I'm back and ............

[Rachie B]

I got to ride Crush ! finally ........... and it made me feel sick

Bit like cap'n our trip was not all good,but we enjoyed and glad we went @ xmas

I won't lie and promise a trippie as i know i wont do one

but will list bits about each thing

Eurostar;Loved it! what a fab stressfree way to travel straight to the magic ( well after a 3 hr drive to Ashford!)

The travelodge @ ashford was fine too,clean and comfy beds and hot shower
what more do you need ?we all had a good night sleep on fri

Weather; actually not as cold as i had expected,bit wet and miserable though while moving you keep really warm,only when we stopped to queue or wait for the parade did you begin to feel cold ( feet etc)

Explorers; really liked this hotel,room clean and comfy for 4 of us.Breakfast not bad didnt oay extra for english breakfast,was 6 euros)pool looked lovely but didnt have time to use it!
kids liked the various play areas,machines etc.Staff lovely.

shuttles............. hmm i dont think we are cut out for shuttle life
actually,no it wasn't as bad as i have heard!
we did have to wait for a 3rd shuttle though ! as the first 2 were chocka ! ( with people barging on before other passengers could even get off !! ) this wasnt even at the the end of the night,but around 7pm!

hubby hated every second of it ,and threatened to get a taxi if the 3rd shuttle turned up full

getting to the park was fine on sun morn,we wanted to get there for EMH so were pretty much the only people on at that time.

Christmassy bits; loved the tree/s the decorations,xmas music etc
we all enjoyed Mickeys show
didnt queue to see santa,but had a wander round with a hot chocolate ( nutella hot choc love it,but not the price )
Loved the addition of the toy soldiers to the parade too

Atmosphere etc; I dont know whether i had bigged up xmas @ DLRP in my head or something,but i felt a bit disappointed
I cant even put my finger on why?!

none of us were 100% fit and healthy TBH so may be that? we had all had coughs,cold,headache,sinusitis etc in the lead up to our trip

hubby came down worse yday,and we ended up leaving him in the sports bar with his coffee and paper for a few hrs
we didnt get back til 1.30am this morning and he had to be up @ 5am to get the train for work!

experienced out first "crush" of people while watching the parade on sat night ( we hadnt planned on watching it that night,but found we were stuck there so stayed and watched) then people decided that they didnt want to watch ( was raining) so tried to move where there was NO space whatsoever!

people were being shoved,my kids were quite scared
in the end hubby ( who is quite a large rugby playing guy) put his hands up to stop people pushing and said (shouted) STOP PUSHING !!! theres no where to move to!

everyone just looked and stopped,then there was a nice space round us to enable us to move ( breathe!!)

hated having to resort to that, but it was ridiculous!
even my 12 yr old commented on the fact that certain peoples manners, and behaviour were worse than every other trip we have been on yet

lots more smoking in line etc this time too

oh and grrrrrrr @ a group of queue jumpers on crush and CMs doing nothing.I was sooooooooo mad!!

All in all ,i dont think we will be in a rush to go @ xmas again

i much preferred our aug trip! similar number of people / crowd level ,but more relaxed
as you arent rushing around to get / stay warm and get out of the cold etc..............
light nights ,good weather ( well ish haha) no hassle of ski gear,taking gloves etc on / off /on /off when getting too warm on rides / in queues!
eating outside,and generally wandering around at a much more relaxed pace!

*HIGHS*

Eurostar
Explorers hotel
Mickeys winter show
Annettes ( food lush as always,missed the dancing on tables as was upstairs but fab atmosphere throughout)
Nutella hot choc and mickey brioche mmmmmmm

*LOWS*

Not being able to find camera charger before we went so had to buy a disposable grrrrrr
other peoples rudeness etc
not feeling great
my youngest being sick on the eurostar on way home

wanting to go on Crush for past 2 trips,finally getting there early enough ( was about 15 others in front of us) THEN when get inside almost about to go on a "technical difficulty" grrrrrr,so waiting another 15 mins or so
THEN when i am finally on it makes me feel sick! ( bit too soon after breakfast i think ) the boys LOVED it though !

