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This is much later than I had planned. It's my first time writing a trip report for a DLRP visit, but by no means my first visit – I make it my 8th since 1994, when my mum surprised my sisters and me at the airport where we were supposedly dripping off my aunt who was going to France. Back then, Disney Village was called Festival Disney, you had to pay for breakfast (45 francs/€6.86), everyone was wondering whether Discovery Mountain would end up opening, and Town Square Photography sold copious rolls of film every day. On the other hand, there is still a lot the same – "it's a small world" has barely changed (current works notwithstanding), cast members still dance to Greased Lightning at Annette's, and Phantom Manor is still Phantomy.

It's almost a month since we actually went and it's taken me a while to write this up, so apologies if I've got anything wrong or out of order... but you probably won't notice anyway!

Let me introduce our dramatis personae for this report. My wife's extended family decided last year to pay a visit to DLP, and had so much fun that they decided to do it again this year. I wasn't a part of proceedings last time due to not having enough holidays left, but we got the plan through earlier this year. The Hotel Cheyenne would welcome back all those other guests, and I was to stay there for the first time. My previous stays have been at HNY and NBC.

Cast:
Me
My wife Emmy
Her parents T and M
Emmy's brother P, his wife C, and their two kids mini-P and mini-C (abbreviated MP and MC)
Emmy's other brother N, his wife D, MN and MD

And guest stars from this very forum teegee91, FoRever, and Mileto.

For Emmy and me the trip was of three nights and four days from Sunday 29 November, travelling by Eurostar. The rest of the family live in Ireland, with some travelling from Dublin and the others from Cork.

My preparation included a playlist of the four songs in Frozen Sing-Along on my iPhone, transcribing the park program onto my iPhone calendar, and making sure the party knew about the benefits of my annual passport and annual PhotoPass+. The adults had a WhatsApp chat in place for preparation, but it wasn't used while we were at the parks because only I had a phone plan without roaming charges – short phone calls were the preferred method.

Given that so many guests from this wonderful forum would be in attendance, I also decided to set some meeting times and places and printed an A4 card with the forum logo to bring and display there. The times were PMed to everyone whom I saw mention a trip around these times.

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7:15am is normally way too early to get up on a Sunday morning, but I couldn't wait this time. Emmy and I had to get a train and then the Tube to London St. Pancras to board the Disney Express. The formalities before getting on the train were time-consuming, with my ticket refusing to scan on the ticket barriers, Emmy getting searched after beeping at the metal detector, the X-ray guy deciding he needed to empty out my bag and check everything, and the French border policeman getting stroppy because he hadn't seen the new kind of national ID card that I have before and didn't want to accept it.

But I wasn't going to let that spoil our day. It wasn't long at all before Mickey announced that our train was ready to board and we settled down in Standard Premier (only an extra £7 each return on this occasion, an easy choice).

Breakfast service came around between Ebbsfleet and Ashford.

Fairly simple bread roll, croissant, blackcurrant yogurt, orange juice, and tea.

We had a 15-minute stop at Lille-Europe for no obvious reason. The chef de train had announced before arriving that it would be a very short duration stop but this wasn't the case. It seemed that a TGV to the south coast on the adjacent platform was being left out first.

We got talking to some other guests across from us on the train when they needed to borrow a pen to fill in their registration form that the CMs had brought through, as they had Disney Express. They were staying in the DLH but for whatever reason weren't planning to head into the parks for the afternoon so very kindly offered us their hotel FastPasses for that day from their voucher booklets.

After what felt much longer and more restless than the hour it actually was, we got the announcement to look out on the right for Space Mountain and le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant, and shortly afterwards pulled into Marne-la-Vallée station at 14:06. As we hadn't chosen the express baggage service it was off to the yellow bus with us, which we didn't need to wait too long for.

In no time at all I was entering the Hotel Cheyenne for the first time. Emmy and her family had already been. With the bus packed to bursting I made it my business to move along nice and fast to reception and we were the second guests in line at reception.

