Jonjo
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Feb 1, 2008
- Messages
- 3,093
Here are my traditional highs and lows from the Ratatouille Press Preview weekend. I will be posting a full review of Ratatouille The Adventure and Bistrot Chez Rémy over the next few days.
Highs
The weather was fantastic, sunny days very day with a temprature of around 26 degrees.
It was our first time staying off site in Val d'Europe and we used the RER line to get to the parks every day and our daily journeys using the train were very easy.
We stayed at the ibis Marne la Vallée Val d'Europe hotel which could could not be closer to the RER train station, just 22 yards away. We had a nice sized room which was very clean and the hotel staff were very friendly. I would have no problems staying at this hotel again for another off-site trip.
Geting our APs was very quick and a lot less hassle than I thought it was going to be, we got the temp pass at the ticket booth at the gate and then went to the AP building. I got a Dream pass and DW a Fantasy.
Seeing the last few days of the Step into Spring Festival was nice, and to see the Castle Stage in use again was great.
Ratatouille The Adventure - well there is only one word to describe the latest dark ride by Walt Disney Imagineering it is truly Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
Attending the presentation and Q & A session hosted by the rides project manager and the rides head designer was great fun. Hearing about all the challenges they had to over come building a new ride from scratch was very interesting.
Bistrot Chez Rémy is a lovely resturant, the themeing is just fantastic and the meal was on a par with the quality you would receive at Walts, Blue Lagoon and the Silver Spur Steakhouse. It is a much needed table service resturant that the Walt Disney Studios Park needs.
PhotoPass+ This is great! Being able to see your ride photos and Meet 'n' Greets photos on your phone is very handy. Being able to download them and then post them to Facebook or Twitter was wonderful.
I did two new Meet 'n' Greets this trip I got to meet Spider-Man in WDS and visited the Princess Pavilion for the first time to meet Snow White.
I was very pleased that there was a soft opening of Ratatouille on the Sunday evening and this gave DW the chance to ride it too, which was the icing on the cake for the weekend.
After both of us having very large Sunday lunches, DW at Inventions for the Character Sunday Brunch and I at Bistrot Chez Rémy, we were both starting to get a bit hungry at around 10pm finding Cowboy Cookout closed we walked over to the The Lucky Nugget Saloon where DW had a burger and I had fish and chips. Then to our surprise a country and western band came onto to the stage and did a 30 mins set of classic county and western songs while we ate our supper. This was a wonderful bit of Disney magic and I'm so pleased to see these things return to the park.
Finaly I had a meal in Café des Cascadeurs, well I had two actually, lunch on Friday and lunch again on Monday. I have always wanted to eat here as it is the oldest resturant in any Disneyland Park in the world. This resturant is even older that the origonal Disneyland Park in Anaheim. The service was very good, on Friday we sat at a booth and on Monday I sat on a counter stool where you could see all the meals being prepared.
Lows
The weather it was just too hot for me, I prefer it to be a bit cooler when your out all day. There was a very strong risk of sun stroke this weeekend so I made sure my water bottle was full all the time.
Crowds - With lots of holidaying guests, the worlds media and lots of European celebrities visiting, both parks very crowed this weekend. DW and I agreed that the off seasons are much better. Peter Pan was showing a 90mins wait at one point during our trip and I waited 70 mins to see Spider-Man. We are normaly used to ride waits of 5 - 10 mins, with most rides walk-ons, so this was a bit of a shock to the system but we did manage to do a few rides while we were there.
Not all the resturants were open which meant I saw long lines of people out side the ones that were. And in the evening trying to get a bottle of coke while wating for Dream! to start was ridiculous. There were huge queues out side the Cable Car Bake House. It was quicker to walk down Main Street to the Pushchair rental store next to the Transportation building. Plus I got my Dream Pass AP discount there too and they sold sun cream too.
PhotoPass+ If DLP want this to work they need to have many more photographers around the parks. There should be photographers on Main Street, the Castle hub, and in each land.
Guest behaviour - saw a few socking things that guest should not do this weekend, the most frequent thing I saw were parents alowing their children to go to the toilet in the bushes and agaist the walls of buildings around the park. In one shocking instance agaist the wall of a toilet bock in Fastasyland, which was actualy clean and empty, DW and I have just come out of there.
One final low - I dropped my iPhone smashing the screen when coming out of the Princess Pavilion.
