Our honeymoon trip to Orlando! (Updated 7/10, Day 14&15; going home...THE END!)

[Marjol]

Day 1, on our way to Paris!

I got up around 4 am, took a shower, had breakfast, kissed the boyfriend goodbye and walked to my parents' house around 5 am. Everyone was still having breakfast or dressing themselves, but we got in the car about 15 minutes later. We would meet my sister on our way to the highway, she lives elsewhere in the city.

We drove for about two and a half hours, crossed Belgium and then took our break at our usual spot in the north of France. We had some croissants (yep, we're definately in France! ) and coffee or juice.

After our break, we drove for another two hours or so and we reached the Disneyland Paris resort around 10.45. We followed the signs to our hotel, the New York hotel. My sister and I walked to the reception to check in, while the others took their time to get the kids out of the car.

We got our parktickets, but the rooms (as usual) wouldn't be available untill 3 pm, so we wanted to go to the parks first. But everyone needed a bathroom break, so we took that first. On our way to the bathroom, we saw Goofy standing in the photo area, without anyone in line!
Unfortunately, my jacket seemed to have some kind of reflection, so all these pictures turned out very bad, but here is one anyway.

We had the bathroom break and on our way to the exit of the hotel, we ran across Minnie, who also had no line at all. Mirte and Tijmen really wanted their picture taken with Minnie, so we did

And now we were finally ready to go. We walked through Disney Village to the Disneyland Park. I shot a picture of the hotel that is right in front of the entrance of the main park.

We walked into the park and got to City Hall, to get a "blue card" for my sister. She doesn't walk well and has some waiting issues. Disney Paris has special needs cards, so she would't have to wait in line.
After getting the card, we heard some music. Turned out to be a mini-parade to celebrate the 15 years of Magic in DLP!

After watching the parade, we walked to the castle, where I snapped this picture:

Mirte really wanted to go to Big Thunder Mountain, she had been talking about that ride for weeks, so we decided we should go there first. It was pretty busy there, 60 minute line, so we decided to get fastpasses. We could return in 40 minutes or so, so we walked to Adventureland first. We looked at Hook's pirate ship and Skull Rock and rode Pirates of the Caribbean.

We also walked through Passage d'Aladdin and after that it was time to get back to BTM, one of my favorite rides in Disneyland Paris! It is much better than the one in Orlando!

Mirte, the one who was looking forward to this ride the most, was really scared. Tijmen also didn't like it... guess they're too young to enjoy the experience. After the ride, we got a bite to eat in Frontierland, and walked back to the castle, where I made this group picture. Without me ofcourse, they don't have photopass photographers here..

We spent some time in Fantasyland for the kids (and some big kids too ). Mirte and Tijmen both tried to get the sword out of the stone, but they didn't succeed...

We rode Snowwhite and Pinocchio, which is the same kind of ride as Snowwhite, but with a different story. It's pretty scared for small kids too, though... it also focusses on the scary part of the story!
[/img]http://www.marjolengerbert.nl/uploads/images/Disney%20Parijs/dis11.jpg[/img]

While the others rode the Carroussel, Ivo snapped this picture of me and the magic beanstalk:

It was almost 3 pm and everyone decided we could go and get our room keys now. I stayed in the park with Renée and Mirte to see the parade and we walked over to the part that has two rides that Orlando hasn't, Le pays de contes de fées, which is a boatride where you see a lot of miniatures of Disney fairytales and Casey Jr, le petit train du cirque, a children's rollercoaster. I like both rides very much!

After those rides, it was time to find a spot for the parade. We found a great spot where I took a lot of pictures. Here are two of them. Mirte is very scared of the villains, so she hated that float. She also got really scared from Hook, who came really close to her.

We had some time left before the others would come back, so we rode It's a small world a couple of times. Renee and Mirte both really like that ride!

We met the others before IASM and rode it again. We also rode Les Pays and Casey Jr again and then decided to head out of the park, to get a bite to eat at Disney Village.

We got to Annette's Diner, and we got seated almost immediately. We had great burgers and fries here. When we headed out, there was a HUGE line in front of the restaurant... the park was closed now!

