inelegancex
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- May 8, 2012
- Messages
- 135
We just got back last night and thought i'd post now before all the details leave my mind. Sorry if it's a bit all over the place, there's so much to cover.
I'll start with all the positives!
-The crowds were a surprise to me, I was expected it to be hugely busy as it was the week before christmas but I was pleasantly surprised. They were manageable, I did see quite a lot of queues but with fast passes these weren't an issue. In Oct half term the fast passes would be gone in a matter of hours in the morning, so we couldn't even do these last year!
We queued for Crush's Coaster for 15 minutes, got straight onto some rides like Pirates, Small World, Phantom Manor, Aerosmith, etc! But the crowds did increase later on in the day as you would expect.
Although, queue for Princess Pavillon was 80+ minutes! I think they definitely should have re-thinked their system, queueing all this time for only one princess is ridiculous.
-I loved the new christmas dreams and the cavalcade, also the magical dreams of christmas was amazing. Christmas season never disappoints!
-This year we tried Auberge and Inventions, which I absolutely loved! The character interaction in Auberge was fantastic, I was absolutely in love with the restaurant and enjoyed every minute of it. For me, it was so worth the money.
I saw Cinderella, Ariel and Aurora & Phillip - all who were very kind (and I have to say Phillip was gorgeous!)
Inventions I found the character interaction slightly lacking as it seemed that there were tables in the restaurants who would just run up to characters rather than waiting their turn, and this was somehow allowed. But it was the best food I have ever had in my life!!
It was also our first time in the DLH, and now I am 100% sure our next trip will be in there. I was mesmerised.
-We had lunch in Cafe Mickey, which was great as always. Although the menu was very disappointing, it did not have a lot of choice and was not as nice as it was last year! But the characters were great as usual, the service was VERY fast we were barely in there for half an hour
-We stayed in Hotel New York, which I also loved! I think if Sequoia if was closer I would prefer it, but I did like that it was closer. We also had a christmas room which was brilliant, gorgeously decorated and our gift was a box of chocolates.
-I finally met Sally! Jack was my favourite last year and this year I met two, both who were great. Sally was wonderful and their interaction was hilarious, also at one point Jack was hiding in the exit of Phantom Manor and making everyone jump who was coming out (this was on his break by the way!)
-One cast member I have to mention is Gaulliame, who worked in Frontierland and was dressed in the Phantom Manor outfit. He was on the riverboat landing, and is honestly one of the funniest people i've ever come across. I love coming across these types of cast members who really put so much effort into their job. It really does make a difference to your trip!
-We had to be evacuated from Pirates of The Caribbean, which I personally enjoyed so it's a high for me! My sister was terrified (she's 25) but I thought it was great, we got to walk behind all the scenes and had to be helped off our boats by some very kind cast members.
Some lows:
-Again, a lot of the toilets were disgusting and you could tell they were not regularly cleaned. The ones in frontierland were so bad you could smell sewage and urine from outside!
-There was quite a lot of queue jumpers. Usually i'm quite a patient and tolerable person, but this year I was getting very fed up with it. One morning we started queueing for the Princess Pavillon around 9:15am, and as we came over and joined the queue a family sat on a bench around 5 metres away. When it came time to them letting us in, they tried pushing in front of the family in front of us saying "you saw us, we were here" when actually they were behind us and were not even in the queue! After waiting for an hour, several families said No to them, the cast member in charge simply shook his head and said No to them but then let them in anyway! We told them to politely leave as we were not letting them in front after we had been standing there for an hour while they sat on a bench far away.
Another instance, some children simply ran under all the wooden barriers in Indiana Jones. My sister and I told them no, to which they were very disrespectful and then just went behind us. The surrounding people only looked and did not say anything, so we didn't bother as long as they were not in front of us! I've noticed a lot of the cast members seem to turn a blind eye when it is certain guests (i'm sure it is not on all occasions but on some I have seen this has been the case definitely.)
-We encountered one very rude cast member in Peter Pan's Flight, but he was the only one and it didn't really spoil anything.
