Photos added
I've never done a trip report before so hopefully I'll get this right. Apologies as it's going to be looooong!
Us:
Me and DH - both past the first flush of youth but in my case definitely prepared to act a lot younger than I really am whilst at DLP! Both of us have been to WDW about 10 years ago when I was lucky enough to do a 4 day Disney Management Programme at the Disney Insitute in Florida. Fascinating behind the scenes look at all things Disney and why and how they do what they do.
Alex - aged 11 - first visit to anything Disney
Ciara - aged 8 - "
Our visit to DLP was part of a 10 day holiday in France. I'll not bore you with too may of the non-Disney details but have put in a few just in case they are of interest to anyone planning a longer holiday.
We stayed at Huttopia in Versailles camping in one of their Canadienne tents which meant that we didn't have to lug over any of our camping gear or have the bother of trying to put up a tent and find which pole went where. If anyone is looking for a campsite near Paris, it's hard to beat.
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One stop from Versailles Palace and only 20 mins on the RER into Paris. Versailles was really interesting. Top tip, which we found out by accident; by-pass the 2 hour queue for tickets (yes, really - just to buy a ticket before you have to queue again to get into the Palace - puts queues at Disney into perspective!). Go straight to the gardens which are free, take the little train at the back of the Palace to Grand Trianon where you can buy a passport for everywhere at Versailles without any queue whatsover. Result!
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On the Monday we were ready for the first of our 2 visits to DLP. The alarm went off at 7 and by 7.45 we were in the car en route. It took about 50 mins and the traffic on the ring road around Paris was unbelievably clear. Each time we saw a sign to DLP with Mickey on it the kids (and me) were getting more and more excited. By 8.40am we were arriving in car park at DLP - in the front row as close to the entrance as we could be. The sun was shining, sky was blue, zippedidoodah was playing on the tannoy. We were off!
As we would be visiting twice, but not on consecutive days, it actually worked out cheaper for us to get Francilien annual passports than to get two 1 day / 2 park passes. The Franciliens were 89 euros each but we got an extra 10% discount as one of the kind disboarders had sponsored us bringing the annual passport price down to 80 euros each. (if anyone wants to be sponsored I'd be happy to do the same for them). The girl at the booth spoke good english and getting the discount was easy. She gave us our tickets and told us that we would have to go to the annual passport office at the entrance to Discoveryland at some point during the day to exchange them for the actual passes. We then queued along with everyone else at the entrance gates until 9.30am when they opened and we made our way through to Main Street. The children were so excited - we stopped at every old car, milk float, statue, fountain etc. to get their photo taken.
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We were going to go straight to the passport office but discovered that this was past the rope drop so we couldn't get to it until after 10am. We popped into Plaza gardens right beside it and booked a character tea for 3.30pm then headed to the cookie house for a tasty, if of dubious nutritional value, breakfast.
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First souvenir in the bag - Disney mugs that the tea came in. Shame I didn't realise that all they put in the black mugs was hot water and that I needed to add the tea bag. I drank the whole thing before Alex pointed out that I had only been drinking hot water!!
We came out as the rope drop happened and decided to get our annual passports sorted before we did anything else. As we went in we saw a small queue forming outside and wondered what it was for. The girls were simply thrilled when their favourite character, Winnie the Pooh, came ambling round the corner and took up position on the castle stage. They were itching to get to him and as soon as they had had their photos taken for the passes, ran off to get in the queue. DH went to get them autograph books and pens leaving me to do all the paperwork for the passes. They were still in the queue when I came out and it took a further 15 minutes or so to reach the front and get to the meet the great bear himself. We weren't rushed at all by the cast and got to take lots of photos and the girls got the first of many autographs. We did tell them though that we wouldn't be standing in a queue of 30 minutes for every character we saw or we'd never get any rides done at all!
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By now it was about 10.45am and we decided to head over to Frontierland to Big Thunder Mountain. The queue was already over an hour so we fast passed it and got a return time between 11.55 and 12.25. In the meantime we headed over to the Haunted House which had only a short wait and then over to Adventure Land. I had bought a second lot of fastpasses on ebay for around £10 for 4 passes. I had been slightly dubious whether they would work but they were absolutely fine. We fast passed Indiana Jones which gave us a time in 30 mins, whizzed over to Pirates of the Caribbean which had just a 15 min queue, did that then returned to Indiana Jones. It turned out that Ciara wasn't tall enough so Alex and DH went on then we did a child swap and Alex and I went straight to the front of the queue to ride. I enjoyed it though 2 times in quick succession was a bit much for her - she went a very fetching shade of green!! We just had time to run back over to Frontierland and get the end of our fastpass time for Big Thunder Mountain. I LOVE this ride - it is my absolute favourite. Whizzing through the tunnel under the lake to get to the mountain is just a brilliant start to the ride. By the time we got off BTM it was getting on for 1pm and having done quite a lot in quick succession, we were hungry. We glanced at the fastpass board for BTM and already it was giving out fastpass times of beyond 7pm.
