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[ilovedisneylandparis]

Day 3

It was time for another magical morning, as we woke up to the sounds of my pal Mickey telling us we were gonna have a "great day!" and the sun shining through the curtains. How lovely is it to wake up to a sunny day, especially at Disneyland Paris?! I kept peeking out through the curtains in the morning and seeing the Cheyenne all pretty and sunny and just wanting to cry with happiness. It felt funny knowing this was our last-but-one breakfast at the Cheyenne, though  Like I said, time flies by too quickly while you're in DLP!

While we had breakfast we were talking about Dreams, and how surprised we were that so few people actually used the Light 'Ear hats. You know when you see the videos or promo photos of them, it looks like a sea of people are wearing them, which was what I expected to see in person. But I think we counted four people amongst the entire crowd? I was considering buying some for myself but decided against it - I was quite excited to buy some but then I realised that the actual experience of Dreams would be no better or worse for me if I did because I can't actually see my own ears flashing! And then I realised that I might just ruin someone else's view I do think it's a cute idea, and it would be a lovely experience if everyone bought into it and had their own pair of ears, but it doesn't seem to have taken off quite like I expected it to have done.

We rushed back to the hotel room as quickly as possible after breakfast and zoomed around showering and grabbing our things, so that we could make the most of the Extra Magic Hours that morning. Although we'd been in early on the Tuesday, to make the rope-drop for Big Thunder Mountain, we hadn't actually made use of the Extra Magic Hours – and that's a vital part of staying in the Disney hotels!



We walked/ran into the parks and went straight over to one of my all-time faves, Buzz Lightyear's Laser Blast. What a ride, I just can't deal with how much I love it. One of my favourite parts of it is when you go through the hyper-speed (? I don't know my space lingo ) bit (you know the tunnel where it's all dark and there are lots of little lights?) cos Russ always spins the buggy at that stage and I always happy-cry. I am also a big fan of the end where the aliens say "Yes! We will return Zurg to the store...he is a bad toy" AW :')

We rushed off Buzz, laughed at our on-ride photo and then decided what we'd do next. We were itching for a look round Constellations but we knew this was something we should do later, when we had more time.

Onto Fantasyland, for Peter Pan! This was a 20 minute wait, which is quite long for Extra Magic Hours, but we figured if it was at 20 minutes now, it'd be even longer later. It wasn't quite 20 mins in the end, more like 10, so we were glad we'd given it a go. Great news – the graffiti on the wall in PPF has completely gone! It looks as if DLP have painted over it (the wood is now a Disney shade of green) and it blends in really nicely  I was so chuffed to see that this had gone – I hope people start to show a bit more respect to the queue area now! The ride was amazing, as expected. Is there anything more magical than when you fly over London?! 



It was about 9.30am now, so we dropped over to the Mad Hatter's Teacups for another quick go on there before 10am opening. We dashed on and off, and then headed over to Meet Mickey Mouse, as we wanted to make the most of the shorter queue and stake our space in it before the parks opened and the queue became huge! We definitely went over at a good time, because by 10.15am there were a good 50 people behind us. At 10.30am we were led into the attraction and we all had a look at the cartoons and the lovely way it's all laid out in there. I really do think this is an absolute gem of a meet 'n' greet, it's perfect. I love how they put the cartoons on and how they completely link with the theme of the attraction but also serve a purpose too.









At about 10.50am we were called through into the little corridor area and were then led through into the main room. I love how you can only see little glimpses of Mickey at first, and then when you are called to go round you suddenly see him and everything bad in the world just gets washed away. My pal :') We had a big hug and I showed him my Mickey t-shirt, which of course he loved! Russ came over for a hug too which made me very happy, and we had a few photos together as well as some separate ones. What I liked the most was that the photographer took a picture of me and Mickey as we went to hug, and we ended up with this:



My mum doesn't like this cos you can't see my face but I think it's lovely! Look how happy we both are to see each other I think it sums up the entire spirit of Disneyland in one photo.

