GoodFairies
<font color=#01DF74>Not a Taheen<br><font color=or
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2003
- Messages
- 2,799
Made our reservations in January 2003 through DVC. Since this would likely be our only trip to DLP, we decided to use all of our points and stay at the Disneyland Hotel. Neither of us had been to Europe before. We left on a Saturday, checked in on Sunday, and returned on the following Friday. Submitted through Disney's website for the information packet and video, but never got it. Before going, decided to book an extra day and pay it out of pocket. Boy, was that a bad idea. Had communication difficulties and the room was way overpriced. At check-in they had little information on our DVC reservation and no information on the extra night booking. I didn't get the room confirmation paper until after we returned home and saw that CM tacked on (without my authorization) some "extras" that we paid for but didn't know about and weren't informed by DLHotel CMs. After three (expensive) phone calls, one e-mail, and one snail mail, my credit card was finally credited to what we actually should have paid for.
Back to check-in. After getting the reservation somewhat sorted out, we got our room key. It didn't work. We returned to the lobby and they 'fixed' it and this time it did work. This happened to us two more times on our trip. We had to get new keys each time. In general, the hotel and the room were very nice. Smoky, but nice. Had some interesting characters at our hotel, such as the Fantasia dancing hippo. "She" also adorned our bathroom tile, which I loved. Bathroom mirror had SW & 7Ds "carved" into it. Cute border and armoire in the room as well. Small indoor pool that we never took advantage of. One other cute thing this non-smoker noticed was that every time the ashtrays were cleaned out, a Mickey head or Disney emblem was "carved" into the sand.
The convenience of the DLHotel to the attractions absolutely cannot be beaten. Made PSs the first day and they give you a little "receipt" type thing with the restaurant and time on it. Also asked for a map of Paris and the train route and they supplied one right away. Found out they had a shuttle to some outlets right from the hotel and we decided to go visit them one day. Side note: There is a lot of pink here. Not just at the hotel, but everywhere.
We spent day one at Disneyland (before we crashed and burned at about 3 that afternoon after being awake for some 30 hours). Main Street is very similar to our DL and WDW ones. We got FPs for the Indiana Jones ride and walked through to join the line where other people were already waiting. No CMs. Very odd. Jumped into the line and hoped no one got mad. Liked that ride. Haunted Mansion was good too. Very different to look at from the outside but in a good way. Liked reading the headstones at the end of the ride so your aren't as rushed and noted they are more risque than the ones in the US. Good storyline in that HM as well and I think the ride is smaller because we seemed to be closer to the walls (and scary doors) in the doombuggy. PoTC was very fun as well, but in reverse order of the one at WDW. Got very lost in Alice's Curious Labyrinth but it was fun. The Queen of Hearts Castle is overcrowded and the stairs are dangerously steep. Another problem was that the Cheshire Cat's rolling eye was in desperate need of paint. Which brings me to another issue...DLP is just not as well kept up as DLCa or WDW, in terms of cleanliness either, and there is much graffiti. Space Mountain was very different and I think I might have liked DLPs better than the ones here. It was more exciting. Our best meal was at the Blue Lagoon in the PoTC ride. We ate at Walt's twice but it just wasn't that great for the price. Nice atmosphere though and we had a really nice multi-lingual waiter for dinner. He spoke English (extremely well I might add), French, and Spanish from what I could tell just in our dining room area, which I think was Walt's study or library.
One of the things I enjoy most about WDW is eating but I just could not say the same about DLP. I didn't really like ANY of the food I had all week, except for the BL and a crepe with Nutella I got in the Disney Village.
Walt Disney Studios didn't have much going for it when we visited (maybe because it's fairly new). We enjoyed the Moteur Action! show but froze while watching it. My SO enjoyed Animagique but I fell asleep during it. Of course we liked RnR Coaster "avec" Aerosmith. Other than that, the day at the Studios was pretty uneventful. Parents shouldn't take their children on Armageddon unless they are trying to punish them. The fire is so close to you and I don't think children realize it's supposed to be, uh, fun (it's not, not even for the "big kids").
The Disney Village...this pales majorly in comparison to DTD. There simply isn't much there to do at all. We ate at Annette's (the 50's roller-skater restaurant) twice and never saw a person on skates. We visited the Hotel New York and Sequoia Lodge but aside from being interesting architecturally, there wasn't much to see inside the hotel. So we didn't visit any other hotels. Note: we saw the Hotel Sante Fe on our shuttle to and from the airport and I think this may be the ugliest hotel I have ever seen. Is that really a Clint Eastwood billboard? And what is with all the sickening adobe pink?
