Disneyland Hotel Castle Club Trip Report (sooo late!)

[Cass]

Hi everyone, please forgive me for taking so long to post my trip report from DLP. We stayed at the Disneyland Hotel, Castle Club from December 3rd - 7th and had an awesome time.


Before I get started on the DLP part of our trip, I'm going to tell you a bit about the pre-trip as went other places before we arrived in Paris.
I hope you don't mind.

Cast

Me: Cass, 42 and a Disney Lover!!

DD13: Noel, loves to travel especially when she gets out of school for it


The Pre DLP Trip, Trip

November 19th we flew from Toronto to Rome (via Frankfurt) we stayed at the Hassler Hotel in Rome for a couple of days.

Hassler Hotel

View from our Room

Noel enjoying the view

We toured Rome for a couple of days hitting all the highlights like Vatican City, the Roman Forum, Colosseum etc...

Noel meets a Gladiator!

Rome was wonderful but we couldn't wait to begin our journey that would lead to Disneyland Paris.

More coming up soon.

 

[Cass]

A few days later we boarded the Star Princess at the Port of Rome for a Mediterranean Cruise.


Star Princess

Our Cabin

First stop was Naples, Italy where we visited the Amalfi Coast and the pretty towns of Sorrento and Positano

 

[Cass]

A couple of days later we arrived in Athens, Greece.


Me at the Acropolis

Noel remembering that this is a school day!

view from the acropolis

Athens

 

[Cass]

The next port of call was Kusadasi Turkey, I had no idea about what this obscure sounding town had to offer but it turned out to be one of the best days of the cruise. We visted Ephesus, an ancient city and walked amongst the ruins ~ Incredible!

 

[Cass]

A couple of days later we were in Istanbul, Turkey and went to the Grand Bazaar and one of the Ottoman Palaces. The weather was fabulous, cool but dry and we hoped we would be so lucky at DLP.


Palace

View from the Palace

Friendly Kitties in the Palace Grounds

Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

Noel Shopping

We also went to the Blue Mosque

 

[Cass]

The next stop was supposed to be Mykonos Greece, but we had heavy seas leaving Istanbul and we were slowed down and couldn't make it on time to Mykonos. Instead we had a sea day, which was very relaxing.

Ship Atrium

Pools

We spent a lot of the day playing cards at this little table by the window

 

[Cass]

After our relaxing sea days it was time for Egypt. We docked at Port Said, which is a 3 hours drive to Cairo


Port Said at Dawn

Drive to Cairo

Our first stop was the Step Pyramid at Sakkarra

 

[Cass]

Next was the Great Pyramids at Giza

 

[Cass]

At night we went to the sound and light show at the pyramids

Here is a little sound and light show video if you want to see what it was like. Very cool!


We stayed overnight at a hotel in Giza and the next day went to the Cairo Museum

 

[Cass]

Then we did a little Nile Cruise and went to Alexandria to rejoin our ship

From Alexandria, Egypt we sailed back to Rome... we arrived early am on December 3rd and Noel and I took the ship shuttle bus to Rome Airport for our flight to Paris.

Our Air France flight was supposed to leave at 1pm, but bad weather, rain, heavy winds had delayed most of the flights and we didn't leave until after 5pm.

We did get to see the sunset on the way to Paris

I had booked transfers from CDG to DLP with BS Transport. I was worried that they wouldn't be there because we had booked for arriving at 3pm and it was now after 7pm. I was SO HAPPY to see my name on a placard at the luggage carousel and a little man there to help with our luggage.

He was not overly friendly or talkative, but he whisked us to DLP where we arrived around 8:30pm

 

[Cass]

Finally ~ Disneyland Paris!!!

I hope the beginning of our trip didn't bore you too much.


The park was already closed and we were exhausted. The luggage valet excorted us up to the Castle Club to check in, the concierge was very welcoming and friendly, he spoke perfect English, gave us our passes, room keys and maps and park schedules and then took us to our room.

