, the new scenes etc. Naomi (9) is a big pirate fan so this was a big hit and she approved of the new scenes, which is a good thing, as I don’t think Disney would change the ride just for us – maybe but not 100% sure, even if we do have AP’s.
After this we walked into Fantasyland saw the lengths of the cues and decided to head back to the hotel as it was now about 15:00 and we should be able to check in, after all we have a whole week to visit the parks. We head back to find that our rooms still aren’t ready but instead are given different rooms, we never found out the reason but it appeared that there were some problems cleaning rooms all week – not to worry. We go to our rooms with masses of luggage (rooms 2307 & 2308 inter-joining) and they are fantastic. Big rooms a double bed, set of bunks, two TVs, wardrobe and drawers plus en suite in each room. More than enough rooms for the seven of us to be very comfortable, we get Christy (11) in our room plus a spare bunk, Liz, Martin, Josie and Naomi have the other. For the equivalent of under £60 per night per room we think this is a very good deal, works about at about £17 per night per person. When coupled with the tunnel crossing only costing £123 for all seven of us the budget is looking good so far.
Once settled in Martin & I visit the bar for a quick drink (well we are in France after all) Martin has a Guinness and I have a glass of Red wine – very pleasant indeed, we even fit in a quick game of pool. On the way back to the room we check out the Disney shop and the swimming pool which both look very nice and clean. After rejoining the gang we head off again, this time parking in the Hotel New York car park, after telling the guy on the gate that we are staying at the Holiday Inn he waves us through, no problems. We walk through the Sequoia Lodge which looks very nice with the fire and the Christmas decorations, but is very busy. Back into the park, after thankfully finding that our AP’s work fine in the turnstiles and back on Main Street.
We have missed Candlebration so go to get a good spot for Fantillusion then grab a coffee and a brioche, this doesn’t go as well planned as we thought. The coffee etc takes a good 20 minutes to get down the queue by which point our spot for Fantillusion is rather crowded, we spend most of the parade getting shoved and elbowed by lots of people and this spoils the enjoyment a little. But only a little as the parade is excellent, the Villains float stops next to us and we get a great view of them changing into dragons, snakes etc. After the parade has finished we walk back down Main Street, look in a few shops then exit the park, walk back through the Sequoia and back to the car. We drive back to the hotel, Martin has smuggled in a box of Red wine which we open, have a few glasses discussing the next days activities and then get an early night.
Tomorrow (Monday) is set to be a full day at Disneyland Park with Extra Magic Hours in the morning and a 13:00 reservation at The Lucky Nugget and hopefully a few more rides, but more of that to come.
Anyone who has made it through this mammoth first day report, congratulations and sorry the remaining days will be a little more to the point. If there is too much detail please tell me and I will cut all down.
Thank you for reading, I will post day two as soon as poss.
Crim
The gang are as follows:
Me (29) Self confessed Disney-holic, have visited WDW twice but never DLP, I enjoy all the rides in particular the “bigger” ones, obsessive planner, can’t sleep the month before the holiday.
DW - Debbie (27) Equally as much of a Disney-phile as me, Debs has visited WDW three times but never been to DLP either. Puts up with my obsessive planning and enjoys ever part of a Disney holiday and says she will do the big ones this time.
DS, Liz (Yay) Been to WDW once and DLP twice, has been booking meals, tickets, and planning as much as anyone. Has become slightly addicted to websites and guide books – but this is a good thing. Looking forward to the parades and getting snowed on at Main Street aswell as meeting as many characters as possible.
BIL, Martin, A usually calm and collected kind of guy is suddenly suffering from sleepless nights and fits of giggling for no apparent reason. Really impressing everyone with his embracing of the Disney spirit, particularly impressive as he has to pay for five people.
Niece 1, Josie (14) Disney mad, enjoys characters, rides, parades and shopping – what 14 year old doesn’t. First Disney trip after becoming a teenager, hope she still “gets it”.
Niece 2, Christy (11) Imagine a blonde Tigger and then double it and you are nearly getting towards how excited Christy is about this trip. Adrenaline junky in the making and huge Tinkerbelle fan.
Niece 3, Naomi (9) Big Princess fan, has bartered with her Dad and is now taking four princess dresses with her, not the six she wanted to but not the one her Dad wanted. Enjoys all parts of the Disney magic.
So onto the trip.
We are driving the whole way from Nottingham to Disney in Martin’s seven seater Mazda 5, it is a long way but the transport costs on the tunnel verses flying mean we can go for the whole week.
We have arranged for Martin, Liz and the three girls to pick us up at 2:00am and they actually arrive ten minutes early, which is impressive as they are not always the most punctual people in the world. We have already packed the roof box the night before so only have toiletries with us in the car and set off, with me driving at 2:00 exactly.
Straight forward drive down for the first two hours then we pull into a services for loo breaks and Martin takes over the driving down to the tunnel. It is obviously still dark and very cold, two degrees according to the car thermometer, and amazing ly after very little or no sleep the night before all seven people stayed awake pretty much the whole time.
Martin drove us down to the tunnel, we had a 6:50 crossing and was supposed to check in at 6:20, we arrived at 6:00 and briefly looked around the shops and had another loo break. It was quickly time to board and we drove onto the tunnel, now I haven’t been on this before and didn’t really know what to expect. I wasn’t disappointed it is just a bit of a nothing kind of trip, half an hour sat in your car and then drive off.
Anyway we leave the tunnel and emerge into daylight in Calais at 8:30 French time after adjusting watches and start the trek off to Paris. We made one slight detour whilst looking for a service station but it resulted in a very pleasant trip through a few small French villages and as it was only about 9:30 on a Sunday morning not a problem. I took over driving about half way and took us the last hour and a half to arrive at the Holiday Inn at about 11:30 and then the holiday really starts.
