It's been a while...

Well it's been a while but guess where I'm heading in just a couple of days?

Disney here I come!

So with my good friend and podcast co-host Michelle I am about to head off to my closest Disney resort...Disneyland Paris!! EEK!!

Now as those that have read my blog will know it has been over 2 years since my last visit to Disneyland Paris and almost 4 years since we last ventured across the pond to Walt Disney World. Personal circumstances have meant a vacation stateside for the four of us just hasn't been financially viable. And even a visit across the channel isn't cheap and memories of our last trip are tinged with sadness as the trip was so close to when my amazing mum passed away.

So how come I'm going? Well I have to give all the credit to Michelle who has done all the organising along with hubby Simon who has encouraged me to go. I think they both realised just how much I needed a little Disney in my life and so they got together and hatched a plan!

Now this will also be the first time that I have visited a Disney resort without Simon and the kids; which in itself is a strange prospect! Disney and family to me have always gone hand in hand and I have never given any thought before to visiting without them. So whilst I am super excited about this trip I have to confess to being a little sad that I won't have Simon and the kids with me - Michelle I hope you know what you're letting yourself in for!

And other firsts for this trip include staying in a non-Disney hotel as well as booking all aspects of the trip separately. Now as I said Michelle has done all the organising (bless her soul) but this will be the first time I have ever made a trip that has not been a 'package' booking. It will also be a trip with the most varied forms of transport I think! So I am really interested to see how it all pans out as it may give me the confidence to look at future trips differently.

So we fly out very early on Wednesday morning to arrive in Paris ready to catch a bus to Disneyland Paris. Park tickets have been bought and we will be taking advantage of Michelle's 'annual pass' to make use of bag storage facilities so that we can head straight into the parks when we get there. We will have 3 full days and nights to explore both Disneyland Park and Walt Disney Studios Park as well as the Disney Village. On our return we will be taking the high speed train back to the airport before flying home.

We are lucky in that our trip coincides with the 25th Anniversary of Disneyland Paris so we get to see new parades, fireworks and shows! There is also the new Star Tours ride; as Paris has now had the upgrade seen in the other parks. Plus Space Mountain has also been transformed into Hyper Space Mountain; not that I shall be riding but I am more than happy to look after the bags while Michelle takes a spin!! And the only attraction that is closed is Pirates of the Caribbean which is sad but as it's only one attraction I can live with that. I am really looking forward to riding Big Thunder Mountain and Phantom Manor especially...oh and Casey Jr, and Snow White and It's A Small World and...OK this could be a very long list!

I am probably most excited about Disneyland Park as this for me is what Disney is all about. But I am looking forward to riding Ratatouille a few times over at Walt Disney Studios Park as well as eating at Bistrot Chez Remy! There is also the chance to ride the Studio Tram Tour; Behind the Magic and experience Catastrophe Canyon which is no longer available in Disney Hollywood Studios over in Walt Disney World. As well as see the much loved Mickey and the Magician show. And of course there will be shopping, not only in the parks but also in Disney Village; looking forward to a stroll around Disney Fashion!!And while we're in Disney Village I will be very surprised if we don't make our way over to Earl of Sandwich for a bite!

So at the moment it is all about the packing...we've decided to just take hand luggage so packing skills will have to be on point! My nails are painted, t-shirts have been chosen, Euros about to be purchased and final packing to be done and then it's away we go!

Disney Dream Girls are on tour, watch out Disneyland Paris here we come!

Disneyland Paris - February 2015 - Day 5 - The Last Day

Well here we are, the last day of our short trip to Disneyland Paris.

It was yet another early start for us, breakfast was booked for 7.00am and we made it for 7.30am...we had the usual breakfast selections which I have to say we were all a little bored with by now. Not quite the same as staying at a Disney hotel in the US where the breakfast choices are wide and varied.

We then had to finish off our packing...I did feel a little mean squashing Sulley into the bags though...

Don't worry he made it home all safe and sound!

Because we had booked our trip direct with Disneyland Paris we automatically qualified for the Disney Express service. We took our cases down to the Left Luggage Office in the hotel and were then free to enjoy the parks on our last day knowing that the cases would be waiting for us at the train station later on.

We all decided that we'd really like to ride Ratatouille once more so off to Walt Disney Studios we went. Both Simon and I went through the turnstiles without a problem but neither of the kids tickets would work...so we were left with us one side of the gate and the kids on the other and a cast member who didn't speak enough English to be able to tell us what the problem was. The next thing we know is the cast member saying something to us in mainly French and then walking away...luckily they returned with two new tickets for the kids which got them through the turnstiles. Now the new tickets the kids got were basically one day park tickets which was fine for what we needed, but I was a little disappointed that they didn't give us back the original tickets that had stopped working. You see I'm a bit sentimental and like to keep things like tickets as mementos of trips but on this occasion I couldn't :(

The original park tickets we received (well the two we had left!)

