March 31-April 1 2007: Trip report and dining review with pics

[SandraVB79]

Cast:

- Me, Sandra, 27, and completely Disney-obsessed
- My oldest brother, Michaël, 24, likes Disney but not as much as I


Dining reviews: Posts 9, 10 and 11

 

[SandraVB79]

Some time ago (like 3 months ago), my brother and I had said that we were going to DLP during the weekend of April 1, to be there for the launch of the 15th Anniversary Celebration and for the “Unveiling of the Chateau”. Three weeks ago or so, I finally made reservations for the hotel, we were going by car and would by APs.
So far so good, plans are looking OK till now! Oh, wait… at some point, Shareholder’s club warned me I better not go on March 31 because of the huge press event, large parts of the parks being closed for the public and the event being a private thing for the press etc (and thrust me, I did put money on Disney’s offshore account, it didn’t help in getting an invitation ). Oops, my excitement is already a little less, but I decide to not say a thing to my brother, and just go and see for ourselves.

Thursday, March 29. On March 30, we have to hand in a proposal for a Belgian government (we = the consulting firm I work for), and I have the end responsibility for it. Not only is there still a lot of work on the proposal, there is also an event going on that I have to attend. In short: Friday morning at 3.15, I leave work, being in my bed at home by 4.30 am and my alarm clock went off at 6. At 8.05 I am back at work, do what I still have to do for the proposal document and hand it in. Around 1 pm, I am back home, and thrust me, I don’t feel the slightest bit human anymore. And the day after… I have to drive all the way to Paris!
I nap in the afternoon, but don’t manage to finish packing early. By 11.30 pm, I am finally in my bed…

 

[SandraVB79]

5.45 am: my alarm clock awakes me while I am somewhere far away in the galaxy. I had told my brother I wanted to leave at 6.30, 7 at the latest!. At 7 am, I am still eating breakfast in my PJs, oops! By 7.30, we are finally in the car and driving. After a 4 hour drive through heavy fog, rain, sunshine and the “banlieus” of Paris (thank you GPS for not showing me the right way to the Francilienne), we take exit 14 on the freeway, and all of a sudden, the ugly North-French roads look very Floridian to me. WE ARRIVED ON DISNEY PROPERTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I follow the signs to the parking lot, pay the parking, and drive all the way to the front of the parking. It seems that we are virtually alone in the park, yeah! Or at least, there are not that many cars.

We park, get out, take our stuff, walk the walk, buy the temporary year passes (Dream for me, Fantasy for M) and then head over to Le Salon Mickey, where we enjoy a drink, a pain au chocolat and a croissant. And then we continue through the “secret door” (yeah, right) into the park. YEAH, WE ARE IN DISNEYLAND!!!!!!!!!!

 

[SandraVB79]

And indeed, there’s a lot of press in the park, though I really doubt there are 8000 of them. On the time planning, we see the parade is at 2.45, Frontier- and Adventureland close at 7 pm, the park closes at 8 and at 8.40 we are invited to watch something followed by fireworks on Main Street. Especially this last part confused me because I was told earlier on that the fireworks and show would be a private party. Anyway, it was still way too early to worry about all that. Let’s go in the park! Oh… euhm… I didn’t write down what we did at what time. Sorry.
I can tell you we went for the first time ever on Autopia. It has always been closed when we were there, but now it was up and running, so I just had to go on it. We squeezed into one very pink car, and drove through… basically nothing… Too bad they didn’t put more “things” in there, like a futuristic version of Storybookland or so… Now that would be cool! After Autopia, we got I line for Buzz Lightyear, but at some point the line stopped moving, and we got out of the line. I think we then went to Fantasyland where we did some rides (like Snow White and the Carrousel) and headed over to Adventureland for Indiana Jones. Which was down. By that time, we were hungry. First thought was Colonel Hathi’s place (or however it’s called) but then I remembered someone on the board here mentioned Pizzeria Bella Notte was good, so we walked all the way back to Fantasyland. You want to read and see what we ate? Check the dining review!!!