Although we were a little before the scheduled check-in time, our room was ready in Sundance. The cast member checking us in wasn't sure what to do about adding an extra AP holder to the room but in fairness to her she found an instruction manual and worked through it. It took a little while before we could pay our €3 local tax, get our room keys, and get down to Sundance. During that time we also learned that M, T, P, C, MP and MC had had a two-hour flight delay due to bad weather in Cork so wouldn't be arriving until dinner time. We also picked our breakfast tickets up for 9-10 Monday, 7:30-8:30 Tuesday, and 8:30-9:30 Wednesday.

Sundance is one of the furthest buildings from the reception but nearest the park. We had an upstairs room that had evidently seen better days, with paint peeling and a rather unreliable door. But we weren't going to be there for long as after quickly shutting stuff into the safe I was off to the magic!

Yes, I said "I". Emmy had done two 12-hour days at work on Friday and Saturday and was running on empty. She decided she would rather get some rest while I went over to the park. I had in any case a plan to meet FoRever from this very forum, who was asking for sponsorship for an Annual Passport, and so by 3pm I was ready to meet him at Guest Relations. He bought his temporary pass at the entrance and we went together to the Bureau Passeport Annuel where we had about 30 minutes' wait before getting up to the counter. Our very efficient cast member had the card issued soon after and my first stamp on my form. I shared the list of Magicforum meets with him and then we parted ways and I called up Emmy.

She met N, D, MN and MD who were arriving as she was departing the Cheyenne. The cast members had put all four groups in Sundance, with one pair of interconnecting rooms for the families with kids. I met Emmy in the Studios to do a spot of Christmas shopping with the 30% discount offered for AP holders that day. But before long we decided that at 4pm it was time for food.

We had always wanted to go to Café des Cascadeurs but we arrived there and it was locked. I tried going in the back door and we could only get in when another guest left – only for the cast members inside to say they had already closed. Next attempt was to Bistrot Chez Rémy – but the cast members told me it was booked out for the rest of the day. We cut back across to Restaurant des Stars, which was also locked. Not wanting fast food, we decided to head back across to Disneyland Park and try there – the first place we checked was Walt's: An American Restaurant, which was happy to accommodate us. We had a table at the back of the Fantasyland room, and a genial American CM as our waiter.

Ordering from the market street menu, we both had the burrata salad for starter, which was absolutely delicious. Emmy's risotto was pleasant, but my steak, which I ordered medium, was cooked to shoe-leather and no steak knife was provided. The CMs made themselves scarce after serving it so I couldn't send it back. It was food, but not enjoyment. Happily, the desserts made up for it: my cheesecake and Emmy's chocolate pudding both went down a treat. After my AP discount, we spent around €75, including a soft drink each.

Our discussion then turned to what best to do with our Hotel FastPasses that we had been given on the train. Of the rides in Disneyland Park, Peter Pan's Flight was the only option we would both like to go on, and we decided against it and in favour of heading back across to Walt Disney Studios and hitting up Ratatouille: L'Aventure Totalement Toqué de Rémy through the FastPass queue. It was a 50-minute wait in the standby queue and advertised as 10 minutes for single riders, although in fact single riders were being boarded right away and often in groups of two as the ratmobiles each seat three front and three back.

Learning: For Ratatouille, if all your group is able to ride alone, use the single riders line!

We then stood for a while in the meeting place for the shopping meet-up of Magicforum... but nobody came, sadly. We satisfied our urge to buy things with 30% off with a Pegasus plush, some pins, and a couple of T-shirts. And then the Studios were closing, so it was back across to Disneyland Park.

It's almost tradition that Emmy and I do Buzz Lightyear's Laser Blast together each time we visit, and that's where we found ourselves headed next. With the running score of 2-1 to me I was off to a good start but got hampered by a ride stop to load a disabled guest with the space cruiser in an awkward position, whereas Emmy was able to get several shots in on the top-scoring triangles and came away with the win Our photo never showed up on the monitors, which was a bit tiresome.

We checked out Star Traders for Star Wars the Force Awakens merchandise (there's lots) and snaffled a Space Mountain 20th anniversary medallion too. After that, we decided we would go on Peter Pan's Flight after all, with a standby queue down to 15 minutes. That was getting quite bumpy and the ride's upcoming refurbishment can't come quicker.