We headed back to Main Street and decided to go to Caseys and grab a hot dog and chips. I managed to get a table outside whilst DH and the girls queued for what seems like ages. By the time they got back my tummy rumbling was worthy of Winnie the Pooh's! DH was starting to get a bit grumpy, his feet hurt and he was already tired. He decided to go back to the car to change his shoes and we arranged to meet back by the information board in 40 mins. The girls and I then headed over to FantasyLand which was jam packed with people. We wandered through and I was going to take them on It's a Small World which was the only ride with a reasonable wait time. We started to queue but then they spotted Tigger and we abandoned the ride whilst they ran off to try and get his autograph. There were actually several characters milling around. To start with my girls were too polite, standing back and taking their turn, but in the end they were having to give the french kids a run for their money in the pushing to the front stakes to stand any chance of getting the all important signatures in their books.
When the characters left we headed over to Discovery Land and picked up fast passes for both Buzz and Space Mountain. We met back up with DH who had not only been and changed his shoes but had done a bit of retail therapy on Main Street as well, and by now it was time to make our way to the Plaza Gardens for the character tea. Almost as soon as we were seated, and before we could go and grab some food, the characters came in through the door. The first wave were Tigger, Eeyore, Captain Hook and Friar Tuck.
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There actually weren't that many people eating so the characters seemed to arrive round at our table really quickly. The girls were disappointed to learn that as Eeyore doesn't have any thumbs, he can't sign an autograph but other than that they were thrilled with the whole thing. The characters disappeared and we went up to get our tea which was a rather odd assortment of hot food such as sausages, eggs etc and tea items such as doughnuts, cakes, crepes etc. Personally I wouldn't really rate the tea that much but it was well worth the 15 euros pp for the character interaction (beats queuing for autographs and elbowing other people out of the way) and I have to say that we did eat our fill. The cookies were delicious and we actually picked up a few to take away for later. We had thought that when the characters left that was it so we were delighted when the door opened again and another wave came in. This time we got Prince John, Goofy, Pluto and Daisy Duck. All in all, we were probably in there about an hour and in the excitement we almost forgot our fast pass times for Buzz and Space Mountain. We did Buzz first and by now even the fast pass queue was about 20 mins. It was a great ride although I'm convinced that my laser gun was faulty - how else could I explain getting 100,000 less than DH! Exiting Buzz we made our way to Space Mountain where Ciara chickened out. DH and Alex did this one on their own. They said it was good but very jerky and bumpy and they wouldn't have wanted to do it a second time.
We headed over to Frontierland but the queues for everything were huge by now. We did the river boats (small ones - can't remember what they were called) which was nice and peaceful, then headed to the adventure playground by the pirate ship where DH and I sat with a nice drink whilst the girls ran round and waved at us from the suspended bridge.
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We had planned to stay and see Fantillusion and the fireworks that night but we just didn't have the energy so decided that we would do that on our 2nd day on Thursday instead. We headed back over to the castle to watch the Dreams Parade and the girls managed to squeeze to a place where they could see everything. We had about 20 mins to wait before it started and they were moaning a bit about whether it was worth it as they had no idea what to expect. Then suddenly the music started and there was Mickey on his float and their faces were just a picture.
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I have to say that it was the best Disney parade I have ever seen - I just loved it. When it was over the girls managed to get some of the foil glitter out of the trees so that they could keep their own little piece of the magic.
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So that's it for Day 1 - a magical day for all of us. We did a little more retail therapy in the Disney Village on the way out, with DH buying himself a t-shirt with a picture of Grumpy which reads 100% Grumpy all the time - gave us a laugh. Then it was in the car heading back to Versailles. Wish I could tell you we didn't get lost on the way back - but that's another story!
Will post our second day at DLP separately together with some photos - better get on and do some work now!!
