sambycat
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2007
- Messages
- 3,483
Hello! Thought I would share a few tidbits from our first visit to DLP/Paris - we just returned yesterday evening (so basically its 745am here in Texas and I feel like I have missed like 4 meals of cheese and macarons!)
So, first stay and visit at DLP. My husband is CM with the disney store, so we were able to find a CM discount for a stay at Hotel Cheyenne that was room only (although my made the reservations, I can't recall exactly what the price was, it was a cheaper then online where it is all room and tickets, so I can't recall at the moment if it was really any kind of big discount). Also, I am vegetarian so that affected my concerns about what I would be able to eat.
We left Texas a week ago yesterday. We booked a shuttle with EZ shuttle to pick us up at the airport. We also decided to do a wifi hotspot rental for our phone/internet needs. We had to pick up the wifi as we left the airport, and although we had carried on our luggage, it still took about an hour to get out to meet the driver. Thankfully he waited, but it seemed like he was on the verge of leaving because they weren't sure what happened to us? The drive was a god decision and easy and affordable, but my advice would be immediately check your phone or email, because EZ shuttle had indeed emailed us wondering where we were? I had told them we would not really have a phone, just wifi (which is why i wanted to pick up the wifi in the airport rather than have it delivered to the hotel at DLP), but in trying to find things and get to the driver, it was only after we were in the car that i had a chance to sit down and connect and see that they were trying to contact us. We would definitely use EZ shuttle again, especially now we understand the process better and how the airport is laid out, there are 3 of us and I believe it was 70E and we were gonna tip 5E and I think I threw in another 10E because we were freaked out about being late and almost missing it and all that. The driver was great, it was an easy drive and he took us door to door.
Our room was not ready yet (we didn't expect it to be of course at 11am!), but we checked in, checked out bags with luggage services and walked on to the parks. I will cover the room here though, we returned after our dinner that night and were so pleased and received to find we had gotten an updated/refurbed room in Annie Oakly. It was wonderful! Very clean, very updated, more space then I expected for 3 adults (DH, DS22 and moi) and the beds were comfortable. We were a little confused by the 3rd bed, as it looks like a couch but we figured out the bed had a trundle and DS used that. I am sure you can just uncover the "couch" looking bed, but I am a weirdo that freaks out in a totally crazy from with many people so having everything ripped up would freak me out and the trundle made it easy! The only thing we couldn't figure out was if there were more than the 2 pillows on our bed in the room - I ended up calling room service and they brought us 3 ore pillows. We all slept well. There is some sort of air system, it was cool while
we were there so we were comfortable. There was a hairdryer, toiletries and lots of plugs and USB outlets.
We received a 7am breakfast assignment - I wasn't sure we would get breakfast as we had a CM rate - and it was great. Basically it is self serve breads/croissants with nutella, jam, cheese and butter, cereal and milk options, apple sauce, some fruit cocktail and weirdly something that seemed like salsa and a thing of smashed garlic? Along with lunch meats. and a weird bowl of something called queso blanc that was like between yogurt and cheese? Typical continental breakfast items I would say. And they there are drink stations with coffee, tea, cappuccino, milk and juice and such. We always went (we were there 3 nights) right at 7, had no troubles, it was bustling but not crazy.
So we visited the parks Friday - Sunday. Crowds were ok, we used EMH every morning, they were helpful, and we were able to do almost everything that was open. No problems with language (I speak high school french, we got along very easily, people we're very nice). The parks are different then the american parks,obviously, but we had heard a mix of things from friends and online that were sort of both good and bad. We found it marvelous, a great experience of seeing new gates and having that new feeling. The castle and the garden areas are amazing, the park was in good condition. We most often hear that the parks are dirty or in need of maintenance and I will say this - as a frequent WDW visitor, i can say that WDW is not maintained to the standards it was 5 years ago, so i didn't find DLP that different from how WDW is these days. Bathrooms were a little raggedy, but mostly in the sense like tons of people had been through and waste baskets need emptying, that kind of thing and i see that all over WDW these days.