 

[cap'njack.]

I think we may have done the same thing. I think we'd got this image of what DLRP *should* be like for Christmas and the pictures on here gave glimpses of what was to come. Unfortunatly it wasn't as good as I'd built it up. I was dissapointed that there was a smattering of decorations at the Station end of Main Street and another smattering at the Hub but in between there was only garland on the bulidings. It almost felt like it wasn't Christmas walking round the other Lands and it was only either in Main Street, in the Christmas Village (Woody's Roundup), or Belle's that it appeared to be Christmas.

Glad you had a good time anyway and I'll stop gumbling on other people's threads!!

 

[tennisfan]

Welcome back, shame you were a bit disappointed over the Christmas season. Glad you have finally managed to ride Crush. I haven't & I went to the preview day they had

 

[britchic4]

Glad you mostly had a good time. I'm not looking forward to a crush of people either, or the shuttles, but with a 3 yr old we'll be leaving the parks earlier than you so maybe we'll miss the worst?

 

[Rachie B]

bah humbug to us both cap'n

don't get me wrong i AM glad we went,but wont be in a rush to do xmas again

my sister was going to go next xmas,i think i may try and persuade her to come with us in aug instead! lol

brit i hope the shuttle is fine for you guys i think because we had rain, people decided to head back to the hotel/s
whereas if it were dry we (and others) may have stayed

i think the shuttle will be busy regardless of time TBH @ xmas,to be expected really

there were lots of crying children tired and cold ( no gloves etc ) it was quite stressful lol
not used to that!

oh and forgot to say BTM is still my fave ride
80 mins queue time at one point!!! but we managed to go on twice during the wkend

tennisfan i was bloomin determined this time
got to the studios and started queuing around 9.15am ,they let us in at half past and we ran well ok jogged all the way to Crush!

it was ok,liked the first bit,but not keen on the dark bits
think it should be more "childish" IYSWIM ! lol

my sons loved it, and it was their fave ride of the trip!

onwards and upwards,planning our aug trip

and we would like to do another short wkend trip,maybe when the boys have inset day on a monday or fri it was so easy doing the eurostar,will have to see how many airmiles we have left!

xx

 

[scampbunny]

so sorry ur trip wasnt as magical as u hoped..... am beginin to wonder if i went sumwhere diff from the rest of u

i loved it, but then, im not a fan of over the top decs so it was enough for me, and we had proper snow - the big fat fluffy flakes type, which made it magical!! we also found it quite relaxed, apart from sum of the character express meets, and ppl just seemed to wander and enjoy - but then, we were there mon, tue, wed & thur......

i do hope u also found sum magic for xmas.....

 

[Rachie B]

<stamp feet> yes where was my snow that's what i want to know!

I think a weekday would have been much better

or EMH all day ( i love it when you walk down main street, and its almost deserted ) wouldnt that be lovely ,but with ALL the rides open!

It's my own fault i think, i expected too much magic for xmas i think and set myself up for a fall

we got to go on many more rides that expected though, and saw the parade and Mickeys winter show so not all bad

 

[scampbunny]

it is hard if u do expect - i just wasnt sure what it wud be, so anything was magical lol (im easy to please!)

80min for btm??? 10mins we wtd and that was about 5pm (fab in the dark - really loved that!!!!!)

sorry about ur snow - i did ask it to wait for a few days and come again..... were the kids warm enough????? hope they didnt moan *** they were too warm lol

 

[poppyolivia]

Oh its a shame it wasn't as good as you thought it would be.