We got back to the hotel around 8 pm. The kids got a bath and after that, we all turned in for a good night's sleep. It had been a long day... very tiring!

 

[punkin413]

this is so cute! just makes me want to sing, "isn't this ama-zing? it's my favorite part be-cause you'll seeeeeeeeee.....here's where she MEETS prince charming, but she won't discover that it's him 'til chapter threeeeeeeeee"

 

[Marjol]

this is so cute! just makes me want to sing, "isn't this ama-zing? it's my favorite part be-cause you'll seeeeeeeeee.....here's where she MEETS prince charming, but she won't discover that it's him 'til chapter threeeeeeeeee"

I've seen Beauty and the Beast around 50 times in Dutch and only once in English, so I keep thinking about these lines:

"'t Is mijn lievelingsboek omdat... kijk hiiiieeeeer....Ziiijjjjj hem ooit eens zal krijgen.... maar ze weet nog niet dat dat gebeurt in hoofdstuk viiiiieeeeer!"

I just noticed it is chapter three in English and chapter four in Dutch...

 

[AnnieDan_Artlover]

Hey!
Followed your link!
I caught up (not as long as mine, huh! ).
First up : CONGRATULATIONS!!!

It always feels so weird to me when someone my age (exactly my age!) gets married... I guess the fact that my life is so different now amplifies that...
A Disneymoon must be so wonderful! No wonder you're almost more excited about that then about the weeding itself!

I'm real happy about the DL Paris mini-TR. I always wanted to learn more about it. As you'll learn if you have the courage to continue reading my PTR, my next dream (since I'm now realizing my WDW dream) is to visit Paris... and maybe if I do, I'll include DL Paris!

By the way : all the kids in your family are adorable, but I must say, Mirte is the most beautiful little I've seen (magnifique!).

I compared our itineraries, and sadly, I don't think we have great chance of bumping into each other... The only time we should be at the same place is on May 8th, where we should be at HS in the morning... But our plan isn't set in stone and is more of a guide, so even that isn't certain... Still, there's always a possibility, so I'll be on the lookout!

Can't wait for the rest of the mini-TR and for the wedding pix!

 

[mkluvsmickey]

Love the Disneyland Paris update! I find it so strange that you actually drive through other countries to get there. Just a foreign concept for us in America I guess. Very cool!

I love that the characters were right in the hotel! Good way to get the magic started right away.

That hotel at the entrance is beautiful!

The pictures are just fantastic. Thank you for sharing.

 

[Marjol]

Hey!
Followed your link!
I caught up (not as long as mine, huh! ).
First up : CONGRATULATIONS!!!

It always feels so weird to me when someone my age (exactly my age!) gets married... I guess the fact that my life is so different now amplifies that...
A Disneymoon must be so wonderful! No wonder you're almost more excited about that then about the weeding itself!

I'm real happy about the DL Paris mini-TR. I always wanted to learn more about it. As you'll learn if you have the courage to continue reading my PTR, my next dream (since I'm now realizing my WDW dream) is to visit Paris... and maybe if I do, I'll include DL Paris!

By the way : all the kids in your family are adorable, but I must say, Mirte is the most beautiful little I've seen (magnifique!).

I compared our itineraries, and sadly, I don't think we have great chance of bumping into each other... The only time we should be at the same place is on May 8th, where we should be at HS in the morning... But our plan isn't set in stone and is more of a guide, so even that isn't certain... Still, there's always a possibility, so I'll be on the lookout!

Can't wait for the rest of the mini-TR and for the wedding pix!

Wow, even your replies in other people's topics are long!
Thanks for joining my pre-TR and I hope you keep reading. Mirte is a very beautiful girl indeed!
I hope you'll get to Paris someday, I've been there a couple of times and it's a great city!

Love the Disneyland Paris update! I find it so strange that you actually drive through other countries to get there. Just a foreign concept for us in America I guess. Very cool!

I love that the characters were right in the hotel! Good way to get the magic started right away.

That hotel at the entrance is beautiful!

The pictures are just fantastic. Thank you for sharing.

