HappyPanda
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 9, 2012
I'm back and I survived! 
Here are my highs and lows from my trip (07.06.12-10.06.12).
I'll start with the lows:
Room at Sequoia Lodge
We were placed in the Yosemite Lodge in room 202, which happens to be a wheelchair access room. This mean that there was no bath, only a wet room with a shower. Olivia is definitely not a water baby and is nowhere near brave enough to brave having a shower, so it meant that I couldn't give her a proper wash during our stay... had to make do with soaping her down by the sink!
The room also had a set of bunk beds (which Olivia loved, as she slept at the top) and the tiniest single bed I've ever seen... this was to be my bed for the stay and I think this in part contributed towards my injury (that I'll go into in more details later on).
I wanted to complain about the room, but Olivia begged me not to, as she loved the bunk beds.
So I didn't, but still a bit annoyed that we didn't get what we paid for and what is advertised on the website.
Pushing/Queue Jumping/General rudeness of other guests.
I'd like to consider myself to be quite a tolerable person, but nothing could prepare me for the amount of rudeness we encountered on this trip and it really had the potential to ruin the whole trip for us.
Thursday & Friday weren't too bad, but by the weekend it just seemed to escalate (as did the numbers of people in the park!). By far the worst one we had was on the stairs on the way down from the La Cabane des Robinson, an older boy (I'd say he was 9/10) pushed past Olivia and sent her flying down the last few steps. I was just so grateful that she wasn't at the top. His family were behind him and saw what he had down, but they just walked straight past Olivia who was screaming on the ground, without even acknowledging what their Son had done. The lovely French family behind them restored my faith a little though as they stopped to make sure Olivia was ok, which luckily she was).
We also had the normal pushing and shoving at the character meets, blatant queue jumping in the Princess Pavilion and during other rides. I will definitely not be going over a weekend again.
Playhouse Disney/Stitch Live Timings
We might have just been really unlucky, but it seemed like the English shows were few and far between this trip. We only managed Stitch Live once and that was by hanging around for an hour as Olivia insisted we HAD to do it! lol We didn't make PHD at all.
The Parade
I just didn't feel this parade at all, it seemed like a rushed rehash of the old parade, with a few new floats and a new piece of music (which I like!). I normally always get that tingly spine the first time I see the parade, but this time I didn't, it just did nothing for me.
Hurting my shoulder
I think having to carry all the luggage on the first day wasn't a great idea, as I managed to aggravate an old shoulder injury which left me in agony for most of the trip. As I mentioned before, having to sleep on such a small bed didn't exactly help as I had no room to move.
I think that with the amount of pain I was in, led me to be a little bit short with Olivia at times, shouting at her and telling her off for small things that really wouldn't normally of bothered me.
Ok, enough about the lows - let's move onto the highs!
Character Meals
I am so glad we booked as many character meals as we could as it meant we met a nice selection of characters. By far, the best Character Interaction was in Inventions. (Although I was a little disappointed in the food selection here, there only a very small buffet to choose from.. but then I didn't book this meal for the food!). We also did Auberge, Cafe Mickey & Cowboy Cookout. All 4 of these resturants will be on our to do list for next time, too!
Pirates of the Carribean
This was closed on our last trip, so we made up for it this time. Think we went on it about 10 times in total! Olivia really enjoyed it and we never had to queue for more than 15 minutes, even at the weekend.
Eurostar
Our whole Journey to and from the magic was so easy and carefree. I just love the Direct Eurostar so much, it really takes all the hassle out of travelling!
Cinderella at the Auberge
Cinderella deserves a special mention, she spent so much time with Olivia and really made Oli feel like a Princess. We also saw Belle & Sleeping Beauty (with her prince), but it was Cinderella who really stood out for me!
Dreams!
Wow, Wow, Wow! I am so glad that I did not watch the whole thing on YouTube before we went as it meant it was even more mesmerizing for us. We watched it on 2 of our 3 nights. The first night we managed to get a spot on Central Plaza about 20 minutes before showtime. I really don't understand why people were already nabbing their place more than 2 horus before showtime? What made this place so fantastic was 1) We had a dead centre view of the show and 2) Everyone stayed sat down for the show so we had a great, unobstructed view!