So after a wonderful morning meeting Mickey and buying some of the lovely photos we'd had taken, we had a think about what we wanted to do next. It was BOILING at this stage (about 28 degrees I think?) so we decided we'd take a little break and do some shopping over on Main Street. We didn't buy much, but it's just such a special place to mill around in, and we took some photos on the walk there and over the next few hours, too 

















At that point we were feeling a bit hungry, so we decided we'd take the plunge and see if there was a free table at Blue Lagoon. Sadly they were all booked up, but the Cast Member we spoke to said that if we came back at about 3pm, we might be able to get a table for that evening. We decided we'd do that, and instead chose Plaza Gardens for lunch, which was absolutely great. There was a man playing the piano in there as we went in, and I wish I'd taken some photos or videos of him, as he left after about 10 minutes but he was really good, it made me feel very Disneyland/Dapper Dan-esque :')







After lunch Russ asked me what I'd really like to go on, to make the most of the time we had left. Phantom Manor was an obvious choice  So we walked over to Thunder Mesa...





We joined the queue, before re-entering the manor. Again, how magical. We managed to be first on but for some reason there wasn't anyone on about three or four doom buggies behind us, so we spent the entire ride with no-one in front of or behind us, which really added to the spooky feel! When we got to the singing busts I sang Grim Grinning Ghosts along with them without even realising it and then cried I was so happy (have you noticed a reccurring theme of me crying haha), I love that song so much. And when you get off the ride and hear "Hurry back...hurry baaaack!"...it makes my heart ache <3 Phantom Manor means so much to me 

Next up was another trip around the Caribbean, before a 3pm return to the Blue Lagoon, where we were able to book a table for that evening – hooray! We dropped back to the hotel to have a quick break and shower, before heading back to the parks a couple of hours later for our meal. On the way, we watched Magic on Parade  I still love this parade a lot - I was excited to see the Anna and Elsa float, and to hear the familiar song and see all the characters on their floats was magical.







I have got to be honest and say our experience at Blue Lagoon was a very mixed one. The actual atmosphere is AMAZING, there's no doubt about it, and to be sitting so close to Pirates was magical - I really enjoyed that side of it. Our chairs were shaped like giant leaves which I found quite exciting, and the fact that the restaurant is so dimly lit and there's a big shipwreck at the side and that sort of thing made me love it even more. You could practically smell the ride water!  We both ordered the swordfish, which we'd decided on some months before after pouring over the menus on DLP Guide (DLRP Magic) and thus spent a long time getting excited for.

But our waiter was, for want of a better phrase, a real grump He didn't smile at all the entire time he spoke to us, he just wrote down what we asked for and left, then came back and plonked the plates down, that was all. It was only when he gave us the bill and was obviously expecting some sort of tip that he said a blunt "Thank you" and walked off. This put a bit of a downer on the experience – of course you never know someone's language skills, so I would never expect someone to come over and speak perfect English with us, especially when you consider that it should be the other way round, really, and we should be the ones who've made the effort to learn the language of the country we're going to. But I just can't stand it when people don't even smile or show any kind of positive body language. Again, it's bad in any customer-facing role, but for Disneyland? I just don't think it's good 








Our meals arrived pretty quickly and looked okay, but my swordfish was cold in the middle and only lukewarm around the edges The rice was okay but only very average, and the vegetables around the sides were lovely, but that didn't really make up for the rest. We felt so uncomfortable with the waiter that I didn't really want to say anything about my swordfish so I ate what I could and after about an hour in the restaurant we paid the bill and went on our way.

It was a shame, really - I did really love the BL for the experience, and I'd definitely go back, but maybe only for a drink or something this time. I've heard some mixed reviews about it but have only really paid attention to the positive ones – maybe the standard here just slips a little from time to time? I'm not sure. It wasn't abysmal, but it just wasn't what you'd expect from a restaurant where the final bill for one course and a drink each was 80 euros, you know? 

