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[jonathan]

We arrived at DLP at around 2pm on Sunday the 16th.  The weather was farily decent (it wasn't raining)  We headed straight for Hotel New York and were delighted that nobody was waiting at Empire State Club reception so we checked in.  Sadly there had been problems with our suite -either flooding, heating issues, I couldnt quite make out her translation and didnt want to keep asking.  It was obvious enough that it was in no fit state.

After a short wait the very friendly lady said it was all sorted and that she had a surprise for us.  So we followed her up to the Empire State Club to find that they had upgraded us to an even bigger and better suite than the one we had originally ordered.  The kids were greeted with free gifts of large Pluto plushes that were about 25 Euros each in the shop and there were other welcome gifts of Disney photo frames, sweets and bottled water.

The suite was amazing, words cant describe how good perfect lake views and views of the castle, Big Thunder Mountain and Phantom Manor etc.  Not long after our luggage was brought up to us and we unpacked.  A few minutes later another knock at the door and theres a chap with yet more welcome gifts- champagne on ice, bunch of roses and chocolates.   We've certainly fallen on our feet here I thought.  It certainly was going to be a dream trip this time after a lacklustre stay at Santa Fe last year.

First night we set off for Inventions at Disneyland Hotel for buffet with the characters and just managed to catch Santa Goofy opening the Advent Calendar in the Disneyland Hotel.  Great interaction with the kids and they all received free gifts of keyrings which were 5 euros each in the shop.

Inventions was great with a superb selection of foods of all kind and the characters were brilliant.  On that night we saw Mickey, Minnie and Goofy in their Christmas outfits as well s Tigger, Eeyore, Pinnochio, Gepetto and Pinguin.

Monday morning and breakfast in the Empire State Club Lounge was with Minnie Mouse and had a great selection of hot and cold food.

Then down to the foyer for meet and greet with Max and Goofy.  We then headed for Disneyland Park's City Hall to collect Disabled Passes for the two boys (which are a Godsend even at this 'quieter' time of year).  All week we were treated with great care and respect by 99% of cast members and cannot rate them highly enough.  No waiting time for any rides or attractions and help and assistance all the way.  Even at Meet Mickey Mouse and Father Christmas it was straight in with no wait.  We had two varying visits to the Princess Pavillion however.  Our first visit was excellent.  We showed the man our passes and he asked my daughter she could choose between Cinderella and Ariel.  She asked to see Ariel as she had already seen Cinders in the Auberge du Cendrillon (which was great she also saw Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Prince Philip in the Aubegre and she even eat all her dinner which was a shock lol).
Anyways back to the Pavillion and she had chosen Aeriel but the man had mistakenly put her in the queue for Cinderella but he was nuice enough to let her see Ariel as well as it was his mistake.  Which was very nice of him.  On our second visit to the Pavillion a few days later however it was far from pleasant.  We went to the disabled entrance as usual and asked who was in there.  'It's a surprise' was the response.  I explained that I understood all that and how nice the man had been on the other day and that it would help me out if I didnt have to queue even the shorter time for a princess we had already seen.  Still, she was having none of it.  When we entered I deduced from the photos that had been taken that it was Cinderella and Rapunzel and aksed if she could see Rapunzel the lady finally relented and sais that ws OK.  The next lady who was akin to a German Commandant in a old bad war film.  She went ballistic awhen she find out we knew which princesses were in there.  I still cant work out what all the secrecy is about.  When my Mum told another person waiting that Rapunzel was in there the mad CM threatened to have my Mum ejected from the park for giving away information!!  She'd have been much better off in military intelligence I think lol
Anyway we got to see Rapunzel and had to keep calming the kids down who kept asking why that lady was shouting at everyone.  I thionk that secrey idea of the Pavilion needs to be rethought.

Rest of the week was a joy although I did find both parades a bit lacking although still very enjoyable.  I think I may get lynched for this though- I wasn't all that fussed about Dreams to be honest.  It was good but Ive seen better displays of lights and fireworks elsewhere and the kids were quite bored.  I'd have preferred the light parade but hey there you go thats just my opinion.

The Cafe Mickey experience was absolutely foul.  Terrible service, awful food, badly behaved patrons but at least we saw another handful of characters.  It was so bad at one point that a family got ejected from the retsaurant and rightfully so.  Their children were running around pushing other kkds around shooting their toy guns at the waiter causing him to drop and smash plates of food on more than one occasion.  We waited  20 mins to be seated even though I had a reservation and another 10 mins waiting for a highchair.  To make things worse they had seated us upstaurs and would not assist me when I showed them the disabled passes as I tried to expalin the flight of stairs would be difficult for our party.  They refused to help.

We enjoyed the Christmas festivities but wont go again as it got just far too cold.  Kids were thrilled as they filled their autograph books on this occasion meeting MGoofy, Pinocchio, Suzy & Perla, Pluto,Minnie, Gepetto, Mickey, Tigger, Max, Sleeping Beauty, Prince Philip, Cinderella, Pinguin, Snow White, Daisy, Buzz Lightyear, Chip n Dale, Jack Skellington & Sally, Winnie the Pooh, Ariel, Belle, Jack Sparrow, Father Christmas, Donald, Jasmine & Aladdin, Mulan,The Evil Queen from Snow White, Rapunzel, Duffy Bear, Angel and Stitch.

