So after almost three months of anticipating (and many more before that of 'should we/shouldn't we-ing) the time has (almost come) and in one week's time we'll be on the Eurostar heading towards Disneyland Paris! Which means it's about time to start getting really excited and do a trip report, methinks 
Who's going?
![5080_610652886797_223604457_7050906_3245982_n.jpg"]](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fphotos-c.ak.fbcdn.net%2Fhphotos-ak-snc1%2Fhs109.snc1%2F5080_610652886797_223604457_7050906_3245982_n.jpg%22%5D&hash=af618aab18901ceff8a3015f7c6ca8a2)
(Minnie Mouse style on my behalf unintentional!)
John, the DBF, 21 and a Disneyland Virgin. He hasn't seen many of the films (I've been rectifying this since we've been together - recently introduced him to Finding Nemo which he, rightly, loved. Just keep swimming...) and basically agreed to this trip as with the 40% off it was actually cheaper than staying in hostels in the centre of Paris (admittedly hostels with private double rooms and en-suites, but still. Plus we'd naturally have had to factor in at least £40 each for day passes
). Disney favourite is Toy Story and him being a typical male, I foresee Buzz being his favourite ride!
Me, also 21, and definitly not a Disneyland Virgin. That said, the last time I went was before the Studios had even opened so that will be a new experience for both of us. I did work in WDW Florida for a summer 2 years ago as part of the International College Programme. (in the World of Disney store in Disney village, if anybody's interested! While at first I was a bit gutted not to be working in one of the parks, I'm now quite glad I didn't have experiences such as walking through the MK tunnels and seeing decapitated Tiggers and suchlike! Walking through the tunnells and meeting Belle all made up was surreal enough for me, thanks!) It was one of the best experiences ever, and I've been craving a Disney kick ever since!
For kicks, here's a photo of me 'working' hard in my beautiful 'costume':
So, this is a trip we're attempting to do on a bit of a budget, or at least DBF is. We weren't sure about going on holiday at all, as less than three months ago I was one of the many who had just graduated as was looking at doing unpaid work experience for the foreseeable future. John's doing a four-year course so is still a poor student who couldn't really help me out. But then I got a magic phone call offering me a job (like a proper job... That I really wanted?! Mickey must've been on my side!) and there was the 40% offer on, and we thought, let's just do it (It's only turned out to be £240 each including transport for 4 nights/5 days, which is cheaper than we paid for our beach holiday of the same length that had nothing at all included last year - BARGAIN!). We're not going to be able to spend more than a weekend together for most of the forthcoming year, and we've worked hard, so why not! But DBF's student status means we're going to be a bit careful with food and suchlike as while I can afford to help pay for a couple of nicer meals, I can't do it for five! So... here's our semi-on-a-budget Trip Report-that-aims-to-include-Paris-too!
Day Minus-One - Sat 12th September
DBF to travel from his hometown (Stroud, nr. Gloucester) to mine (Oxford). Take the wonderful Oxford Tube to Marble Arch. Probably go to St. Pancras from there to pick up our tickets to save worrying the next day. Then go to my lovely Grandparents' house, who live in Hendon (North London - about 30 mins up the Northern Line from King's Cross) who have kindly said we can stay there for tonight. My Grandma being your typical Jewish Grandmother, this involves lots of amazing food which I am already salivating at the thought of! Probably get a bit of an early night ready for a good ol' 6am start the next day...
Day One
Get up super-early (OK, 6ish) to leave the house around 7 (depending on what work is being done on the line that weekend), providing we already have tickets. Hopefully get a tube around 7:15 and get to King's X around 7:45, an hour and a quarter before our train. Luckily the tube comes out on the same side of the road as St. Pancras so there's no horrible navigating of the station and lugging bags through. The last time I did that I got lost and confused while carrying a good old hiking bag and tent, a little bit dazed from the effects of festival-tent-sleeping for the past 4 nights! (No, not hungover!). N.B. My best friend has just started a job transplanting Pancreases, so if an extra e slips into St. Pancras (which it just did...) then it's all her fault...