The day tickets that replaced the ones that stopped working!

Now we were inside the Studios we headed to the right to ride Ratatouille. As we approached the Toon Studio area of the park it became very busy; on passing Crush's Coaster the queue was out into the pavement area, and in fact the Stand-By line hadn't even opened.

Then as we rounded the corner we were met with a sea of people and what looked like a very long queue. So we jumped on the end of the queue suspecting it was for Ratatouille and Simon went off to investigate.

Joining the queue...

Sure enough Ratatouille was not yet open, even the Stand-By line was not yet open and this large queue had formed. But there was also a lot of people simply congregating in the 'Place de Remy' the town square like area in front of the ride - there seemed to be no organisation as to what was happening. There were no cast members about, no-one giving out information, no-one organising the waiting guests...it just seemed terribly disorganised.

The queue on the way to Place de Remy

Almost in Place de Remy - just a tad busy!! 

We are not amused!

There was also an equally large queue for the Fastpass booths, which were already issuing tickets for midday and beyond. But as the ride was not yet operational, and showed no signs of being operational any time soon getting a Fastpass seemed a little pointless!

So we left the area and walked back round past Crush's Coaster which now displayed a 60 minute wait. Both the Stand-By line and the Single Rider line were taking up a lot of space in the thoroughfare and were making navigating this area rather tiresome.

We took this time to get a photo with the Partners statue, which is just beyond Disney Studio 1.

So what to do now?

We decided to look at the 'wait times board' as that might gives us an idea. Well the board confirmed that both Ratatouille and Crush's Coaster were closed. The shortest wait times were for the Tower of Terror and Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, neither of which we were interested in riding. So we looked at some of the shows; Animagique and CineMagique both of which were scheduled to start at either 11.00am or 11.30am and most of the showings were in French...the first English presentations weren't until the early afternoon! So after a 20 minute visit to Walt Disney Studios we found ourselves leaving the park and heading to Disneyland Park.

The Studios for us on this visit had been rather disappointing; I'm hoping for others visiting that we were just unlucky with our timings and that perhaps at busier times of the year this park has more to offer. There is so much potential here that I hope Disneyland Paris recognise that and continue to give this park the expansion it deserves and needs.

Arriving in Disneyland Park we headed for probably our favourite ride; Big Thunder Mountain. The wait time was 40 minutes but that was fine we were all happy to wait that long, so we joined the queue which seemed longer than on previous 40 minute waits but that didn't put us off. We'd been in the very slow moving queue about 10 minutes when both Simon and I noticed at almost the same time that we'd not seen any trains come through since joining the queue. Then I realised that the background music had stopped playing and on looking down to the entrance to the queue the cast members were turning guests away...this wasn't going to be our day! So we decided to turn around and leave the queue and as we headed away from the ride we looked back and could see that there was a train stopped on the track right at the top of one of the lift hills - oops!

By this time we needed cheering up and warming up so we popped into the Cable Car Bake Shop and had coffee, hot chocolates and muffins!

Re-charged we headed over to Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast and even this ride didn't run completely smoothly...although a couple of stops as we went round did mean we could rack up our scores...or at least try to! Molly did manage to get over 100,000 for the first time ever!!

Next we jumped onto the Disneyland Railroad at the Discoveryland station to take a tour around the park to Fantasyland. There is the lovely Grand Canyon diorama that you travel through on your way between Main Street USA and Frontierland which is a highlight of taking the train journey. Strangely we stopped at the station in Frontierland despite the station being closed and this was the view from the train...

This was once a 'petting zoo' type area

It was such a shame to see a whole area just left to ruin...there was literally nothing there but empty buildings and paddocks. If my memory serves me right this had once been a small petting zoo/farm type area populated with animals that children could get up close and personal with. Now there is nothing except empty space - what a waste :(

Once in Fantasyland the kids rode the Mad Hatters Tea Cups, followed by a quick stop over into Adventureland to ride Pirates of the Caribbean one last time. Back into Fantasyland to ride 'it's a small world' before we headed down Main Street USA...

Last photo in the park!

We did some last minute shopping as we left the park and then headed into the Disney Village in search of food and there could only be one place to go...yes it had to be Earl of Sandwich!

The infamous gold brick!

I think Molly might be a bit happy to be here!!

As we'd got a long journey ahead of us we made sure we ate well...I had Thai chicken soup followed by a Philly cheese steak sandwich and then my favourite - bread pudding!

Fully fuelled we wandered through the Disney Village to make our way to the train station. On the way we stopped at the Disney Store where me and Molly bought our first Tsum Tsum's; I opted for the classic Mickey & Minnie while Molly bought Perry the Platypus from Phineas & Ferb. We also took a stroll around the World of Disney store where I bought myself a new Mickey mug for work.

We got to the train station around 3.30pm and simply visited the Disney Express desk to fetch our luggage and whilst we had a small wait it wasn't too long and the desk operated very efficiently. Next we checked in for our Eurostar train which again was very straight forward and then found ourselves with about an hour to wait for the train. Unfortunately once through check-in there was nothing to do...no where to sit, no where to grab a coffee...nothing! Thankfully after about 35 minutes we were let through to the platform where our train was waiting so we had plenty of time to get on board and get settled ready for our journey home.

We arrived back at Ebbsfleet on time and were in our car and on our way home, in heavy rain, in no time at all.

And that was Disneyland Paris...a short visit and whilst not the same calibre as the parks in the US it did mean that I got my fix of Disney at a time that I really needed it. Will we be going back to Paris any time soon? I don't think so...from our families point of view whilst we enjoyed the trip we all agreed that we would rather save up for a trip to Walt Disney World or even Disneyland. Now this may be some way off but we will get there one day and until then I have plenty of Disney memories to keep me going!

Disneyland Paris - February 2015 - Day 3 continued

So what else did we get up to on day 3 of our Disneyland Paris trip?

Well, after a morning in Disneyland Park we headed over to Walt Disney Studios for the first time this trip.

Entrance to Walt Disney Studios

Once through the gates the first thing we all wanted was food! Unfortunately we probably made the wrong choice as far as food goes. On entering the Studios you arrive in the Front Lot area and then enter a building called 'Disney Studio 1' which has two distinct areas. The left hand side is a large shop while the right hand side is a fast food restaurant called Restaurant en Coulisse which serves your traditional fast food; various burgers and a couple of salads.

The problem was we chose to stop here at lunchtime when everyone else had decided to do the same thing. We ordered our food relatively quickly but trying to find somewhere to sit down to eat was almost impossible; we tried the upstairs seating (which was very awkward to navigate through) before coming downstairs where we resigned ourselves to having to eat standing at a bar area (which had no seats!). But then we spotted some people leaving and we had to literally pounce to get the table. The tables were tightly packed in so you had no sense of your own space and because it was so busy you were very aware of other groups of people 'hovering around' waiting for people to leave. Plus the food was just very basic and nothing special...not a very enjoyable experience at all.

Anyway once we'd eaten we headed straight for the 'Toon Studio' area of the park and in particular the newest attraction at Disneyland Paris; Ratatouille: L'Adventure Totalement Toquee de Remy.

The wait time was 50 minutes but we decided to just go for it! Ratatouille is a new concept in dark rides and your ride vehicle operates on a trackless system as you enter different rooms that are a mix of film, special effects and props.  The ride is beautiful and I only wish we could have gotten to ride it more.

The area in which the Ratatouille ride is located is also beautifully themed, although it did remind me a lot of the France pavilion at Epcot;

Table service restaurant - Bistrot Chez Remy

We then headed towards another Pixar themed ride; Crush's Coaster...now unfortunately we did not have the best experience while waiting for this ride, an experience which ultimately resulted in never getting the chance to ride.

The queue was at around 45 minutes which we were all quite happy to join and initially the queue moved relatively quickly, but after 15 minutes or so the queue began to slow down until eventually it stopped. But that was alright, sometimes the speed of queues vary but then I noticed that the music that had been playing had stopped. By this time we were surrounded by some rather noisy individuals who all thought it was perfectly acceptable to start smoking...something that was clearly signposted as 'not allowed'. This seemed to be quite common practice for smokers to 'light up' wherever they liked rather than in the designated areas...but disappointingly we also noticed that no-one seemed to be enforcing the rules about where it was and wasn't acceptable to smoke!!