We dropped by POTC on our way out (with a 5 minute wait we figured it'd be stupid not to! ) and it was just as special on the second ride of the day After this we realised we needed to get some packing done, as we were keen to use the EMH on the Thursday and not waste the morning packing, so we headed back to the Cheyenne again. It was really lovely and hot still by this point – the weather really improved as the week went on, and we didn't see any storms again. At some points it felt a tad too hot, as it's hard to be outside and physically DOING things all day in very warm weather, but I felt really lucky that we'd had such lovely sunshine and not been in constant rain all week or anything. Plus, it made for some really special pictures – I love seeing our chateau and the Disneyland Hotel with the beautiful blue sky against them.



We got back to the hotel room and started doing a bit of packing, but halfway through I started to feel really ill My stomach hurt a lot and I ended up in bed feeling very poorly, which didn't bode well for Dreams that evening! In the end we (very reluctantly) said we'd give Dreams a miss, as I kept having to run to the bathroom (sorry! ) and it's horrible feeling that way when you're out and about. We were both really sad about not going back to see Dreams again, and I felt like a bit of an idiot for eating the undercooked swordfish and not bringing it up with the waiter. Lesson learned for next time!

To cheer us up, we got the packing done as quickly as possible, and then put our pyjamas on and had an evening of Jessie, Austin & Ally and Disney card games, which was a lot of fun. We missed Dreams a lot and it felt like the worst luck feeling poorly on a night where we really WANTED to do something and were in the most magical place on earth, but it was my own fault I guess 

We got snuggled up in bed and thought about what rides we'd go on tomorrow and what we wanted to get done on our last day. It felt quite sad knowing it was our last night in DLP, but we wanted to make the most of the time we had left, so it was exciting thinking about Thursday and all the things we wanted to do. We set our Mickey Mouse alarm and fell asleep straight away

[ilovedisneylandparis]

Loving this report so far    Can't wait to read the rest. We live quite close to Brum airport too so fly out, but we do Frankie & Bennys first not Burger King    (I usually have to get my hubby a bit tipsy on cocktails as he hates flying, even if only for an hour!) 

Brilliant trip report like last time! Will russ be doing a mirror one again?

Thanks both! We are big Frankie & Benny's fans too so that could be an idea for next year  Ooh Russ hasn't done a mirroring report before but that would be a lot of fun! 

[ilovedisneylandparis]

Apologies for the lack of Day 4, everyone. My laptop has seen better days (much better days) and has crashed on me twice whilst writing Day 4  So I'm going to restart it on Word and then copy and paste when I'm finished!

[daddyof2]

Apologies for the lack of Day 4, everyone. My laptop has seen better days (much better days) and has crashed on me twice whilst writing Day 4  So I'm going to restart it on Word and then copy and paste when I'm finished!

That's exactly what I did for my trip report, watch the formatting when you paste it in though

[ilovedisneylandparis]

Day 4

And onto the final day! We were up early again - we had some last minute packing to do but we wanted to be out and about as quickly as possible  Off to breakfast... We had our usual mountain of croissants and bread rolls (I really tried to savour them, knowing this was our last day!) and waved goodbye to the Chuck Wagon, before heading back to our room to grab our things.





We always leave our balloon for someone to find on the last day - cos we fly, we can't take it back with us, and it seems a shame to pop it for no reason to throw it away! So we like to tie it to a bench and leave it for someone else who'd like it :')



Then after dropping our room-key back to reception and storing our luggage in the allocated area, we ran to the parks! It was an absolutely gorgeous day again, SO sunny 



We were in time for Extra Magic Hours, so of course we wanted to take full advantage of this while we still could! We dashed over to Buzz and had another magical time fighting Zurg - and then because we were already in Discoveryland, we wondered whether Star Tours would be worth trying again. It had about 15 minutes queue-time which was fine with us  I think the queue for Star Tours is actually one of my favourites in some ways, it really does help to get you in the mood for the ride.

