ukstitch
<font color=deeppink>I'm not sure I'm quite your a
- Joined
- May 5, 2008
- Messages
- 5,487
Day 5 was our last day, so it started in the traditional way that most of our last days at DLRP start - much packing was done, before we loaded up the car and headed to the parks for our final day.
The plan for the day was to start out in the Studios and do our favourite rides there, then head across to the Disneyland Park for a 12:30 slot at the Silver Spur, before taking in our favourite rides there, before finally finishing at the later of the two tea parties.
That was the plan at least...
We started as planned by entering the studios and picked up a fastpass for tower of terror, then went off and took in the rides that we wanted to reride - Rock 'n' Rollercoaster, Magic Carpets and Cars.
As we then had a bit more time to kill before our TOT fastpasses, I took the opportunity to visit the art of animation, which I haven't seen in an awful long time, although not much of it seems to have changed.
After the art of animation, it was time for our fastpasses.
By the time we all met back up again outside TOT, it was well past our Silver Spur reservation, so we changed our plans and headed to Cafe Mickey, to see if we could get a table there. As luck would have it, we managed to get a table, so we had a really nice two course meal (ok, I had two courses, everybody had one). WE enjoyed the character interaction as usual, especially as YOU get more attention in the restaurants than he does in the scrums.
After Cafe Mickey, we did a little shopping in the village, then headed back to the Disneyland park.
Once inside the Disneyland Park, we went and had a look round the fort at the entrance to Frontierland, before taking in Phantom Manor for one last time.
After Phantom Manor, we walked round towards Fantasyland and took in some of the rides there including Snow White and Pinocchio.
Next on our mini tour of the park was Buzz, followed by Space Mountain for me. We then headed back towards Adventureland to attempt a last ride on Pirates, but unfortunately, the queue was too long and would have seen us past our tea party reservation, so we abandoned that plan and instead headed back to main street, slightly early of our reservation.
When we went in, we were told that we were half an hour late, so they wouldn't let us in. We checked the time we were given when we got home and have never changed the timings when copying from one paper to another. It appears that we tried to book the correct time on the phone, but were corrected and told that we were wrong and it was meant to be 5:30.
We headed to Gibson Girl for an ice cream instead, then went off to do some last minute shopping.
With the last of the shopping done, we headed back to the car and started the drive back up towards Calais. It is traditional that at this point, that for some reason or another, we are unable to make our planned transport connection back to the UK when the four of us travel to DLRP as a group. And this time was no different.
This time, we'd cut it rather fine anyway, having stopped to do the last bits of shopping. Then, part way up towards Calais, we had to make an unplanned stop which meant that there was no way that we would make our Eurotunnel train.
Fortunately, when we did finally arrive at the Eurotunnel terminal, we were only one train late and they weren't very busy anyway, so we were allowed to travel on the next train, at no extra cost.
We boarded the train and crossed back to the UK smoothly, then completed the final 3 hours or so back home with no problems.
Overall, we had a thoroughly enjoyable holiday, with very few negatives. We've already booked our next trip back for the end of the Christmas season.
I thought I'd finish with a brief summary of what we did and didn't enjoy about the holiday, although there's a lot more things that we did enjoy about our holiday than we didn't.
Positives:
Negatives (No true negatives, more minor niggles than anything else):
The plan for the day was to start out in the Studios and do our favourite rides there, then head across to the Disneyland Park for a 12:30 slot at the Silver Spur, before taking in our favourite rides there, before finally finishing at the later of the two tea parties.
That was the plan at least...
We started as planned by entering the studios and picked up a fastpass for tower of terror, then went off and took in the rides that we wanted to reride - Rock 'n' Rollercoaster, Magic Carpets and Cars.
As we then had a bit more time to kill before our TOT fastpasses, I took the opportunity to visit the art of animation, which I haven't seen in an awful long time, although not much of it seems to have changed.
After the art of animation, it was time for our fastpasses.
By the time we all met back up again outside TOT, it was well past our Silver Spur reservation, so we changed our plans and headed to Cafe Mickey, to see if we could get a table there. As luck would have it, we managed to get a table, so we had a really nice two course meal (ok, I had two courses, everybody had one). WE enjoyed the character interaction as usual, especially as YOU get more attention in the restaurants than he does in the scrums.
After Cafe Mickey, we did a little shopping in the village, then headed back to the Disneyland park.
Once inside the Disneyland Park, we went and had a look round the fort at the entrance to Frontierland, before taking in Phantom Manor for one last time.
After Phantom Manor, we walked round towards Fantasyland and took in some of the rides there including Snow White and Pinocchio.
Next on our mini tour of the park was Buzz, followed by Space Mountain for me. We then headed back towards Adventureland to attempt a last ride on Pirates, but unfortunately, the queue was too long and would have seen us past our tea party reservation, so we abandoned that plan and instead headed back to main street, slightly early of our reservation.
When we went in, we were told that we were half an hour late, so they wouldn't let us in. We checked the time we were given when we got home and have never changed the timings when copying from one paper to another. It appears that we tried to book the correct time on the phone, but were corrected and told that we were wrong and it was meant to be 5:30.
We headed to Gibson Girl for an ice cream instead, then went off to do some last minute shopping.
With the last of the shopping done, we headed back to the car and started the drive back up towards Calais. It is traditional that at this point, that for some reason or another, we are unable to make our planned transport connection back to the UK when the four of us travel to DLRP as a group. And this time was no different.
This time, we'd cut it rather fine anyway, having stopped to do the last bits of shopping. Then, part way up towards Calais, we had to make an unplanned stop which meant that there was no way that we would make our Eurotunnel train.
Fortunately, when we did finally arrive at the Eurotunnel terminal, we were only one train late and they weren't very busy anyway, so we were allowed to travel on the next train, at no extra cost.
We boarded the train and crossed back to the UK smoothly, then completed the final 3 hours or so back home with no problems.
Overall, we had a thoroughly enjoyable holiday, with very few negatives. We've already booked our next trip back for the end of the Christmas season.
I thought I'd finish with a brief summary of what we did and didn't enjoy about the holiday, although there's a lot more things that we did enjoy about our holiday than we didn't.
Positives:
- Trying out some new restaurants that we've never eaten in before. We found some new favourites by doing this - especially Inventions, which could very well become a regular stop.
- Getting to interact with lots of characters, which was really enjoyable.
- Getting to ride the keel boats after 6 years of visiting.
- The changes to the disabled passes to support autism and similar non-physical disabilities.
- Parc Asterix, which made a welcome change and some of the rides and theming there are extremely good.
- The fireworks were fantastic, much better than the previous displays I've seen at the resort.
Negatives (No true negatives, more minor niggles than anything else):
- The usual scrums for characters that most people have issues with, although the pushchair helped a lot with these.
- Being told the wrong time for the tea party - I'm tempted to write to their complaints e-mail, if only to make them aware of their error about this.
- Our first cabin, although the staff were very good and apologetic about it.
Lovely photos- Bless your brother trainspotting!! We wouldn't have got my brother past the train station.....