We spent approximately a day and a half in Paris, and got to see most of the sights. Used that map we got from DLHotel and took the train right from there--it was very easy. The outlets had no deals that I could afford (lol).
We really didn't need that extra day, I think we saw everything we could see at DLP in the first three days. There wasn't much of a "language barrier" anywhere so that was good.
Definitely glad we went and can cross it off our list of things to do, but it was probably our first and last trip to DLP.
Back to check-in. After getting the reservation somewhat sorted out, we got our room key. It didn't work. We returned to the lobby and they 'fixed' it and this time it did work. This happened to us two more times on our trip. We had to get new keys each time. In general, the hotel and the room were very nice. Smoky, but nice. Had some interesting characters at our hotel, such as the Fantasia dancing hippo. "She" also adorned our bathroom tile, which I loved. Bathroom mirror had SW & 7Ds "carved" into it. Cute border and armoire in the room as well. Small indoor pool that we never took advantage of. One other cute thing this non-smoker noticed was that every time the ashtrays were cleaned out, a Mickey head or Disney emblem was "carved" into the sand.
The convenience of the DLHotel to the attractions absolutely cannot be beaten. Made PSs the first day and they give you a little "receipt" type thing with the restaurant and time on it. Also asked for a map of Paris and the train route and they supplied one right away. Found out they had a shuttle to some outlets right from the hotel and we decided to go visit them one day. Side note: There is a lot of pink here. Not just at the hotel, but everywhere.
We spent day one at Disneyland (before we crashed and burned at about 3 that afternoon after being awake for some 30 hours). Main Street is very similar to our DL and WDW ones. We got FPs for the Indiana Jones ride and walked through to join the line where other people were already waiting. No CMs. Very odd. Jumped into the line and hoped no one got mad. Liked that ride. Haunted Mansion was good too. Very different to look at from the outside but in a good way. Liked reading the headstones at the end of the ride so your aren't as rushed and noted they are more risque than the ones in the US. Good storyline in that HM as well and I think the ride is smaller because we seemed to be closer to the walls (and scary doors) in the doombuggy. PoTC was very fun as well, but in reverse order of the one at WDW. Got very lost in Alice's Curious Labyrinth but it was fun. The Queen of Hearts Castle is overcrowded and the stairs are dangerously steep. Another problem was that the Cheshire Cat's rolling eye was in desperate need of paint. Which brings me to another issue...DLP is just not as well kept up as DLCa or WDW, in terms of cleanliness either, and there is much graffiti. Space Mountain was very different and I think I might have liked DLPs better than the ones here. It was more exciting. Our best meal was at the Blue Lagoon in the PoTC ride. We ate at Walt's twice but it just wasn't that great for the price. Nice atmosphere though and we had a really nice multi-lingual waiter for dinner. He spoke English (extremely well I might add), French, and Spanish from what I could tell just in our dining room area, which I think was Walt's study or library.
One of the things I enjoy most about WDW is eating but I just could not say the same about DLP. I didn't really like ANY of the food I had all week, except for the BL and a crepe with Nutella I got in the Disney Village.
Walt Disney Studios didn't have much going for it when we visited (maybe because it's fairly new). We enjoyed the Moteur Action! show but froze while watching it. My SO enjoyed Animagique but I fell asleep during it. Of course we liked RnR Coaster "avec" Aerosmith. Other than that, the day at the Studios was pretty uneventful. Parents shouldn't take their children on Armageddon unless they are trying to punish them. The fire is so close to you and I don't think children realize it's supposed to be, uh, fun (it's not, not even for the "big kids").
The Disney Village...this pales majorly in comparison to DTD. There simply isn't much there to do at all. We ate at Annette's (the 50's roller-skater restaurant) twice and never saw a person on skates. We visited the Hotel New York and Sequoia Lodge but aside from being interesting architecturally, there wasn't much to see inside the hotel. So we didn't visit any other hotels. Note: we saw the Hotel Sante Fe on our shuttle to and from the airport and I think this may be the ugliest hotel I have ever seen. Is that really a Clint Eastwood billboard? And what is with all the sickening adobe pink?
We spent approximately a day and a half in Paris, and got to see most of the sights. Used that map we got from DLHotel and took the train right from there--it was very easy. The outlets had no deals that I could afford (lol).
We really didn't need that extra day, I think we saw everything we could see at DLP in the first three days. There wasn't much of a "language barrier" anywhere so that was good.
Definitely glad we went and can cross it off our list of things to do, but it was probably our first and last trip to DLP.