By that stage it was after 9pm and the sleepiness was catching up on both of us. We decided to pick another night for Disney Dreams of Christmas, which was a 10pm start, and headed back towards the Cheyenne, checking in at the Lego store on the way.



The rest of Emmy's family had finally arrived and the message went out that most of the adults would meet in T and M's room and head to the Red Garter Saloon. That's what we did, although Emmy's family was a bit disenchanted at the price of beer. That's Disneyland!

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This was a leisurely morning for most of our group. P and N went in during EMHs to pick up Princess Pavilion tickets for their kids, which was very good of them. The rest of us rolled up at the Chuck Wagon around 9:30. Seeing us struggle with the kids, a CM called on us to skip the line and go straight to a table. The only place with space for all of us was at the very back of the restaurant so we went to the buffet in a couple of relays.

The Cheyenne breakfast is fairly basic but as has become de rigueur nowadays several families, including my travel companions, were taking copious amounts of extra food to make sandwiches for later, with a few cooler bags in evidence. I don't want to restart what is a touchy subject but I do think that guests should be a bit more reasonable and sensible – it's not the end of the world to take a piece of fruit and/or a pain au chocolat but I saw some guests with 15 slices of ham on the plate... I mean, really?

For this morning I had posted up a suggested meet point of the Twilight Zone: Tower of Terror at 10:30am for MagicForum guests so I left the rest of my group who were still in the middle of eating in order to get to Parc Walt Disney Studios in time for that. My PhotoPass+ stayed with C who had grand plans to collect all the character photos.

I was pleased that FoRever and his three friends arrived soon after me at TOT and with a 15 minute standby line three of us (the fourth didn't fancy potentially becoming a permanent resident of the Twilight Zone) were heading into that library, and soon afterwards up to the higher loading point. We got position 1 in the elevator.

As for what happened next... well either you know it or you don't, and if you don't I won't spoil it... but here's our ride photo, as downloaded to the PhotoPass+ app.

The younger guests in positions 2 and 3 were terrified

After that the three of us headed over to Rock & Roller Coaster avec Aerosmith which was pretty much walk-on. An empty train was sent around ahead of ours which raised a couple of eyebrows, but that was us worrying unnecessarily. Oddly, there was no cast member asking about group sizes and directing people to the gates; guests just assigned themselves to Soundtrackers. I think we ended up in the second car; we launched with very little delay and the ride is as good as always. What I can't remember is which songs we had – it is completely gone from my head other than that it was not Love in an Elevator/Walk This Way. One more photo for the PhotoPass+ app on the way out.


By then it was time to catch up with all the family, save Emmy and her mum who had gone into central Paris benefiting from free train fares, due to some sort of RATP promotion. With some Frozen-mad kids (and, let's not beat around the bush, some Frozen-mad adult kids) there was no way we were going to miss the singalong at the first opportunity and I caught up with them as they entered the Chaparral Theatre. With C dressed as Olaf and K wearing her Elsa dress, the cast members kindly invited our whole crew to the plush seats in the middle. The show was just as good as I had remembered from June and I had properly memorised the words for the last verse of Let it Go this time. What I always find amusing is how many guests in the centre are recording the complete show on their phones – which I'm not sure is allowed – and get shown on the screens during the last song, usually oblivious to it all.

We had a brief check on Wandering Oaken's Trading Post afterwards before pressing on to Frozen: A Royal Welcome which we watched from Casey's Corner.

By this stage several folks were getting hungry. I dissuaded the party of 10 from going to Casey's Corner, partially due to bad reviews here and partially because it was already very crowded, and led the way to Cowboy Cookout. Frontierland is so different to how it used to be owing to all the work that's being done on the lake and Big Thunder Mountain. The sign explaining the closure is funny, especially if you understand the last bit in French.

The craziest train in the west will be back and will be even more Western even more crazy!

At Cowboy Cookout A cast member near the entrance was directing people to the counter to order before taking seats (more of this please Disney) but seeing our large group he couldn't have been more helpful and rushed to sort a high chair for MN and to clean off a long table.