We made 3 ADRS during our visit, Chez Remy, Blue Lagoon and Walts. I loved the whole feeling of Rimy and that was my favorite, food was fair. Family liked their food enough, they were freaked out by the salad which had a sesame dressing and they both felt the salad was weird and crazy and i didn't get that out of it at all. Walt's was overpriced and probably the poorest meal overall, but we wanted to try it and although I didn't think the Blue lagoon was that great, DH and DS said it was their favorite meal and loved it!!! We grabbed QS things here and there to try, but basically, due to the time change, we would have the included breakfast, we had our "dinner" at 4-5 in the parks and we would pick up Earl of Sandwich of the wan back to our room!
Also, as the wino of the family, I would like to say here that I envisioned wine available everywhere and it wasn't in the parks and I was disappointed. Ha! It was available at all the sit downs, and it seemed like the counter services had beer, but no wine. So boo to that.
When we left, we bought Navigo cards at the Chessy station and used those to take the RER back to Paris and on the rest of our trip. My husband was not confident at all about the train/metro station, but we really did well.
We had an amazing trip. This was our first to France, my DH, DS had never been to Europe before. I think we made a good choice to go to DLP and stay there first, gave us a bit of a familiar bubble before hitting Paris proper hard. It was colder than I expected. There was way less merchandise then we expected, I thought we would be swimming in souvenirs, but the vast majority of things in the parks and DV were disney store items. I had hoped for some kind of DLP specific march we would like, but we just got pins really. There were some cute (but expensive) DLP things that looked to be a merger of designers with disney themes, but 1X was the largest size I saw and they were quite snug on me. The Disney Village thing is nice, but we didn't partake of much. The walk from our hotel was easy, we didn't seek out the bus (would be far for someone with mobility issues). No where near the scooters or strollers as in WDW, most quests have stairs and steps involved. As a CM, we had to go to GS every morning and get tickets printed for each day (can't use the main gate pass itself there). Our longest wait was maybe 30" at peak times for Ratatouille and Phantom Manor.
We went on to Paris for the rest of the week and had an amazing time. I'm ready to plan my next trip!!!! If I can easily post pics from my phone I will, of course we took food pictures.
So, first stay and visit at DLP. My husband is CM with the disney store, so we were able to find a CM discount for a stay at Hotel Cheyenne that was room only (although my made the reservations, I can't recall exactly what the price was, it was a cheaper then online where it is all room and tickets, so I can't recall at the moment if it was really any kind of big discount). Also, I am vegetarian so that affected my concerns about what I would be able to eat.
We left Texas a week ago yesterday. We booked a shuttle with EZ shuttle to pick us up at the airport. We also decided to do a wifi hotspot rental for our phone/internet needs. We had to pick up the wifi as we left the airport, and although we had carried on our luggage, it still took about an hour to get out to meet the driver. Thankfully he waited, but it seemed like he was on the verge of leaving because they weren't sure what happened to us? The drive was a god decision and easy and affordable, but my advice would be immediately check your phone or email, because EZ shuttle had indeed emailed us wondering where we were? I had told them we would not really have a phone, just wifi (which is why i wanted to pick up the wifi in the airport rather than have it delivered to the hotel at DLP), but in trying to find things and get to the driver, it was only after we were in the car that i had a chance to sit down and connect and see that they were trying to contact us. We would definitely use EZ shuttle again, especially now we understand the process better and how the airport is laid out, there are 3 of us and I believe it was 70E and we were gonna tip 5E and I think I threw in another 10E because we were freaked out about being late and almost missing it and all that. The driver was great, it was an easy drive and he took us door to door.
