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[NCC1701Q]

We (son (4), daughter (10), wife (41) and myself (41)) visited DLP from last friday till yesterday. We stayed offsite (as usual) and used our Dream AP's for access and discounts.

We arrived last Friday at around 3pm at our appartment and were in the Disneyland Park at 4pm. It obviously wasn't Fall-holiday yet in France because it was very quiet in the park. We had decided beforehand to view Dreams at least this day because it would be at 8pm, as opposed to 10pm the rest of our stay.
After entering the park we spotted Goofy with his candy-machine. The kids wanted to have their picture taken with him so we queued and used our PhotoPass+ for AP's. We did a few rides and then had dinner at Hakuna Matata. The food was really hot and tasteful. After dinner we walked to the Royal Castle and viewed Dreams. This was the most "relaxed" view I ever experienced - because it was so quiet we had no problem to get a good spot and enjoy the show. If only the Goofy-pumpkin would lower down or something because that one blocked a lot of people's views. Leaving the park was also very smooth and because we parked in the parking garage as opposed to in the parking lot we were in our appartment at around 8:45pm.

The long drive (5,5 hours) and the late evening took its toll: the kids slept in on Saturdaymorning and we left for the Walt Disney Studios at around 11am. First thing our son wanted to do was go see Animagique so we went to the theatre. Then we did some rides (Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, Toy Story Parachutes, Slinky) and left to have lunch at the Earl of Sandwich - then we crossed over to the Disneyland Park for the meet and greet with Marie. She was really cute and had a great moment with the kids. We tried to walk over to Minnie but the queue was closed so we skipped that and went on some rides. When we did Dumbo it started, we went up and then the whole thing slowed down, stopped with us high up in the air and then everyone went down again. Then we started again and all went well.
At around 5:30 pm we left for some late shopping at Val d'Europe (that's what you get when you ask your wife what she wants to do next) and had dinner at McDonald's.

Sundaymorning we left for the Disneyland Park at around 9am and did a bunch of rides and some shopping. We had lunch at Colonel Hathi's where my wife got plain frozen pasta and had quite the discussion with the CM at the counter. The second portion she got was boiling hot - much better! After lunch we went to see Jack Skellington who interacted fantastically with both our kids. Especially our daughter had a lot of fun because she asked him to sign her autograph book with a Jack Skellington-pen that unfortunately is missing its head. Jack reacted to that in a very funny matter and joked about it with the CM and photographer, even holding the pen underneath his own head. Great pictures!
We had dinner at our appartment and the kids went to bed to be ready for an early morning on Monday.

Mondaymorning we entered the Walt Disney Studios at 9:45am and walked to Ratatouille. Unfortunately the "system did not start up" and we waited with I think about 1000 other guests untill we decided to skip the ride and do the Toy Story Parachutes, Studio Tram Tour, Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, Cars and Crush Coaster. As we went up on the lift hill of Crush Coaster (going backwards, so looking down into the tunnel of the hill) we stopped at the very top. We stayed there for about three minutes and then, without any signal, moved over the top of the hill and continued on. Those three minuted did seem to last a lot longer! We walked over to the Disneyland Park and had lunch at Buzz Lightyears Pizza Planet (by popular demand of the kids) and went to do some more rides before we queued for the meet and greet with Minnie. She was lovely as ever. After that we watched the villains performance at the Royal Castle Stage and then tried to queue (but there was no real queue, just a lot of people standing around the Evil Queen who pointed out whomever could approach her next) for the Evil Queen. Our son wanted to meet her and so we stood there and waited, there was no pushing but kids were being shoved in by their parents and the CM's kept saying to stay behind the big dots on the ground. When the Queen pointed to our son the kid next to him started walking towards her but she made a gesture pointing at the kid, and then shook her head, pointing at our son again. He approached her and shook her hand very politely which made her almost laugh and then stood next to her as she rolled her eyes at the CM because I did not take the picture quick enough. Super into character again!

We ended the day by watching the parade (I loved how the last float was missing and Mickie, Minnie and the other characters just walked - much more interaction that way!). Then we had dinner at Annette's and went to the appartment to get ready for our departure Tuesday morning.

We had a great time, I loved the Halloween-season even more than last year and thought the Halloween-parade was great (we saw it three times and I love Vive la Vie!). I like how Disney puts the emphasis more on fall then on pure Halloween. The weather was great too.

All in all:
- great parades, meet-and-greets, busy schedule, a lot of extra activities - super!
- green fences: I keep telling myself they're there for a good reason (when we go back in December I know I will miss Big Thunder Mountain so we did a couple of extra rides this time)
- smoking: this seemed to be even worse than in summer. I have recently been diagnosed with asthma and am still recovering from pneumonia but even without all that it seemed everywhere you looked there was a cigarette. Even more dangerous is the fact that a lot of smokers hold their lighted sigarettes down when not inhaling  so I have to keep paying attention our son doesn't walk past a smoker and gets burned
- CM's: I read about some bad encounters but in general they were friendly, eager to help, enthousiastic towards our children and smiling.

I'm already looking forward to our Christmas-trip!

[rebecca20]

'We had lunch at Colonel Hathi's where my wife got plain frozen pasta and had quite the discussion with the CM at the counter.'

My initial reaction was 'ooh frozen pasta - never seen that before' - I of course thought it was themed Frozen and not just undercooked 

[NCC1701Q]

rebecca,

as they do sell Frozen-themed pasta in the shops, you might have been right, but unfortunately it was just very cold pasta that particular afternoon...

[NCC1701Q]

Some pictures of the visit: