jillrobinson
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2005
- Messages
- 6,953
Day One - Thursday 29th March - The journey
I was a bit dubious about the coach travel, but courtesy of Tesco's Clubcard deals it was too good a deal to miss.
Our coach left Cwmbran in South Wales, our local departure point bang on time at 6.40 am, we had a pickup in Chepstow and one at Aust services and then we were on our way. By 1.00pm we were at Dover waiting for our 3.15pm sailing and believe me there is nothing much to do at Dover Coach Interchange but we sat outside watching the gulls and it in all fairness it did break up the journey.
With the extra hour added and following a pleasant ferry trip we disboarded at 5.45pm - back on schedule, everything went well until we reached CDG area of Paris where a road traffic accident had brought the roads to almost a standstill. As time went on it became obvious we weren't going to arrive at DLRP mid evening.
Our eventual arrival time at Sequoia Lodge was 10.50pm, exhausted we checked in, I had decided there was no way I was wandering around in the wilderness looking for a lodge and that I'd pay for an upgrade, but Pedro explained he didn't have anything available - the hotel was fully booked, not just due to the Press Event, but also because a massive conference was being held at the resort, but he reassured me that the lodge was easy to find and within easy walking distance - he was right - No.103 Yellowstone Lodge, out of Reception, walk to the right and it was the first lodge we'd see and our room was the 2nd one in. Phew!
Amazingly the card key worked too, things are looking up ! - the boys loved the hotel and the room I then remembered about the GMF's I'd requested and set off back to Reception, Elaine who had sent me the lovely email, telling me she would sort it hadn't, Pedro didn't know Elaine but he did get me a GMF for Saturday - he was in fact a very lovely helpful lad. It was approaching midnight but the boys wanted to see the lake so we went for a wander, but even the village was quiet, back to the room and after unpacking I hit the sack at ten past one, I tried to console myself with the thought that in actual fact it was only 12.10am as I requested a Wake up call for 7.00am.
Day Two - Friday 30th March - Just how much could we accomplish ?
At 7.00 am on the dot the phone rang and a cheery Goofy after first apologising for disturbing us, (well me actually I had to ask him to ring back twice more before the kids woke) reminded us that we had a busy day ahead. If you've not done this I'd highly recommend it, there's no charge, just press "Wake-Up Call" on the room telephone and key in your time choice. Even if your kids don't wake up it'll put you in a good Disney mood to start the day. We strolled down for breakfast at 8.30am our official slot was 8.45am but it wasn't a problem, at Sequoia, they have 2 queue lines, one for those on time, and one for those outside their official time slot. In the large lobby area between Hunters Grill and Beaver Creek tavern, breakfast facilities had been set up for those attending the conference. We took our breakfast in the Hunters Grill and were escorted to a table by a CM, I've not had that at breakfast before, Jamie and I filled up - Liam refused to eat, saying he wasn't hungry and even my threats that I wasn't buying anything else until lunchtime, wouldn't get him to eat.
Leaving the hotel the sky now looked a bit overcast we'd left our coats in the room, deciding it would brighten up as promised by Metcheck on Thursday morning. We fed the ducks with the 2 rolls pinched from the breakfast buffet and at the Disney Store in the Village we joined the long queue of other optimists purchasing bright yellow Disney ponchos!
Forgot to say Panoramagique has had a make-over for the celebrations and the entire area around the lake was being steam-cleaned.
Now the only thing about the ponchos is
a) everybody looks the same
b) you can't hear anything and they severely limit your visibility too
as a result of which you become absolutely paranoid about losing your kids or is that just me ?
I just had to take a photo of this guy, you know the song "We're painting the roses red, not pink not green, not aquamarine...."
well this fella is spraypainting the elephants ears black and further down there's another one painting the hippos "fingers" white, but I couldn't get a photo of that because I was embaressing the kids.
There is no doubt that they were pulling out all the stops to make the press
event an enormous success. The gardens were full of empty flower pots on Friday as in the picture on Saturday morning they were all immaculately filled with new blooms. Anyway you know the drill, through the turnstiles, grab a map and you're there and it's that music that gets me every time, I just need a couple of seconds to adjust and I'm in full Disney mode.
There was a stadium type thing set up at the bottom of Main Street, in preparation for the 31st but once we got around that this was our view down Main Street.
The number 15 on the castle seems to remain illuminated all day as do the Blue and White LED's in the banners
very pretty, I do have some better photos of the banners, I'll post up later on. The Christmas Princess decorations on top of the lamposts have been replaced with golden orbs too.