We check in, but the room isn’t ready, we didn’t expect it to be anyway as we are three hours before check in time but the lobby looks very nice indeed and we head off to the parks. Now we have heard a lot about the transport strikes and there is a sign on the hotel door and reception desk saying that there are no shuttles. However the lady at reception tells us that the alternative buses are running every 30 minutes from 8:30 until 20:00 starting tomorrow. So we decide to drive to the park as no-one wants to walk and there is no reason book a taxi when we have the car. The drive in is easy, 5 minutes tops, we park at the village in the multi-story and suddenly we are standing in front of the pink hotel.
Wow! The hotel and park entrance looks amazing, and we can’t quite believe that we are finally here at Disneyland after planning for nearly a year. We are all buying Annual Passes as we plan to come back next year and it’s nearly as cheap as a week ticket anyway. We have sponsors from two lovely people on the Dis boards and head to the ticket office forms and cash in hand. This is where it gets a little confusing, we find a trainee lady behind the ticket window who is very polite but doesn’t really know what we are talking about. She checks with her supervisor who tells us to get through the gates and to the AP office. We think this is a little strange and of course are correct as we cannot get through the turn styles without a ticket and go back to the ticket office but to a different window. Where we are met by the same trainee lady, we explain that this time we want to buy seven one day tickets and go through the gates and into the parks – Wow again!!
I have seen Main St USA in WDW and I have seen Main Street DLP in pictures and on video several times but in real life it truly is beautiful. The detail is amazing, the building are fantastic, the banners and Christmas decorations brilliant and then there is the castle. People had said that it was ‘better’ than the other Disney castles but until I actually saw it I wasn’t so sure, but it is actually beautiful. The detail, the size, the colours, the gold, the lights, all amazing.
Anyway, back on track, we went over to the AP office and upgraded our one day tickets to AP Dream’s; we used the sponsors for our two. But the very nice gentleman who served Liz and Martin explained that a family pass was cheaper than using their sponsors, which we thought was nice as he could have just taken their money.
We then went to Buzz Lightyear’s pizza planet for our first and most disappointing meal at DLP of the week. We had all read reviews of Buzz’s and thought that the theme-ing and the food sounds good – it wasn’t. Sorry if anyone likes this place but we didn’t, the theme-ing is okay with the big machine in the middle but the food was poor. I had a pizza and a beer, the pizza was cold (and I mean stone cold) I took it back and it was swapped for one which was just warm and cold in the centre. I didn’t bother taking it back a second time but eat the bit I could and drank the beer. The rest of the group had similar experiences with either cool, cold or luck warm food.
We left Buzz’s and headed straight for Pirates of the Caribbean as it was due to close the next day for a week of refurbishments. We where on after about a ten minute wait which was a good sign as it was Sunday and the park looked quite busy. The ride was excellent as ever and had the new details that we hadn’t seen before, Jack Sparrow, the new scenes etc. Naomi (9) is a big pirate fan so this was a big hit and she approved of the new scenes, which is a good thing, as I don’t think Disney would change the ride just for us – maybe but not 100% sure, even if we do have AP’s.
After this we walked into Fantasyland saw the lengths of the cues and decided to head back to the hotel as it was now about 15:00 and we should be able to check in, after all we have a whole week to visit the parks. We head back to find that our rooms still aren’t ready but instead are given different rooms, we never found out the reason but it appeared that there were some problems cleaning rooms all week – not to worry. We go to our rooms with masses of luggage (rooms 2307 & 2308 inter-joining) and they are fantastic. Big rooms a double bed, set of bunks, two TVs, wardrobe and drawers plus en suite in each room. More than enough rooms for the seven of us to be very comfortable, we get Christy (11) in our room plus a spare bunk, Liz, Martin, Josie and Naomi have the other. For the equivalent of under £60 per night per room we think this is a very good deal, works about at about £17 per night per person. When coupled with the tunnel crossing only costing £123 for all seven of us the budget is looking good so far.
Once settled in Martin & I visit the bar for a quick drink (well we are in France after all) Martin has a Guinness and I have a glass of Red wine – very pleasant indeed, we even fit in a quick game of pool. On the way back to the room we check out the Disney shop and the swimming pool which both look very nice and clean. After rejoining the gang we head off again, this time parking in the Hotel New York car park, after telling the guy on the gate that we are staying at the Holiday Inn he waves us through, no problems. We walk through the Sequoia Lodge which looks very nice with the fire and the Christmas decorations, but is very busy. Back into the park, after thankfully finding that our AP’s work fine in the turnstiles and back on Main Street.
We have missed Candlebration so go to get a good spot for Fantillusion then grab a coffee and a brioche, this doesn’t go as well planned as we thought. The coffee etc takes a good 20 minutes to get down the queue by which point our spot for Fantillusion is rather crowded, we spend most of the parade getting shoved and elbowed by lots of people and this spoils the enjoyment a little. But only a little as the parade is excellent, the Villains float stops next to us and we get a great view of them changing into dragons, snakes etc. After the parade has finished we walk back down Main Street, look in a few shops then exit the park, walk back through the Sequoia and back to the car. We drive back to the hotel, Martin has smuggled in a box of Red wine which we open, have a few glasses discussing the next days activities and then get an early night.
Tomorrow (Monday) is set to be a full day at Disneyland Park with Extra Magic Hours in the morning and a 13:00 reservation at The Lucky Nugget and hopefully a few more rides, but more of that to come.
Anyone who has made it through this mammoth first day report, congratulations and sorry the remaining days will be a little more to the point. If there is too much detail please tell me and I will cut all down.
Thank you for reading, I will post day two as soon as poss.
Crim
!
! Glad that you had such a lovely first day, the park really is beautiful isn't it 
!
