ToffPrincess
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2017
- Messages
- 262
DAY BEFORE
So, this is my pre-trip report and report all in one as we booked and went within 48 hours. There was a lot of talk about going as in the UK we have something called half term but the second the parents in DS's class suggested a trip I said no. I have never been a fan of Eurodisney and the pricing is just so high I would rather add plane tickets and go to Florida. I said a hard NO and that was the end of that.. or so I thought.
2 weeks pass and it is the weekend that starts our half-term. DH had a big meeting cancellation and he said, ‘why dont we just go with DS's classmates. DS will be so suprised and happy.’ He still has no idea I booked us a 9 day trip in October so I didn't want to look suspicious. I said yes expecting everything was booked up but it was not. It seems we were actually going to go to Disneyland Paris for 3 days.
Anyone who knows me knows I am not a fan of Disneyland Paris ‘Eurodisney’ at all. I went once when I was 12 and honestly, I blocked most of it out. It wasnt very good. Logic tells me its not that bad and things have changed but I cant help it.. I am not excited at all. DS nearly fainted when we told him that we are going to Disneyland Paris. He knows its not Disneyworld and we explained to him that its a bit different but he is still very, very happy.
So I am off to pack a small suitcase for us. Weather will be ok but chance of rain. I will share more later & tomorrow as it will be a live report!
Toff’s do Disneyland Paris… Last Minute
TRAVEL DAY & DAY 1
TRAVEL DAY & DAY 1
So here I am on the Eurostar train. We picked the direct train going out and return. We are sitting in something called Standard Premier which is pretty lovely. I had found standard tickets that worked with our hotel reservation but when it came to checking out I handed DH the laptop to enter names (so I wasn’t distracted on the phone with the dining reservations) and Mr ‘I prefer club level’ clicked a totally different class of what I had found. DH said it wasn’t that expensive and refused to tell me the cost, stating, ‘it’s half the price per person of a last-minute train ticket to Manchester.’ Helpful. You can never really tell with DH if he is being honest as he will tend to do for anything ‘premier’ he can, not that I am complaining. Disney had sold all of its allocated train tickets for our outgoing and return dates so we had to book them ourselves but there were plenty of times left to choose from so that was surprisingly easy.
They don’t have a business class/first cabin on this route but this is the more comfortable option. It is pretty amazing so far I must say.. absolutely huge, soft seats and a lovely breakfast of croissants, yogurt, juice & coffee. So far so good. Everyone was so nice at St Pancreas station. Great start.
For anyone wandering.. it was clean and the bathrooms were also pretty clean.. but I still used a whole mini-hand sanitizer up and half a pack of wipes. (Bath and Body Works some sort of mint-vanilla combo.. very nice!)
This was a very last minute booking (think less than 48 hours) so I have done my best to get everything sorted. When we arrive, we will be staying at the Disneyland Hotel. Our itinerary is pretty relaxed. 3 days in a castle club room with VIP fastpass access. Totally different concept than Disneyworld with the whole fastpass thing. I don’t think (judging by the wait times I have seen) it is really needed but as half term is this week and next (depending on which school you go to) in the UK, so this time and on main holidays I think it’s nice to have the VIP option if it’s in your budget. The VIP fastpass option is only available to people staying in suites in all the hotels and people staying in castle-club (or club level as us WDW fans know it as) at Disneyland Hotel from what I can see. I may be wrong but that’s what my searches came up with. Then again, last minute holiday booking means I probably didn’t see all the options normally available.
We went for castle club over a standard room as there is a character breakfast included every morning in the lounge, you get those VIP fastpass tickets and DS’s classmates will be at the same hotel in ‘castle club’ which sort of forced our hand. If you are going to haemorrhage you may as well go for broke. For the price of this three day trip we could have spent a week in a standard room at the Grand Floridian.
When it comes to DS's classmates.. one mother has gone dark on wattaspp for the last 24 hours and the other informed me at 7am that her son had chicken pox and they couldn’t come. Amazing. I know some others will arrive the next day but I am not so close to them..or not close enough to be messaging them off the mummy's watts app group.
I booked Buffalo Bills Wild West Show for dinner tonight, lunch at Auberge de Cendrillon tomorrow. Have no clue what any of what I have just said means. Had no problem getting any reservations and something called ‘inventions’ was available as well. I guess it is unlike WDW in that you don’t need 6 months’ notice for good bookings.
We have almost arrived so will update later.
DAY 1 CONT.
DISNEYLAND PARK & BUFFALO BILLS
We arrive at the station and disembark. The hotel is quite literally a two-minute walk from the exit of the station once you pass the a security scan and turn away from the Disney Village. I had zero butterflies sadly getting out of the train and unlike in Florida, there was no Disney smell that hit my senses. DS was super excited and bouncing all over the place I found it hard to keep a hand on him on the walk to the hotel.