 

[SandraVB79]

Around 2 pm we went in front of the castle, because I wanted a good view of the parade. I kept waiting, my brother went looking through stores. A little later than planned, the parade started with a pre-parade.

A “car” with the Fab Five drove along the parade route, there was marching band and there were a couple of hundred of guests (I think) with all the same blue cap and jacket and yellow scarf that were holding balloons. 15 of them had very big balloons numbered from 1 tot 15.

(I couldn’t help it, but I had to think about FlowerChild when I saw this. I am getting really pathetic )

On the center stage, lots of other characters came up and danced and I have no clue as to what happened for the press on Main Street, but at some point the balloons all went up and the released even more balloons from the castle. A little later, the real parade started.
For those who can’t stand some critic on Disney, skip this paragraph. Yes, it’s a new parade, and yes, I’m quite happy to not see the same old parade again. However… it didn’t really seem new to me. Lion King float? Looked a lot like the one in the Parade of Dreams (Disneyland). Princesse float and the flower girls? They reminded me of the princesse in the Share a Dream Come True parade (WDW-MK) Pinocchio? About the same as in Parade of Dreams (with the bungee-artists). Mary Poppins and Toy Story? Out of the parade at Disney Studios in Paris. I really had a “seen it already” feeling. Also, to me, every float had some music, but it didn’t seem like there was an overall “theme” in the music. A nice novelty was the smell. Every float “smells”. Some better than others, and I really feel sorry for those along the Villains float during the stop!

ETA: Don't know why the picture doesn't want to show up after correcting a smilie-mistake

 

[SandraVB79]

I don’t remember very well what we exactly did after the parade. At some point we saw the “train with characters”. A train filled with characters drives through Main Street and then if you like to fight, you can fight for your right to have a picture with a character on the plaza in front of the castle. We also did some shopping and some rides, we went on Pirates, some other rides and iasw. After iasw, it was about 7.40 pm, and they were already chasing the people out of Fantasyland through Discoveryland towards Main Street.

I was somewhat worried that they would chase us out of the park to view the fireworks from Fantasia Gardens or so, and my idea was “as long as we’re IN the park, we’re not out”, so we went in line for Buzz Lightyear. I think they closed the line about 10 persons after us. By the time we got off the ride, Main Street was completely closed off, and whether we wanted it or not, we had to stay in front of Plaza Restaurant or around the entrance of Discoveryland.

Which was very good, because after waiting a long time in the cold, we had a rather great view of what was happening on stage and had the most wonderful view of the fireworks. With nobody around us! I think we were only 15 people who were standing there, so no pushing, no pulling, no one in front of you… Lovely!
What I didn’t understand was why they ask someone to come sing non-Disney songs. I mean, there are so many nice Disney-songs, then why sing a song that is called “a Bad Day” on such a lovely day???

 

[SandraVB79]

After the fireworks, it was very easy to exit the park, no masses of people to along Main Street, and we decided to not go to the car first (to put other shoes on) but to directly go to Café Mickey and see if they could still seat us. At 9.30 pm or so, we arrived at Café Mickey, and they could seat us at 10.15, which was fine for us. We went shopping until our table was ready, and you can read in the dining report what we ate.

After dinner, we went back to the car, and the search for our hotel began. We stayed off-site *gasp* I know, *gasp* off-site. At the Best Western Marne-le-Vallée. IMO, the room/ hotel was of a “quality” equal to Hotel New York, and we paid a whopping 60 EUR for the night. To me, the “Disney Magic” in the hotels means that you have a boutique in the hotel where you can spend even more money, so I didn’t miss any Disney magic while staying at my wonderful off-site hotel! For that difference in price, they will see me again very soon (on April 12, as a matter of fact, I had already made reservations for our 3-night stay then).

Note: I did book the hotel through hotels.com. During my next stay, it’s 80 EUR for the room. And rack rate is even way more than that. But that’s why I never pay rack rate!