We headed straight for Buzz, as we've not ridden it before, got to Discoveryland for rope drop and straight onto Buzz twice, it is a fantastic attraction, we're all addicted to it, although my scores didn't come anywhere near the boys' ones. After 2 goes a queue was starting to form so we decided to get Fastpasses and come back later and I have a confession to make, you know how a while ago we talked about using old tickets to get FP's well I took 3 of ours from last year, and no alarms went off and I didn't get a tap on the shoulder and an escort out of the park, but I did feel a bit naughty doing it
Then it was over to the Nautilus - Liam loves this, I swear he would sit there all day watching that squid and then Autopia, where I made a complete fool of myself, I had boots on with several buckels up the leg and that ruddy big Poncho which meant when I was getting out I couldn't see that the seatbelt had somehow attached itself to my boot, down like a sack of spuds I went. Jamie along with other riders and CM's was most concerned and helped me back up whilst Liam almost wet himself
, in fact he burst into giggles everytime he looked me in the eye after that and naturally for the rest of the day I had to put up with "Do you need hand out of the boat, mam?" and "Watch you don't fall!" - they love me really. 
Anyway we made a quick exit out of Autopia and back to help Buzz Lightyear save the galaxy and after we'd used our 2nd FP ride we came off and a very kind lady outside offered us her FP's, now I was in a quandary, I'd already
told the boys to take off their hats for fear of being recognised going through the FP entrance so soon after the first time. Jamie suggested we look around first for some false beards, I think he was just being facetious and we did make it through for a third time without a hitch.
We decided on the very busy Casey's Corner for the hotdogs I've heard so much about for lunch, just as we got there the Character Express train was coming up Main Street, so we stood and watched it pass.
Then into Casey's and everyone agreed they are definately the best hotdogs in the park, although Liam only managed half of his. (In case you're wondering I cancelled our Walt's reservation with DS not eating and them not serving the slipper anymore it seemed a bit of a waste of money really.) Maybe next time.
I'll carry on with this tomorrow right now I need to go to bed
I was a bit dubious about the coach travel, but courtesy of Tesco's Clubcard deals it was too good a deal to miss.
Our coach left Cwmbran in South Wales, our local departure point bang on time at 6.40 am, we had a pickup in Chepstow and one at Aust services and then we were on our way. By 1.00pm we were at Dover waiting for our 3.15pm sailing and believe me there is nothing much to do at Dover Coach Interchange but we sat outside watching the gulls and it in all fairness it did break up the journey.
With the extra hour added and following a pleasant ferry trip we disboarded at 5.45pm - back on schedule, everything went well until we reached CDG area of Paris where a road traffic accident had brought the roads to almost a standstill. As time went on it became obvious we weren't going to arrive at DLRP mid evening.
Our eventual arrival time at Sequoia Lodge was 10.50pm, exhausted we checked in, I had decided there was no way I was wandering around in the wilderness looking for a lodge and that I'd pay for an upgrade, but Pedro explained he didn't have anything available - the hotel was fully booked, not just due to the Press Event, but also because a massive conference was being held at the resort, but he reassured me that the lodge was easy to find and within easy walking distance - he was right - No.103 Yellowstone Lodge, out of Reception, walk to the right and it was the first lodge we'd see and our room was the 2nd one in. Phew!
Amazingly the card key worked too, things are looking up ! - the boys loved the hotel and the room I then remembered about the GMF's I'd requested and set off back to Reception, Elaine who had sent me the lovely email, telling me she would sort it hadn't, Pedro didn't know Elaine but he did get me a GMF for Saturday - he was in fact a very lovely helpful lad. It was approaching midnight but the boys wanted to see the lake so we went for a wander, but even the village was quiet, back to the room and after unpacking I hit the sack at ten past one, I tried to console myself with the thought that in actual fact it was only 12.10am as I requested a Wake up call for 7.00am.
Day Two - Friday 30th March - Just how much could we accomplish ?
At 7.00 am on the dot the phone rang and a cheery Goofy after first apologising for disturbing us, (well me actually I had to ask him to ring back twice more before the kids woke) reminded us that we had a busy day ahead. If you've not done this I'd highly recommend it, there's no charge, just press "Wake-Up Call" on the room telephone and key in your time choice. Even if your kids don't wake up it'll put you in a good Disney mood to start the day. We strolled down for breakfast at 8.30am our official slot was 8.45am but it wasn't a problem, at Sequoia, they have 2 queue lines, one for those on time, and one for those outside their official time slot. In the large lobby area between Hunters Grill and Beaver Creek tavern, breakfast facilities had been set up for those attending the conference. We took our breakfast in the Hunters Grill and were escorted to a table by a CM, I've not had that at breakfast before, Jamie and I filled up - Liam refused to eat, saying he wasn't hungry and even my threats that I wasn't buying anything else until lunchtime, wouldn't get him to eat.