They have characters in every hotel, love that about Disneyland Paris (don't know if they have characters in the WDW hotels... do they? )
And yes, we can drive through different countries here without travelling for days

 

[earthfaries]

What a great trip to DLP so far

Your nieces and nephews are so so cute

The resort is absolutely beautiful!

The castle is incredible too. I hope for us all to visit there someday

They have the Casey Jr. train and the Storybook ride at Disneyland in CA too. I really like them and wish WDW had them too

I can't wait for more of your trip!!!

 

[LISAMWDW]

 

[Marjol]

Day two in Disneyland Paris

After going to bed early the last evening, everyone was ready to get out of bed by 7:30. We took things easy, because the park we wanted to go to, the Disney Studios, wouldn't open before 10.00 am. Around 8.15, everyone was ready to have some breakfast. We walked through the lobby to the breakfast area, where we we saw Pluto, again with no line at all. Mirte and Tijmen got their picture taken with him.

The breakfast was really nice and we got to sit in the restaurant area, very peaceful. After our breakfast, we got on our way to the Studios, which was a 5 minute walk through Disney Village. I snapped this picture of our hotel as we walked away from it:

We still had some time and visited some shops in the Village. We finally arrived at the Studios around 9.45.

The gates were already open and we were able to walk into the park. My mom, aunt, Renée and the kids took it easy, while we started to run (Well, walk really fast) for Tower of Terror. On our way there I noticed the park had changed a lot since my last visit in october '06! I snapped a picture of Walt and Mickey with the new Hollywood background.

We reached the brand new ToT pretty fast and I, ofcourse, took a picture.

The ride wasn't open yet, but as soon as it opened, we were in there pretty fast. And it was great! Different from the one in WDW, but great anyway! We decided to get a fastpass for a second ride right away.

After ToT we tried calling the others to see where they were, but they didn't answer their phone, so we went over to Rock & Rollercoaster, which is still a very cool ride, with a different story than the one in WDW.
We also went to the new Crush' Coaster, but there was a 60 minutes line, so we decided to wait untill later, so we could ride with Renée and use her disability pass.

After using our fastpass for ToT, we were finally able to reach the others (they had been in Animagique, a show, and turned their cells off) and while my aunt, Mirte and Tijmen hopped in line for the Cars ride, we got in the disability line for Crush Coaster. Because Renée is able to walk, we still had to wait for 15 minutes, but that was much better than the 60 minutes wait the others had.
Crush Coaster was very cool! A very nice experience! It was very dark inside, but I took this picture to give you an idea.

When we got our, we were just in time to see the others ride the cars and to take some pictures:

We got a bite to eat at Backlot express, where they changed their menu since the last time we were there, but they got nice sandwiches now instead of fries and burgers, so that was a nice change
After the lunch, we rode Rock & Rollercoaster again. It was now time for the afternoon parade, so we got a nice place to watch it. This parade isn't as much fun as the one in the other park, but still enjoyable.

While we walked over to Cinemagique, we noticed people were walking around Stitch Live, which wasn't supposed to open untill march 22.

We walked over there and saw there was a soft opening going on, so we got in line ofcourse . They did warn us about the show being in French for this soft opening, but we didn't care, we just wanted to see what it was.
The show turned out to be a lot like Turtle Talk with Crush, but now with Stitch. And the funny thing was that Stitch chooses someone from the audience to be his lover, and this was my sister!
He named a planet "Anouktopia" and ate her picture, so she would always be in his heart. We laughed a lot. Thankfully, someone was there to translate for my sister, because her French is like mine... not too bad, but not good enough to have a conversation with Stich.

After this, we saw Cinemagique, a very nice movie where you go through the history of the movies, from black in white to the latest technologies. I always love watching this movie! By now, we had done almost everything in the park and decided to head to the Disneyland Park to watch the parade there.
We got there around 3.30 and got a nice spot for the parade at the entrance of the park.
Everyone enjoyed the parade and especially Emma got a lot of attention from the characters. Here she is with a pirate

Tijmen got to high five with a Toy Story soldier:

And Mirte just enjoyed everything she saw:

After the Parade, we walked over to Discoveryland, the only part of Disneyland we didn't get to see yesterday.
There wasn't a big line for Space Mountain, so Ivo, Anouk and I rode it. It is a lot nicer than the one in the MK

After that, Renée, Anouk, Mirte and Tijmen rode Autopia.

