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[gldc]

So we're just back from Disneyland Paris and I'm still wishing I were there, it totally beat my expectations as the last time I went was 8 years ago and it was just amazing now that I could go on everything.

The party:
Me - 18 years old male - Disney fan
Mum - 43 - Likes beautiful things and Disneyland is stunning, secretly a Disney lover
Dad - 41 - Couldn't care less about Disney, or theme parks << sounds like a recipe for disaster
Brother - 14 - At that stage where DIsney isn't "cool" and would rather stay at home playing PC games but secretly loves Disney too (deep, deep down inside).

Travel dates: Sat 30th April - 2nd May. We were staying at the Kyriad.

Day 1 - Saturday, 30th April
So we got up at 7am and were ready to leave at 7.40am for our 9.47 train from St Pancras to Marne-la-vallee. I had a feeling that something was going to go wrong.  :cry: My dad decided he wouldn't drive us to the tube station and we'd have to get the bus (Clearly he wasn't bothered about not going). The bus didn't come at its scheduled time and we ended up getting the bus at 8am arriving and getting the tube at 8:09 but there was still enough time as its a 50 minute journey meaning we'd be there before checkin closed. We were cutting if finely now for time.  [-o<

Then suddenly 10 minutes into the tube journey there was a signal failure and we were stuck underground for around 15 minutes and the whole line was shut down. Terrible TFL, terrible. We were now late.

We got off at the next station with an hour left and got a bus, then another in order to get a train from a rail station to still try and make it before our train left. We got to the rail station and that was closed. It was now just 30 minutes till our train and I almost broke down into tears after having planned the whole trip for so long.

My dad said to check for alternative trains later and the price was £300+ one-way into Paris Gare du Nord or we could have taken a flight for £250ish, we decided that we'd get a later train on Eurostar but it was only at 4pm. We slowly went down to St. Pancras as we now had time and went to the customer services where they said that our tickets were non-refundable and non-changeable so would be unlikely to get a refund. We went over to the ticket desk and were called over and I explained the situation, the lady said she would check and was silent for about 10 minutes, the tension was building...after a while she handed over the tickets which had "agreed to change" written on them and told us our train was at 11.25 to Gare Du Nord. We were expecting to pay the difference, but she said there was nothing to pay. A MASSIVE THANKS TO EUROSTAR FOR DOING THIS! (it totally made my day) and I'd like to thank the lady, her name was: Samine/Namine or Nadine. I can't remember too well as I was so relieved.

With 30 minutes until our train, we went straight to check in and soon off we were to Paris. The Eurostar toilets were very nice by the way  :mrgreen:


We arrived at gare du nord around 14.40ish and as we were planning to spend the first day in central Paris we hadn't lost any time after all that morning stress. I complete forgot about the left lugagge facilities at Gare du nord at this point so carried our suitcases around with us. We bought 2 mobilis passes (adults) and 2 tickets jeunes (under 26s) for the day zones 1 - 5, this came to a total of 38 euros for unlimited travail all day. The machine we used to get tickets worringly didnt ask for a pin number and just charged the card so Lord knows what could happen if someone finds your card in paris.

We first went to the sacre coeur and our metro tickets let us use the tram system up to the top instead of climbing those thousands of steps with suitcases wth us.



And at the top:



After that I decided that maybe we should take our baggage back to a left locker and we went back to the mtro stop only to find that my mum had lost her metro ticket. After buying ANOTHER one, we went back to gare du nord. Now, this is Europe's busiest train station and it is the most useless piece of rubbish I have ever had the displeasure of navigating through. There were no signs anywhere at all indicating where the left luggage was. We then found a map that should the left luggage but failed to tell us which of the 5 or 6 floors we were currently on. I asked people in shops and one says that there are no left luggage facilities (wrong), the other said it was upstairs which was also wrong. So we gave up and headed into central paris still with our luggage trailing behind. We spent about 45mins looking for these lockers there and all the info points were closed on a Saturday. Not impressed.

We arrived in central paris and it was now around 5pm and we hadn't had lunch properly yet. I'm not even going to comment on how trampy the trains were - they were disgustingly old to say the least. Also I had never before seen trains with tyres...that's paris for you. Also in the metro there were people begging left, right, and center and trying to sell you flowers, pretending they are deaf and asking you for cash, and having children begging. Their exit doors also open and close automatically instead of using tickets so slap shut very violently, I'd hate to think what could happen to a little kid and I remember one lift announcing a countdown fom 10 to 3,2,1 and then just shutting extremely quickly behind us.

Anyway...now in central paris and with no desire to use the subway we got off one stop before the louvre and had pre-booked tickets to Les Vedettes de Pont-Neuf for 8 euros each (brilliant 1 hour cruise that is a must-do) but before that headed to get something to eat - we sat down and had 3 pizzas, some chips and my dad had a panini - total 55 euros although the food was just OK. We checked our bill very carefully as these people were doing their best to rip off tourists, one tactic which one woman complained about was stating crepes were 6 euros and then charging customers 9 euros for them. To one american lady they charged her 9.60e for a crepe, she looked at her friend in horror but said nothing!! If that were ME I would be complaining and loudly!

Onto our cruise - it was stunning, highly recommended and a great way to see paris and very cheap too.





Our guide spoke very good english and french throughout the whole cruise over a microphone.  :thumbs:




After that we went to the Louvre and looked around outside:


(I think I should be winning awards for some of these photos  :mrgreen:



The Arc du triomphe was right there too.


We got the metro and then the RER to disneyland Paris which was fine most of the way apart from 2 points on the RER where I'm pretty sure we hit 2 rocks as the carriage jumped and made an extremely load banging noise against something.

We got off at Marne la vallee and got a pink shuttle over to Kyriad, checked in. The room was lovely for the price (although it was only the 1st or 2nd time I'd stayed in a hotel). It had a king bed and a pair of bunk beds. We got the shuttle back to Disne village went to McDonalds (which we never do in the Uk but it's cheap at 25 euros for all of us, as opposed to that for just one of us in the restuarant) - the queues though were horrendous at McDonalds and very, very slow moving.

He hopped back on the last shuttle at 11.55pm (which we asked before about), showered set up things charging and by then it was almost 1am. By the way - the bunkbeds weren't very comfortable.

End of Day 1.

[gldc]

Sunday, May 1st - Bank holiday in France

I got up at 7am with the intention of going to the park to exchange our tesco vouchers for park tickets around 8am and having our breakfast at our 8.40am slot. Me and my brother got dressed and missed the last bus before 8 to the parks and we weren't going to make it back in time if we went on the next bus.

We went for breakfast to find a horrible queue - apparently their electricity was down, we had our buffet breakfast which was continental and very nice. Me and my brother headed over to the parks and got there around 9.15 and had our vouchers exchanged for tickets.  :thumbs: It was 9.30am and main street was open so me and my brother went in and at 9.45am my parents called to say they were leaving on a bus and would be there very soon at the front gates to meet us.



 AT 10am as the lands opened, me and my brother sprinted to space mountain: mission 2. I've never had so much fun running and felt like a little kid again ready to explore the whole park.


At around 10.10am I got an annoyed phone call from my dad asking where we were to which the answer "we're queuing for a coaster" didn't really cut it but there wasnt going to be another chance to get on space mountain in 10 minutes ever again, right? At around 10.20am we had ridden space mountain and gone done main street to the gates and handed their tickets over. To say my dad was annoyed would be the understatement of the century. [By the way Space Mountain was amazing and not scary at all, I LOVED IT!]

So we saw mickey mouse taking photos and saw the queue which admittedly probably wasnt too long but thought we'd see him in the parade instead. We obviously did see him there later.  



We walked through the arcade to the left of main street and went to Buzz to get fastpasses for 12.30ish. It was around 10.45am by now I guess and we walked to Star Tours and the queue was only 15 minutes. That was great and I thought my mum would love it too -  we'll see her opinion on that later.  :lol:



So we decided on captain EO with a 0 minute wait. The pre-show is killer and completely unnecessary and DRAGS ON A LOT!! into the main theatre and I was quite excited for this, the light dimmed and there was just audio for about 30 seconds and the captain eo logo then it went on for about 2 minutes and no-one did anything so i thought it was part of the show, surely enough a lady came on stage saying "as you can see, we're having technical difficult, you'll need to come back later [with a huge smile on her face]" so half an hour wasted there. I then went to do my passport annuel and my family went to watch the dance express train.

So I was completing the whole process in french which was fun as I got to practice my A2 french. The old lady was very, very nice and friendly and despite knowing I was english was happy to do the whole process in french. It got to payment and they noticed my ticket was in pounds and they'd need to convert it to euros. So at home I had done the calculations 139 euros for the passports - 51 pounds (57 euros) = 82 euros. Even if they gave the echange rate at £1=1 euro 139-51 would be 88 euros. I had therefore loaded 90 euros onto a prepaid card as a worstcase scenario. So the lady asks another member of staff to help with the conversion which was all part of the software of the process and it can up with 90.81e - to say that this was embarassing was an understatement. Also, they are theives as somehow they managed to work out that the british pound (the strongest curency in the world) was now weaker than the euro. So, I asked the lady to wait literally 2 minutes as my parents were standing outside and i'd get one of their cards. The new lady was very insistant (in fact rude) and said that i could be no more than 2 minutes.

I got outside and my dad wasnt there - he had gone to the toilet, I ran after him and within 2 minutes was back. Not only had the lady closed down my application form but she had moved on to another customer. As if MY 90 euros were not as good as their 90 euros. I suspect this happened because I was not french.  :evil:

I stood in the queue for a few minutes and they took too long so I left. I wasn't going to be treated like this AND hand over my money. So after those shenanigans it was time for our buzz fastpass which we all went on.


I beat my brother with 9,000 to 8,000 approx and was happy, then my dad had won with 99,000 against my mum  :roll: HAHA.   :mrgreen: He was happy  /

So then we went over to indiana jones and got fastpasses, but later skipped these. We then went for lunch at au chalet de la marionette and had roast chicken and chips which was about 13 euros with a drink and dessert. The chicken was a tad bit dry but generally very, very nice and service wasnt too slow either.
 


We then got a fastpass for all of us for peter pan's flight at around 6.45pm and this was around 2pm in the afternoon so these fastpasses really do go fast! It was around now that I realised that despite coming on a bank holiday and a sunday and having brilliant weather, the park really wasn't too full, and was actually almost empty (well, by summer standard at least  :mrgreen: ) although there were people everywhere.

We then saw rapunzel but the queue was huge, flynn's too.


We also saw tianna


so those two had made my day already even without getting photos with them, if we had had 3 or more days in the park I would have got somet photos but we were short for time and we'd get to see them in the parade later.  :thumbs:

We headed to its a small world- 15 mins wait


and the next few hours are a blur - maybe because of that music. I know we went on the teacups, (20 mins wait)


went into alice's maze and climbed the castle


and did le pays de contes de fees which was nice too - this was a 15 min wait

then went on pirates which my mum was afraid of the drops beforehand and after seeig the huge chainlift in ride but was fine for the drops. The effects were all brillliant and the swinging pirate was great and working! (For the rest of the trip i noticed we got to see a lot of effects which were rarely working - awesome!). This was the longest we queued the whole two days - 30 minutes though the queue never stopped moving which helped.


We're in the penultimate row - the three guys (I'm in checkered blue) and my mum is ducking down in fear  :lol:

We headed over to frontierland and BTM was closed due to the accident and while passing by the castle I heard music and realised! "THE 5-OCLOCK PARADE IS ON, WE'RE NOT MISSING THIS" and wow, I'm glad we didn't - it was amazing! People left mid-parade so I eventually got a spot reasonably close to the front    plus at 6foot I'm a bit over average height so that worked out well for a decent enough view although i couldnt see floor characters that well, more those on floats but i did see most major ones.





Then we went over to frontierland and got a seat straight away on the brown new molly brown which was slightly mundae. Then phantom manor which was about a 20 minute queue and my most anticipated ride, unfortunately it fell flat for me. I think I had just overhyped it too much for myself. My brother wasnt particularly impressed either and my parents figured out the secret of the stretching room within seconds.  :roll:

The omnimovers werent particularly smooth at turning either and I feel the story was lost as we didnt eperience the first room and were ruhed straight into the stretch room. Also the fact that its in french didnt work either as they didnt understand a think, plus it sounds spookier when you know what theyre saying. I was very disapppointed at Phantom Manor

Then it was time to go to Peter Pan's flight which became the highlight of my trip  :lol: My mum was terrified of the fact the ships were hanging from a rail. This was completely unexpected and made for a very funny ride - although i do see how the rail does disappears and you are quite high up. So even though phantom manor might not frighten you, peter pan may. It was just so unexpected I almsot died with laughter for the whole ride.

We then went on star tours all together as a family and she hated that too, but said peter pan's flight was aowrse. The fact that we sat right at the back on star tours didnt help as me and my brother sat at the front the first time and the tilting was less noticeable for sure.

We saw the new mickey's magical celebration show which was great but being mostly in french i dont think the rest of my family understood everything.

We also went on captain EO which was OK and took the train back to main street and then went for dinner,, at mcdonalds again and went to sleep again. The bunk beds were still uncomfortable.



No photos towards the end here as I'm over my limit for flickr

[dagobert]

Thanks for the wonderful trip report. Your pictures are great.

[gldc]

Day 3 - Monday, 2nd May

So, today we got up and had breakfast at 8am and as it was our last day we packed out suitcases ready to take these to the left luggage in the parks. We got to Walt Disney STudios at around 9am and I went straight to the ticket window, showed them my student card and got a ticket for 45 euros for both parks instead of 69! She said she'd do it under exceptional circumstances as although I wasn't in uni, but in 6th form, but because I was 18 it was fine. Having saved myself a substantial amount of money there I had more for photos in the park.

While my parents went off to drop the bags at the luggage area to the right of these windows (6 euros a day for airplane carry-on sized bags, 9 euros for larger, 3 euros for smaller) my and my brother went in around 9.35ish and went sraight for crush's coaster. On the way there we saw a huge queue but it appeared to be for aladdin. Then we found out this was for Crush :O So around 9:55am Crush started operating and this is a very slow loading attraction. Around 10:20 we got on and WOW this is a wild coaster that goes round huge helix turns and you really go quite fast! It was loads of fun though.

Next, we went to Toy Story Playland and the queues here for horrible due to no fastpass so we went on Slinky Dog here and this was loads of fun as this french woman couldnt stop laughing hysterically causing us to do the same  :lol:  :lol:  :lol: It said 5 minute wait time but we waited around 15.

RC Racer actually looked huge and terrifying, I hate pirate ship type rides and this one at the top was more than 90 degrees of the ground  :shock: The queue was only 20 minutes though for that. Toy Soldiers parachute drop was a 65 minute wait and as fun and huge as it looked, I wasn't going to wait over an hour for anything.

I whipped out my iPhone to check the wait times on the Official DLP App and Crush was now at 90 minutes  :shock: Good thing we went on it straight away. So we then went and got fastpasses for Tower of Terror for around 12.30pm and then Rock n Rollercoaster for around 12.45pm.

We went overto Studio Tram Tour with a wait of 5 minute and went on that - just as much fun as last time, though I think the pre-show video was actually working this time which it didn't in 2003.


We then went to see Cinemagique! This was graet with the mixture of in theatre effects such as water, gunshots, doors, swords, wow it was great and I had no idea how they did some of the effects. For little kids don't sit at the front with them as about 5 minutes in there is a very, very loud bang on stage. (I'm not going to ruin why for those who haven't seen it). Although, to be fair no-one cried in our performance and there were a quite a few little kids in there.




After that we had around 15 minutes to linger around for the Tower of Terror and we saw goofy in his ToT costume.  :thumbs:

This wait got me a bit anxious, as did the pre-show video inside and I'm fine with rollercoasters - this just wasn't a rollercoaster. In fact I hate drop rides. After the pre-show we waited for about another 10 minutes before getting into the lift which added to the tension; we boarded on the lower levels. As the cast member declared that "ladies and gentleman your rooms are ready" and let us in, I politely asked if we could have the ride audio in English to which he said "of course, if you want." Woop!  =D>  

Once boarded and as the doors were closing he said "would you like anything else? TOO LATE." and the doors shut! Nice touch. We went backwards into the ride shaft and people were screaming already haha, and the ride was indeed in english. Although, because everyone else was french they didn't do the wave goodbye to reality scene - I did!  :mrgreen:
 


Wow then it was 1 minute of sheer terror, I have never been so scared in my whole life and my on-ride photo proves it  :lol: I didn't even have time to look out the window at the top I was just screaming the whole way. When we got to the end it was a relief (although I do wish I'd gone again to experience it again). The on-ride photo for this was a must and was 12 euros with a magnet frame. Both me and my brother looked absolutley perified.