The second time we wanted to go to the same spot, but this time the first few rows were stood up so this meant that Olivia wouldn't have been able to see a thing, so we got a place near Adventure land which was also a great spot to watch it from.
DIS meet
Was really nice to have a brief meetup with Jothp and Scampbunny and their wonderful Children. Olivia was talking about Evie for the rest of the trip, she kept calling her "My Disney friend, Evie"
Weather
Seems strange putting this in as a high as we had our fair share of rain, but it could have been a lot worse and apart from those few rain showers, the weather was warm and we even had a few moments of sunshine!
Salon Mickey
Shamefully, due to the late nights, we never actually made it to breakfast on any of our three mornings!
So we instead used Salon Mickey as our unofficial breakfast location! Was definitely a great perk of being a shareholder.
VIP Fastpass
We had this on Friday, and although we only used it four times, it was still a useful addition to our trip!
Shareholder's Discount
I think I've definitely saved myself the amount of money that I spent on the shares! It was great to be able to flash my letter (Annoying, my card arrived the day after we left!), although a little annoying having to wait for them to get their manager to authorise the transaction each time, sometimes this took up to 5 minutes with people giving me evils from behind me in the queue!
I think that about sums up my trip! There were far more highs than lows, but I also feel as though there were more lows than we had encountered on previous trips and it left me feeling like I wasn't sure if this would be our last Disneyland Paris trip
.
But, Olivia has somehow managed to use her extreme cuteness to beg for a return trip for her 6th birthday in March.. so I think I shall look into taking advantage of the 2 nights free offer and going for 5nights/6days - arriving on a Sunday and leaving on Friday.. avoiding that dreaded Saturday!
Here are my highs and lows from my trip (07.06.12-10.06.12). I'll start with the lows:
Room at Sequoia Lodge
We were placed in the Yosemite Lodge in room 202, which happens to be a wheelchair access room. This mean that there was no bath, only a wet room with a shower. Olivia is definitely not a water baby and is nowhere near brave enough to brave having a shower, so it meant that I couldn't give her a proper wash during our stay... had to make do with soaping her down by the sink!
The room also had a set of bunk beds (which Olivia loved, as she slept at the top) and the tiniest single bed I've ever seen... this was to be my bed for the stay and I think this in part contributed towards my injury (that I'll go into in more details later on).
I wanted to complain about the room, but Olivia begged me not to, as she loved the bunk beds.
So I didn't, but still a bit annoyed that we didn't get what we paid for and what is advertised on the website. Pushing/Queue Jumping/General rudeness of other guests.
I'd like to consider myself to be quite a tolerable person, but nothing could prepare me for the amount of rudeness we encountered on this trip and it really had the potential to ruin the whole trip for us.
Thursday & Friday weren't too bad, but by the weekend it just seemed to escalate (as did the numbers of people in the park!). By far the worst one we had was on the stairs on the way down from the La Cabane des Robinson, an older boy (I'd say he was 9/10) pushed past Olivia and sent her flying down the last few steps. I was just so grateful that she wasn't at the top. His family were behind him and saw what he had down, but they just walked straight past Olivia who was screaming on the ground, without even acknowledging what their Son had done. The lovely French family behind them restored my faith a little though as they stopped to make sure Olivia was ok, which luckily she was).
We also had the normal pushing and shoving at the character meets, blatant queue jumping in the Princess Pavilion and during other rides. I will definitely not be going over a weekend again.
Playhouse Disney/Stitch Live Timings
We might have just been really unlucky, but it seemed like the English shows were few and far between this trip. We only managed Stitch Live once and that was by hanging around for an hour as Olivia insisted we HAD to do it! lol We didn't make PHD at all.
The Parade
I just didn't feel this parade at all, it seemed like a rushed rehash of the old parade, with a few new floats and a new piece of music (which I like!). I normally always get that tingly spine the first time I see the parade, but this time I didn't, it just did nothing for me.
Hurting my shoulder
I think having to carry all the luggage on the first day wasn't a great idea, as I managed to aggravate an old shoulder injury which left me in agony for most of the trip. As I mentioned before, having to sleep on such a small bed didn't exactly help as I had no room to move.