And we finally got to one of my favorite rides in Disneyland; Buzz Lightyear Ranger Spin! I rode with Mirte. I don't remember what my score was, but my sister beat me..

We decided to head out of the park to get a bite to eat at Planet Hollywood in the Village. I got my picture taken with Lumiere and took this picture of the others walking down Main Street.

Our dinner at Planet Hollywood was pretty nice, I had a very good pasta dish and we liked the atmosphere there.

When we got back at our hotel, we decided to go swimming at the resort's indoor swimming pool. It was a nice pool, with a great jacuzzi area. We spent around one hour there. Emma really liked it too!

After the swim, we got to our hotel rooms and after watching some TV on the Disney Channel, we got to bed pretty early again. Another great day at Disney had passed!

 

[mkluvsmickey]

Loved the update and all of the great pictures. I love being able to get a sense of what the parks are like in Paris - great job! Now I want to go there myself!

And congratulations - only 1 month until your wedding!!!

 

[Marjol]

And congratulations - only 1 month until your wedding!!!

Thanks! Today we have only 25 days left! And only 29 untill we're catching a plane to Orlando. Only 15 more working days. It's getting so close....I can't wait

And now... on with the show. Disneyland Paris, day three!

We woke up around the same time as the day before, got dressed and got together in the other bedroom, to celebrate Tijmen's 3rd birthday! He adores horses and got a lot of horses-related presents.

After having breakfast with the birthday boy, we walked to the Disneyland Park. It wasn't open for regular guests yet, but they have something like the EMH there now, so we were able to enter the park anyway. We walked over to Discoveryland to ride Astro Orbiter.

While we were waiting for the others to ride Astro Orbiter, the park opened its doors and... WOW! I've never seen such massive crowds in this park, and I've been there around Christmas and in mid-july... It was just crazy!

We walked to the Videopolis where the Lion King show would play around 12ish. Everyone needed some coffee, so they got some. I don't drink coffee, so I just took some juice. During the time we had to wait for the Lion King Show, we visited Star Tours and checked out the line for the princesses, but that line was so scary, we instantly turned around.
45 minutes before the Lion King show would start, we hopped in line. And that was worth is, because we got brilliant seats in the middle on the first row!
As a pre-show, we saw these great African performers!

The show was great, very different from the one in WDW... they really tell the story of the Lion King here.

After the show, my mom and aunt wanted to take the kids back to the hotel for a swim and afternoon nap. So we split up, we wanted to spend our afternoon in the Studios. While walking to the exit, I snapped this frightening picture of the crowds in Discoveryland.

After we entered the Studios, we walked straight to Tower of Terror and used Renée's disability pass. We got to join the fastpass line, but it wasn't very fast. It took us 50 minutes to get to the elevators.... to give you guys any idea how busy it was!
But hey, it was worth it. I loved our picture, especially how Anouk and I are looking at Renée, because she was so scared!

After ToT, we walked to Rock & Rollercoaster, which got us this picture:

While we were walking back from R&R to Crush' Coaster, I saw Chip & Dale and ran for them. Unlike Disneyworld, characters just "pop up" once in a while here and they can get away if you don't run for them...
Anyway, my sister laughed at me for running, but she wanted to be in the picture anyway...

We spent some more time in the studios after that picture, but I'm not really sure what we did.... well, after a while it was time to say goodbye to the Studios to head back to the main park to meet up with the others. We wouldn't come back here on this trip, so I took this picture:

We met up with the others and walked to Frontierland to catch a boat.We got on the Molly Brown. In all my previous trips to DLP, I'd never been on this boattour. It was relaxing. We got some nice views of Big Thunder Mountain.