Overall it was a fantastic week and the staff at Hotel New York and the majority in the parks treated us with care and respect and we cannot rate them highly enough,.

[never2old]

Whoa, your room in the NYH soudns amazing!! Do you know what kind of suite it was? Any pics?? What a way to start your holiday!!!

Sounds like overall you all have a great time, despite some hickups... I've never done the Princess Pavillion (impossible queues always put me off), but I didn't know the secrecy was such a big deal  :shock:

And I'm glad to hear they did something about people seriously misbehaving in the Cafe Mickey, we've been lucky and in most of our visits kids were relatively well behaved, but more than once I've seen some kids running wild and getting in everyone's way (though maybe not as badly as you had...) while their parents did nothing, and the CM seemed powerless to stop them.

Thank you for sharing your trip with us!!

[PrincessEnya]

Like never2old said, your trip sounds fantastic despite the German Commandant and such. Do you have any pictures of the view from your hotel room? I would love to see them, I didn't know you could have a few over Frontierland!

[jonathan]

My new glasses must be that good but from the window we could see the top of BTM and PM in Frontierland, at first I wasnt so sure but the zoom lens on the camera confirmed this as such.

Im not entirely sure what sort of suite it was it was on the 7th floor, a floor above the Empire State Club floor- I know they have bigger and better than what we were in but from what I could make out from the check in lady in the Empire State Club our original suite was 50 square metres and the one we ended up with was 85 square metres (or something along those lines).  I had to keep checking my account just to majke sure they werent billing me for all these gifts! lol


On this trip I managed to take 700+ photos so attempting to upload some here would be nigh on impossible but I have uploaded most to my Facebook page

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set= ... 907&type=3

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set= ... 907&type=3

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set= ... 907&type=3

Every trip has its drawbacks and our negative experinces were far outweighed by the positives and didnt ruin our trip at all.  Just a shame that since our return home we've all gone down with this Winter vomitimg bug.

[captain rocket]

I won't try to justify the rudeness from any cast members and I have no interest in the Princess pavilion since I took photos of the fabulous selection of bling belonging to the various Princesses.
I am given to believe that the reason for secrecy is that the princesses are rotated every thirty minutes and Disney is concerned that if they tell people that a certain princess is in attendance and then she is changed, it would cause disapointment for any child who wanted to see that particular princess and would feel let down if she had gone just before they arrived.
It may have been badly handled in this case, but it does make sense to me that they don't give out advance information.

[never2old]

The FB links don't work for me

[SwipatronSparks]

i cant see them either =[

[jonathan]

I won't try to justify the rudeness from any cast members and I have no interest in the Princess pavilion since I took photos of the fabulous selection of bling belonging to the various Princesses.
I am given to believe that the reason for secrecy is that the princesses are rotated every thirty minutes and Disney is concerned that if they tell people that a certain princess is in attendance and then she is changed, it would cause disapointment for any child who wanted to see that particular princess and would feel let down if she had gone just before they arrived.
It may have been badly handled in this case, but it does make sense to me that they don't give out advance information.

The rotation is fine but why the secrecy when people are at the head of the queue. You are on your way into one of the two rooms so what harm is it for the CM to say to the person at the head of the queue you can choose Cinders or Belle say.  This lady explained that her daughter had already seen Cinders and could they see anyone but Cinders and the CM said no and sent her to Cinders when she could just as easily sent her to Rapunzel as both were available?  In my opinion thats wicked but what can you do.

[jonathan]

The FB links don't work for me

Ive changed the Facebook settings so they should be accessible now.  If not feel free to send me friend requests Jonathan Dwyer.  But hopefully now ive changed the albums to 'public' they should work for you!  

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set= ... 907&type=3


http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set= ... 907&type=3


http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set= ... 907&type=3

[SwipatronSparks]

They are wroking now ive sent you a friend request too (hope thats ok)

[jonathan]

They are wroking now ive sent you a friend request too (hope thats ok)

No problem, just accepted it.  Hope you enjoy the photos.

[captain rocket]

Back to who you get to see. I agree that it should be possible to choose when you are at the head of the queue, I suppose it depends on the goodwill of the cast members! The only justification I can think of is that if there was a less popular princess (Is there such a thing?) it could  cause a bottleneck with a lot of people waiting for the more popular princess. Maybe a little bit of power goes to some cast members heads?

[Ravenseye]

Back to who you get to see. I agree that it should be possible to choose when you are at the head of the queue, I suppose it depends on the goodwill of the cast members! The only justification I can think of is that if there was a less popular princess (Is there such a thing?) it could  cause a bottleneck with a lot of people waiting for the more popular princess. Maybe a little bit of power goes to some cast members heads?

I think that's the crux of the matter, power trips.
Such a shame as it certainly isn't the right way to uphold the Disney ethos  

On our first trip to DLP a CM was very rude to our party for no good reason (they could simply have explained that we had turned up 'too late' to sit together to watch a show, but chose instead to be insulting). It's something ive never forgotten and that's not the sort of memory you want to take away with you.

[jonathan]

Totally agree with you both.  Certainly we didnt let this ruin our trip but the behaviour of this CM was certainly unprofessional.  For the other 99% of the trip we were treated magnificently.  You'd just like to think that 100% of staff would be magnificent but I guess thats impossible anywhere!

[never2old]

Thank you for sharing your pics, they're excellent!!! I'm particularly jelous of all the characters you met!!! Really looks like your little ones had a magical time