There is a beautiful park area outside the hotel with a lot of greenery and seating where a lot of benches are occupied by people smoking. The hotel entrance is off to the side as the centre part of the hotel is a walkway to the park. I do wander if the rooms facing that area are noisy or not but I have to say the crowds aren’t too loud at all. The hotel is very cute and looks a little bit more theme parky as it’s US Victorian counterpart the Grand Floridian. It is much less grand from the outside. It’s lower and more pink coloured so it actually looks a bit like a relative of the Paris castle.
Very sweet and very Victorian. Actually, it reminds me in sizing and layout a bit more like the Beach Club. Lots of trellises and railings. The inside is filled with carpet, wallpaper with various floral designs. Very pretty and there is that familiar Disney mezzanine type thing where you can look down on certain areas and lobbies. There is no particular smell or perfume that hits me there and DH and I comment that as gorgeous as it is.. it is kind of lacking atmosphere. A little music wouldn’t hurt.
After queueing in the check-in queue for about 15 minutes, a lady checked my print out confirmation and told me we were in the wrong area for Castle Club. She took us in a little lift to the second floor and we walked through the hotel and past the shop till we go to the Castle Club lifts which are a few meters after the gift shop hidden in a little side room opposite some green London phone boxes. There is an old school phone on the table which she picked up to call us a lift. The phone is broken. She tries her card but that doesn’t work. Just before she leaves us there to go all the way back to reception to call them to call us a lift an older man staying in castle club comes along and we get in the lift with him to the third floor. You get out at third floor and there is a truly beautiful reception area for Castle Club.
Check-in takes forever because there is so much to be explained. Everything has separate tickets and paperwork. There are park entry paper tickets, fastpass tickets, tickets for each and every meal we will eat, a ticket to go to the gift shop and get the photopass thing activated.. paper, paper, paper.
Very pleasant CC staff and quite surprisingly someone is at the desks 24/7. At the GF Club Level they work 7-10 and then you use regular reception which I find amazing enough so 24/7 is pretty impressive.
We are then shown to our room on the 4th floor. It’s a gorgeous room on the corner so we have a huge hallway when we enter which leads to the usual and familiar Disney room format. A corridor area with the cupboard opposite the door to the bathroom and then the main bedroom. We have one kingsize bed, one queen and one daybed. DS quickly claims the daybed as his own and the lovely cast member who showed us to the room says it will be made up for him by the time we re-enter the room later. Aside from the entrance corridor I would say this is the same size room as the GF standard rooms and standard club rooms with different furniture.
The bathroom I much prefer here to the WDW bathrooms as its more homely and there is a main door and the rest can be used open plan. The toilet can be separated but the bath area is far less claustrophobic as its not in the toilet cubicle. And.. there is a shower head with a hose.. hallelujah.
So much easier to wash a kid with a hose! What I love is the attention to detail.. all the bath products have mickey ear lids as do all the sugar cubes. There is a little peter pan on the outer door knob. These are the little magical touches I love and DS noticed them all straight away.
After a quick freshen up we go to the gift shop to get the photopass thing sorted. We are given a box with more cards inside and told to download an app. The lady doesn’t speak great English and she says something like we have to activate our first photo in a shop.. but I can’t understand. I ask her 3 times to clarify but she still can’t explain it to me so we just move on. The internet is terrible in the hotel and I can’t download the app so as we enter the park I spend the next park of an hour trying to join Wi-Fi or get my network to work and get the stupid app working.
As we hit main street there is a bit of a crowd as there is some sort of mini-parade happening. The first thing I notice is the heavy and I mean heavy smell of cigarette smoke. I actually have no idea about the Paris smoking policy but I guess it is more relaxed than WDW as until we entered the park, almost every single person we passed sitting on a bench was smoking. I have no issue with smoking, I smoked for the best part of 15 years (yes, I know, I know if you do the math I started very young) so I try not to judge but there is a time and a place for it and in my brain.. it’s not Disney. Come on people. Anyway, DH turns to me and says in our native language so DS cannot understand, ‘do you smell that? Where is that lovely Disney smell. This isn’t Disney.’ We keep battling our way around Central Plaza and decide against better judgement to get some food via the first quick service place we see. The place is Pizzeria Bella Notte and it is STUNNING.
This is Disney theming done right. It is an Italian restaurant themed around Lady and the Tramps Italian date night and the attention to detail is marvellous. That’s where the complements end. I queue for 30 minutes to get told that basically everything is out of stock. So, I get us one pizza to share. It was your standard freezer type synthetic pizza you would expect from a dollar store. I wouldn’t expect anything that bad to come from a restaurant advertising itself as Italian or a pizzeria. But it did the job and we had something to eat.