We had a park view room, it was on the top floor and this was our view.

We were starving! we had had some pizza for lunch at Rome Airport and nothing since. We ordered room service, I had the pasta with pesto sauce and Noel and the spaghetti (I guess we think we are still in Italy!?!?)

Room service was delicious, really hot and fresh and tasty, we fell in to bed exhausted and looking forward to our first day at the park tomorrow.

 

[Cass]

We woke up early and went to the lounge for breakfast! It wasn't even light out yet.

Castle Club Breakfast

 

[Cass]

THe lounge was never crowded, and there was always plenty of food and pleasant CM's serving coffee.

The characters stopped by every morning, we saw Mickey, Minnie, Donald Duck, Goofy, Chip n' Dale and Pluto during our stay.

 

[Cass]

Our Room

We were on the top floor overlooking the park entrance

Our room had 1 Queen size bed and 1 Double

Bathroom

 

[Cass]

Our room was clean and comfortable and as you know had an awesome view.

See Noel down there in the white coat?

it only took her 10 minutes to leave our room, take the express elevator to the park entrance, walk to Ben & Jerry's and bring back ice cream for us. Amazingly convenient location from our hotel to the park, much better than WDW Orlando where it takes forever to get to your hotel even if you are at a MK Resort.



Express Elevator for Castle Club Guests only

Our room is the top floor, left balcony

There were some negatives to this room however. I am curious to see if anyone else had similar experiences.

First of all - in the afternoon/evening our room stunk. Stunk of food cooking that is, and not a good food smell either... some days it was strong STRONG fish smell, sometimes it was lamb... and if you even smelled lamb cooking - multiply it by 1000 to get the smell we could smell in our room and in the hall just outside our room. It was bad. Some evening it was so strong Noel took a wet face cloth from the bathroom and put it over her nose


The other negative out this room was the noise from the park after hours, street cleaning machines at 4am and something that sounded like a leaf blower or lawn mower - but I doubt they were mowing anything

They were very loud in our room and woke us up several times when it was still dark out.

Not annoying and more interesting, they do the night parade just as the park closes and then thousands of guests file out... well a an hour or so after the park has emptied, they play all the parade music again and if you look out the parade is moving backwards up Main Street. I guess they are repositoning all the floats for the next day.

Later in the evening you can hear musical numbers being rehearsed (like 10pm - 11pm) These things didn't bother us but they might affect a family with small children trying to sleep as it was quite loud.

One night there was a mock evacuation staged that we witnessed from our room, it was quite late after 10pm and all the lights of the park were on including what appeared to be extra bright emergency lights. Announcements in 5 or 6 different languages over and over to locate family members and evacuate the park. Once again this was very loud from our room location but it didn't really bother us.

 

[giuly09]

What should i say but WOW!!
I am Italian and so i know Rome pretty well and i have been to Egypt but in old 1981, i want so much to go back there.

 

[stargatebarbie]

Im Dizzy feel like ive been around the world ,what a wonderful trip im sure that your daughter had more education than if she had been at school.Ive been to kussadasi and thought ephuses was amazing ,also been to cario ,but that view from the disneyland hotel is one of the best ever (have you won the lottery by the way I could only dream of such a trip)

 

[Cyrano]

Great pre-trippie, although Egypt is one country neither DP or myself would wish to go back to.

Awesome view from your room Although for the Castle Club rates I'd have been disappointed also with both the noise and especially the smell

 

[britchic4]

What a great report, and a fantastic trip for your lucky daughter! I've been to all the places you mention but not in the same trip!
I'm currently weighing up whether or not to book the DH and your pics do show it up wonderfully, although I'd also be unhappy about the smell and I have a bit of a thing about noise in hotels so I wouldn't like that. I've often wondered if the DH was noisy because of it's location.

 

[hildasmuriel]

What a trip! WOW.
Don't often find me lost for words.