Rory's Halloween Trip Day 1

[JulieH]

DAY 1-Sunday 15th October 2006

Cast-Me- Julie(41)
DH-Tommy(49)
DS-Rory(10)


Everyone was awake by 6 and the alarm wasn’t due to go off until 7.30.We left the house at 8.30 for the drive to Newcastle Airport and got there at 10. Had a cup of coffee and a sausage roll while we waited for check in. Got checked in and then had fun wandering around the shops.
After all the stories we’d heard about the seating on Easyjet we were pleased to get a row of 3 seats together no problem. We were 30 minutes late in taking off as there was a power failure for an instrument. This was sorted and we were only 15 minutes late in landing at CDG. We got through passports and got our luggage and had no problem finding the VEA stop.
We got the 17.45 bus which went to the selected hotels. We were staying at the Holiday Inn for the first night as the park shut at 19.00 so it didn’t seem worth having a park pass for that day. We had a good tour around all the Disney hotels and The Explorers. The driver had forgot about HI. We finally got to the hotel just after 7 so it was a good job we didn’t have a park pass for that day.
We got our room and it was really smelly when we got in and then DS realised that the carpet was soaking. We trooped back to reception and got a new room. This one was fine.
We decided to go to the Village for something to eat so got a shuttle bus to the station. We got a shock at the sight of 3 armed soldiers coming from the back of Annette’s, this was in the dark so it seemed worse. We were also surprised that there was no bag check at the entrance to the village. There was a big queue for Annette’s so we decided to go to Planet Hollywood. We had to wait 20 minutes for a table there but the meal was well worth it. DS had the pasta and tomato sauce, DH had steak and I had chicken and broccoli pasta. There was a photographer going around the tables so we had a photo taken, it cost 10 euros and the meal cost 49 euros with the Brit’s guide discount.
We got a bus back to HI about 9.30 and all fell into bed.

 

[Groovee]

Sounds like a good start anyway bar the bus driver. Look forward to your other installments.

 

[BONITATIME]

I am so impressed you have started your report already.
I am glad you finally arrived at your hotel and am looking forward to the rest of your trip.

 

[disneyangel]

Glad you didn't have a park ticket for day 1. Looking forward to hearing more.

 

[Sarah Sarill]

Julie,

I have booked for the HI over Christmas and would love to hear more about the hotel, staff and facilities if you have time to write that into your reports.

 

[sarahc]

A great start! How could the bus driver forget the HI? Mad!

 

[toony]

We got a shock at the sight of 3 armed soldiers coming from the back of Annette’s, this was in the dark so it seemed worse.

Stupid bus driver, but this quote is what really shocked me, too! Did you find out what they there doing in the village? That is so out of harmony with the disney village - no. with everything disney - hope those soldiers had a very good reason to be there in the near of children with arms. Because otherwise I would have been really mad in your position ...

thanks for sharing your report! Looking forward to read more.

 

[JulieH]

Julie,

I have booked for the HI over Christmas and would love to hear more about the hotel, staff and facilities if you have time to write that into your reports.

We only booked the one night at HI on the internet and then moved to Santa Fe the next morning with the Disney package with park tickets. Breakfast was fine it had bacon, sausage and omelette as well as the usual croissants,crusty rolls, ham,cheese and cereals .There was also a strange machine for making toast too.We didn't get a time slot we were just told that it was served between 6.30 and 10.30.
The room was fine, we had a family room with one single bed which was curtained off. There were 2 tv's, one in the kid's bit and the other in the main bit but we could only find french channels.All the cartoon ones seemed not to have a signal.We had no problem with the staff when we checked in and then again when we asked to change rooms.
We liked the HI the thing we didn't like was it being offsite and needing to get the shuttle bus. This was mainly because it was winter and dark, probably in summer when you could see where you were going you could walk past the garage and the Santa Fe.

 

[JulieH]

The soldiers were outside the actual village as we were walking from the PEP 54 bus stop to the entrance of the village. They came down the side of a building that we realised later was Annette's. Then when we got to the entrance of the village there wasn't the bag check that there had been last summer.We noticed the next day that had moved to nearer the ntrance of the park.

 

[BONITATIME]

this quote is what really shocked me, too! Did you find out what they there doing in the village? That is so out of harmony with the disney village - no. with everything disney - hope those soldiers had a very good reason to be there in the near of children with arms. Because otherwise I would have been really mad in your position ...

thanks for sharing your report! Looking forward to read more.

Because it is an international station there are armed guards the same way there are in all international airports.

 

[Cyrano]

Apart from the bus driver it sounds like you have got off to a great start.
Looking forward to your first park day

 

[Ware Bears]

Great start Julie

On all our trips we have seen armed soldiers outside the train station and near the bag check, especially on weekends. I assumed it was standard practise. It did not make me worried, if anything it made me feel safer.

 

[JulieH]

I think because it was in the dark and they came out of the shadows it gave us more of a scare. I forgot about it being for the international train station.

 

[toony]

Don't be mad at me, but for me there is a big difference between armed guards with small arms or handguns wearing their uniform (and beeing placed there they should be) and real armed soldier in their uniform (like the green plastic ones from toy story ). I'm not sure if we all talk about the same. Maybe its my false vocabulary understanding, but I think that's two totally diffrent things.
I don't like arms at all, but I truly understand that guards of trainstations and airports do need them (too many wired people, bomb alarm) and maybe the ones at the bag check,too. But I'm not fine with real heavy armed soldiers running around at the dark corners of the village, where they could scare little children to death.
And that's what I did understand.