I've never done a trip report before so hopefully I'll get this right. Apologies as it's going to be looooong!
Us:
Me and DH - both past the first flush of youth but in my case definitely prepared to act a lot younger than I really am whilst at DLP! Both of us have been to WDW about 10 years ago when I was lucky enough to do a 4 day Disney Management Programme at the Disney Insitute in Florida. Fascinating behind the scenes look at all things Disney and why and how they do what they do.
Alex - aged 11 - first visit to anything Disney
Ciara - aged 8 - "
Our visit to DLP was part of a 10 day holiday in France. I'll not bore you with too may of the non-Disney details but have put in a few just in case they are of interest to anyone planning a longer holiday.
We stayed at Huttopia in Versailles camping in one of their Canadienne tents which meant that we didn't have to lug over any of our camping gear or have the bother of trying to put up a tent and find which pole went where. If anyone is looking for a campsite near Paris, it's hard to beat.
One stop from Versailles Palace and only 20 mins on the RER into Paris. Versailles was really interesting. Top tip, which we found out by accident; by-pass the 2 hour queue for tickets (yes, really - just to buy a ticket before you have to queue again to get into the Palace - puts queues at Disney into perspective!). Go straight to the gardens which are free, take the little train at the back of the Palace to Grand Trianon where you can buy a passport for everywhere at Versailles without any queue whatsover. Result!
On the Monday we were ready for the first of our 2 visits to DLP. The alarm went off at 7 and by 7.45 we were in the car en route. It took about 50 mins and the traffic on the ring road around Paris was unbelievably clear. Each time we saw a sign to DLP with Mickey on it the kids (and me) were getting more and more excited. By 8.40am we were arriving in car park at DLP - in the front row as close to the entrance as we could be. The sun was shining, sky was blue, zippedidoodah was playing on the tannoy. We were off!
As we would be visiting twice, but not on consecutive days, it actually worked out cheaper for us to get Francilien annual passports than to get two 1 day / 2 park passes. The Franciliens were 89 euros each but we got an extra 10% discount as one of the kind disboarders had sponsored us bringing the annual passport price down to 80 euros each. (if anyone wants to be sponsored I'd be happy to do the same for them). The girl at the booth spoke good english and getting the discount was easy. She gave us our tickets and told us that we would have to go to the annual passport office at the entrance to Discoveryland at some point during the day to exchange them for the actual passes. We then queued along with everyone else at the entrance gates until 9.30am when they opened and we made our way through to Main Street. The children were so excited - we stopped at every old car, milk float, statue, fountain etc. to get their photo taken.
We were going to go straight to the passport office but discovered that this was past the rope drop so we couldn't get to it until after 10am. We popped into Plaza gardens right beside it and booked a character tea for 3.30pm then headed to the cookie house for a tasty, if of dubious nutritional value, breakfast.
First souvenir in the bag - Disney mugs that the tea came in. Shame I didn't realise that all they put in the black mugs was hot water and that I needed to add the tea bag. I drank the whole thing before Alex pointed out that I had only been drinking hot water!!
We came out as the rope drop happened and decided to get our annual passports sorted before we did anything else. As we went in we saw a small queue forming outside and wondered what it was for. The girls were simply thrilled when their favourite character, Winnie the Pooh, came ambling round the corner and took up position on the castle stage. They were itching to get to him and as soon as they had had their photos taken for the passes, ran off to get in the queue. DH went to get them autograph books and pens leaving me to do all the paperwork for the passes. They were still in the queue when I came out and it took a further 15 minutes or so to reach the front and get to the meet the great bear himself. We weren't rushed at all by the cast and got to take lots of photos and the girls got the first of many autographs. We did tell them though that we wouldn't be standing in a queue of 30 minutes for every character we saw or we'd never get any rides done at all!
By now it was about 10.45am and we decided to head over to Frontierland to Big Thunder Mountain. The queue was already over an hour so we fast passed it and got a return time between 11.55 and 12.25. In the meantime we headed over to the Haunted House which had only a short wait and then over to Adventure Land. I had bought a second lot of fastpasses on ebay for around £10 for 4 passes. I had been slightly dubious whether they would work but they were absolutely fine. We fast passed Indiana Jones which gave us a time in 30 mins, whizzed over to Pirates of the Caribbean which had just a 15 min queue, did that then returned to Indiana Jones. It turned out that Ciara wasn't tall enough so Alex and DH went on then we did a child swap and Alex and I went straight to the front of the queue to ride. I enjoyed it though 2 times in quick succession was a bit much for her - she went a very fetching shade of green!! We just had time to run back over to Frontierland and get the end of our fastpass time for Big Thunder Mountain. I LOVE this ride - it is my absolute favourite. Whizzing through the tunnel under the lake to get to the mountain is just a brilliant start to the ride. By the time we got off BTM it was getting on for 1pm and having done quite a lot in quick succession, we were hungry. We glanced at the fastpass board for BTM and already it was giving out fastpass times of beyond 7pm.
