Home

[Sulley's Arms]

As mentioned in our June report, we had planned the 4 main DLP trips during our Dream Year and ended up adding 2 nights there at the end of our summer holiday, so this would be the actual 'End of Year' trip!

We travelled during the day, arriving at the hotel around 3-ish, so got to the Resort at 4pm.  We had never been during the school Summer Holidays before but understood one thing – it will be busier than anything we've ever seen!  Going in with this frame of mind made good sense, because if you don't expect to get on many rides, don't expect to be able to see the Parade as it passes, and don't expect to be able to move around very easily due to excessive crowds, you are unlikely to be disappointed when it happens .

First port of call was the Disneyland Hotel (oh, that lovely aroma!).  We just wandered around for a few minutes, the kids went up in the lifts, etc.  It's funny how different people react differently to situations; to us a trip to DLP is uber-exciting and mega-fun, however there was a lady in the lobby that had arrived at the hotel, found herself a high-backed chair and fallen asleep!  It made us laugh, and also gave us a brilliant photo memory, with the kids smiling away and the lady just over their shoulders, LOL.

Today officially marked the moment when our youngest was now tall enough to be able to go on Indiana Jones ?.  Back in June, we'd had to put park maps in his shoes to bump up the inches a little! But now he was completely map free and able to enjoy himself properly (and the queue was, strangely, not that long either)!!

We had agreed beforehand that a 30-minute queue should be considered as (relatively) short given it's the summer holidays, so when Pirates showed '30 minutes' we said 'let's do it'!  However, when we got in, the actual queue was barely longer than 5 minutes or so.  Result.  Every time we go on Pirates for the first time in a trip, it's almost like having never been on it before.  The sounds, the smells, the animatronics – all simply brilliant.  What a(n unexpectedly) great start to our trip.

This evening we were able to see Fantillusion, which was great, particularly as we were able to get a better spot to stand than at Christmas, LOL. So by 20:45 we were sat behind the rope waiting with excitement, taking lots of photos of the Parc by night.

Straight after the floats had passed our position we ran around to Buzz whilst the queue was lower!  Score!!  Actually this really busy trip wasn't turning out so bad after all.  The wait times weren't, for the most part, above 30 minutes, so we were still able to do the Tea Cups, Snow White, etc.  We left Peter Pan though, as we could do this during EMH without a 50 minute wait.

At 23:00 it was time for our second viewing of Disney Dreams!  Still as amazing to behold, even having seen it before. Great.

Next morning we were back doing EMH with as much excitement as on our first trip, and it was certainly true that the Parc was not busy that early.  I guess this is because so many people stay up late for the shows & parades that they then lie-in the next morning (just not us!!).

By 9:45 we were in WDS and had decided to join the pre-queue for Tower of Terror.  This experience was new to us – standing in a very long line, even before the ride is open.  By the time 10:00 came the queue literally disappeared off into the distance and around a bend, for how long is unknown.  We were standing in the lobby by 10:15 and on the ride shortly after that.  It still catches me out just how funny the ride is, and how often it keeps going up then down and back up again, LOL.

After this we decided to split up, with 2 of us going round to Rock n Rollercoaster (the board said it was a 10 minute queue) and the others off to Toy Story Playland.  When we reached our ride the actual wait time was 50 minutes, so we decided against it, opting instead to go into the Blockbuster Café to take random photos of each other doing humorous things, like planking, pretending to be a High School Musical character (dancing, of course!).

After approx 20 minutes of this sort of behavior (which spilled outside, also taking in the RnRC frontage, Singin' in the Rain and various 'studio props' dotted around the place ) we walked around to meet back with the others (the photo antics would remain a closely guarded secret until we were back home viewing our holiday slideshow pictures the following week!).

Back over to the main Parc after lunch, and the decision to walk around and take in the atmosphere of the place (after all, this is our final trip).  After dinner at the Lucky Nugget Saloon and 2 or 3 more rides, we watched the Parade for the last time, then systematically went through each of our favourite rides one after another, before heading back to the hotel to re-pack and prepare to check-out the next morning, on our final day.

Next day was spent essentially saying goodbye to each of the attractions ("one last time on Buzz", etc)!  A few last minute purchases, a meet & greet with Mickey, et al at the Celebration Train, lunch at Earl of Sandwich (I knew we'd end up doing this!!), it was time to wave goodbye and say a huge thank you to our favourite place in the world!

I hope we meet again sooner rather than later.

Thank you and good night.   :cry:  :cry:  :cry:

[DisneyDancer92]

Really have been enjoying reading your reports! Im in the middle of having a similar disney year. Went there in August, going again in 2 weeks- and possibly again in May and July What did it feel like to visit it that many times in one year?- excited to find out as I previously lived in denmark and maybe visited every 2/3 years, now living in London and able to take shorter really cheap trips with eurostar.

[Sulley's Arms]

Hi DisneyDancer92

As you'll have no doubt picked up, we had a great time over the year (it was actually only 9 months in the end - my original plan had been to go on the first trip at the end of the October half term, with the final trip at the beginning of the following year's October half term (i.e. at the end of the AP year) but the half term was a week later in 2012 so that meant the passes had expired just before that school holiday began   )!

Before we agreed to embark on the AP journey, one of the things we discussed was the fact that if we go a lot of times we're likely to get bored of the place, possibly even making our existing memories of previous trips less meaningful & special.  However, we had a blast on all of the different trips so it was well worth it.  In fact the main reason for wanting to go at different times was that each trip (except August) had a different theme - Halloween, Christmas, Magic Moments Festival & 20th Anniversary.  I personally enjoyed February most, as there were plenty of shows & appearances going on all the time, but they were all great for different reasons!