flortlebap
Disneyiac!
- Joined
- Nov 10, 2005
- Messages
- 4,009
Well we're back from 4 fantastic days in DLP 
had a great time as you'd expect, shame to be back 
I won't have time for a full TR but I'll give you a summary of what we thought!
Highs
Everything. It is just fantastic. Any faults that you see are forgotten about when you're enjoying yourself so much.
The weather - just, WOW! We had LOWS of 60 degrees in October!! Everyone was walking around in vest tops like it was summer - fantastic, to say a week before we left, they were forecasting heavy rain every day.
The thrill rides were particularly excellent, though. ToT hasn't lost it's charm despite having ridden it around 200 times
and RC Racer is fab. Unfortunately the parachute drop had a HUGE queue the whole 4 days we were there so we had to skip it.
The bellhops at ToT are fantastic too - fantastic and totally in character!!! There was a high character presence too, which was nice.
Planet Hollywood - I can't begin to describe how much we enjoyed it here! The food and service was AMAZING. We had planned on going elsewhere but there was a 90 minute wait for any restaurant in the village on Saturday night
but we were seated here within 20 mins despite having expected to visit the bar for a few drinks first 
same goes for Annette's - LOVELY food and great service, cheap too!
Good morning Fantasyland breakfast - my advice is DO NOT miss out on this if staying at NPB! Breakfast in the hotel is quite stressful, but here it was just lovely, and you could walk straight onto the rides straight after
Halloween Shows/Decorations - I'd really recommend seeing the main street stage halloween show - it was awesome - very, very funny
there was a high character presence too, and Dr. Facilier from Princess and the Frog was just brilliant
Very few technical problems, which was nice to see.
Security was tight - X-ray machines were used to check bags whenever possible and the guards were very thorough, there were always police dogs around and the military. They were sort of in the background though so as not to frighten the kids - but you definitely knew they were there.
Lows
General Maintenance - DP's basic thought's were it was all starting to look a little "tired"... however there were some refurb works going on so it wasn't all bad. Things that were a little disappointing in this department were the street lamps on the bridge back to the hotel being broken and plunging the walkway into darkness, a tad dangerous!! Also the crane at the front of the hotel detracted a little from it's beauty, and one of the staircases was shut, which on a busy weekend was a total disaster! The NPB lighthouse was a mess too - even worse than the photos I'd seen. Generally though it wasn't a problem, despite the seeming negativity
Service/staff - WOW this was APPALLING!
This IMO was the worst part of the trip - but tbh we just sucked it up, made a joke of things and moved on. We decided to start giving CM's points for rudeness
because TBH, if you didn't laugh, you'd cry!
It started checking into the hotel - we were promised adjoining rooms, then were downgraded and promised rooms on the same floor... we went to the parks (having been told they were both open til 10pm when it was 6 that day) and when our rooms were eventually assigned, one key was fifth floor west wing and the other 2nd floor east! Not good 
particularly as when we'd gone to pick up the keys at 3pm, there was a long queue and nobody actually assigning keys until 3:20 when guests were starting to get pretty annoyed. Then when we eventually got to the room - it wasn't even ready! The maids hadn't cleaned it! Another trip to reception got a free admiral's floor upgrade with a nice lake view though so we could very easily let the minor mishaps go and the trip was fabulous from that point.
One member of staff downright lied though - my friend was told she was not allowed to check her handbag or coat into baggage and had to visit concierge. When we did this, Concierge told us we couldn't check it there and had to go back to baggage. The manager asked the member of staff at baggage why he hadn't checked the coat and bag and he made up some story about saying he'd told us to put it in the suitcase and never refused to take it (!) when in actual fact, all he'd done was say "Coat, NON!"
Rainforest Cafe - our first meal - they didn't bother sending the starters (and they charged for it!!!!), when the mains turned up they were cold, they accidentally sent us the same order to our table twice (!) then we had to ask three times for the bill, oddly enough it eventually turned up when we put our coats on and said we were walking out
Another bad bit of service - we went for breakfast one morning at the NY deli place in the village (can't remember it's name). When the breakfast turned up, they'd put salad on the toast (!) which made it soggy, the "bacon" was green and uncooked, and when I took it back for a refund I was shouted at by the manager, told it WAS in fact cooked (I asked her to eat it in that case, but she refused
) and when she eventually gave in and offered a refund, she rolled her eyes at me and threw the food across the kitchen fortunately we saw the funny side, but Europeans sure have a strange way of dealing with customers!