I think that with the amount of pain I was in, led me to be a little bit short with Olivia at times, shouting at her and telling her off for small things that really wouldn't normally of bothered me.
Ok, enough about the lows - let's move onto the highs!
Character Meals
I am so glad we booked as many character meals as we could as it meant we met a nice selection of characters. By far, the best Character Interaction was in Inventions. (Although I was a little disappointed in the food selection here, there only a very small buffet to choose from.. but then I didn't book this meal for the food!
). We also did Auberge, Cafe Mickey & Cowboy Cookout. All 4 of these resturants will be on our to do list for next time, too! Pirates of the Carribean
This was closed on our last trip, so we made up for it this time. Think we went on it about 10 times in total! Olivia really enjoyed it and we never had to queue for more than 15 minutes, even at the weekend.
Eurostar
Our whole Journey to and from the magic was so easy and carefree. I just love the Direct Eurostar so much, it really takes all the hassle out of travelling!
Cinderella at the Auberge
Cinderella deserves a special mention, she spent so much time with Olivia and really made Oli feel like a Princess. We also saw Belle & Sleeping Beauty (with her prince), but it was Cinderella who really stood out for me!
Dreams!
Wow, Wow, Wow! I am so glad that I did not watch the whole thing on YouTube before we went as it meant it was even more mesmerizing for us. We watched it on 2 of our 3 nights. The first night we managed to get a spot on Central Plaza about 20 minutes before showtime. I really don't understand why people were already nabbing their place more than 2 horus before showtime?
What made this place so fantastic was 1) We had a dead centre view of the show and 2) Everyone stayed sat down for the show so we had a great, unobstructed view! The second time we wanted to go to the same spot, but this time the first few rows were stood up so this meant that Olivia wouldn't have been able to see a thing, so we got a place near Adventure land which was also a great spot to watch it from.
DIS meet
Was really nice to have a brief meetup with Jothp and Scampbunny and their wonderful Children. Olivia was talking about Evie for the rest of the trip, she kept calling her "My Disney friend, Evie"
Weather
Seems strange putting this in as a high as we had our fair share of rain, but it could have been a lot worse and apart from those few rain showers, the weather was warm and we even had a few moments of sunshine!
Salon Mickey
Shamefully, due to the late nights, we never actually made it to breakfast on any of our three mornings!
So we instead used Salon Mickey as our unofficial breakfast location! Was definitely a great perk of being a shareholder. VIP Fastpass
We had this on Friday, and although we only used it four times, it was still a useful addition to our trip!
Shareholder's Discount
I think I've definitely saved myself the amount of money that I spent on the shares! It was great to be able to flash my letter (Annoying, my card arrived the day after we left!
), although a little annoying having to wait for them to get their manager to authorise the transaction each time, sometimes this took up to 5 minutes with people giving me evils from behind me in the queue! I think that about sums up my trip! There were far more highs than lows, but I also feel as though there were more lows than we had encountered on previous trips and it left me feeling like I wasn't sure if this would be our last Disneyland Paris trip
. But, Olivia has somehow managed to use her extreme cuteness to beg for a return trip for her 6th birthday in March.. so I think I shall look into taking advantage of the 2 nights free offer and going for 5nights/6days - arriving on a Sunday and leaving on Friday.. avoiding that dreaded Saturday!
I just totally forgot the time even though I'd mentioned to DH to remind me that morning at breakfast - I think because it was our last day I had been concentrating on packing/checking out and doing those things we hadn't managed to do - next thing I knew it was 1.15 pm!! 
.
.
. I have always wanted to do DLRP at Christmas and DD1 is getting older (she will be 8.5 yrs Christmas 2013 and I'm just not sure she'll still believe as much so needed to do it this year).
) and absolutely dreadful behaviour from some guests. Why do people need to be so rude? 
We had a similiar incident when queuing up to see Winnie yesterday, we got there just before the queue line closed and we saw about 5/6 people trying to sneak under the rope to get in. But the CM was having none of it and made them get out of the queue. One man took great offence at this and security had to be called!
glad you had a good time overall. I hope your shoulder's better now 
