No Cookie for Shareholders Daughter - trip report March 2011 all 5 days complete

how wonderful at Mickey's cafe :goodvibes
shame the weather was bad.
 
thanks everyone, I will try to get the report finished by this weekend, can hardly believe that 2 weekends ago I was in the midst of the Magic :confused3.
 
Day 3, Saturday 19th March

Another Mickey alarm call, and we're out and on the shuttle to the parks by 7.50 this morning. We went straight to Buzz and rode it twice, then Dumbo, Peter Pan and the teacups, before breakfast again at Chalet au Marionette at just after 9am. Its another gloves and fleece day today, but no rain after last night :).

We arrived at the Studios and Toy Story Playland at just before 10am, waited a couple of minutes for the land to open, and went straight to the Parachute Drop ride. We all loved this ride - such a shame its always so busy because I could have spent all day on this :rotfl:. By 10.20 Crush was at 90 minutes, Parachutes 45 minutes, and Cars 25 minutes - welcome to Saturdays at DLP :eek:!
We'd decided today would be our Studios shows day, so we went to Stitch Live in French first (packed house and the girls sat with me and joined in at the end with the French colours they know). Animagique, then Cinemagique, then we used the FP for Flying Carpets we'd got earlier in the morning. It was just after 12.15 as we came off our Carpet, and we saw Aladdin and Jasmine very near by (ie at the fastpass entrance to the ride :thumbsup2) -

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they were both lovely, right after the girls got their photos the CM with them called "last photo" and Aladdin got all the kids who hadn't met them yet to all get together with him and Jasmine and did a big group shot for everyone.

It was time for us to go back to the main park for lunch, and just outside Walts we saw the Main St vehicles and characters -

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Off into Walts for lunch (another first for us all). Hmmmm - loved the atmosphere in the waiting areas/staircases, with all the photos and memorabilia, but to me, the food was just okay :confused3. I had the risotto, and the Cafe Gourmand (but preferred the one I had in Cafe Mickey the evening before). The girls had the fish and chips, they both ate it but again, nothing spectacular. We had a window table in a little room which had scenes of the Grand Canyon on the walls. Our waitress was very nice, but the service was fairly slow. We spent around an hour in Walts, then went off to BTM to get fastpass for later, then went back to the Studios for Cars n Stars -

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Dopey, Mushu and Stitch were having a dance-off backstage - Mushu won :lmao:!

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Day 3 Saturday 19th March continued ....

After Stars n Cars we made it back over to the main park and BTM for our FP time at 3.35pm - have to say all the FP lines we used were working very well, BTM, Flying Carpets, Peter Pan. With FP we didn't wait any longer than about 10 minutes for any of those rides. At this time in the afternoon, Buzz was showing a 75 minute queue and no fastpass, and the usual line at BTM was 65 minutes. The girls wanted to run off some steam so they went off to the Pocahontas play area for a while, then we walked down to the bottom of Main St at the Discovery arcade to wait for the OUAD parade to go past us (twice) -

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We then went off to Colonel Hathis for tea (another first). Was very quiet here, glad we could use this restaurant to get similar food to the Pizzeria Bella Notte, which was closed due to the Fantasyland floor being refurbished. We realised we were on day 3 and had only gone on IASW once - so went straight there after tea to rectify that :). It was just about 7pm now, and so we were just too late to ride Storyboats or Casey Jnr today. All the other rides in Fantasyland were still busy with queues, so we decided we'd wait at the Fantasyland railroad station for a ride on the steam train around to Frontierland. There were 2 engines and carriages running, so within 30 (very cold) minutes we were on the train and enjoying the sights in the dark (and waving at everyone in their boats on IASW ;)).

We got off the train at a deserted Frontierland station, and walked to BTM for our last FP ride of the evening. There were still crowds of folk around, even after 8pm on a freezing March Saturday, BTM regular line was still showing a queue of 60 minutes at this time :eek:. So we made BTM our last ride of the evening, and by 8.45 we were at the Santa Fe shuttle stop at the train station. We didn't manage to get on the first shuttle to the hotel because there were scores of guests who had just come from the BBWWS who had the same idea - but another shuttle came along a few minutes later. By 9.30 we were back in our room relaxing (with another breakfast in park secured for tomorrow morning :)).
 
Day 4 Sunday 20th March

Oooh I was tempted to put the phone down on Mickey this morning :scared1: - perish the thought! But no, its Sunday, it will be another busy day in the parks. The Sun is shining too, even this early in the morning - at last :cool1:. We were in the park by just after 8am again, got a ride up Main St with the car -

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We managed to ride Buzz, Peter Pan and Dumbo before the EMH rides started getting queues at around 8.45, and then we went for breakfast, this morning it was at the Plaza Gardens. I preferred the organisation of breakfast in the park at the Chalet au Marionette to be honest, we waited longer for juice/hot drinks at the Plaza Gardens, and there are no trays to carry your plates/bowls etc at the Plaza Gardens :confused3.