It was also interesting to visit the waffle stand and be told that they had no waffles
and could only give us ice cream... the CM there didn't speak English either so for those going anytime soon - I'd really recommend learning a few basic words - I speak semi-fluent french and everyone else managed with their basic french so we were okay
Rude Guests - again, you just HAVE to see the funny side. We nearly witnessed a punch up when we fastpassed BTM, the queue was an hour, and a VERY angry guest was shouting and swearing in every language he could think of at the people "skipping" the queue in the fastpass line he was too far down the queue for me to speak to him, but I'm really surprised nobody told him he had the right to FP too... there were a few queue jumping issues, but nothing too bad - and my poor ankles were black and blue by being rammed into by people with pushchairs thinking they owned the pavements, but again, nothing unexpected just sharpen your elbows and you'll be fine - and whatever you do, don't be polite and give your table up to a family of 6 that's been waiting for ages to sit down, they might be grateful but the miserable couple that follow and can't understand why THEY didn't get the table by just turning up and staring at you will attempt to follow you and make your life miserable
Smoking I thought I'd better mention this. We didn't find it a problem as we live in busy cities and encounter it daily on our commute to work. But it's definitely true when people say the smoking areas just aren't observed. The worst bit was people smoking in the queues in enclosed indoor lines! The CM's weren't too bothered which surprised me
Other Points
Newport Bay is a fantastic hotel. But it is VERY busy. We had an 08:30 breakfast slot and the queue just to get into the hall was 45 mins! So we decided to forego breakfast and do Starbucks on route, which worked out great.
The tea baskets have gone up in price from what I remember - they're now 8 euros, not 7.
FP machines were more often closed on busy days than not. The queues for big rides were around 15 mins, though.
For anyone with kids - PLEASE take note when the warnings signs on attractions say they aren't suitable for/may frighten younger children. I saw way too many terrorised and traumatised kids for one weekend.
Anyway wall of text over - I'm off to look at a trip for February despite DP saying he wouldn't go back for at least another year...
had a great time as you'd expect, shame to be back I won't have time for a full TR but I'll give you a summary of what we thought!
Highs
Everything. It is just fantastic. Any faults that you see are forgotten about when you're enjoying yourself so much.
The weather - just, WOW! We had LOWS of 60 degrees in October!! Everyone was walking around in vest tops like it was summer - fantastic, to say a week before we left, they were forecasting heavy rain every day.
The thrill rides were particularly excellent, though. ToT hasn't lost it's charm despite having ridden it around 200 times
and RC Racer is fab. Unfortunately the parachute drop had a HUGE queue the whole 4 days we were there so we had to skip it.The bellhops at ToT are fantastic too - fantastic and totally in character!!! There was a high character presence too, which was nice.
Planet Hollywood - I can't begin to describe how much we enjoyed it here! The food and service was AMAZING. We had planned on going elsewhere but there was a 90 minute wait for any restaurant in the village on Saturday night
but we were seated here within 20 mins despite having expected to visit the bar for a few drinks first same goes for Annette's - LOVELY food and great service, cheap too!Good morning Fantasyland breakfast - my advice is DO NOT miss out on this if staying at NPB! Breakfast in the hotel is quite stressful, but here it was just lovely, and you could walk straight onto the rides straight after
Halloween Shows/Decorations - I'd really recommend seeing the main street stage halloween show - it was awesome - very, very funny
there was a high character presence too, and Dr. Facilier from Princess and the Frog was just brilliant Very few technical problems, which was nice to see.
Security was tight - X-ray machines were used to check bags whenever possible and the guards were very thorough, there were always police dogs around and the military. They were sort of in the background though so as not to frighten the kids - but you definitely knew they were there.
Lows
General Maintenance - DP's basic thought's were it was all starting to look a little "tired"... however there were some refurb works going on so it wasn't all bad. Things that were a little disappointing in this department were the street lamps on the bridge back to the hotel being broken and plunging the walkway into darkness, a tad dangerous!! Also the crane at the front of the hotel detracted a little from it's beauty, and one of the staircases was shut, which on a busy weekend was a total disaster! The NPB lighthouse was a mess too - even worse than the photos I'd seen. Generally though it wasn't a problem, despite the seeming negativity
Service/staff - WOW this was APPALLING!
