Few questions for July Trip - Character/Sit Dow Meals/Queue

[Princess Clayre]

Hi Everyone,

I'd firstly like to say thank you to everyone that has been writing trip reports. They are so helpful for ideas and planning .

A couple of trip planning questions:

Character meet & greets - Is it correct that that are no formal queues? I keep reading about scrums I really want to prepare myself as my son is use to the more formal WDW meet & greets.

Sit down meals - We are at DLP 29th July to 1 Aug - We were hoping just to pre-book meals while we were there to free up time in the parks. As this is our first visit in such a long time we didn't want to be clock watching too much. Is this a really bad idea? What do you think the possibility of getting into place like Walts, Aggrabah Cafe & Cafe Mickey last minute would be? (Were not on the meal plan)

Hotel hopping - We're staying at the HNY but would love to have look in the Disneyland Hotel. I assume we're ok to wander into the other hotels for a nose around?

Queues - I've read that Crushes Coaster is a no go anytime after parking opening unless you want to queue for hours. Are there any others to beware of. Are fastpasses for Thunder Mountain quite easy to come by or should we make sure to cover that ride early? We were hoping to cover Peter Pan/Dumbo in EMH.

Fireworks - Are the summer fireworks usually at park closing?

Any other tips gratefully accepted!

Many Many thanks,
Clayre

 

[Happy Tappy]

Meet & Greets - There's 2 types: organised and spontanious. The spontaneous ones are always a scrum. Characters often just show up unscheduled in random places. The organised ones are normally in the park schedule and are at set places. Whilst they're good, it can often take a long time to queue. You can wait the best part of an hour to meet Rapunzel.

Sit Down Meals - If you don't reserve Cafe Mickey at least a day before, you are unlikely to get in. It gets very busy. Agrabah cafe should be fine without a reservation. Walts will probably be ok but if you have your heart set on eating there I would probably reserve a table in the morning at City Hall.

Hotel Hopping - That shouldn't be a problem. I've had a look around all the hotels whilst not staying there. You can have a drink in any of the bars in any hotel and can alse eat in their restaurants.

Queues - It will be very busy that time of year, especially as you're staying on a weekend. Make sure you get to EMH for opening as the 2nd hour of EMH gets pretty busy. Fastpasses for Big Thunder Mountain will run out early so make sure you get one in the morning. The rides in Toy Story Playland will also have ridiculous queues of around 60mins.

Fireworks - You're correct, they're at the end of the day. If I remember correctly, they start at around 10:30pm.

Other tips - It will be very busy so make sure you use fastpass and EMH well. Rides like it's a Small World, Pirates, and Phantom Manor should have relatively small queues because they have large capacities. Fill in the timeslots between fastpass times with these. If you find Disneyland Park too busy, cross the the Studios. They have lots of fantastic shows that fill the day and don't require you to queue.

Despite it being busy, it's my favourite time of year to visit. All the rides are open and there's a full entertainment schedule. You'll have a great trip.

 

[Princess Clayre]

Thanks Happy Tappy

 

[MichelinMan]

In addition to the previous detailed answer, you can go into any of the hotels where there are organised character lines in the morning (up to 10.00 if my memory serves me right). We did all the hotels around the lake one morning, getting photos in every hotel as went around.

 

[Jakaru]

I never knew there were advanced scheduled hotel greets? In fact, don't remember ever seeing anything that didn't seem Random or Unannounced in HNY.

is there info on these anywhere?

 

[Vala]

I never knew there were advanced scheduled hotel greets? In fact, don't remember ever seeing anything that didn't seem Random or Unannounced in HNY.

is there info on these anywhere?

There's little backdrops in all hotel lobbys or sometimes a little to the side. The info about who's coming out should be posted on those signpost things in the lobbies. We never saw anything confirming the characters before 8 AM the same morning though.

 

[DLPdaft]

the scheduled meet n greets in the parks are on every park programme -

http://news.disneylandparis.co.uk/UK/EN/Neutral/Images/ShowsAndParades.pdf

the current one lists, in the main park - Mickey or Friends, Winnie the Pooh or friends, Rapunzel, Disney Princesses, Alice in Wonderland, Aladdin, Adventureland characters, and Jack Sparrow.
In the Studios, Minnie or friends, Mickey, Buzz, Disney Characters, Disney Stars, and Green Army soldiers.
All of these are listed with the times, location, and days of the week they are around.

In the hotels, you will usually find on a notice board somewhere near reception, showing which characters will be visiting and when. Usually each morning each onsite hotel has 2 characters who visit and rotate every half hour from around 8am to after 10am.

Previously in the Santa Fe characters have been advertised as being around in the evening too in the restaurant.

 

[MichelinMan]

In the Newport Bay on various days we had photos with Mickey and Minnie (twice, in different outfits), Pluto and Donald.

On the day we went around the lake, we had Donald in NPB, Mickey and Minnie together in SL (not sure how often that happens) and then Mickey again at HNY in a different costume (which took some explaining to DS! Fortunately DW was walking slowly due to blisters, so we just said Mickey walks quickly between hotels!).

We found the best organised queues in the parks were at Woody's Roundup (shame if that is closed now, it was a long queue - about 30 mins - but we ended up with 5 characters at the end of it), just inside the Studios with Minnie, and Buzz Lightyear in the Studios.

 

[kizzabel]

Theres also a pretty great sounding meet in the DLH at 4pm and Im hoping some other Diser with a better memory then me will be able to tell you what day.....???
Seems to be a load of characters including more rarer to see ones. Hope this helps or at least points you in the right direction and apologies for my awful memory. I blame the kids

 

[DLPdaft]

the DLH one is at 4pm, I think it runs weekends only (Thursday or Friday through to Sunday). Its great - the characters get the little kids to dance around the foyer with them then they split up into various spots around the room for photos and autographs. We met Mickey, Minnie, Pinocchio, Gepetto, and Gideon there.

 

[jothp]

The organised meets are great but some of the queues are very long. We never bothered waiting for Winnie the Pooh on our recent trip because the queue was always best part of an hour. Some of the others though were really quite short - at the rhythms of the jungle we waited about 10 minutes for Baloo and King Louie and we waited about the same for Sulley in the studios.

For the scrums in the park it really depends on the characters and the CM who are helping them. When we met Peter Pan and Wendy out in the studios they made sure everyone stood back and they were choosing who to meet and were generally picking the people who were waiting nicely. For some of the other characters though it was total mayhem!

 

[Princess Clayre]

Thanks for all the great advice everyone