We got seated in our Starspeeder and I have got to say that the Cast Member working this day (Thursday, 12th June, AM) was absolutely spot-on in terms of his Disney magic. You know when the doors sweep shut? He used his hands to do a jedi-style movement which made him look like he was shutting the doors using the force :') And then when he said goodbye to us all and wished us a good space-trip, he said "May the force be with you" before closing the doors. HOW GOOD IS THAT?! I was so happy  I love it so much when CMs go the extra mile and make your DLP trip even more special.

I was itching to meet Duffy and Minnie by this stage - as I'm sure you guys know, for the last few years Duffy has been out for meet 'n' greets on his own, which haven't been hugely popular. This year for Swing into Spring they'd put him in a joint meet 'n' greet with Minnie, which had made the queuelines a lot longer, as you'd expect! As a result, we'd kept saying "We'll come back when it's quieter" but it got to the point where we realised it may not get any quieter, and we'd just have to go for it!

We joined the queue at about 10.30am I think. It was so warm by this point and I felt bad for poor Duffy and Minnie - they must have been boiling! They kept going for regular drinks breaks though - it was so cute, Duffy would point at the door and tap his wrist as if it was a watch, and Minnie would pretend she was drinking a cup of tea, then off they'd go <3 Eventually we reached the front of the queue! I'd felt bad for Duffy because so many people were running up to Minnie but then ignoring Duffy (probably because they don't know him? He definitely doesn't have a presence over here like he does in Japan, for example) but I was 80% there for Duffy, so I was so excited to see him and cheer him up :')









It was probably about 11.45am by this stage, and we had a think about what we wanted to do, and decided it'd be nice to go and spend some time in the castle  We went in via La Taniere du Dragon (always one of our favourite aspects of the castle, eek!) and then dropped into Merlin and the lovely little Christmas shop. They had a few Christmassy bits and bobs (obviously!) but it does always seem that the majority (or at least the new stuff) comes in around July/August time, so there wasn't a huge selection. Fun to look regardless, though, and of course Merlin is always a magical shop.







































As always, the castle was beautiful, and we spent quite a while exploring the galerie. What a magical place :') After that, we realised we were getting pretty hungy, and we had a think about where to eat. After a whole day of no burgers on Wednesday we felt rather proud of ourselves for being so healthy (healthy for Disneyland anyway, haha) so we decided we fancied stopping off at Au Chalet de la Marionnette - especially because it's one of our favourite restaurants, and it seemed a shame not to visit it this year



After lunch we went for a little walk around Frontierland and sat on the bench outside the shops - again, always a favourite haunt of ours while we're in DLP. When the weather's nice there's something so relaxing about just sitting there watching BTM and looking at the water, it's perfect to me. We had a little look around the shops again and bought a few things before walking back over to Fantasyland for one last ride on It's a Small World 



Sorry for the blurry photo - I still haven't mastered the art of taking clear pictures on IASW! As we came out and walked back through Fantasyland, we came across the Swing into Spring celebrations - I say "came across" because I had seen videos online and had thought it looked okay but only okay, you know? I hadn't been itching to watch it or anything, so we hadn't actively sought it out. But we stood and watched it and I have got to admit that I was wrong - I thought it was SO cute. The song is addictive too, I keep listening to it now we're home and singing "Spriiiiiing fe-veeeer" haha



We took a little stroll over to Adventureland and took some photos whilst exploring Adventure Isle - we even spotted Carl and Russell, which Russ was keen to do (for obvious reasons )







After a walk back over to Discovery Arcade and a quick rest, we realised it was more or less time to say goodbye to the Disneyland Park  We walked through the arcade (very slowly!) but dropped into one shop as we left, as I spotted a really cute tee that I wanted to see if they had in my size. When we bought the t-shirt, the Cast Member was chatting to us, asking us if we'd had a good day, what our favourite bit of our trip had been, and so on. We really enjoyed talking to him for a few minutes, and as we left he said "Thank you, it's been so nice to talk to you. Most guests just don't want to know". He looked SO sad and it made me want to give him a big hug, me and Russ both felt so bad for him.