Just assume from this point on DH and I didn’t speak a single word of English for DS’s benefit although I do suspect he understands us anyway. We get in the queue for Small World and DH whispers at me again. ‘Err, where are the children?’ he asks and I turn around and oh my god he is right. In the 15-minute queue and sea of faces there are maybe 3 kids other than DS. EVERUYONE else is an adult. A few moments later, ‘have you noticed that no one is smiling?’ Again, I look around and he’s not kidding. With the exception of DS, DH and one lone cast member organizing the chain queue not one single person has a smile on their face. The ride was ok. I mean, it’s bright so you see everything so I wouldn’t classify it as a dark ride. The ceilings which are in need of repair, the walls, the curtains.. it’s not a dark ride. The music isn’t as loud as in WDW so you hear people chatter over it and oh my god do they talk. Our boat would not shut up the whole time. I liked to see a bit of a different layout and a few new additions to the countries but it doesn’t work for me. Also, rather strangely.. there is no familiar water ride smell. It doesn’t smell like a Disney water ride. No Bromine or less bromine.. who knows!
Then we used our fastpasses for the Peter Pan ride. That was amazing. Jerkier than in WDW but I liked the bedroom scene a lot more. Then we did Buzz Lightyears ride and that was also just not as good as WDW. Yes, it’s great that the guns can be taken in your hand but the whole thing is less exciting and far less immersive. We then had to queue 15 minutes to get our photo and then it never uploaded to our account. Its frozen and won’t work.
All those 3 rides seem not to be as absorbing and immersive as in WDW. I think they aren’t dark enough so you are very aware that you are on a ride and you don’t feel so transported into whatever world you are supposed to be in. That being said we have yet to do the other rides so keeping an open mind. The cast members however are very pleasant. Very happy and helpful.
DS at this point looks at me and says, 'This is ok this Paris land (how he calls Disneyland Paris) but I like Disney World mummy, ok?’ and DH immediately says, ‘Don’t worry when we finish our Florida trip mummy will book us a nice week there.’ He looks at me and asks me if that’s ok and I try very hard not to laugh in his face. You all better believe I have the hotel booked, ADRs done, excel spreadsheet done, Mickeys Not So Scary tickets booked since the day the ADRs opened almost 2 weeks ago.. DH, you fool! I say that it will be no problem. DH then says the words I would never thought I would hear, and in English for DS’s benefit, ‘Mummy I miss Disney World I can’t wait to go back to our place.’ I would marry him again if I could.
We then leave the park to go to our dinner reservation which is the Buffalo Bills Wild West Show in the Disney Village. It is super easy to find as it is one of the first buildings you see when you enter that area.
We queue to enter and soon enough the doors open and we get our seating tickets and cowboy hats. Each hat has a different coloured band to symbolise the colour team you will support. We were blue for Wyoming. We go into a great hall with a large bar and get ourselves a beer while we wait. There is a photo area but no photographer. Wow that 66 euro photo pass is looking more and more like a rip-off by the second. It’s a great pre-show holding area. There is a pre-show (3 musicians and then Goofy appears) which DH and DS love and bop around to. Finally, the crowd seems to be in a Disney mood and people start dancing and yeehaa-ing along. I LOVE country music so I know all the words to every song played before the pre-show starts which I think surprised DH.
We are then seated in the arena and the tables are long and bench style so you can watch the show as you eat. The tables are set with cornbread and tin plates and bowls. I LOVED the food. Cornbread, chilli, ribs, chicken legs, potatoes and then apple crumble with ice-cream. What’s not to love?! Ok I don’t like potatoes in any form but that aside it was amazing. DS had a kid’s meal because the BBQ sauce on the ribs was spicy as was the beans. We were on the beer and it kept being topped up every time the server passed us and I am not going to lie I had about 3 glasses of beer on top of the small pint I had pre-show.
The show itself is amazing. Horses, cowboys, characters, singing, audience participation, team races.. I don’t want to go in too much detail but it was really good. DS had to be handfed because he was so transfixed he didn’t look away the whole time.
I am not a vegan by any means but I am an animal lover. I never quite know how I feel about animals being used in entertainment. There was a point where there were Bulls and Byson onstage to be ‘hearded’ and what was nice was that the animals were not man handled or touched at any point in the show/demonstration. However, I do feel a few of the smaller calves (or whatever baby ones are called) looked a bit sad/scared so I personally could have done without them being there.
All in all, that dining show is AMAZING! 10/10 really amazing. Something I would expect to see in America and I almost can’t believe they don’t have it in WDW. Fantastic cast members, amazing food, great atmosphere, fab music.. well worth the cost of the ticket. And you get to keep your cowboy hat. DS & DH loved it too although DH was cursing himself after as he ate so much. He is still trying to lose his WDW and general laziness weight gain. 3kg down 6kg (ideally 9kg) to go.
With that done we head back to the hotel to get an early night and so DH can get some work calls done. He is so busy with work at this time of year I end up helping him write emails whilst DS plays with his new Cowgirl toy (‘friend of Buddy’ as he calls her) and that concludes day 1 of our last-minute Paris trip.
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