Just back yesterday.... highs and lows, 4 days at DLH, mini trip report

[anthony2k7]

Hi, haven't posted much here in ages, but just back from a DLRP trip so thought I'd do a highs/lows and answer and Q's.

So, this was a 3 night stay arrived sunday 5th to 8th, saying for our first stay in the DLH. So we've now stayed at SF, CH, HNY, SL - just NPC to try one day!

Lets start with lows:

Travel worries - two terror attacks in France and a whole lot of protests/migrant trouble we were worried! Thankfully by some amazing luck the ports were open, Operation stack had cleared, so the M20 was clear allowing us to get to the Ashford premier inn at Europa park hotel with no hassle. Infact, never seen the M20 so empty!. Our usual hotel at Ashford central was fully booked for some reason. Europa park turned out to be almost as close and generally fine.

We love Billy Bobs bar, so were disappointed and confused to see no band on the sunday night, and the calendar outside seemed to suggest only live music on saturdays - incorrectly though! See highs.

Smoking in the parks - not as bad as our last trip two years ago, but the French definitely still smoke a lot more than Brits do, and they do not care about lighting up in ride queues and making everyone else in the queue share their habit.

Ride closures - they seem to be having quite a lot of down time. BTM down most of the first day. Crush was very late opening on the day we were in WDS, which luckily opened just before we walked back by it so managed to get in on a 30 minute queue, then just as we got to the the last segment of the queue it went down again! CM's looked very very frustrated as if its happened a lot recently. Thankfully the evac and restart time on Crush seems to only be about 20 mins? - maybe from the amount of times they've practiced this with Crush!?

Space mountain - I knew it was going to be down and was hoping to see it testing. Finally on the last day they did begin testing it - but no sign of the cannon launch effect. Last saw this working maybe back in 2007 and had read that they plan to fix it in this refurb so was optimistic I'd get to see it again. Hope thats not a sign that they can't get it working within this refurb window?

Standardised cocktail menus - Its been heading that way for a while, but now all bars and restaurants seem to offer the exact same cocktail list, just with varying prices! I wished I'd took photos of the menus as cant remember for sure, but as a rough example, cocktails in Billy Bobs were almost half the prices for the exact same drinks in Cafe Fantasia in DLH. The only exception was Blue Lagoon where the drinks menu now only has two cocktails, Blue glowtini and some other I think martini drink. I had to ask the waiter is that all they did? He said there were 3 others, unique to BL but not listed on a menu anywhere other than at the entrance to the restaurant! Crazy.

Amount of closures - Half of discovery land is currently closed and a lot of adventureland as well. Not really an issue for us as we've been there and done all of it several times before but anyone on a first trip will surely notice and be disappointed.

And now the highs!:

The weather - it was almost like being in WDW! 8th was quite a lot cooler and we did not really dress appropriately and of course our bags had been whisked away by Disney express before we realised. Never mind it wasnt so bad.

Crowds - I'd read some where that French kids would already have broken up so was expecting the parks to be crowded. Not so! Sun-Tuesday the crowd levels were perfect! Most rides were 20 to 40 minute waits.

Billy Bobs - We absolutely love this place. Gutted first night to see no live band so started making plans for other adult Disney fun on the remaining nights. Monday night we planned on a hotel bar hopping around the lake - but on the way through disney village we heard live music so were very pleased to wonder into the bar to see the Billy Bobs Band still there. I have absolutely no idea why the place rarely seems to get busy. In the parks you see so many young couples so would expect this to be an obvious destination for them but no! Such an awesome venue and the Billy Bobs Band are ridiculously good. Cannot recommend this place enough! The confusing sign about live music calendar is probably not helping the place. Now with free wifi! .....

Wifi - not seen this mentioned recently. Wifi now appears available in all hotels, but only public areas apparently for CH and SF. However, it also now appears available in most of the village! No need to go hang out in Mcdonalds or starbucks. Crush's coaster also has its own wifi and game for the queue area now, although signal quality was bad.

Gardens - 2 years ago we were quite disappointed at the state of the hedges and general gardens. Everything looks much better now.

Premium meal plan - last trip was SL so only Plus meal plan which had quite restrictive menus everywhere. Premium works much better with Walts and Blue Lagoon offering extensive menus for Premium guests. Cali Grill is still quite restrictive, but understandable considering the cost of some items on the full menu.

Disney deal with Lanson - Disney have done a deal with Lanson to offer a beautifully Disney/Lanson branded bottled and unique flavoured champagne. Its actually very nice, not as dry as Lanson Black and not badly priced either.

DLH - Ok its no GF, but its the best DLP has got to offer and its definitely very beautiful.

Ant man preview - Looks a fairly average Marvel film, but quite cool to see the preview in full 4D. Shame it was filmed in English, dubbed in French and then overlaid English subtitles though!

Other observations
Americans - I was a little surprised how many Americans were visiting. Far more than any of our previous trips. Seemed almost as many American accents around as there were British accents!

Restaurants - We ate at Walts, Blue Lagoon and Cali Grill. All of them were maybe only half full. No wonder Disney is playing around with restaurant opening times. I dont understand why people pay the fairly high price for a trip, but then only want to eat at a CS restaurant.

Parade/Entertainment cost cutting - Not really noticed it before, but this time we noticed how there are much fewer CM's in the parades these days. In years gone by there would be lots of dancers as well as several characters in between each float, now its just a couple of characters and the ones on the floats. Very few dancers. Thats on top of all the ones that are gone with no night time parade anymore. Bit disappointing really.

 

[BagOLaughs]

Thanks for the updates its always nice to read these and I'm glad you had a good time.

Smoking in the parks - not as bad as our last trip two years ago, but the French definitely still smoke a lot more than Brits do, and they do not care about lighting up in ride queues and making everyone else in the queue share their habit.

This does bug me too. I'm not one of these people that harps on about smokers, calls them "disgusting" or "horrid people" and makes a big scene about it but its not very nice for the other people in the queue as you can't get away from the smell. Good it hear its better but there's still some way to go.

Crowds - I'd read some where that French kids would already have broken up so was expecting the parks to be crowded. Not so! Sun-Tuesday the crowd levels were perfect! Most rides were 20 to 40 minute waits.

Lovely weather and low crowds you were very lucky! Did you use the pool in the Disneyland Hotel??

 

[dhidra]

thanks for the report!
I agree with you about the restaurants....so many people come home saying the food is rubbish but there are some great restaurants there if you do your research!

 

[DLPdaft]

thanks for your mini trip report, interesting to hear the nice low crowd levels even in July.

Restaurants - We ate at Walts, Blue Lagoon and Cali Grill. All of them were maybe only half full. No wonder Disney is playing around with restaurant opening times. I dont understand why people pay the fairly high price for a trip, but then only want to eat at a CS restaurant.

I do understand why on this point for some - I love being at DLP, and yes, it costs quite a bit to get there and stay onsite. For me, I'll spend the money to get there, but I won't spend a lot of money while I'm there on table service meals in the high-end restaurants, because I'm not a foodie, and I travel with usually at least one very fussy child. Food is fuel really when I'm at DLP for a few days, if we want to relax over a meal we'll do table service, but often its Annettes, or maybe Planet Hollywood with a voucher.