Then we started to think about how difficult it must be for the CMs when they're there trying to create magic and chat to guests and what-have-you, and they don't get anything from the guests in response. Me and Russ were chatty with this CM but it wasn't anything out of the ordinary, I would talk like that with anyone in any shop, just to be polite and make both of our days a little bit better. So that just was quite poignant for me, because I thought "If that was the best conversation with a guest he has had in a while, surely that just goes to show how un-chatty and antisocial the guests can be". Poor Cast Member I don't want to put his name on here just in case, but he was so kind and definitely someone Walt would be proud of :') It made me think back to the 'moodier' CMs we'd encountered, too - maybe it does get disheartening after a while, if you're trying to create this magical atmosphere and the guests you're dealing with just don't care? I don't know

We said a teary goodbye to the Disneyland Park. I hate this moment so much and I always start to dread it from about halfway through the trip, do you find you do the same?  I always wave at the castle and at the Disneyland Hotel, I'm not sure why haha. We stopped off at Walt Disney Studios on the way out but literally only made it into Frontlot and then came out again - we're not WDS fans at all and as soon as we walked in it was just so packed and noisy that we didn't really see the point. So instead we walked back over to Disney Village and had a sit outside Billy Bob's whilst listening to the Disney Village Radio 

We'd never been to the Earl of Sandwich before - I didn't view it as very magical (and to be honest it's not), but it does do some amazing sandwiches, as we discovered. We just fancied something small and not too burger-esque, and TEoS definitely delivered - Russ is very excited to return 



I was in a bit of a hurry to finish my sandwich because I knew that as soon as we did, we'd be straight over to the Disney Gallery, to order our prints! EEK This was something I'd looked forward to for most of the year, and I'd been having a think about which prints or canvases to buy over the last couple of days.

For those who haven't ordered, I'll explain a little on here It's quite a straightforward process - you walk into the Gallery and on your left are a couple of touch-screen computers on the wall, with a list (and pictures) of all the pictures you could potentially buy. There are also a few examples on the wall - different pictures, but also different sizes, with/without frames, canvases vs prints, and so on. I absolutely adored the canvases, as I thought that the colours really popped out on them more so than with the prints, but the starting price for the canvases were 70 euros, which I thought was hugely expensive. I also considered how we'd move them about - I have memories of working with canvases in GCSE Art and accidentally holding one too hard and sort of loosening the canvas where my fingers had been, if that makes sense? So I figured it might be best to get something frame-able, so they'd be more easily moved and kept neat.

The prints, it turned out, were about 18 euros each for the smallest size, which I thought was much more reasonable I wanted to buy one from each land, too, so I was glad to go for something a bit cheaper which meant I could get more! I decided not to get them framed - I think the delivery was quicker as a result of that, plus it's so easy and cheap to get them Ikea frames or similar that I just thought it'd be silly to spend the money in DLP. I ended up going for The Gibson Girl (Main Street USA), Phantom Manor (Frontierland), Adventure Isle (Adventureland), Le Chateau (Fantasyland) and Buzz (Discoveryland). I was torn between Star Tours and Buzz because Star Tours is more 'classic' in my eyes, but the colours in Buzz were just so beautiful I couldn't say no.

After you select the ones you'd like on-screen, you type in your address, confirm your order, and then head over to the tills. You can pay by cash or card, but I used cash, as I had all my euros with me. They then give you a receipt and tell you the postage will be 2-3 weeks, but you're also provided with a number to call if your order doesn't arrive, which I thought was good. Mine arrived more or less exactly a week after we got home from DLP, which I thought was fantastic service  They came rolled up in a poster-style tube, and I am yet to frame them (we've not got enough room here so I am having to wait until we move to put them up) but when I do, I'll post a picture on here!





After selecting our posters and walking back through Disney Village, it was time to say our goodbyes to the trusty Cheyenne We had a last peek in the shop and then a very sorrowful sit on the bench outside. I literally do LOVE this hotel, it means so much to me. Looking back on my photos already makes me cry, I am so excited to be back in the Disney magic next year <3



We headed over to collect our luggage and a VEA shuttle arrived more or less straight away, so we hopped on that and away we went  We got to the airport in plenty of time, and arrived back in Birmingham, UK at about 9.15pm. I find that after other holidays I am just happy to be back in my own bed, but after DLP I am always devastated I'm not in my Cheyenne bed, haha The next day Russ came round and we had a look through our lovely merch, as well as doing some planning for our 2015 trip (it always makes us feel that little bit better!).

