cherrymarzipan
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2010
- Messages
- 1,340
This is our traditional birthday trip for Oliver and our first ever stay in the DLH 
Highs:
The weather was fantastic just like summer, we were so lucky. Those pure blue skies are the perfect complement for the autumnal colours of the Halloween decorations. It was still pleasantly warm in the evenings watching Dreams too.
Meeting Marie! Never met her before so this was a real treat and Oliver loved her.
Oliver also got to meet his Villain of the season (it seems to change each Halloween!), Snow Whites Wicked Witch.
The Halloween Cavalcade. How I love those Halloween songs - just cant help singing along! This is so pretty, especially in the sunshine and makes a nice change from the villain orientated theme as it is more Harvest Festival really with lots of colourful fruit, flowers, mushrooms etc. Great to see the Three Little Pigs as well as Huey, Dewey, and Louie and Uncle Scrooge, Clarabelle and Horace Horsecollar. Loved one of the cast members dancing and drumming up the crowd beforehand too he was really in the Disney spirit! It is quite a long parade too and passes several times a day therefore easy to catch. Well worth watching more than once as there is a lot of detail on the floats.
I also love the pop-up bands around the park. We saw them at Caseys Corner, Town Square and near Jack (and reportedly Sally although we never saw her)s Cemetery. The jazzy music really adds to the festive mood.
There is so much to look at around Main Street, I could spend the day just taking everything in there. The park was very quiet and we had opportunity to pose by the static characters ghosts, scarecrows etc in Main Street and Frontierland. Liked the green lights with witches hats on in Town Square once it got dark.
Good selection of villains to meet in the Castle Courtyard and Maleficents thorn tangle in place of the sword in the stone is magnificent. If you look carefully you can see the head of Maleficent as a dragon amongst the bramble branches. Also try and stay in Fantasyland long enough for it to become dark enough to see these lit up superb!
Also liked Maleficents appearance with her raven in a puff of smoke on the castle balcony. She seems to come out between villain appearances so it is worth hanging around when the characters go in quite apart from waiting to see new ones come out. We found the best view of her was to the left of the brambles (looking towards the back of the castle) as when we watched from the right side we were unable to see through the smoke! This might change with weather conditions although I wasn't aware of any wind at all at the time.
Dreams! Im still moved by this and watching it at 20:30 is the perfect time for us, especially as it was still warm outside then.
The DLH although Im not quite sure where to put this as I was a little disappointed with some aspects. Maybe I will upset some people here and maybe I built it up a bit too much beforehand after years of aspiring to stay there!
Anyway the good points: proximity to the park being a HUGE one. It was so lovely to be able to enter the park so easily. EMH was great to do first then return to the hotel for breakfast. We never normally get to this as we take ages at breakfast itself so arrive at the park too late usually. The thought of doing it first then hiking all the way back (even to the HNY) and then re-entering control and back to the park never appeals. I dont even like breakfast in the Park as I like to clean teeth afterwards! Breakfast in the DLH was lovely and we had great window views each morning which kept Oliver happy enough to actually eat. The variety was good although there are still omissions in my opinion I like muesli and accompanying seeds, nuts, dried fruit etc to sprinkle on and I think the quality of the yoghurts and croissants is very mediocre. However there was a lot of choice and the scrambled eggs were excellent, not too dry. We all filled our boots here each morning and were full until mid-afternoon.
We had a room on the third floor of the West Wing and I am glad as I think the entrance to this is the most convenient for the Park or Studios. Our view was pleasant mainly trees looking over the quiet paths to the right of the way to the Studios. Now I am as big a fan of trees as anyone and would normally be happy with this but I was a little disappointed initially as there was nothing Disney to see! I did later discover that at night we could just see the side of the Mickey Ears water tower in the Studios by peering to the extreme right! The room was nice but no different other than décor to that of the HNY and I think the bathroom definitely does not add up to my definition of luxury hotel facilities. It is so small although at least the towels were larger and thicker than those from the other hotels, but the mouldy grouting was horrible. Oliver liked trying to work out which dwarf was which on the mirror frame.