ANYWAY. Not sure how long checking in at the Eurostar takes, but hopefully if we have our tickets we'll have enough time once going through security, etc, to grab some tea and a bacon sarnie to tide us over (you've probably noticed here I do not follow in my Grandparent's Good Jewish Footsteps, but seeing as they're my Dad's parents it means I'm technically not Jewish anyway, so you'll forgive me this I hope. Besides, pig tastes good). And by 9 o'clock we'll be off on the Eurostar heading to Disney! Well, Lille, actually, where we have a fourty minute stopover. This means that, factoring in the time difference and all going well, we'll arrive in Disney at about 1:30. Check into the Santa Fe hotel, get the park tickets and GO! Now, here is where I've got a dilemma. Rock 'n' Rollercoaster is closing on the 14th for the remainder of our stay, and, in WDW at least, this was one of my favourite rides. So we've got to really do it on the Sunday (the 13th) at some point. However, I think that as DBF is a Disney Virgin, his first site should really be of Main Street and the Castle, right? So the question is, do we have enough time to go into Disneyland Parc, wonder around for a bit, then to hotfoot it over to the studios for one ride with Aerosmith? Or is that going to be a bit too stressful considering we'll have been up since 6, travelling, and will probably be tired?
What I do know is that I want to (partially) treat DBF to a meal in Walts that evening, as it's the only time the park is open until an hour when we might want to eat (closing at 9pm, rather than 7pm, and we'd usually eat between 7:30 - 8 on holiday). So will either book when in the park or checking in I think to make sure we can do it, and might request a Main Street Room too. As it's off-season and a French AP blackout day, fingers crossed it'll be alright!
Days 2 - 4
No rigid plans for these as haven't quite worked out when the best day/s to go down to Paris itself are. Still, some must-haves include the following:
Disneyland: BTM, SM, Buzz, POTC, PM and touring the castle. Otherwise just take it easy and wonder round leisurely seeing what takes our fancy. Maybe get a park breakfast on one of the days so we can make use of EMH but not have to get up at a ridiculously early time to have breakfast and do so. One of my favourite things about spending a summer in WDW is that some days we would go to the parks and not on rides/ just go on things with no queues like the teacups or carousel, and could just wonder round meeting characters or just generally taking it all in, instead.
The Studios: Rock 'n' Rollercoaster (hopefully!); ToT (if I can persuade DBF that the height thing isn't too bad - I get serious vertigo/have a horrible fear of heights (apparently they're different?) and don't mind that part. I think it's worth going on just for the pre-show, if it's anything like the Florida one!); Lights, Motors, Action; Animagique/Cinemagique; Crush if it's under an hour's wait (so probably not, then!). Otherwise, again, just wonder round and see what takes our fancy. I'm so excited about exploring this park!
Paris: The usual: The Louvre (or even just the pyramids!); Eiffel Tower (though maybe not go up as both of us suffer from the aforementioned fear of heights!); Montmarte. We also want to go down early enough so that we can sit outside a bistro on the Parisian streets with hot chocolate (neither of us are coffee drinkers, unfortunately!) and pain au chocolats/croissants. I also want to find this vintage shop street, but I'm not sure DBF will be too keen on that one. There's a lot of other things that we both really want to see that are in the guidebook (and on dwheatl's trip report!), such as Notre Dame, the 'islands' towards the Seine, the Latin Quarter, some of the non-Louvre art galleries, and the famous cafés that people like Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Picasso used to hang out in (one an English Literature student..! Though the DBF being an engineering student means that the last might take some persuading!). So I can see us spending a couple of days in Paris, or maybe one full day and one half day? I guess we'll see what happens! I don't feel too bad about not using 'making the most' of our park tickets, though; our accomodation cost £339 for both of us, and tickets for 5 days alone each are worth the equivalent of £400! So we've either got free tickets or free accomodation, depending on how you look at it! (This is what I keep telling the DBF anyway, so he doesn't think we'll be spending all our time in the Parks )
Food: My personal definites are The Steakhouse and Walt's. Otherwise we'll probably stick to cheaper options such as the Chuck Wagon Buffett, Planet Hollywood/Rainforest Café, Annettes, etc. Still debating as to whether it's worth buying HB+ vouchers to maybe eat in slightly nicer places some nights (and forgot PH/RC)? I asked in another thread but not sure if people saw - if we went to Paris and ate there one evening, would we be able to use the vouchers on our departure day? Or do they have to be used on consecutive days/ are they dated? If we don't get HB vouchers we might head down to Val d'Europe one night also. Will probably also head to Auchan to get some rolls/ other food that doesn't have to stay in the fridge and some drinks to make lunchtimes that bit cheaper. Which leaves more money for...