So all in all, an amazing trip  I genuinely think it was the best trip yet, and people who don't like DLP keep saying "BUT WHY, YOU'VE BEEN THERE BEFORE SO MANY TIMES, THERE'S NOTHING NEW" to me and it's getting very irritating But to me it really was the best time, I can't even explain why except for suggesting that maybe DLP trips just get better and better every year? I reckon that's it, because I've only been back for three weeks and I already get heartache just thinking about it; we're planning to book to go back next June over the next few weeks.

To finish, I've posted a few of my merch photos (in another reply, as this one went over the word limit, which is only too typical of me haha) as well as some disposable camera photos I've had developed  Thanks for reading my report, everyone! See you next year 

[ilovedisneylandparis]

main street residents by i love disneyland paris, on Flickr

disney village by i love disneyland paris, on Flickr

view from the castle by i love disneyland paris, on Flickr

me at home by i love disneyland paris, on Flickr

le chateau by i love disneyland paris, on Flickr

duffy and minnie by i love disneyland paris, on Flickr

forty five, you&#x27;re going the wrong way by i love disneyland paris, on Flickr

cheyenne bank by i love disneyland paris, on Flickr

maintenance mickey by i love disneyland paris, on Flickr

dolls at the IASW cart by i love disneyland paris, on Flickr

the happiest cruise by i love disneyland paris, on Flickr

adventureland by i love disneyland paris, on Flickr

view from the castle x 2 by i love disneyland paris, on Flickr

la galerie by i love disneyland paris, on Flickr

minnie + boot by i love disneyland paris, on Flickr

thunder mesa by i love disneyland paris, on Flickr

view from phantom manor porch by i love disneyland paris, on Flickr

liberty arcade by i love disneyland paris, on Flickr

sunny day in DLP by i love disneyland paris, on Flickr

residents dancing by i love disneyland paris, on Flickr

disneyland hotel by i love disneyland paris, on Flickr

teacups by i love disneyland paris, on Flickr

ears by i love disneyland paris, on Flickr

disneyland hotel by i love disneyland paris, on Flickr

[msRavenswood]

Thank you for the lovely trip report and pics geekyjo!   

We said a teary goodbye to the Disneyland Park. I hate this moment so much and I always start to dread it from about halfway through the trip, do you find you do the same? 

I know exactly what you mean! We still have 2 months before our next visit and I'm already thinking about the dreadful last day! 

[norhel]

Nice report and nice pictures :-)
Sounds like you had a nice stay, despite a few "setbacks"

[daddyof2]

Some nice pics and some nice merch too

[BlackPearl]

Great report! Thank You for sharing it. 

[ilovedisneylandparis]

Thanks very much for your replies, everyone  I'm really glad you enjoyed the report. Ms Ravenswood, I'm glad it's not just me who feels this way! 

[andrewuk]

Really enjoyed reading that, great photos too  Thank you

[ilovedisneylandparis]

Really enjoyed reading that, great photos too  Thank you

I'm so sorry andrewuk I only just saw this! I haven't been on much recently but just wanted to say thanks for your comment, that's really kind of you to say 

[Disney Matt]

Such a great trip report. Took a lot of reading lol but it was worth it!! 
Great pics too & so in-depth! 

[ilovedisneylandparis]

Such a great trip report. Took a lot of reading lol but it was worth it!! 
Great pics too & so in-depth! 

Thank you so much! Haha I think next year I will have to keep it to a minimum on the writing, I like to reflect on everything and chat through my thoughts on different aspects of the trip but I just end up rambling I'm really glad you found it in-depth though, thank you! Only 2-and-a-bit months until I can do my next report, I can't wait