This IMO was the worst part of the trip - but tbh we just sucked it up, made a joke of things and moved on. We decided to start giving CM's points for rudeness
because TBH, if you didn't laugh, you'd cry!It started checking into the hotel - we were promised adjoining rooms, then were downgraded and promised rooms on the same floor... we went to the parks (having been told they were both open til 10pm when it was 6 that day
) and when our rooms were eventually assigned, one key was fifth floor west wing and the other 2nd floor east! Not good particularly as when we'd gone to pick up the keys at 3pm, there was a long queue and nobody actually assigning keys until 3:20 when guests were starting to get pretty annoyed. Then when we eventually got to the room - it wasn't even ready! The maids hadn't cleaned it! Another trip to reception got a free admiral's floor upgrade with a nice lake view though so we could very easily let the minor mishaps go and the trip was fabulous from that point.One member of staff downright lied though - my friend was told she was not allowed to check her handbag or coat into baggage and had to visit concierge. When we did this, Concierge told us we couldn't check it there and had to go back to baggage. The manager asked the member of staff at baggage why he hadn't checked the coat and bag and he made up some story about saying he'd told us to put it in the suitcase and never refused to take it (!) when in actual fact, all he'd done was say "Coat, NON!"
Rainforest Cafe - our first meal - they didn't bother sending the starters (and they charged for it!!!!), when the mains turned up they were cold, they accidentally sent us the same order to our table twice (!) then we had to ask three times for the bill, oddly enough it eventually turned up when we put our coats on and said we were walking out
Another bad bit of service - we went for breakfast one morning at the NY deli place in the village (can't remember it's name). When the breakfast turned up, they'd put salad on the toast (!) which made it soggy, the "bacon" was green and uncooked, and when I took it back for a refund I was shouted at by the manager, told it WAS in fact cooked (I asked her to eat it in that case, but she refused
) and when she eventually gave in and offered a refund, she rolled her eyes at me and threw the food across the kitchen fortunately we saw the funny side, but Europeans sure have a strange way of dealing with customers!It was also interesting to visit the waffle stand and be told that they had no waffles
and could only give us ice cream... the CM there didn't speak English either so for those going anytime soon - I'd really recommend learning a few basic words - I speak semi-fluent french and everyone else managed with their basic french so we were okay Rude Guests - again, you just HAVE to see the funny side. We nearly witnessed a punch up when we fastpassed BTM, the queue was an hour, and a VERY angry guest was shouting and swearing in every language he could think of at the people "skipping" the queue in the fastpass line
he was too far down the queue for me to speak to him, but I'm really surprised nobody told him he had the right to FP too... there were a few queue jumping issues, but nothing too bad - and my poor ankles were black and blue by being rammed into by people with pushchairs thinking they owned the pavements, but again, nothing unexpected just sharpen your elbows and you'll be fine - and whatever you do, don't be polite and give your table up to a family of 6 that's been waiting for ages to sit down, they might be grateful but the miserable couple that follow and can't understand why THEY didn't get the table by just turning up and staring at you will attempt to follow you and make your life miserable Smoking I thought I'd better mention this. We didn't find it a problem as we live in busy cities and encounter it daily on our commute to work. But it's definitely true when people say the smoking areas just aren't observed. The worst bit was people smoking in the queues in enclosed indoor lines! The CM's weren't too bothered which surprised me
Other Points
Newport Bay is a fantastic hotel. But it is VERY busy. We had an 08:30 breakfast slot and the queue just to get into the hall was 45 mins! So we decided to forego breakfast and do Starbucks on route, which worked out great.
The tea baskets have gone up in price from what I remember - they're now 8 euros, not 7.
FP machines were more often closed on busy days than not. The queues for big rides were around 15 mins, though.
For anyone with kids - PLEASE take note when the warnings signs on attractions say they aren't suitable for/may frighten younger children. I saw way too many terrorised and traumatised kids for one weekend.
Anyway wall of text over - I'm off to look at a trip for February despite DP saying he wouldn't go back for at least another year...
glad you had a great time. 