Another not quite sure was the restaurant, Chez Remy. Theming fantastic, food rather ordinary for the price. Oliver had the childrens menu which was very good and he ate it all enthusiastically. DD and I had veggie option. Our starter was nice with a decently flavoured dressing but made up of very ordinary ingredients. We both felt we made far more interesting salads at home ourselves. The tofu and bean casserole was again, quite tasty but just not really meriting the price tag. For pudding DD had the, very ordinary, chocolate sponge with crème anglaise and I had the chocolate mousse. I had the chocolate mousse which was a generous portion but tasted exactly like the one I make at home. The waiters were attentive and friendly but for such a gastronomic experience I didnt expect to be served across the table and although the restaurant was very empty they tried to take our starter plates away when Oliver was still obviously eating his. It felt a little rushed. Im glad we have had the fun of eating there but I dont think we will return unless there is something more exciting to choose from maybe just changing the menu month to month or something?
I may be spoiled as we had just returned from a short break in Guernsey where for a fraction of the price we had had similar hotel facilities with better views and far more interesting restaurant meals.
So to the lows:
A couple of characters Oliver had wanted to see that we missed or perhaps weren't there at all: Sally and Dr Facilier.
Apart from Rat Ride as Oliver calls it, the Studios felt very flat without the StarsnCars parade and character meet.
Only BIG gripe was with Voyage Prive and we certainly wont be booking with them again.
Briefly, they gave us the option for a character breakfast option which we took up. On discovering there was no character breakfast at DLH I contacted them and was told we would be given a voucher for Café Mickey. I said that hadnt been made clear, could we have a refund, told no refunds or changes. OK, until we check in to be told no voucher either. Contacted VP who have basically said tough, take us to court through French jurisdiction! Just cant believe how they mislead customers and then treat them. Not going to lose sleep over such a small sum or let it in anyway spoil the holiday but BE WARNED!!!
OK, so after this long ramble can I just say we had a terrific time and enjoyed it all. We love the Halloween season and hope to be back again for it next year. Whether I can justify the price for the convenience of the DLH remains to be seen but it is so tempting once experienced!
Highs:
The weather was fantastic just like summer, we were so lucky. Those pure blue skies are the perfect complement for the autumnal colours of the Halloween decorations. It was still pleasantly warm in the evenings watching Dreams too.
Meeting Marie! Never met her before so this was a real treat and Oliver loved her.
Oliver also got to meet his Villain of the season (it seems to change each Halloween!), Snow Whites Wicked Witch.
The Halloween Cavalcade. How I love those Halloween songs - just cant help singing along! This is so pretty, especially in the sunshine and makes a nice change from the villain orientated theme as it is more Harvest Festival really with lots of colourful fruit, flowers, mushrooms etc. Great to see the Three Little Pigs as well as Huey, Dewey, and Louie and Uncle Scrooge, Clarabelle and Horace Horsecollar. Loved one of the cast members dancing and drumming up the crowd beforehand too he was really in the Disney spirit! It is quite a long parade too and passes several times a day therefore easy to catch. Well worth watching more than once as there is a lot of detail on the floats.
I also love the pop-up bands around the park. We saw them at Caseys Corner, Town Square and near Jack (and reportedly Sally although we never saw her)s Cemetery. The jazzy music really adds to the festive mood.
There is so much to look at around Main Street, I could spend the day just taking everything in there. The park was very quiet and we had opportunity to pose by the static characters ghosts, scarecrows etc in Main Street and Frontierland. Liked the green lights with witches hats on in Town Square once it got dark.
Good selection of villains to meet in the Castle Courtyard and Maleficents thorn tangle in place of the sword in the stone is magnificent. If you look carefully you can see the head of Maleficent as a dragon amongst the bramble branches. Also try and stay in Fantasyland long enough for it to become dark enough to see these lit up superb!
Also liked Maleficents appearance with her raven in a puff of smoke on the castle balcony. She seems to come out between villain appearances so it is worth hanging around when the characters go in quite apart from waiting to see new ones come out. We found the best view of her was to the left of the brambles (looking towards the back of the castle) as when we watched from the right side we were unable to see through the smoke! This might change with weather conditions although I wasn't aware of any wind at all at the time.