I took all the orders and money so that everyone could benefit from the 10% AP discount and while putting in and collecting such a large order was obviously a bit slow, the CMs were as efficient as they could be. P and N ran relay back to the table with the trays as I passed them out. General consensus was that the adult food was quite decent. We were less sure about the kids' meals – the sausages were pretty boring and odd-tasting, and serving a kid a quarter-chicken with bones in and a generous supply of sloppy barbecue sauce is either going to get fiddly, messy, or both. Given that adults can (and I did) get chicken goujons, I wonder why they didn't offer those to kids.


After lunch we left the restaurant to see Pluto outside. P dashed up waving my PhotoPass+ but there was no photographer. The kids still got autographs and our own photos.

Next stop was Buzz Lightyear's Laser Blast before it was time for the kids to fulfil their royal appointment at the Princess Pavilion, where they met Snow White. At this stage I was already worn out (or maybe all kidded out) and decided to go back to Sundance and put my feet up with the newspaper for an hour.

Emmy and M were expected back around this time but got delayed in Central Paris due to someone going under a train at Nation :-(

Everyone else met back up in the park to watch Disney Magic on Parade from near the entrance to Discovery Arcade, followed by snack time at Cookie Kitchen. Once again confusing the cast members by ordering for ten.


It was nearly 7pm by the time we packed up to leave and with an hour until Disney Dreams! we could already see lots of guests taking up their preferred positions. We decided that it wouldn't be feasible to make the kids stay around for an hour so threaded our way through the partially-closed Adventureland to Pirates of the Caribbean to pass the time.

(Dear guest in the third row: why did you need to both duck and hold your hand up, making sure neither your face nor Emmy's would be seen in the picture?)

I thought Disney Dreams! of Christmas was a very well thought out and executed show. It was well-synchronised and quite exciting. The addition of the "peace" motif reminded us of the recent sad events in Paris. A good twenty-minute show and a nice way to finish our park day.

A bit of a bum note to end the evening with nobody coming along to the scheduled Magicforum meet at Billy Bob's. I retired to the Cheyenne 15 minutes after the appointed time and all I was good for was a cup of tea before bed, especially as I was planning to hit EMHs in the morning. P and N gave me all their families' park tickets with an instruction to collect Ratatouille FastPasses on them so they could go on the ride around 11 when they expected to arrive at the Studios, where they planned to stay most of the day.

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Leaving the still-tired Emmy in the room, I headed for a quick breakfast at 7:30 before entering for EMH on my annual passport at around 8:15, leaving the EasyPass so that she could join me if she wanted to. There was no more dodging: it was time for me to tick the final box on the list of rides, and so I headed straight for Space Mountain: Mission 2.

The long walk through the empty queueing area gave me time to build up my nerves. I met three cast members who must have been very bored, and saw countless warnings about the importance of being in good health. The theming is really great. After a few minutes I was one of three guests coming in for the rocket ready to depart to the edge of the universe. I tried to go in the second carriage on my own (for the sake of having a separate photo) but the cast member asked me to go in the back row of the front carriage with the other guests. And in no time at all the heavy gold restraint was over my shoulders, our train was dispatched, a flash announced the ride photo, and we were loading into the Columbiad Cannon.

The lift-off and launch was fine and I have to say I was impressed by the props, lighting, and on-board audio, the latter in particular being that bit less in your face than Rock & Roller Coaster avec Aerosmith. It was enthralling enough that I only felt two inversions of the three that I know to be present.

I had had ample warning about the bumpiness and roughness of the ride, and it was definitely both of those in abundance. Let's not beat around the bush – this is a 20-year old Vekoma ride and the age of track and train are both contributory factors. Still, I had to concentrate on firmly pressing my head back into the headrest. It doesn't reach the point where I would be unwilling to ride again (as opposed to Crush's Coaster, which I won't go near) and it is manageable. I also didn't find the restraint any trouble or feel thrown into it at any stage (which I have on R&RC). But I can totally relate to guests who say they have come off this with a sore head or worse.

My head was light rather than sore as I came through the Electro-De-Velocitator, as it always is after an inverted ride, and I skipped down to Light Speed Photography, eager to complete my set of ride photos from open rides... but it was closed and the monitors were off Whilst it didn't cost Disney a sale, it left a slightly sadder guest.

I decided to go on Orbitron: Les Machines Volants to clear my head with the clean Paris breeze. I was the only guest on the ride!

The next 20 minutes or so were spent siting down waiting for the Magicforum meet that I'd scheduled outside Buzz Lightyear's Laser Blast. Sadly, once again no other guest joined me and by that stage I though that it was unlikely I would see anyone from the forum other than FoRever. I rode on my own anyway and got a new personal best of 218,000.

Next stop was Dumbo the Flying Elephant which had a tiny queue and was another good ride experience. By that stage it was 9:30, about time to head over to the Studios and collect those Ratatouille FastPasses.

Guests were already being admitted as I got to the turnstiles for the Studios and passing Crush's Coaster on my way to the back of the park the queue was almost all the way back to Studio 1. That's a big capacity problem right there.

Large queues were also in place at Ratatouille: l'Aventure Totalement Toquée de Rémy and all of its FastPass machines. They get guests through this ride at a fair speed so I think it's a matter of huge demand that the lines are so long. I waited around 15 minutes before the CM opened up the FastPass machine.

Some of you may already have predicted that the next part didn't go to plan. I scanned my AP and got a FastPass, fine. As for the other tickets, well, they were not accepted because they had not been scanned into the park that day. Perfectly reasonable, but not a rule I knew about before. Emmy joined me around then so we scanned her ticket for a second FastPass but retired defeated. After a quick run on RC Racer for me, we wandered over to Mickey & Minnie wish you a merry Christmas, the meet & greet just inside the park entrance.

While waiting we got talking to a couple of other guests who were taking their kid to the meet & greet. I didn't get their names but they were lovely. We saved each others' spaces when some of us needed to come out of the queue – which we spent just shy of an hour and a half in (!) – and when the lady wanted to buy her daughter Minnie ears I went along and swiped my AP for 20% off.

During the time, P called and asked for his park tickets. We didn't have a very good line so there were some misunderstandings but I was eventually able to get him to meet me outside the park gates where I could hand them over. It was slow getting back in because only 3 turnstiles were open – not great for early in the morning – and there are always a few guests who stop dead in front of the turnstile, refuse to scan their own tickets when the CM is assisting someone else, or just generally block the way and slow things down. Please, folks, just think for a little while!

At 11:15 it became clear that I would need to give up the queue if I wanted to make my meeting time at 11:40 in Frontierland that I had set to go and see Frozen Sing-Along. Given the low interest in the previous meetings I decided I was going to miss it and stay for my photo. So it felt bad when Mileto called me at 11:45 to ask where I was. But at that stage it was almost too late to make it across and there were only three families ahead of us, so I said I would meet them on the exit.

Mickey and Minnie were wonderful as ever, and we got hugs and plenty of interaction, as well as of course our photos on the PhotoPass+.

We handed the card over to N, agreed to meet for lunch at 2 at the Blockbuster Café, and hot-footed it to Frontierland. We arrived during "Let it Go" and set ourselves up outside at a table where we would meet Mileto, displaying our Magicforum icon. We quickly found one another – Mileto with her husband and lovely daughter, and had plenty of chats. FoRever, who had been to the sing-along as well, also stayed with us for a while before leaving with his friends.

We decided to go on a few rides together, starting with Phantom Manor, then Pirates of the Caribbean. We got the chance to go onto Captain Hook's boat on the way, which has usually been closed when I pass through, and got the CM to take a photo of the 5 of us. I don't have that photo as it was on Mileto's camera.  Pirates was very quiet and getting in the front two rows meant there was nobody spoiling our photo

Afterwards, four of us decided we'd like to ride Indiana Jones et le Temple du Peril. We had about 35 minutes before it was time to meet the rest of the family over at Blockbuster Café, so with Indiana Jones showing as walk-on in the Disneyland Paris app there was just enough time. Emmy doesn't like roller-coasters but she walked with us.

