My thoughts from our half term trip

[adr2.8i]

in true Disboard tradition, here are my thoughts from this weeks trip.

Highs:
my childrens faces when seeing the characters. Priceless!

Shareholders discount card saved our party of 9 hundreds and hundreds of euros!

VIP fastpass for the tuesday, again priceless.

aerosmith roller coaster! Amazing!

The hollywood towering inferno motel of fear - Sh@t myself but so glad i did it! Screamed like a girl and im not ashamed to admit it!!

Dreams - left us all speechless pretty much. Breathtaking.
seeing the park in the dark for the first time. seeing it all lit up gave it a truely magical presence.

rainforest cafe - had the most fabulous steak meal here. we all thoroughly enjoyed it.


LOWS:
Cafe mickey - characters were great but the steak was awful and the service was rushed.

Distinct lack of characters - probably due to just bad timing or luck, but apart from the staged meet and greets, we never once saw a character elsewhere in either parks during our 5 days?? if there were more characters walking around, then surely the organzied meet and greets wouldnt be so chaotic??? just a thought disney??

Princess pavillion meet and greet - never saw the que below 120 mins wait. so my wife bit the bullet and decided to que. so we enter the park at 10am and head straight there only to find it wasnt open until 1pm! and there people already starting to que at 10am! so she joined them and she and my 2yr old daughter had to wait 31/2 hrs to meet a princess. Shocking.

ride opening times - why open a park at 10am but not open all the rides??? storyboat ride and casey jnr didnt open until 11am, the princess pavilion meet didnt start until 1pm and then we find autopia wasnt open until 12pm either??? very frustrating. and then at 7pm it seems like most of the rides were closing for the day even though the park didnt shut until 11pm???

the sheer rudeness of some parents for pushing their kids in front of other kids who have been waiting patiently to meet a character. this happened to our party at least 4 or 5 times and im not being funny here or racist or anything, but everytime it happened it was from a certain creed and colour that i will not mention obviously, but they were down right rude and cheeky.

ride wait times - i didnt feel the park was that busy but some of waiting times were ridiculous. 2hr wait to see a princess? autopia was always 45 mins or more and once we saw it at 75mins, btm was 50 mins whenever we passed it, crushs coaster and the parachute ride and rc in the studios were between 45-60mins. i dont know what can be done about it, but trying to keep your kids amused during the wait is a nightmare. cant they have a character or an entertianer to come and join the que and keep you entertained whislt you wait??

passport control Eurostar - both here and france was diabolical. just 2 people to handle 1000's of passengers?? come on, wake up. employ more staff.

showing the contents of your bags every time you enter the park and then when you enter the village. what a pain in the bum this was. i understand the reasons for it, but it was tediously slow and a right nuisance.

CONCLUSION:
looking back at my post, i really make it sound like i hated my time there, but i didnt honestly!! a few things really peeved me towards the end of our stay and i think that the next time we go, we will only stay for 2 or 3 days rather than the 5 or 6 days we have done in the past. AND I DEFINATLEY WILL NOT EVEN CONTEMPLATE GOING IN THE HEIGHT OF SUMMER!! i dread too think what the park is like then!
my kids loved it and my daughter,who is only 2 in 3 weeks time, was mesmerized by it all and she is suddenly saying words that she has never said before.....mickey mouse,goofy,pluto,donald duck,jessie,buzz,woody,princess,castle and she can almost say rapunzel, she calls her Punzel which is so cute!!
my son has a new hero in jack sparrow! and he was lucky enough to beat the scrum under skull rock and meet jack and get his autograph! and jack pinched my sons epee we had just bought him after the potc ride a few mins before and pretended to have a sword fight with him!

all in all, a nice trip and we will return whilst the kids are still young enough to fully enjoy the magic. from a parents point of view as long as they are happy then we are happy!

thanks again for the helpful hints and tips that have been posted on this board. a big help for our trip.

 

[ManCityMickey]

the sheer rudeness of some parents for pushing their kids in front of other kids who have been waiting patiently to meet a character. this happened to our party at least 4 or 5 times and im not being funny here or racist or anything, but everytime it happened it was from a certain creed and colour that i will not mention obviously, but they were down right rude and cheeky.

.

I am glad that it wasn't just us that noticed this too. The pushiness of some parents we were quite prepared for after our previous visits. So much so in fact, we had been sharpening our elbows for a couple of weeks prior to leaving. But, to have people blatantly pushing their way to the front of queues was extremely frustrating, especially hearing them speaking another language, then english, so obviously fully aware of other peoples thoughts and feelings towards them.

We noticed a distinct lack of characters in Disneyland Park and almost none in the Studios. I am sure that there were characters roaming around, almost looking for people to interact with last time we visited.

But, like you, with us its all about the kids having fun. They didn't seem to notice the same things that we adults did, so I guess that it was a magical trip.

Although we thoroughly enjoyed our visit, I think 2 or 3 nights would be enough for us next time, rather than our usual 5 or 6 nights.

 

[Tinkjon]

I find the pushing so awful that I just don't do it anymore as I can't take it! We see the characters by either doing a character meal or we'll do the official 'queue up to see them' things.

 

[Ware Bears]

Welcome back glad you had a great time overall.

Not opening the Princess Pavilion until 1pm is verging on the ridiculous! The princess meet'n'greets have always been very popular and are going to be even more so now that they are in the Pavilion.

And a shame about the lack of characters - hopefully this will improve for the high summer season when seasonal staff are taken on but that doesn't really help people holidaying now.

 

[Ms Poppins]

Welcome back, sounds like a good trip

We only ever do 3 nights and as much as I absolutely love DLP, I feel it's enough for us. It's hard work being up late/early and on the go all day and eventually you just need to rest.

How lovely some your your lo's first words are Disney ones and the meet with Captain Jack sounds great

 

[cherrymarzipan]

Welcome back, sounds like a great trip overall.

Agree so much about lack of characters, queue times and ride closures which I suppose all relate to staff shortages. I have always thought that for the price of saturating the park with characters wandering around (and who wouldn't wish to see a greater variety as well as quantity of these?) all these issues would be resolved.

Dreams does make up for a lot though doesn't it?!

Glad you had a good time.

 

[jothp]

Glad you enjoyed most of your trip. We were a bit annoyed too about the rides not being open all day and we also noticed how many of the restaurants were closed too although we had heard about that before we went.

 

[gracieclaire]

Hi from sunny cardiff to you in sunny porthcawl

 

[Mum to Belle]

Welcome back - glad you had a great trip!

from a parents point of view as long as they are happy then we are happy!

That's really what it's all about as a parent isn't it?! Love your little girl's new words!!