Dreams! Im still moved by this and watching it at 20:30 is the perfect time for us, especially as it was still warm outside then.
The DLH although Im not quite sure where to put this as I was a little disappointed with some aspects. Maybe I will upset some people here and maybe I built it up a bit too much beforehand after years of aspiring to stay there!
Anyway the good points: proximity to the park being a HUGE one. It was so lovely to be able to enter the park so easily. EMH was great to do first then return to the hotel for breakfast. We never normally get to this as we take ages at breakfast itself so arrive at the park too late usually. The thought of doing it first then hiking all the way back (even to the HNY) and then re-entering control and back to the park never appeals. I dont even like breakfast in the Park as I like to clean teeth afterwards! Breakfast in the DLH was lovely and we had great window views each morning which kept Oliver happy enough to actually eat. The variety was good although there are still omissions in my opinion I like muesli and accompanying seeds, nuts, dried fruit etc to sprinkle on and I think the quality of the yoghurts and croissants is very mediocre. However there was a lot of choice and the scrambled eggs were excellent, not too dry. We all filled our boots here each morning and were full until mid-afternoon.
We had a room on the third floor of the West Wing and I am glad as I think the entrance to this is the most convenient for the Park or Studios. Our view was pleasant mainly trees looking over the quiet paths to the right of the way to the Studios. Now I am as big a fan of trees as anyone and would normally be happy with this but I was a little disappointed initially as there was nothing Disney to see! I did later discover that at night we could just see the side of the Mickey Ears water tower in the Studios by peering to the extreme right! The room was nice but no different other than décor to that of the HNY and I think the bathroom definitely does not add up to my definition of luxury hotel facilities. It is so small although at least the towels were larger and thicker than those from the other hotels, but the mouldy grouting was horrible. Oliver liked trying to work out which dwarf was which on the mirror frame.
Another not quite sure was the restaurant, Chez Remy. Theming fantastic, food rather ordinary for the price. Oliver had the childrens menu which was very good and he ate it all enthusiastically. DD and I had veggie option. Our starter was nice with a decently flavoured dressing but made up of very ordinary ingredients. We both felt we made far more interesting salads at home ourselves. The tofu and bean casserole was again, quite tasty but just not really meriting the price tag. For pudding DD had the, very ordinary, chocolate sponge with crème anglaise and I had the chocolate mousse. I had the chocolate mousse which was a generous portion but tasted exactly like the one I make at home. The waiters were attentive and friendly but for such a gastronomic experience I didnt expect to be served across the table and although the restaurant was very empty they tried to take our starter plates away when Oliver was still obviously eating his. It felt a little rushed. Im glad we have had the fun of eating there but I dont think we will return unless there is something more exciting to choose from maybe just changing the menu month to month or something?
I may be spoiled as we had just returned from a short break in Guernsey where for a fraction of the price we had had similar hotel facilities with better views and far more interesting restaurant meals.
So to the lows:
A couple of characters Oliver had wanted to see that we missed or perhaps weren't there at all: Sally and Dr Facilier.
Apart from Rat Ride as Oliver calls it, the Studios felt very flat without the StarsnCars parade and character meet.
Only BIG gripe was with Voyage Prive and we certainly wont be booking with them again.
Briefly, they gave us the option for a character breakfast option which we took up. On discovering there was no character breakfast at DLH I contacted them and was told we would be given a voucher for Café Mickey. I said that hadnt been made clear, could we have a refund, told no refunds or changes. OK, until we check in to be told no voucher either. Contacted VP who have basically said tough, take us to court through French jurisdiction! Just cant believe how they mislead customers and then treat them. Not going to lose sleep over such a small sum or let it in anyway spoil the holiday but BE WARNED!!!OK, so after this long ramble can I just say we had a terrific time and enjoyed it all. We love the Halloween season and hope to be back again for it next year. Whether I can justify the price for the convenience of the DLH remains to be seen but it is so tempting once experienced!
.
good to hear you had a great time and not too many lows 
we are off in few days and hope for no rain and lots of sun as you... all the decorations looks so great
