Happy Happy Happy Happy Halloween ~ Day 5 (and an unexpected Day 6)

[Ware Bears]

Friday October 26th 2007

I always hate the last day so got up with a heavy heart and after breakfast we checked out and put our suitcases in the hotel's left luggage lockers.

We headed straight for the Studios first and after one look at the queue for Crush decided to leave it until next summer.

I don't know if anyone here plays Disney's Toontown game but this reminds me so much of it, I could be stood in Toontown Central in the game itself!!

The Tower of Terror was coming on well

and I loved the Wendy, Peter and Tink additions to the Sorcerer's Hat although why couldn't there have been a beautiful blue sky to enhance my photo?

This sign was a bit ironic

and we said Goodbye to Walt and Mickey knowing their background would be all finished next time we saw them!

 

[Ware Bears]

We went for lunch at The Lucky Nugget and had a fabulous time.

The band were wearing wacky wigs

The food was lovely and we saw Wendell

Mr Smee

[

Pluto

Minnie

Mickey

my sweetheart Robin Hood

and as we were posing for a photo with Goofy, Tigger bounced up!!

I had a magical moment here I was helping myself to the dessert buffet and just deciding whether or not to add a yoghurt dressing when I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned round to find it was Minnie who insisted on piling my plate up with even more desserts and added a huge dollop of dressing! She then gave me a huge hug, I was on cloud nine the rest of the day!

 

[Ware Bears]

Unfortunately the afternoon went far too quickly. We rode Big Thunder Mountain for the very last time and watched the parade yet again, this time from by the Main Street Transportation building.

I love the dragon sat at the back of the final float!!

 

[mommy2ash]

what lovely pics again. looks like a great time. yeah the last day has to be a bit disheartening lol

 

[Ware Bears]

Then it really was time to start making a move back to our hotel ready for our journey home. We made a few final purchases on the way out of the park and got the bus back to our hotel. We collected our luggage and waited in reception ...... and waited ....... and waited.

The reception staff were very surprised and said it was very unusual for BSTransports to not show so they phoned the office for us and it turned out the driver was sat in the Disneyland Hotel car park. Thank goodness it was only a simple mistake and we hadn't been forgotten or worse still, the driver had an accident. He was with us in a few minutes and we were soon on our way to CDG.

This is where the fun now started. Earlier in the week we had noticed that BBC Worldnews was mentioning how there was a likelihood of a transport strike in France and Air France would probably be involved. We had decided to be typical ostriches and bury our heads in the sand and not worry about it until going-home time so we were mightily relieved to find our flight to Southampton was coming up on the departure boards. However, when we went to check-in we found there were only 3 seats left (for 5 of us) because some earlier flights to the UK had been cancelled due to cabin crew striking and the passengers from these flights had been put onto ours.

The check-in lady allocated us the 3 seats and said as some of the seats had been checked-in online there was a possibility there may be some no-shows and we would then all get to travel. Unfortunately this didn't happen so we had the choice of either 3 of us travelling and the other 2 following later or giving up the 3 seats and sticking together. We decided on the latter which greatly pleased the check-in lady as she was able to allocate these seats to 3 solo passengers.

I quickly phoned England to cancel the car that was coming to meet us and said I would be in touch later.

By now, it was utter chaos as more and more flights were showing as cancelled on the departure boards and the lady was having a nightmare trying to get us home. She had been planning to book us onto either the one remaining Bristol flight or one of the Heathrow ones and pay for a car home from there but the flights were being cancelled faster than she could check for seats for us. Then she tried to taxi us into Paris to send us back to Waterloo on the Eurostar but these were being cancelled too so in the end she said she would pay for us to spend the night at one of the airport hotels and would sort us out a flight for the next day. Only ........ as the next day was Saturday there was only one flight to Southampton and this was full so she decided it would be easier if we went via Dusseldorf until she found there weren't enough seats left.

Next thing I knew, she must have taken pity on us ~ or maybe it was because we seemed to be one of the few people who weren't ranting and raving and getting thoroughly unpleasant ~ anyhow suddenly she was printing up boarding cards for us and explained she had bumped some people off the Saturday flight for us (poor them but I was past caring by now, I needed to collect my dogs by Saturday tea-time ) and was now trying to book us into one of the airport hotels. No luck here either, they were by now all booked to full capacity. However, it meant that instead of being just well compensated for being bumped off we were now very well compensated with the choice of either finding a hotel and paying for it ourselves or staying in the departure lounge for the night and keeping all our compensation.

We chose the latter and told the girls to just treat it like an adventure. There were quite a few other people staying too, either they couldn't or chose not to get hotel rooms. I must say both Air France staff and CDG staff were absolutely marvellous. As well as the meal vouchers that Air France gave us, during the night CDG staff would regularly come out and bring us coffee, bottles of water and snacks. I can't praise them enough.

The girls got some sleep

so did Bryan, but I couldn't so managed to read a huge chunk of the seventh Harry Potter book.

I think we were all on tenterhooks the next morning, even though our flight was showing on the departure boards ~ I know I didn't relax properly until we actually started to board!

The previous night I had telephoned our car company to let them know we were now coming in the next morning and they were marvellous and promised to come and meet us at no extra charge. So it was utter bliss when we landed at Southampton and walked through to find a driver stood there with our name on his clipboard.

Of course, I would have used the compensation to book another holiday but my sensible hubby insisted it was used for replacement double-glazing for the front of the house!! This was the first time we've flown to DLRP as we've always caught the Eurostar before and many people have asked if it's put us off flying there in future but I'm going to work on the principle that lightning doesn't strike twice and if it does I do need a replacement porch!!

 

[hildasmuriel]

Ohmigosh - what a strange ending to your lovely holiday. Glad you didn't get too upset by it all.

Lovley photos and report of your last day in the Park.

 

[DLPdaft]

Fantastic TR Elaine - well, apart from the night in the airport .

Thank you for posting it when you have too - its all got me right in the mood

 

[karenmoloney]

What a nightmare ending! Glad to see you all treated it as an adventure though. Don't think I could have been as cheerful with 2 young children!

 

[gemmybear83]

What a nightmare getting home!! Sounds like you got the best out of a bad situation though!

 

[thelittlemermaid83]

What a great TR and interesting end.

You can't beat sleeping in a airport overnight...I've done it a few times for Westlife when i was younger lol.

 

[Danauk]

Great report, at least you managed to get new windows out of your trip!

 

[Ware Bears]

What a nightmare ending! Glad to see you all treated it as an adventure though. Don't think I could have been as cheerful with 2 young children!

Luckily my DDs were 15, 12 and 11 at the time so old enough to cope. I'm sure it would have been a different story if they had been a lot younger.

You can't beat sleeping in a airport overnight...I've done it a few times for Westlife when i was younger lol.

Great report, at least you managed to get new windows out of your trip!

Yes, and very nice they are too! I kept teasing my DDs that I was hoping to get bumped off our August trip to help with the replacement porch but we played safe and did on-line check-in the day before at our hotel ...... then travelled home on a plane that was two-thirds empty!