We were in the Studios by 9.50 this morning, again we went straight to TSPL, where there was a bigger crowd waiting today. Crush was already open, but the line was already 75 minutes and the park wasn't even officially open yet :scared1:! When we started going into TSPL, I witnessed a bit of completely unnecessary puschair-ramming near us, but we sidestepped all that and were on and off Parachute Drop within 20 minutes. By 10.30 there were queues for everything ie Cars 25 minutes, Flying Carpets 35 minutes, Crush 90 minutes etc etc so we did some souvenir shopping in both the Studios stores, arranging for everything to be sent to our hotel -

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and the Oscar goes to ......

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We did Cinemagique again (don't think I could ever get bored with this, but I did have to stop my DD completely spoiling the plot as we passed the front-side section of the audience ;)). We used a FP for Flying Carpets, then headed for the Village for a bit more shopping. The girls decided to treat themselves to a small Vinylmation each which they could decorate with stickers.

Now it was 1pm and time for our reservation at the Steakhouse Sunday brunch. I have to say, we all really loved this, I thought it was the best food I've ever had at DLP, and the glass of champagne on arrival for the adults is a very nice touch indeed :love:. I noticed where we were seated we were kind of out of the loop as far as the characters were concerned, but once I'd brought this to the attention of our head waitress (we had 3 waiting staff in our section) this was swiftly rectified, and the girls got some great one-to-one with all the characters -

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This would be my favourite meal at DLP to linger over - I could just imagine being in here for the whole 3 hours of the Sunday brunch, relaxing and enjoying all that yummy food (I don't think I'd be fit for much afterwards though, apart from possibly being rolled back to my hotel bed for a snooze :rotfl::rotfl:). But with 2 character-hounds in tow, that wasn't happening, so we made it out of the Village and back to the Studios in time for Stars n Cars again, then we took a breather in the gazebos in Fantasia gardens. The girls played about in one while I enjoyed the lovely sunshine in another. It was so peaceful there, just a few steps from the park entrance, but barely a sound to be heard :cloud9:.

Another first now - 4pm, Disneyland Hotel.

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This was a great success, even though there were lots of people in the foyer, most were adults, and so when the characters came down the stairs and started dancing, there was lots of room for the little ones to dance with their favourites. Once the characters had spread out across the foyer, the girls got to meet them with no problems at all -

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Day 4 Sunday 20th March continued ....

We left the DLH after about 20 minutes, checked the info board for ride times (Buzz 55 mins etc) so we went into the Videopolis for a little while, watched some cartoons, got freshened up, and then headed into Fantasyland at around 5pm. Here we found loads of characters outside the Fantasyland Festival theatre -

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Timon, Donald, Daisy, and Chip n Dale were also around :).

We spent 15 minutes or so there, and as the characters were leaving then we went on the Storyboats. Casey Jnr was still busy, so we decided to go for tea, Toad Hall was our choice but at 5.30 it was just closing, so we decided on Last Chance cafe again (the girls love those chicken strips ;)).

The Studios were closing at 7pm this evening, so we went there for its last hour - Crush queue still at 60 minutes, Cars, Flying Carpets at 25 minutes, but Parachute Drop was only 20 minutes, so we got to ride that and then Slinky dog before 7pm. Loved strolling around TSPL in the dusk :love: -

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The main park was open until 10pm tonight, so back over there for us, where we rode IASW and then teacups in the dark - another favourite thing of mine, love the lanterns all lit up -

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We took a slow stroll through Fantasyland, Adventureland and Frontierland, enjoying the much warmer evening (but my feet were beginning to complain a bit now :rotfl:) and waited around 5 minutes for our FP for BTM at 8.30pm. We were on and off by 8.45pm, and again decided we'd trekked enough today. So we were back at the hotel again by just after 9pm, picked up our shopping at the hotel gift shop, contemplated packing, but decided against it in favour of a last complete chill-out (we'll do a lightning-fast pack-up in the morning ;)).
 
I am loving your trip report. You managed to get a lot done in your weekend days:goodvibes and you met loads of characters
 
I have to ask a question, am I right in thinking that (like me) you cannot stand the pirate ship-type, back & forth, stomach-wrenching rides? But Parachute Drop was ok?! I hope so as I think it looks great, RC Racer is a no-brainer, I am never going anywhere near it! :lmao:

Love the dance off back stage! Would love to see that! :thumbsup2

Those tea cups lanterns do look so pretty :goodvibes
 
I have to ask a question, am I right in thinking that (like me) you cannot stand the pirate ship-type, back & forth, stomach-wrenching rides? But Parachute Drop was ok?! I hope so as I think it looks great, RC Racer is a no-brainer, I am never going anywhere near it! :lmao:

Love the dance off back stage! Would love to see that! :thumbsup2

Those tea cups lanterns do look so pretty :goodvibes

yes, I hate the pirate ship-type rides, thats what RC racer is. Loved Parachute Drop though - even though I don't like frog-hoppers lol.
 