Drink/ The Evenings: As the parks close early, this gives us plenty of time to sample the various hotel bars (and ones in Disney village) in the evenings. Glowtini, here I come! Also tempted by Hurricanes - especially the 90s night. I know everyone says it's gross but I've worked in a student union for the past two years; it can't be worse than anything I witnessed there both behind and in-front of the bar! At the other end of the scale, quite want to check out the Fantasia Lounge for the piano player, but might stick to water here! Just quite intrigued about exploring the hotels in general, esp. the Disneyland Hotel and Cheyenne.
General Relaxing: Will be factoring in a lot of doing nothing, also, so we both feel refreshed and ready to go back to work/uni!
THE LAST DAY - Thursday 17th
Our Eurostar back isn't until 8:30, but that's from Paris itself. For some reason there weren't any trains available going straight from Disney - v. weird. Still, we won't need to leave until around 5/5:30 I don't think, which still gives us a day to potter around the parks and have a decent lunch somewhere before collecting our bags and taking the Metro to Gare Du Nord. Get train around 8:30, get back into London around 9:30 GMT. Head to Marble Arch/ Victoria and then get the Oxford Tube home
And so that includes a rather epic trip report/my life story! Hope it wasn't too waffly! If anyone has any suggestions of 'must-dos' either in Paris or Disneyland for people going without kids and trying to see the best of everything in 3 days + 2 half days then shoot!!
Who's going?
(Minnie Mouse style on my behalf unintentional!)
John, the DBF, 21 and a Disneyland Virgin. He hasn't seen many of the films (I've been rectifying this since we've been together - recently introduced him to Finding Nemo which he, rightly, loved. Just keep swimming...) and basically agreed to this trip as with the 40% off it was actually cheaper than staying in hostels in the centre of Paris (admittedly hostels with private double rooms and en-suites, but still. Plus we'd naturally have had to factor in at least £40 each for day passes
). Disney favourite is Toy Story and him being a typical male, I foresee Buzz being his favourite ride! Me, also 21, and definitly not a Disneyland Virgin. That said, the last time I went was before the Studios had even opened so that will be a new experience for both of us. I did work in WDW Florida for a summer 2 years ago as part of the International College Programme. (in the World of Disney store in Disney village, if anybody's interested! While at first I was a bit gutted not to be working in one of the parks, I'm now quite glad I didn't have experiences such as walking through the MK tunnels and seeing decapitated Tiggers and suchlike! Walking through the tunnells and meeting Belle all made up was surreal enough for me, thanks!) It was one of the best experiences ever, and I've been craving a Disney kick ever since!
For kicks, here's a photo of me 'working' hard in my beautiful 'costume':
So, this is a trip we're attempting to do on a bit of a budget, or at least DBF is. We weren't sure about going on holiday at all, as less than three months ago I was one of the many who had just graduated as was looking at doing unpaid work experience for the foreseeable future. John's doing a four-year course so is still a poor student who couldn't really help me out. But then I got a magic phone call offering me a job (like a proper job... That I really wanted?! Mickey must've been on my side!) and there was the 40% offer on, and we thought, let's just do it (It's only turned out to be £240 each including transport for 4 nights/5 days, which is cheaper than we paid for our beach holiday of the same length that had nothing at all included last year - BARGAIN!). We're not going to be able to spend more than a weekend together for most of the forthcoming year, and we've worked hard, so why not! But DBF's student status means we're going to be a bit careful with food and suchlike as while I can afford to help pay for a couple of nicer meals, I can't do it for five! So... here's our semi-on-a-budget Trip Report-that-aims-to-include-Paris-too!