After that experience, we went over to RnRollercoaster and the studio re-show scene is very cool. We got front seat of the rollercoaster which we slightly nerveracking considering I'd never been on it before but I needn't have worried. It was stunning! Next me, mum and brother went for a quick lunch at backlot cafe of sandwiches, crisps and cafe but my dad said he wanted something different to eat and ended up eating at mcdonalds - again.

Then we saw the parade which was great here as we were near the show. The characters were really great here and I loved the baddies here.
My dad still wasn't back yet so we went into the art of Disney Animation which was fun too and I watched the whole animator's show in French by choice, it was very well done.


Next, we found my dad and went over to Animagique which seats a crazy amount of people around 5000 I think as when I looked at the operators console while going in it still had over 1800 left to fill. This show was INCREDIBLE it was very well done, had great singlalongs and had a fun storyline. The way it is played out is unique too with the dark atmosphere. The set changes are brilliant and it's like being in a broadway musical for 30 minutes. (A lot of the audio is in french and my brother didnt immediately get the storyline because of this but got it soon enough) It was INCREDIBLE once again. Highly recommended.


Then we went over to Moteurs, Action - once again 1800 people still needed to go in behind us. This was great and my dad loved it, starting the clapping etc waving to the drivers, though at the end he said he didn't like it and denied waving and all that < see, always trying to hide his excitement. But I caught him  /


Then we went out the park going past Armageddon (which I wanted to do) and even Stitch and RocknRollercoaster and bid a farewall to the park - it was now 4.45pm ish. We had a 7.37pm train to london so got our suitcases as the left closed in WDS at 5pm that day. We (me, bro, mum) went into Disneyland Park without the suitcases as my dad stayed outside.

The parade was on so we got a great view of that from the station for about 15 minutes and then we got the Railroad round to Fantasyland as that was where the train terminated and walk back out. It was around 6.15pm now. We got on the Eurostar around 6.30 and relaxed back home - no queues at checkin or anything, the direct journey is so much nicer and relaxing than changing in paris and getting the metro and RER. The journey was a little under 3 hours as we had to make a stop in Lille due to rail network problems in France.

Customs and passport control over in the UK were empty so we walk straight out into London St Pancras and went home!

Goodybe Disneyland Paris!

[MrsPirate]

What a brilliant trip report, some of it made me laugh out loud and your photos are great.

I can't imagine how you felt missing your train, I think I would have been in tears too. How does your Dad feel now he is home, would he go again?

[gldc]

What a brilliant trip report, some of it made me laugh out loud and your photos are great.

I can't imagine how you felt missing your train, I think I would have been in tears too. How does your Dad feel now he is home, would he go again?

Haha thanks.

Yeah the train bit was horrible, he only commented the day after that He was exhausted from all the walking. I haven't actually asked him but have a feeling it'll be quite a few years until he'd consider going again especially as it is so expensive for such a short break and he'd rather be lying on a beach than queuing which is understandable. Though if I were paying I'm sure he'd be happy to go  :roll:

I do have an ambition of taking us all on a family trip to Orlando one day, maybe it'll be by the time I have my own children but I'm determined we will all go one day there together.

[ed-uk]

Great trip report, glad you had such a nice time.

[alternativerock123]

Wonderful trip report. =]   Hope that you had a good time. ^^

[gldc]

Thanks everyone, yeah the trip was brilliant. It feels like it was ages ago though and almost like a dream.

[traveller]

I am so glad you have a wonderful time.
Thank you for your trip report, I like it very much.
I am sure that you have completely forgotten the bunk beds now!

[davewasbaloo]

Great report, glad you enjoyed. Did you ever get your AP? (The luggage storage would have been free). Why McD's so much, I would never eat there at DLP (did once for breakfast only). Glad you had a good time.

[gldc]

Great report, glad you enjoyed. Did you ever get your AP? (The luggage storage would have been free). Why McD's so much, I would never eat there at DLP (did once for breakfast only). Glad you had a good time.

Nope didn't end up getting my annual pass, I'll probably get it if I go back next year, though there's so talk about Florida currently  :-"

Yeah we NEVER eat mcdonalds, in fact i hate the stuff but we were on a budget and it was cheap. We only ate their twice though so not too bad.

[Dilly]

Hi there

I know it was a few months ago but I hope you can help me anyway

What Student Card did you flash at them to get the student tickets? Sounds like a great deal. I love your report of your trip!
I'm so excited to go!

Thanks in advance

[gldc]

just a standard NUS Extra card.