 

[SandraVB79]

We didn’t book a room with breakfast (which I will do in the future) so after the morning shower and checking out, we went back to the DLP-parking lot and headed once again to Le Salon Mickey for breakfast. I really love this feature 
Although it had rained the day before, this Sunday it was lovely weather. And there was a not so lovely huge crowd! Today we used our first (and only) Fastpass for Big Thunder Mountain. We did some rides, went shopping, saw the parade, experienced some problems with the parade, and had lunch at the Blue Lagoon. Once again, go see the dining review to read about this! After some more rides and an ice cream (45 minutes waiting to get the ice cream! And there were only 7 people in front of us!) we saw Bougillumination (or however they call it) Although it’s a very nice show, it’s not something that should be done when it’s not dark! I am sure many people didn’t see the candles that were lit because of the sun (it’s good that I knew what was happening or I wouldn’t have seen it either!) nor Tinkerbell’s golden pixie dust. Pixiedust: But it’s a very nice show, and I bought the CD with the music. After Bougillumination, we left the park, back to the car and back at home I didn’t really feel like leaving, but I knew I had still more than a 3-hour drive ahead… Although it’s cheap to go by car, it’s more comfortable to go by train. It was hard to keep concentrated on the road while driving back, because I was very tired. I must say that I was glad by the time we got home at 11.15 PM!

 

[SandraVB79]

I had the pizza with ham and mushrooms, and it was good as far as frozen pizza can be good. I don’t mean it was cold, and I liked it a lot. At home I always eat those frozen pizzas. It just wasn’t pizza hut or real Italian pizza. But for that price, it was a very decent meal.

My brother had the pasta Napolitana. It was good, but he didn’t like it, because it wasn’t what he thought it would be. What did he think it was going to be? I eman, it’s counter service, it’s penne pasta with napolitana sauce. And it was warm.

The paper thing on the tray, I liked it a lot!

 

[SandraVB79]

We both decided to take the menu. I had Tinkerbell’s Tantalizing Tart as appetizer. It’s puff pastry with tomato, mozzarella and goat cheese and lots of rucola with some vinaigrette dressing on top. It was delicious!

M. had Pocahontas’ mushroom soup.

Bread (there were 4 to begin with):

We both had Pinocchio’s Pasta as main course. It was great, but way too much! I couldn’t finish it, and neither could my brother.

After the pasta, we asked if we could pay the appetizer and entree à la carte, because neither of us could eat dessert anymore.

During dinner, characters walked around the restaurant, but for some reason, they kinda ignored us. It can’t be because we were two adults, they did interact with the two adults at the table next to ours. I guess we were both wearing our invisible suit. At some point, I did what you aren’t supposed to do, and I jumped up and grabbed Mickey to have a picture with THE mouse. Sorry Mickey.

 

[SandraVB79]

Day 2 lunch – Blue Lagoon

I have always wanted to eat here, but my mom doesn’t like food that sounds exotic. So this was my chance to try it out. We didn’t want to spend too much time in the restaurant, so we just had a main course and bread, nothing else. We were also quite lucky, because we got a waterside table!!!
Btw, if you’re on the Pirates ride, it can be fun to yell “bon appetite” to the people that are eating. You yell it once, but when you’re in the restaurant, you have to hear it every 30 seconds or so… it does get old easily… so stop doing that!

Bread:

We both had the same meal, namely creole rice with chicken and sea food, and it was delicious!!!! I hope I’ll be back here in the future to eat it again.

Day 2 snack – Fantasia Gelatti

I had lemon and blackcurrant, M had lemon and strawberry. It took us 45 minutes in line before we got the ice cream, but it was well worth it!

 

[poppyolivia]

What FANTASTIC photos they are soooo clear...thanks for sharing The 3rd firework photo down is superb I really want to go back now.

 

[Sarah Sarill]

Those firework photos are fantastic Sandra - I cant wait to see it all for myself

 

[jillrobinson]

Lovely review Sandra and some fantastic fireworks photographs

Sounds like you both had a good time, I didn't think the presse event infringed too much on our enjoyment and without them we wouldn't have got to view the nightime Bougillumination or the fireworks.