 

[hollymattbenmilo]

We went in mid November, and it was amazing, no crowdes. most rides walk ons. crush's coaster was 15/20 min wait etc. But on the saturday it was hellish... which i imagine was more like when you were there, people were very rude, shoving etc, shouting, not a nice atmosphere... we ended up doing the show... walking around rather then tryign to get on rides on the saturday. I def would avoid all budy times in future..as the wed.thur.fri we were there was just perfect and amazing..b ut the sat was horrid! We took children abck to room from 12-3 in the day...as it just was too manic! The sunday was better, but still busy.

Also... crush's... I totally agree... It wasnt every "child"oriantated, think it would have been better if aimed more around the theme... i expected to see huge shark etc.. that sort of thing... but was mostly just dark... though we only qued for 10 mins.. so i cant complain! haha

 

[cap'njack.]

On Saturday at 2:30 pm BTM was 95 mins, POTC 80 mins, IASW 90 mins, PM 90 mins, Peter Pan 90 mins!

The one saving grace was that the Studio's were quite quiet!

 

[DLPdaft]

On Saturday at 2:30 pm IASW 90 mins

Wha-attt???????

 

[Rachie B]

some of the times were shocking werent they !!

longest we queued was 40 mins i think,which wasnt too bad
we have been in summer holidays so used to the crowds,queues etc

i find so long as the queue is moving,even if really slowly,its more bearable somehow

and lots of the rides queuing areas are nice to stand in anyway

but i think that the crowds / bad attitude in some places,combined with the cold,wet weather didnt make it very appealing

we were toasty warm scamp eldest wore his saloppettes as well as jacket but youngest (aged 6) didnt want to wear them the whole time! ( we had them in the case in the luggage store in case he changed his mind!! )

BTM is fab in the dark isnt it! my fave time to ride it
can see for miles all lit up,lovely

 

[Boo-Boo]

Aawwww sorry to hear it wasnt as magical as you had hoped....

We have stayed at the Explorers and loved it too. We walked in most days as the shuttle was a nightmare especially with a twin pushchair...kept us fit!

 

[scampbunny]

On Saturday at 2:30 pm BTM was 95 mins, POTC 80 mins, IASW 90 mins, PM 90 mins, Peter Pan 90 mins!

The one saving grace was that the Studio's were quite quiet!

oh my word!!!!!!! we did see btm at 30 mins once, but longest we queued was tot and that was 15 mins, walked on quite alot of rides...... just realised i STILL havent done pm - so thats another reason to go back..... isnt it?? espec at halloween......

 

[Rachie B]

Aawwww sorry to hear it wasnt as magical as you had hoped....

We have stayed at the Explorers and loved it too. We walked in most days as the shuttle was a nightmare especially with a twin pushchair...kept us fit!

makes me shudder just thinking about it! lol

 

[cap'njack.]

Wha-attt???????

Aye!

I even went to look as I thought it had to be a typo but no...the queue was all the way round the extra part on the right hand side and went round to the gates leading to Discoveryland!

The odd part was that at the same time (well 10-15 mins later) the queue for ToT was 5 mins, Cars 20 mins, Flying Carpets was a walk on and walk on for RnR

 

[jillrobinson]

Aaw Rachel I'm sorry
I will never book another weekend Christmas trip or advise anyone else to, both you and the Captain have had the same experience as we did and it doesn't make for a pleasant one.
As for the shuttles Hope you've all recovered.
Now do I still want to ride Crush ?

 

[Rachie B]

Aaw Rachel I'm sorry
I will never book another weekend Christmas trip or advise anyone else to, both you and the Captain have had the same experience as we did and it doesn't make for a pleasant one.
As for the shuttles Hope you've all recovered.
Now do I still want to ride Crush ?

maybe i am just a baby

i would do it again ( for the kids haha) but didnt really enjoy it IYSWIM

was a bit of a grit teeth and shut eyes moment ,much like Indiana jones! lol

 

[Cyrano]

Welcome home

Our previous trips at Christmas time have been a magical time. But our visits have been right at the start of Christmas season in November. Crowds at this time of year seem to be much more manageable.
At least those going now are better warned