Day Minus-One - Sat 12th September
DBF to travel from his hometown (Stroud, nr. Gloucester) to mine (Oxford). Take the wonderful Oxford Tube to Marble Arch. Probably go to St. Pancras from there to pick up our tickets to save worrying the next day. Then go to my lovely Grandparents' house, who live in Hendon (North London - about 30 mins up the Northern Line from King's Cross) who have kindly said we can stay there for tonight. My Grandma being your typical Jewish Grandmother, this involves lots of amazing food which I am already salivating at the thought of! Probably get a bit of an early night ready for a good ol' 6am start the next day...
Day One
Get up super-early (OK, 6ish) to leave the house around 7 (depending on what work is being done on the line that weekend), providing we already have tickets. Hopefully get a tube around 7:15 and get to King's X around 7:45, an hour and a quarter before our train. Luckily the tube comes out on the same side of the road as St. Pancras so there's no horrible navigating of the station and lugging bags through. The last time I did that I got lost and confused while carrying a good old hiking bag and tent, a little bit dazed from the effects of festival-tent-sleeping for the past 4 nights! (No, not hungover!). N.B. My best friend has just started a job transplanting Pancreases, so if an extra e slips into St. Pancras (which it just did...) then it's all her fault...
ANYWAY. Not sure how long checking in at the Eurostar takes, but hopefully if we have our tickets we'll have enough time once going through security, etc, to grab some tea and a bacon sarnie to tide us over (you've probably noticed here I do not follow in my Grandparent's Good Jewish Footsteps, but seeing as they're my Dad's parents it means I'm technically not Jewish anyway, so you'll forgive me this I hope. Besides, pig tastes good). And by 9 o'clock we'll be off on the Eurostar heading to Disney! Well, Lille, actually, where we have a fourty minute stopover. This means that, factoring in the time difference and all going well, we'll arrive in Disney at about 1:30. Check into the Santa Fe hotel, get the park tickets and GO! Now, here is where I've got a dilemma. Rock 'n' Rollercoaster is closing on the 14th for the remainder of our stay, and, in WDW at least, this was one of my favourite rides. So we've got to really do it on the Sunday (the 13th) at some point. However, I think that as DBF is a Disney Virgin, his first site should really be of Main Street and the Castle, right? So the question is, do we have enough time to go into Disneyland Parc, wonder around for a bit, then to hotfoot it over to the studios for one ride with Aerosmith? Or is that going to be a bit too stressful considering we'll have been up since 6, travelling, and will probably be tired?
What I do know is that I want to (partially) treat DBF to a meal in Walts that evening, as it's the only time the park is open until an hour when we might want to eat (closing at 9pm, rather than 7pm, and we'd usually eat between 7:30 - 8 on holiday). So will either book when in the park or checking in I think to make sure we can do it, and might request a Main Street Room too. As it's off-season and a French AP blackout day, fingers crossed it'll be alright!
Days 2 - 4
No rigid plans for these as haven't quite worked out when the best day/s to go down to Paris itself are. Still, some must-haves include the following:
Disneyland: BTM, SM, Buzz, POTC, PM and touring the castle. Otherwise just take it easy and wonder round leisurely seeing what takes our fancy. Maybe get a park breakfast on one of the days so we can make use of EMH but not have to get up at a ridiculously early time to have breakfast and do so. One of my favourite things about spending a summer in WDW is that some days we would go to the parks and not on rides/ just go on things with no queues like the teacups or carousel, and could just wonder round meeting characters or just generally taking it all in, instead.