Our room was not ready yet (we didn't expect it to be of course at 11am!), but we checked in, checked out bags with luggage services and walked on to the parks. I will cover the room here though, we returned after our dinner that night and were so pleased and received to find we had gotten an updated/refurbed room in Annie Oakly. It was wonderful! Very clean, very updated, more space then I expected for 3 adults (DH, DS22 and moi) and the beds were comfortable. We were a little confused by the 3rd bed, as it looks like a couch but we figured out the bed had a trundle and DS used that. I am sure you can just uncover the "couch" looking bed, but I am a weirdo that freaks out in a totally crazy from with many people so having everything ripped up would freak me out and the trundle made it easy! The only thing we couldn't figure out was if there were more than the 2 pillows on our bed in the room - I ended up calling room service and they brought us 3 ore pillows. We all slept well. There is some sort of air system, it was cool while
we were there so we were comfortable. There was a hairdryer, toiletries and lots of plugs and USB outlets.
We received a 7am breakfast assignment - I wasn't sure we would get breakfast as we had a CM rate - and it was great. Basically it is self serve breads/croissants with nutella, jam, cheese and butter, cereal and milk options, apple sauce, some fruit cocktail and weirdly something that seemed like salsa and a thing of smashed garlic? Along with lunch meats. and a weird bowl of something called queso blanc that was like between yogurt and cheese? Typical continental breakfast items I would say. And they there are drink stations with coffee, tea, cappuccino, milk and juice and such. We always went (we were there 3 nights) right at 7, had no troubles, it was bustling but not crazy.
So we visited the parks Friday - Sunday. Crowds were ok, we used EMH every morning, they were helpful, and we were able to do almost everything that was open. No problems with language (I speak high school french, we got along very easily, people we're very nice). The parks are different then the american parks,obviously, but we had heard a mix of things from friends and online that were sort of both good and bad. We found it marvelous, a great experience of seeing new gates and having that new feeling. The castle and the garden areas are amazing, the park was in good condition. We most often hear that the parks are dirty or in need of maintenance and I will say this - as a frequent WDW visitor, i can say that WDW is not maintained to the standards it was 5 years ago, so i didn't find DLP that different from how WDW is these days. Bathrooms were a little raggedy, but mostly in the sense like tons of people had been through and waste baskets need emptying, that kind of thing and i see that all over WDW these days.
We made 3 ADRS during our visit, Chez Remy, Blue Lagoon and Walts. I loved the whole feeling of Rimy and that was my favorite, food was fair. Family liked their food enough, they were freaked out by the salad which had a sesame dressing and they both felt the salad was weird and crazy and i didn't get that out of it at all. Walt's was overpriced and probably the poorest meal overall, but we wanted to try it and although I didn't think the Blue lagoon was that great, DH and DS said it was their favorite meal and loved it!!! We grabbed QS things here and there to try, but basically, due to the time change, we would have the included breakfast, we had our "dinner" at 4-5 in the parks and we would pick up Earl of Sandwich of the wan back to our room!
Also, as the wino of the family, I would like to say here that I envisioned wine available everywhere and it wasn't in the parks and I was disappointed. Ha! It was available at all the sit downs, and it seemed like the counter services had beer, but no wine. So boo to that.
When we left, we bought Navigo cards at the Chessy station and used those to take the RER back to Paris and on the rest of our trip. My husband was not confident at all about the train/metro station, but we really did well.
We had an amazing trip. This was our first to France, my DH, DS had never been to Europe before. I think we made a good choice to go to DLP and stay there first, gave us a bit of a familiar bubble before hitting Paris proper hard. It was colder than I expected. There was way less merchandise then we expected, I thought we would be swimming in souvenirs, but the vast majority of things in the parks and DV were disney store items. I had hoped for some kind of DLP specific march we would like, but we just got pins really. There were some cute (but expensive) DLP things that looked to be a merger of designers with disney themes, but 1X was the largest size I saw and they were quite snug on me. The Disney Village thing is nice, but we didn't partake of much. The walk from our hotel was easy, we didn't seek out the bus (would be far for someone with mobility issues). No where near the scooters or strollers as in WDW, most quests have stairs and steps involved. As a CM, we had to go to GS every morning and get tickets printed for each day (can't use the main gate pass itself there). Our longest wait was maybe 30" at peak times for Ratatouille and Phantom Manor.
We went on to Paris for the rest of the week and had an amazing time. I'm ready to plan my next trip!!!! If I can easily post pics from my phone I will, of course we took food pictures.