We headed back to Main Street and decided to go to Caseys and grab a hot dog and chips. I managed to get a table outside whilst DH and the girls queued for what seems like ages. By the time they got back my tummy rumbling was worthy of Winnie the Pooh's! DH was starting to get a bit grumpy, his feet hurt and he was already tired. He decided to go back to the car to change his shoes and we arranged to meet back by the information board in 40 mins. The girls and I then headed over to FantasyLand which was jam packed with people. We wandered through and I was going to take them on It's a Small World which was the only ride with a reasonable wait time. We started to queue but then they spotted Tigger and we abandoned the ride whilst they ran off to try and get his autograph. There were actually several characters milling around. To start with my girls were too polite, standing back and taking their turn, but in the end they were having to give the french kids a run for their money in the pushing to the front stakes to stand any chance of getting the all important signatures in their books.
When the characters left we headed over to Discovery Land and picked up fast passes for both Buzz and Space Mountain. We met back up with DH who had not only been and changed his shoes but had done a bit of retail therapy on Main Street as well, and by now it was time to make our way to the Plaza Gardens for the character tea. Almost as soon as we were seated, and before we could go and grab some food, the characters came in through the door. The first wave were Tigger, Eeyore, Captain Hook and Friar Tuck.
There actually weren't that many people eating so the characters seemed to arrive round at our table really quickly. The girls were disappointed to learn that as Eeyore doesn't have any thumbs, he can't sign an autograph but other than that they were thrilled with the whole thing. The characters disappeared and we went up to get our tea which was a rather odd assortment of hot food such as sausages, eggs etc and tea items such as doughnuts, cakes, crepes etc. Personally I wouldn't really rate the tea that much but it was well worth the 15 euros pp for the character interaction (beats queuing for autographs and elbowing other people out of the way) and I have to say that we did eat our fill. The cookies were delicious and we actually picked up a few to take away for later. We had thought that when the characters left that was it so we were delighted when the door opened again and another wave came in. This time we got Prince John, Goofy, Pluto and Daisy Duck. All in all, we were probably in there about an hour and in the excitement we almost forgot our fast pass times for Buzz and Space Mountain. We did Buzz first and by now even the fast pass queue was about 20 mins. It was a great ride although I'm convinced that my laser gun was faulty - how else could I explain getting 100,000 less than DH! Exiting Buzz we made our way to Space Mountain where Ciara chickened out. DH and Alex did this one on their own. They said it was good but very jerky and bumpy and they wouldn't have wanted to do it a second time.
We headed over to Frontierland but the queues for everything were huge by now. We did the river boats (small ones - can't remember what they were called) which was nice and peaceful, then headed to the adventure playground by the pirate ship where DH and I sat with a nice drink whilst the girls ran round and waved at us from the suspended bridge.
We had planned to stay and see Fantillusion and the fireworks that night but we just didn't have the energy so decided that we would do that on our 2nd day on Thursday instead. We headed back over to the castle to watch the Dreams Parade and the girls managed to squeeze to a place where they could see everything. We had about 20 mins to wait before it started and they were moaning a bit about whether it was worth it as they had no idea what to expect. Then suddenly the music started and there was Mickey on his float and their faces were just a picture.
I have to say that it was the best Disney parade I have ever seen - I just loved it. When it was over the girls managed to get some of the foil glitter out of the trees so that they could keep their own little piece of the magic.
So that's it for Day 1 - a magical day for all of us. We did a little more retail therapy in the Disney Village on the way out, with DH buying himself a t-shirt with a picture of Grumpy which reads 100% Grumpy all the time - gave us a laugh. Then it was in the car heading back to Versailles. Wish I could tell you we didn't get lost on the way back - but that's another story!
Will post our second day at DLP separately together with some photos - better get on and do some work now!!
I can only dream of getting so much done in a day but with an almost 5 month old and 3.5 year old when we go we have no chance 