The Studios: Rock 'n' Rollercoaster (hopefully!); ToT (if I can persuade DBF that the height thing isn't too bad - I get serious vertigo/have a horrible fear of heights (apparently they're different?) and don't mind that part. I think it's worth going on just for the pre-show, if it's anything like the Florida one!); Lights, Motors, Action; Animagique/Cinemagique; Crush if it's under an hour's wait (so probably not, then!). Otherwise, again, just wonder round and see what takes our fancy. I'm so excited about exploring this park!
Paris: The usual: The Louvre (or even just the pyramids!); Eiffel Tower (though maybe not go up as both of us suffer from the aforementioned fear of heights!); Montmarte. We also want to go down early enough so that we can sit outside a bistro on the Parisian streets with hot chocolate (neither of us are coffee drinkers, unfortunately!) and pain au chocolats/croissants. I also want to find this vintage shop street, but I'm not sure DBF will be too keen on that one. There's a lot of other things that we both really want to see that are in the guidebook (and on dwheatl's trip report!), such as Notre Dame, the 'islands' towards the Seine, the Latin Quarter, some of the non-Louvre art galleries, and the famous cafés that people like Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Picasso used to hang out in (one an English Literature student..! Though the DBF being an engineering student means that the last might take some persuading!). So I can see us spending a couple of days in Paris, or maybe one full day and one half day? I guess we'll see what happens! I don't feel too bad about not using 'making the most' of our park tickets, though; our accomodation cost £339 for both of us, and tickets for 5 days alone each are worth the equivalent of £400! So we've either got free tickets or free accomodation, depending on how you look at it! (This is what I keep telling the DBF anyway, so he doesn't think we'll be spending all our time in the Parks
)Food: My personal definites are The Steakhouse and Walt's. Otherwise we'll probably stick to cheaper options such as the Chuck Wagon Buffett, Planet Hollywood/Rainforest Café, Annettes, etc. Still debating as to whether it's worth buying HB+ vouchers to maybe eat in slightly nicer places some nights (and forgot PH/RC)? I asked in another thread but not sure if people saw - if we went to Paris and ate there one evening, would we be able to use the vouchers on our departure day? Or do they have to be used on consecutive days/ are they dated? If we don't get HB vouchers we might head down to Val d'Europe one night also. Will probably also head to Auchan to get some rolls/ other food that doesn't have to stay in the fridge and some drinks to make lunchtimes that bit cheaper. Which leaves more money for...
Drink/ The Evenings: As the parks close early, this gives us plenty of time to sample the various hotel bars (and ones in Disney village) in the evenings. Glowtini, here I come! Also tempted by Hurricanes - especially the 90s night. I know everyone says it's gross but I've worked in a student union for the past two years; it can't be worse than anything I witnessed there both behind and in-front of the bar! At the other end of the scale, quite want to check out the Fantasia Lounge for the piano player, but might stick to water here! Just quite intrigued about exploring the hotels in general, esp. the Disneyland Hotel and Cheyenne.
General Relaxing: Will be factoring in a lot of doing nothing, also, so we both feel refreshed and ready to go back to work/uni!
THE LAST DAY - Thursday 17th
Our Eurostar back isn't until 8:30, but that's from Paris itself. For some reason there weren't any trains available going straight from Disney - v. weird. Still, we won't need to leave until around 5/5:30 I don't think, which still gives us a day to potter around the parks and have a decent lunch somewhere before collecting our bags and taking the Metro to Gare Du Nord. Get train around 8:30, get back into London around 9:30 GMT. Head to Marble Arch/ Victoria and then get the Oxford Tube home
And so that includes a rather epic trip report/my life story! Hope it wasn't too waffly! If anyone has any suggestions of 'must-dos' either in Paris or Disneyland for people going without kids and trying to see the best of everything in 3 days + 2 half days then shoot!!
Love the pic of you hard at work in WDW LOL.
The only other time I remember seeing it, it was December and a really foggy day so you couldn't really see it from anywhere except right infront of it. Looking forward to a totally different perspective this time around 
