Just back from DLRP

[Lolsmum]

We were there Saturday through yesterday with our little family of 4 (me, DH, DS 8 and DD 6) and my BIL, SIL and nephews 5 and 3. We stayed at the Newport Bay. It definitely needs the refurb it is getting, but other than that it wasn't bad. The breakfast and the buffet dinner were both acceptable, though not amazing. We made good use of the early opening for hotel guests and did pretty much all we wanted to. My daughter and I finally crashed the middle of the afternoon on Tuesday, but had a special girls night at the park after dinner, including sitting right in front of the castle for Dreams.

Highs:
Girls night
Meeting Spider-Man. I love him and he was amazing.
Descent of the stairs at the Disneyland Hotel. This was one of the first things we did.

Lows:
It got very crowded by the end.
I really wish the Pause Gourmand had some more savoury or healthy options available.
The character meets still often turn into scrums. Add in the 4 times running we were in the queue only to have the character leave just before we met them and it was pretty frustrating. At least I could keep the kids calm about it by pointing out we can see them in Florida in November. That didn't work for my nephews and we did have tears a few times.

 

[Ware Bears]

Welcome back, glad you had a great time and that the refurbishment of the hotel didn't impact on your stay.

Add in the 4 times running we were in the queue only to have the character leave just before we met them and it was pretty frustrating. At least I could keep the kids calm about it by pointing out we can see them in Florida in November. That didn't work for my nephews and we did have tears a few times.

Do you mean the character changed or do you mean they just left without being replaced?

 

[Disneyfanswicklow]

Welcome back! Sounds like a nice holiday. Pity about the character meets turning into scrums have been hearing such good things about orderly q's etc recently. Lovely that you have another Dis trip to look forward to.

 

[Lolsmum]

Welcome back, glad you had a great time and that the refurbishment of the hotel didn't impact on your stay.
Do you mean the character changed or do you mean they just left without being replaced?

They just left.

It wasn't the major meets like the Princess Pavillion, but other characters you just come across. I grew up going to Disneyland (the original one) so I tend to be really easily irritated by even slightly bad lines for characters.

 

[Ware Bears]

I think this is everyone's number one complaint about DLP, it's a lovely idea to have random characters popping up, in theory, but it just doesn't work in practice - the characters get mobbed and the polite children who queue nicely and wait their turn miss out.

 

[tennisfan]

Welcome back

 

[Lolsmum]

I think this is everyone's number one complaint about DLP, it's a lovely idea to have random characters popping up, in theory, but it just doesn't work in practice - the characters get mobbed and the polite children who queue nicely and wait their turn miss out.

I just don't get why it can't be handled as well as Disneyland handled it when I was a kid.

This trip it was better than in October. We were there for Halloween and the worst offender there actually grabbed my daughter by the head and pushed her back so she and the other adult (no kids) with her could get to the character first. I was so busy trying to get to my daughter and make sure she was OK I could not even begin to deal with that (word I would not generally use in public). The queues were generally orderly,just allowed to get much longer than the time the characters had.

 

[jothp]

I just don't get why it can't be handled as well as Disneyland handled it when I was a kid.

This trip it was better than in October. We were there for Halloween and the worst offender there actually grabbed my daughter by the head and pushed her back so she and the other adult (no kids) with her could get to the character first. I was so busy trying to get to my daughter and make sure she was OK I could not even begin to deal with that (word I would not generally use in public). The queues were generally orderly,just allowed to get much longer than the time the characters had.

That is terrible, grown adults really should know better.
glad you had a good trip overall.