Leaving the hotel the sky now looked a bit overcast we'd left our coats in the room, deciding it would brighten up as promised by Metcheck on Thursday morning. We fed the ducks with the 2 rolls pinched from the breakfast buffet and at the Disney Store in the Village we joined the long queue of other optimists purchasing bright yellow Disney ponchos!
Forgot to say Panoramagique has had a make-over for the celebrations and the entire area around the lake was being steam-cleaned.
Now the only thing about the ponchos is
a) everybody looks the same
b) you can't hear anything and they severely limit your visibility too
as a result of which you become absolutely paranoid about losing your kids or is that just me ?
I just had to take a photo of this guy, you know the song "We're painting the roses red, not pink not green, not aquamarine...."
well this fella is spraypainting the elephants ears black and further down there's another one painting the hippos "fingers" white, but I couldn't get a photo of that because I was embaressing the kids.
There is no doubt that they were pulling out all the stops to make the press
event an enormous success. The gardens were full of empty flower pots on Friday as in the picture on Saturday morning they were all immaculately filled with new blooms. Anyway you know the drill, through the turnstiles, grab a map and you're there and it's that music that gets me every time, I just need a couple of seconds to adjust and I'm in full Disney mode.
There was a stadium type thing set up at the bottom of Main Street, in preparation for the 31st but once we got around that this was our view down Main Street.
The number 15 on the castle seems to remain illuminated all day as do the Blue and White LED's in the banners
very pretty, I do have some better photos of the banners, I'll post up later on. The Christmas Princess decorations on top of the lamposts have been replaced with golden orbs too.
We headed straight for Buzz, as we've not ridden it before, got to Discoveryland for rope drop and straight onto Buzz twice, it is a fantastic attraction, we're all addicted to it, although my scores didn't come anywhere near the boys' ones. After 2 goes a queue was starting to form so we decided to get Fastpasses and come back later and I have a confession to make, you know how a while ago we talked about using old tickets to get FP's well I took 3 of ours from last year, and no alarms went off and I didn't get a tap on the shoulder and an escort out of the park, but I did feel a bit naughty doing it
Then it was over to the Nautilus - Liam loves this, I swear he would sit there all day watching that squid and then Autopia, where I made a complete fool of myself, I had boots on with several buckels up the leg and that ruddy big Poncho which meant when I was getting out I couldn't see that the seatbelt had somehow attached itself to my boot, down like a sack of spuds I went. Jamie along with other riders and CM's was most concerned and helped me back up whilst Liam almost wet himself
, in fact he burst into giggles everytime he looked me in the eye after that and naturally for the rest of the day I had to put up with "Do you need hand out of the boat, mam?" and "Watch you don't fall!" - they love me really. Anyway we made a quick exit out of Autopia and back to help Buzz Lightyear save the galaxy and after we'd used our 2nd FP ride we came off and a very kind lady outside offered us her FP's, now I was in a quandary, I'd already
told the boys to take off their hats for fear of being recognised going through the FP entrance so soon after the first time. Jamie suggested we look around first for some false beards, I think he was just being facetious and we did make it through for a third time without a hitch.
We decided on the very busy Casey's Corner for the hotdogs I've heard so much about for lunch, just as we got there the Character Express train was coming up Main Street, so we stood and watched it pass.
Then into Casey's and everyone agreed they are definately the best hotdogs in the park, although Liam only managed half of his. (In case you're wondering I cancelled our Walt's reservation with DS not eating and them not serving the slipper anymore it seemed a bit of a waste of money really.) Maybe next time.
I'll carry on with this tomorrow right now I need to go to bed
You just used it for the ones you really liked the most...so I guess there was no harm ! I had no idea about that ! 
) am keen to read about your experience at the SL and how it impacted on your disney experience v's the TNB.
I hope you were ok for the rest of the trip 
Although the coach trip was OK, we arrived home 2 and a half hours ahead of schedule, it's a chance you take travelling by road I suppose, if we did it again I would definately choose a break with 3 full days in the park, it seemed hardly worth unpacking.
