We have just returned from 5 nights staying at the SL.
Eurostar:
Booked through airmiles, direct service to DLP from Ashford. We stayed the night before at the travelinn and got 20% discount on the room with the family beefeater card. This reduced the price to £37. The room was nice and clean. They have an offer on where you pay for an adults breakfast and the kids eat free (age 10 and lower). The breakfast was really nice and included a cont. buffet and ordered cooked breakfast. Ashford was a few mins away and getting on the train was easy. The parking was £45 for week! The train was full, so my nearly 4 year old DD had to share our seat and was a bit cramped. I wish we had bought her a ticket. The train got there on time.
Hotel:
Booked using points from our DVC allocation.
This was the first time that we have stayed at this hotel, our only previous trip was the New York. We were booked into a standard room, but I phoned prior to the trip and requested a room with a mini bar. The checkin was really organised and we were all set to go in no time. Our room was ready and they upgraded us to a Montana room. So maybe phoning did the trick!
The only down side is they allocate you with a breakfast time and we were stuck with 7am for the first morning! She did say that we would get breakfast doesn't matter what time we go, we would not be refused. While we were there we booked breakfast in the park for the next two mornings. We asked for a security box as well, and it would be good to do this as soon as possible because they do run out. The room was nice, clean. The window was very difficult to lock and I am sure that someone could force it open. We were on the ground floor so it did worry us somewhat. Getting to and from the parks was easy, once we found the exit door near our room. If we wanted to go to the resturants it was up in a lift and then down some stairs. It seems crazy that there is no other internal way of getting from our room to the resturants. We requested a kettle and iroining board for our room and they came promptly at no charge. If you want a basket of coffee and tea it will cost 5 euros. We brought our own, but didn't have any cups. We saved our coffee cups from a takeway one day and reused them. We did swim one day and used our towels from the room. They do hire towels, but at 2 euros each. So it would be a good idea to bring beach towels. I thought it was a bit of cheak to charge for towels and lockers. In the NewYork it was all free.
Parks:
The parks were crowded, but only from 11am onwards. We found that we could get most of fantasy land done and were ready to use the fast passes on thunder mountain by 11:15am. We didn't queue up for the lion king, it would have meant being in a queue for over an hour! Since we are going to Florida in Feb we will see it then. We did everything we wanted to do and repeated our favourits. However even with the park so crowded we could have done it all in 3 nights and found 5 nights to be to long.
Food:
I find the food to be good quality a bit more expensive than Florida. The only thing that I miss is the availability of Fruit in the parks. The kids meals offer no fruit or veg with the options. The breakfast has a fruit salad, but my DD's seem to pick through it. We were a bit fed up with the food by the end of the week. Maybe a option would be to take a bag of apples and oranges with us! The fresh salads were nice, but DD's wouldn't touch them. The pizza a bella note was really good. The back lot resturant at the studios was good and offered some great pastries. We didn't do any sit down resturants as youngest DD would play up after a while and make it an expensive mistake.
We went to Val de Europe for a few hours one day. The hyper market was really good and was very "Walmartish" with a french flair!
Eurostar:
Booked through airmiles, direct service to DLP from Ashford. We stayed the night before at the travelinn and got 20% discount on the room with the family beefeater card. This reduced the price to £37. The room was nice and clean. They have an offer on where you pay for an adults breakfast and the kids eat free (age 10 and lower). The breakfast was really nice and included a cont. buffet and ordered cooked breakfast. Ashford was a few mins away and getting on the train was easy. The parking was £45 for week! The train was full, so my nearly 4 year old DD had to share our seat and was a bit cramped. I wish we had bought her a ticket. The train got there on time.
Hotel:
Booked using points from our DVC allocation.
This was the first time that we have stayed at this hotel, our only previous trip was the New York. We were booked into a standard room, but I phoned prior to the trip and requested a room with a mini bar. The checkin was really organised and we were all set to go in no time. Our room was ready and they upgraded us to a Montana room. So maybe phoning did the trick!
The only down side is they allocate you with a breakfast time and we were stuck with 7am for the first morning! She did say that we would get breakfast doesn't matter what time we go, we would not be refused. While we were there we booked breakfast in the park for the next two mornings. We asked for a security box as well, and it would be good to do this as soon as possible because they do run out. The room was nice, clean. The window was very difficult to lock and I am sure that someone could force it open. We were on the ground floor so it did worry us somewhat. Getting to and from the parks was easy, once we found the exit door near our room. If we wanted to go to the resturants it was up in a lift and then down some stairs. It seems crazy that there is no other internal way of getting from our room to the resturants. We requested a kettle and iroining board for our room and they came promptly at no charge. If you want a basket of coffee and tea it will cost 5 euros. We brought our own, but didn't have any cups. We saved our coffee cups from a takeway one day and reused them. We did swim one day and used our towels from the room. They do hire towels, but at 2 euros each. So it would be a good idea to bring beach towels. I thought it was a bit of cheak to charge for towels and lockers. In the NewYork it was all free.
Parks:
The parks were crowded, but only from 11am onwards. We found that we could get most of fantasy land done and were ready to use the fast passes on thunder mountain by 11:15am. We didn't queue up for the lion king, it would have meant being in a queue for over an hour! Since we are going to Florida in Feb we will see it then. We did everything we wanted to do and repeated our favourits. However even with the park so crowded we could have done it all in 3 nights and found 5 nights to be to long.
Food:
I find the food to be good quality a bit more expensive than Florida. The only thing that I miss is the availability of Fruit in the parks. The kids meals offer no fruit or veg with the options. The breakfast has a fruit salad, but my DD's seem to pick through it. We were a bit fed up with the food by the end of the week. Maybe a option would be to take a bag of apples and oranges with us! The fresh salads were nice, but DD's wouldn't touch them. The pizza a bella note was really good. The back lot resturant at the studios was good and offered some great pastries. We didn't do any sit down resturants as youngest DD would play up after a while and make it an expensive mistake.
We went to Val de Europe for a few hours one day. The hyper market was really good and was very "Walmartish" with a french flair!