All in all it was a very fun trip with lots of firsts for us, and by Monday morning we did not want to come home.
Highs
The weather was fantastic, sunny days very day with a temprature of around 26 degrees.
It was our first time staying off site in Val d'Europe and we used the RER line to get to the parks every day and our daily journeys using the train were very easy.
We stayed at the ibis Marne la Vallée Val d'Europe hotel which could could not be closer to the RER train station, just 22 yards away. We had a nice sized room which was very clean and the hotel staff were very friendly. I would have no problems staying at this hotel again for another off-site trip.
Geting our APs was very quick and a lot less hassle than I thought it was going to be, we got the temp pass at the ticket booth at the gate and then went to the AP building. I got a Dream pass and DW a Fantasy.
Seeing the last few days of the Step into Spring Festival was nice, and to see the Castle Stage in use again was great.
Ratatouille The Adventure - well there is only one word to describe the latest dark ride by Walt Disney Imagineering it is truly Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
Attending the presentation and Q & A session hosted by the rides project manager and the rides head designer was great fun. Hearing about all the challenges they had to over come building a new ride from scratch was very interesting.
Bistrot Chez Rémy is a lovely resturant, the themeing is just fantastic and the meal was on a par with the quality you would receive at Walts, Blue Lagoon and the Silver Spur Steakhouse. It is a much needed table service resturant that the Walt Disney Studios Park needs.
PhotoPass+ This is great! Being able to see your ride photos and Meet 'n' Greets photos on your phone is very handy. Being able to download them and then post them to Facebook or Twitter was wonderful.
I did two new Meet 'n' Greets this trip I got to meet Spider-Man in WDS and visited the Princess Pavilion for the first time to meet Snow White.
I was very pleased that there was a soft opening of Ratatouille on the Sunday evening and this gave DW the chance to ride it too, which was the icing on the cake for the weekend.
After both of us having very large Sunday lunches, DW at Inventions for the Character Sunday Brunch and I at Bistrot Chez Rémy, we were both starting to get a bit hungry at around 10pm finding Cowboy Cookout closed we walked over to the The Lucky Nugget Saloon where DW had a burger and I had fish and chips. Then to our surprise a country and western band came onto to the stage and did a 30 mins set of classic county and western songs while we ate our supper. This was a wonderful bit of Disney magic and I'm so pleased to see these things return to the park.
Finaly I had a meal in Café des Cascadeurs, well I had two actually, lunch on Friday and lunch again on Monday. I have always wanted to eat here as it is the oldest resturant in any Disneyland Park in the world. This resturant is even older that the origonal Disneyland Park in Anaheim. The service was very good, on Friday we sat at a booth and on Monday I sat on a counter stool where you could see all the meals being prepared.
Lows
The weather it was just too hot for me, I prefer it to be a bit cooler when your out all day. There was a very strong risk of sun stroke this weeekend so I made sure my water bottle was full all the time.
Crowds - With lots of holidaying guests, the worlds media and lots of European celebrities visiting, both parks very crowed this weekend. DW and I agreed that the off seasons are much better. Peter Pan was showing a 90mins wait at one point during our trip and I waited 70 mins to see Spider-Man. We are normaly used to ride waits of 5 - 10 mins, with most rides walk-ons, so this was a bit of a shock to the system but we did manage to do a few rides while we were there.
Not all the resturants were open which meant I saw long lines of people out side the ones that were. And in the evening trying to get a bottle of coke while wating for Dream! to start was ridiculous. There were huge queues out side the Cable Car Bake House. It was quicker to walk down Main Street to the Pushchair rental store next to the Transportation building. Plus I got my Dream Pass AP discount there too and they sold sun cream too.
PhotoPass+ If DLP want this to work they need to have many more photographers around the parks. There should be photographers on Main Street, the Castle hub, and in each land.
Guest behaviour - saw a few socking things that guest should not do this weekend, the most frequent thing I saw were parents alowing their children to go to the toilet in the bushes and agaist the walls of buildings around the park. In one shocking instance agaist the wall of a toilet bock in Fastasyland, which was actualy clean and empty, DW and I have just come out of there.
One final low - I dropped my iPhone smashing the screen when coming out of the Princess Pavilion.
All in all it was a very fun trip with lots of firsts for us, and by Monday morning we did not want to come home.