Day 5, last day, Monday 21st March

We let Mickey wake us up later this morning, but were up, dressed, packed, and checked out by 9am. We took our cases to the train station and put them in the luggage store, and by 9.25 we were in Salon Mickey. This was my DNs first trip, my DD was very proud to knock on the door :goodvibes. It was busy inside though, luckily one guest was just leaving so we managed to get a table. The CM at the desk was friendly but I think there may have been something lost in translation between us - she was re-filling the pastries tray when we came in, she said we could have 2 each of whatever she had, which was croissants and chocolate bread. I asked her if she had any cookies (my DD is a big fan of them) but she said No :sad2:. So we took some croissants and chocolate bread, then discovered there was no orange juice, no fresh fruit, and only one bottle of water left in the cooler. Blimey Salon Mickey must have been busy this morning! We had hot drinks, DD didn't eat anything, and so we finished up our breakfast. Just as we were leaving (we were going to the Studios first so we went out the same door we came in) my DD looked down at the tray - and there were cookies on it!! We had to leave though, so no cookie for shareholders daughter ;).

We arrived at the Studios at around 9.50 this morning, and all the TSPL rides were all open already. Parachute Drop had a 30-minute wait but RC racer was only 5, so the girls went off to ride that. They then went back and rode it again, through the single-rider line this time, and practically walked right on the ride :thumbsup2. We did Cars next (first time in our whole 5 days that this ride was showing less than a 20-minute line).

On to the main park for the bulk of our last day - we got a ride on the Paddy Wagon up Main St, then I took DD to get a cookie from the Cable Car bakeshop - just like the ones in Salon Mickey and so big that I was still finding bits of it in my bag at the end of the evening at the airport comng home :rotfl:! We got a fastpass for BTM, then did Casey Jnr in the lovely sunshine -

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then IASW, then we got fastpass for Peter Pan before going on BTM. When we got off it was nearly noon so we had lunch at Fuente del Oro. My goodness the queue was slow-moving, but eventually I had our food and we all enjoyed it (chicken fajitas, fries, a soft drink and an ice cream). We left there and went to Buzz to pick up fastpass, then rode Peter Pan. Storyboats next -

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Day 5, last day, Monday 21st March continued ....

We left Fantasyland and headed down through the Castle to see the characters and the Main St vehicles - I didn't realise how many characters there are in this little parade, we counted about 15 of them :thumbsup2.

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Off to Buzz then with our fastpass, more fun shooting aliens. As we walked out of Discoveryland I took some photos of the top of the Castle glinting in the sunshine -

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At just after 2pm we said Bye Bye to the main park for this trip, and went back over to the Studios - yep, you guessed it, Stars n Cars -

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we'd never seen such a big beefy loud Gaston before - he was a bit scary loud to be honest, but great fun - he'd bark at the kids when he was signing their autograph books on their heads "don't move!" - then burst into a big grin :goodvibes. And of course he was all over the ladies ;):rotfl2:.

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Lilo and Stitch blew loads of kisses our way when they noticed my DD's little Stitch and Angel keyrings :).

We spent the next hour or so in Art of Animation, and rode Slinky dog too with about a 15-minute wait. We caught one of the last Stitch Live shows of the day at 4.45, then we were in our last hour of the park. We wanted to ride Parachute Drop one more time, but as we arrived there at around 5.15 we could see the parachutes and riders were stuck right at the top - and thats where they stayed for the next half hour :scared1::scared1:! The girls rode RC racer again through the single-rider line, then we all rode Cars, and it was time to leave the Studios and Disneyland Paris.

We had a lot of firsts this time, and I really enjoyed my trip because the girls had such a whale of time. But next year, I'm going back to low-season, midweek, and no weekend days ;).
 
What a wonderful trip you had. Lovely photos of your DD and DN and so many characters!! :thumbsup2
 
That was lovely - what a great time you all had. Still lots of firsts!

Glad you liked Art of Animation - we always go in the exit door to wait for the drawing lessons, the kids love it in there.

Tons of characters! The girls looked like they had a fab time - thanks for sharing :goodvibes
 
That was lovely - what a great time you all had. Still lots of firsts!

Glad you liked Art of Animation - we always go in the exit door to wait for the drawing lessons, the kids love it in there.

Tons of characters! The girls looked like they had a fab time - thanks for sharing :goodvibes

its a pleasure - and gives me something to look back on with happiness when I'm missing Disney :).
 












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