Anyway, back to the queue...over the group of noisy individuals I thought I heard an announcement, but there were two problems; firstly it was not being played at the far end of the queue system where we were located and secondly it was only being played in French. We stood and waited a bit longer and then heard the indecipherable announcement again...by this point I was getting a little frustrated to say the least so I made the decision that we were leaving the queue. But as the people behind us in the queue weren't moving out of the queue area we literally had to push our way through and climb over the barriers that split the queue into 'lanes'. When we finally made it out to the entry point of the Stand-by entrance we found the entrance closed and cast members turning guests away. Now I appreciate that rides will break down and accept that it is an unfortunate part of any theme park experience, but what really upset me was the apparent lack of care or concern that was shown for guests waiting in the queue once the decision had been made to close the ride. Not one cast member walked the queue area to explain what was happening, the announcements were inaudible and only in French and when leaving the queue area there was no apology or even any sign of concern that guests were still standing in line. Not a good experience!!

All four of us were feeling a little disgruntled to say the least so we decided to wander over to the opposite side of the park to see what there was to do. Now I think by this point we were all struggling to enjoy the Studios...we walked past The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (not a ride I would do normally) and despite a short wait of 10 minutes no-one was interested in riding it. We thought about the Studio Tram Tour: Behind the Magic, again with a relatively short wait time but couldn't muster any enthusiasm. We passed Armageddon: Les Effects Speciaux and Moteurs...Action! Stunt Show Spectacular but neither grabbed our interest. By now we were in front of Rock 'n' Roller Coaster starring Aerosmith a ride which in Florida is always a must do (not me as I don't really like roller coasters!) and the wait time was 10 minutes...I turned to the kids and Simon expecting excitement but was met with a shrug of the shoulders and 'not really bothered' reply!

Oh dear the Studios were turning into a bit of a disaster for us so it was time for a re-fuel and somewhere to get warm. We went into Disney Blockbuster Cafe the only other counter service restaurant in the park and walked into an almost deserted restaurant. We then had to figure out how to get served as it really wasn't very clear; it was a help yourself counter service that when we were there was very poorly stocked, you then took your tray to a cashier to pay and order drinks. The drinks were self-serve but rather than in US parks where it would be a free refills drink station this was controlled by tokens. So one token meant one drink...no refills...

We decided to head back over to Crush's Coaster and see if we could get a ride, but alas no, the ride was still down. So instead we headed into Toy Story Playland, the only area of the park we had yet to do.

Buzz Lightyear guards the entrance to Toy Story Playland

This is a relatively small area of the studios which is home to three rides; Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop, Slinky Dog Zigzag Spin and RC Racer. and whilst the area is beautifully themed it didn't impress us enough to actually go on any of the rides. The Slinky Dog ride was definitely aimed at younger children, the RC Racer was basically a classic pirate ship swing ride but themed around toy cars and car-track and the Toy Soldier ride was your basic parachute drop affair. Nothing particularly unique and our two teenagers were not impressed and said they felt it was an area for 'little kids'!

We decided that we had had enough of Walt Disney Studios and headed into the Disney Village and partook of a little retail therapy!!

The obligatory trying on of hats!!

Playing with toy guns!!

Is it a cuddly Sully or is it a pillow? It's both!

Caught in full shopping mode...can't resist a bit of Disney jewellery....even if it's technically in the children's section!!

So a few purchases later we headed once more to our favourite eatery; Earl of Sandwich! We discovered their amazing soups on this trip which helped warm us up no end, followed by a yummy sandwich and we were all very happy. The day was now drawing to a close, so after taking advantage of the free wi-fi inside Earl of Sandwich, we headed back to the Sequoia Lodge. We stopped in at the hotel shop and bought a couple of beers and some chocolate before returning to our room for another well deserved sleep.

Only a few days to go...

Well it's not long to go now...one more day of work then it's a day of packing and getting ready before the travelling begins.

Through the Disney on-line community I have been fortunate to make lots of new friends one of whom has just returned from a visit to Disneyland Paris and was kind enough to think of me and send me through a little package...

A few park maps, a note written on Disneyland Hotel note paper (how geeky am I that I think this is soooo cool?!) and a few sweeties...

The great thing is that looking at the map has brought back a lot of memories about the layout of the parks and I can now see (and appreciate) where the changes have been made over at Walt Disney Studios since our last visit in 2006.

My daughter was chatting yesterday and counting up the times we'd been to 'Disney', she knew that I'd been to Walt Disney World eight times and that she'd been four times and that we'd all visited Disneyland just the once but when it came to Paris she struggled. She said 'well I know I've only been once' to which I could correct her and tell her she's actually been twice before...although she was only about 18 months the first time she went.  So this picture is just for Molly to prove she has been more than once...

Sorry Molly ;)

I think I'm going to get the old photo albums out now and have a look through (yes an actual album as this photo was back in 2002 before we'd swapped over completely to digital!).

So when we go in a few days time it will actually be our sixth visit (but Molly's third!).