Proposal Trip - Highs & Lows

Yorkieal

Planning something magical...
Joined
Feb 22, 2013
Messages
195
For a much more detailed account of proceedings during our recent trip, see my other thread; 'A Disneyland Proposal', but I thought I'd do a shorter 'highs and lows' version too. There were a million highlights but those that stick out the most are;

HIGHS

Premier Inn Kings Cross
Stay HERE for an overnighter if you're getting the Eurostar to DLP the next morning, couldn't speak highly enough of the place. Lovely rooms, great food and fantastic service. The staff were a different class! We paid about £150 for the room, dinner and breakfast (for two of us) which in Central London is unheard of!

Lion King at the Lyceum
Amazing show and a great way to start a trip to Disney! I was a little disgruntled at paying £31 for four drinks though....!

Weather
Given that it was late-October, we couldn't have asked for better weather! The day we arrived was warm, the second was blazing sunshine (I had shorts and t-shirt), and whilst the other two days were overcast they were dry and relatively warm! There was a fantastic mist of fog around the castle first thing on a morning which only added to the Halloween atmosphere!

Disneyland Hotel
Given some of the moans on TripAdvisor, I reckon they were staying at a different hotel to us. Either that or we were just very very lucky! The hotel is beautiful, expensive yes, but I actually think it IS worth the huge price tag. We were in room 1130 which was more or less above reception and within easy walking distance of the shop, restaurants and you could be at the park gates within 3 minutes!

The convenience of staying there was a huge plus-point too, easy to nip back and great for freshening up before hitting the parks!

Descent Of The Stairs
I'd seen the video's on YouTube but they really don't do it justice! Great fun and a fantastic atmosphere in the hotel lobby.

Photopass
We had to visit three of four shops before actually finding a pack, and the majority of CMs we asked didn't have a clue what we were talking about. We eventually tracked one down in the shop in Studio One of the Studios and activated the account straight away.

What a fantastic service! Incredibly easy, all the professional photographers were really efficient with them (as were the characters in pointing them out), and the images were online within five minutes! We got 55 photos over the course of four days and each one is of perfect quality. If we'd have pushed for more (ridden more rides and que'd for more character pics) we could easily have had over 100!

If you have a big family you could really take advantage of it. You get three seperate barcodes so could easily split up and hit them from every angle possible!

Inventions
After the huge breakfasts every morning we didn't need to eat again until dinner! We had dinner there one evening too, I figured to get my money's worth I'd have to have 5 plates, well I'm pleased to say I demolished SIX! The quality of the food was top-notch and I've never got through that much seafood in my life! Amy's a vegetarian (no meat OR fish) and she found PLENTY to satisfy her. We both looked like we were pregnant by the time we left! ;)

Characters
The characters we out in force and we were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time on three occasions for impromptu Meet&Greets.

Proposal evening
One paragraph isn't enough. WOW. See my other thread!

Fastpass use
We were quite savvy with our fastpasses, the longest we que'd using them was 15 mins for Tower Of Terror, but we walked straight on to Space Mountain, Indiana Jones and Big Thunder Mountain.

Halloween parade
I've still got that bloody song in my head! :cool1::cool1:

LOWS

For us, it was the perfect trip, but if I REALLY had to be picky I'd list the following things. They certainly didn't bother me enough to kick up a fuss, more very mild irritants...

Que's to re-enter the park
There were a few occasions when we'd gone to enter Disneyland Park later than usual (other than been in there from EMH, either after breakfast around 10.30 or in the afternoon) when we had to que to get in, only about ten mins but it was a bit perplexing;

Now, I understand there's always going to be lines but they seemed to be largely unnecessary; rather than letting folk scan their own ticket, there was a single cast member taking them and putting them in the machine for you. The same CM was also responsible for letting wheelchairs/pushchairs in and out. Just one extra CM would have made all the difference.

The sheer vulgarity of a small minority of guests
My god, some people think that paying to stay at DLP entitles them to do whatever. I can put up with a bit of hustle and bustle but the way some folk were speaking to the Cast Members (and Characters !) was revolting. Now I must stress that they REALLY were the minority, but two incidents in particular;

1) Anna and Elsa did an impromptu Meet & Greet in the Disneyland Hotel. We were fortunate enough to have joined the que early enough but after 3 or 4 groups joined afterwards, the 'supervising' CM began to explain that no one else could join the que as they needed to leave to be in the 5.30pm parade (it was about 4.40 at this time).

Up steps this hideous old woman who demanded, in a very loud fashion, that her grand children MUST meet Anna and Elsa. I'm not sure if she was been idiotic or just plain ignorant but the way she spoke to the CM was awful. Fair play to the CM as he was charmingly polite throughout but she just couldn't grasp the fact that her little angels wouldn't get their way. She was bawling out "you can't meet them because of this awful man". Aye love, we'll just delay the parade, with about 20,000 people waiting outside shall we?!

2) A 'well to do' family outside Inventions waiting to meet Donald Duck. The mother of the family was grotesque. Donald was having his picture taken and spending a few minutes with each little group but she took it upon herself to berate him for his lack of 'time management skills' :sad2:

She was full of "come on Donald, there's other people waiting" , and "Im sure thats way too much time for one child". Obviously when it came to her own brats she didn't rush them in an out.....!

I sometimes wonder what planet these people come from!

All in all, the most perfect trip I could have ever asked for! :cool1:
 
fabulous fabulous fabulous - i'm so glad the whole trip went so well for you :goodvibes. Now I'm off to read your proposal updates!
 
Glad the trip went really well for you & congratulations again:cheer2:
 
Congratulations again, and glad you had such a lovely time :)
 













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