I believe we rode Pirates of the Caribbean again after that, but I'm not really sure... eventually we got to Fantasyland and got a bite to eat at Pinocchio's. After that, it was getting dark and we spent some more time in Fantasyland. We rode Dumbo and It's a Small World.
After some rides, we went looking for a nice place to see the evening parade (at that time... we thought it was a parade... ). It was swamped with people and we didn't find a decent spot, but just stood behind some other people. I got some nice shots of the castle.

And then... the show started. We saw some characters and they had a little dance on a stage.

After that, they lit the 15 candles on the castle.

....and that was it. No parade.... nothing... I was really dissapointed. I would never have waited 30 minutes for this...

Well, we walked back to the hotel after that. We saw some people skating on the icerink in front of the hotel... very nice

While the other, caffeine-addicted, people, got their shots of coffee in the lobby downstairs, I watched Mirte, Tijmen, Renée and Emma. I took this cute picture of Mirte and Emma.

We got to bed around 9.30 and had a good night sleep before our last day started!

 

[mkluvsmickey]

Another great update - thanks so much for posting! I really want to go there someday now!

I love Tijmen's birthday hat! I'm sure he had a great birthday.

The pictures for ToT and RNRC are great too. And the boat ride around the park sounds nice.

The last picture of Mirte and Emma is precious!

 

[bluedolph1n]

Great report and great pictures!

 

[Marjol]

Day 4, Our last morning and driving back home

On our last morning in Disneyland, we got up around 7.30. We packed our bags and put everything in the car. After that, we had breakfast again, turned in our roomkeys and walked to the Disneyland park for the last time

We started off in Adventureland, where we rode Pirates again with no line at all. Emma went with us this time and we asked if we could sit in the front rows of the boat so we could buy the picture and would have one picture with everyone on it. The picture was great... but we couldn't see Tijmen on it... so we didn't buy it afterall.

We walked to Fantasyland after that, where we went on most of their rides, like the Caroussel and Dumbo.

While we were getting in line for It's A Small World, we saw a lot of characters coming out of the gates below us... I really don't understand the Disneyland Paris character policy...with everyone running to the characters and no possibilities to take a picture without someone you don't know in it... They really need to open more structurized character meeting points!

After we rode most Fantasyland rides, we decided it was time to head home. We walked through main street, where we had some hot chocolate in the bakery and did some shopping.

We walked out of the park and did some more shopping in Disney Village. We decided to get lunch at McDonalds. On our way there, it started raining. We had a bite to eat and walked back to our cars after that, where we started our journey home. It never stopped raining... it was still raining when we got home 5 hours after our departure... We were really thankful we didn't get this weather in our three days in Disneyland!

It was a great trip!

 

[ChevyNat]

Wow, you had a wonderful trip.. I'm glad I came back on your thread to visit ha! ha! Wonderful pictures.

 

[punkin413]

While we were getting in line for It's A Small World, we saw a lot of characters coming out of the gates below us... I really don't understand the Disneyland Paris character policy...with everyone running to the characters and no possibilities to take a picture without someone you don't know in it... They really need to open more structurized character meeting points!

it used to be this way at disney world, too. i have pictures from past trips (the most recent one being in 1992) of myself and my siblings with characters and there's other kids and their parents all around us in the pictures. i'm glad they changed it to where you have to wait in line now!

what a great trip you had! i would love to make it there someday. our trips are getting closer......20 days for me! you and i will be there before you know it!

 

[Marjol]

20 days for us too!

And only 16 days left until our wedding! I can't wait!

 

[mkluvsmickey]

Thank you so much for sharing your Disneyland Paris trip with us - I've really enjoyed it. I love the Mickey chair in the bakery.

I hope you have a fabulous wedding and I can't wait to hear all about it and your honeymoon!

 

[Marjol]

Two weeks from now I'm a married woman!

 

[AnnieDan_Artlover]

Just wanted to say I'm so happy for you!!!

In case I can't write in here again until then, I want to send you my best wishes and lots of good vibes!!!
Hoping you'll get good weather, the ceremony you're hopin' for, surrounded by the love of your friends and family and that you live "happily ever after"!!!

And then, of course, I want to wish you a truly magical Disneymoon to cap it off! (or start it off?! it's the icing on the "wedding" cake, but it's the start of your married life!)

Congratulations, once again!