There are probably more so i'll post below if I think of any others
I'll start with all the positives!
-The crowds were a surprise to me, I was expected it to be hugely busy as it was the week before christmas but I was pleasantly surprised. They were manageable, I did see quite a lot of queues but with fast passes these weren't an issue. In Oct half term the fast passes would be gone in a matter of hours in the morning, so we couldn't even do these last year!
We queued for Crush's Coaster for 15 minutes, got straight onto some rides like Pirates, Small World, Phantom Manor, Aerosmith, etc! But the crowds did increase later on in the day as you would expect.
Although, queue for Princess Pavillon was 80+ minutes! I think they definitely should have re-thinked their system, queueing all this time for only one princess is ridiculous.
-I loved the new christmas dreams and the cavalcade, also the magical dreams of christmas was amazing. Christmas season never disappoints!
-This year we tried Auberge and Inventions, which I absolutely loved! The character interaction in Auberge was fantastic, I was absolutely in love with the restaurant and enjoyed every minute of it. For me, it was so worth the money.
I saw Cinderella, Ariel and Aurora & Phillip - all who were very kind (and I have to say Phillip was gorgeous!)
Inventions I found the character interaction slightly lacking as it seemed that there were tables in the restaurants who would just run up to characters rather than waiting their turn, and this was somehow allowed. But it was the best food I have ever had in my life!!
It was also our first time in the DLH, and now I am 100% sure our next trip will be in there. I was mesmerised.
-We had lunch in Cafe Mickey, which was great as always. Although the menu was very disappointing, it did not have a lot of choice and was not as nice as it was last year! But the characters were great as usual, the service was VERY fast we were barely in there for half an hour
-We stayed in Hotel New York, which I also loved! I think if Sequoia if was closer I would prefer it, but I did like that it was closer. We also had a christmas room which was brilliant, gorgeously decorated and our gift was a box of chocolates.
-I finally met Sally! Jack was my favourite last year and this year I met two, both who were great. Sally was wonderful and their interaction was hilarious, also at one point Jack was hiding in the exit of Phantom Manor and making everyone jump who was coming out (this was on his break by the way!)
-One cast member I have to mention is Gaulliame, who worked in Frontierland and was dressed in the Phantom Manor outfit. He was on the riverboat landing, and is honestly one of the funniest people i've ever come across. I love coming across these types of cast members who really put so much effort into their job. It really does make a difference to your trip!
-We had to be evacuated from Pirates of The Caribbean, which I personally enjoyed so it's a high for me! My sister was terrified (she's 25) but I thought it was great, we got to walk behind all the scenes and had to be helped off our boats by some very kind cast members.
Some lows:
-Again, a lot of the toilets were disgusting and you could tell they were not regularly cleaned. The ones in frontierland were so bad you could smell sewage and urine from outside!
-There was quite a lot of queue jumpers. Usually i'm quite a patient and tolerable person, but this year I was getting very fed up with it. One morning we started queueing for the Princess Pavillon around 9:15am, and as we came over and joined the queue a family sat on a bench around 5 metres away. When it came time to them letting us in, they tried pushing in front of the family in front of us saying "you saw us, we were here" when actually they were behind us and were not even in the queue! After waiting for an hour, several families said No to them, the cast member in charge simply shook his head and said No to them but then let them in anyway! We told them to politely leave as we were not letting them in front after we had been standing there for an hour while they sat on a bench far away.
Another instance, some children simply ran under all the wooden barriers in Indiana Jones. My sister and I told them no, to which they were very disrespectful and then just went behind us. The surrounding people only looked and did not say anything, so we didn't bother as long as they were not in front of us! I've noticed a lot of the cast members seem to turn a blind eye when it is certain guests (i'm sure it is not on all occasions but on some I have seen this has been the case definitely.)
-We encountered one very rude cast member in Peter Pan's Flight, but he was the only one and it didn't really spoil anything.
There are probably more so i'll post below if I think of any others
Glad you had a good time 