I wondered why they chose Daniel Powter too and the answer is he sang "Bad Day" it being his big hit, but it was the following song that was of importance as he'd been asked by Disney to write a song for the parks which was "The World You’ve Dreamed of Lately" or "Love you Lately", the public version which I think is his latest release. He performed the song previously at Christmas in California

 

[SandraVB79]

Those firework photos are fantastic Sandra - I cant wait to see it all for myself

I'm afraid they are not going to do the fireworks again, it was a one-time-only event.



We really had a great time, and for once, I was able to even FINISH my appointment.

 

[Cass]

Pinocchio’s Pasta looks delicious, thanks for your review and photos, great job.

 

[marcus.ka]

Thank you for your trip report! I know what you mean about Blue Lagoon. Some years ago nobody was saying anything. The people only watched the restaurant. But nowadays you have to hear every 30 seconds "Bon appetite".
That’s why we don't want to have a table near the water anymore!

 

[SandraVB79]

People yelling thins gets annoying after a while, but you can "zone" it out... somehow.

What was more annoying was the bunch of French or Spanish rude young people who kind of climbed halfway out of the boat and splashed water on us. And I don't mean a couple of drops, but like whole buckets of water. I don't understand that there wasn't a voice of a CM coming out of the speakers asking them to SIT and stop splashing.

At first, we thought a boat was sinking. But no, it was a sea battle between two boats full of rude teenagers

 

[marcus.ka]

Oh yes teenagers at DLRP....

they get more and more rude! Look what I wrote about teenagers in 2005:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=837806&referrerid=&highlight=trip+report

PM: When we came to the Doombuggi area we saw that there were 2 buggies still filled with young guys (17-22). They must have refused to get out at the end of the attraction. And the CM let them go for another round. But then when we were in the house, I saw that one of the guys had a red thing in his hand; I thought it was something like a flash light, but then I saw it more clear; it was a cigaret!!! He was smoking inside the attraction! Imagine that! And then right after the ball scene he trough the cigaret away!!! This caused a stop 30 seconds later. And we had to wait until a CM came. I couldn’t understand what he was talking to them, but they acted like “I don’t know what you want from us?”

Autopia: When we started, there was a car with two young girls (17 -22) in front of us. And during the ride, they turned there heads backwards to us all the time, and they were very slow. And then suddenly they stoped. And because we were so close, I couldn’t breack in time, and we crashed slightly into their car. And in this second I realised why they were so slow, because their 2 boyfriends were in the car behind us, and they only waited for this moment, so they could crash into our 2 cars with full power. After this first crash I thought it was a coincidence. But then 30 seconds later the same scenario. This time we realised that the girls and the boys are together. But while I was thinking “Now its over, because we are in the exitarea, and they can’t run in us anymore!” – they were attaking us a third time!!! Even though the CM’s were standing there! And this time was so hard, that my neck was hurting for 2 days!

Especially this incident made me the most angry, because I have the feeling that young people (mostly boys between 17-23 ) are only in the park to have “fun”! Their special way of fun! They are running around the whole day with their MP3 players, they are smoking the whole day, and they try to make trouble!
But not only teenagers are making trouble, younger children do too!

POTC: When we came to the boarding area, there were a lot of security guys and a school class was waiting with their teacher. The boording was very slow but we got on the boot, and when we came to the jail area, I saw that the left jaildoor was open! (Not the one with the dog, the opposite side!) And when we got down the “waterfall” my boyfried saw some children running around on the left side after the boot with the capitain!!! Imagine that!

 

[SandraVB79]

I know. Something that also makes me sad is young boys (between 15 and 22) that "mob" me because of me wearing my ears. It's not only laughing with/ at me (don't know which one it is, the negative one), but also, when I wait for the others (bathroom break) coming up to me and... mobbing. It frightens me sometimes.
Jee, we are at Disney, if one can't even wear their ears there...