On the way we were distracted by a lesser-spotted character and one of my all-time favourites: Rafiki! I had to get a photo with him.

Unfortunately that took a bit of time so I had to give Indiana Jones a miss. I hope Mileto and family liked it. The two of us headed back to the Studios where we waited for ten minutes after the appointed time with no family members to be seen

A couple of phone calls later we established they had been riding Ratatouille: l'Aventure Totalement Toquée de Rémy and we agreed to meet up at the giant Buzz before going back to Blockbuster Café.

The cafeteria approach at Blockbuster Café meant we held up the one cashier quite a while with the food for 12, but it wasn't our fault they only had one CM on duty. It did mean everyone was able to get their choice of food and snacks. The desserts got hidden on the seat or another table until the tots had finished their main courses. No receipt this time as the photo I took is blurred, but it was another nearly €100 altogether.

Next up it was time for me to head back over to Parc Disneyland (my phone tells me I walked 22.7km this day, and I suspect it's right!) because teegee91 and her three friends wanted to be sponsored for Dream APs. They had bought one-day tickets on the door so we could meet at the Bureau Passeport Annuel. The CM there was extremely efficient, but pointed out that I could only sponsor 3 people per year. After some discussion with her manager she said they could make an exception on this occasion but that I should not try to sponsor anyone else this membership year. I left them to get back across to the family group in the Studios, where they had been to meet Spider-Man. This had been quite time-consuming.

Most of the folks were in Disney's World of Animation and Cars Quatre Roues Rallye was our next stop after that. Lots of rides there as it was walk-on, in several different combinations. Not a good ride for those of a larger size such as myself and C – when riding with MC, the kid and I rode in front because there wasn't enough room for the two adults up back.

After watching them have a couple more rides I decided to get my RC Racer fix again for the evening and rode three times in quick succession.

Thing I learned: When riding RC Racer, rely on the restraints to do their jobs. The ride only goes back and forwards so you don't need to press your head back or push yourself down. At the top of the half-pipe let yourself rise out of your seat slightly, and get a little airtime.

The third time, accompanied this time by P, was a little different and I've written about it in a separate post.

By the time we got off RC Racer it was closing time, and the CMs were politely moving guests along towards the exits, or at least the shops. We picked up a few bits and pieces on the way out...

...and with most of the party still having some energy left, it was back to Parc Disneyland where we picked up Mickey's Magical Christmas Lights.

Indications were clear that the kids were flagging at this stage. After a bit of shopping in the Main Street USA boutiques and gratuitous use of my 20% reduction (including picking up a really cool pair of Jack & Sally pins for Emmy and me), the kids and the parents headed back to the hotel while Emmy and I hit Annette's for dinner.

I first ate at Annette's in 1994 with my mum and sisters, and it's a place I always remember and like to come back to. It's very much a case of the more things change, the more they stay the same, and our waitress skated ahead of us to our table. The CMs on skates are really skilled at it and this one did a couple of spins around other CMs and to turn a corner.

Although we had a table at the back next to the toilets, there was a good view of other guests and of the stairs, so that when Greased Lightning kicked off after five minutes we could see it all. Six guests who looked to be in their early twenties at a nearby table clearly enjoyed the dancing so much that the CMs invited them to join in for Think which was played next.

Once the music was done we got our orders in. I had a Mega Burger and Emmy had the Jukebox menu with the New Veggie Burger, both of which were excellent. For desserts I went for the Cheesiest Cheesecake while Emmy had the Brownie à la Mode from her menu. These were both polished off with gusto.

We had a few issues with the bill unfortunately as the CM serving us was going off shift, and for some reason wasn't able to apply my AP discount. He took my AP off and brought me back a new bill. On going to pay the new CM, I noticed that both desserts had been charged for on the bill, but Emmy's should have been included as she had ordered a menu. So it was back to get that fixed as well, which apparently needed a manager to void the charge. After settling it all down, we poked around the Disney Store and Lego Store for a bit before heading back to Sundance. Once again I joined most of the adults in the Red Garter for a drink before retiring to bed.

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The final day of our trip, and I had decided that this would be a character meet day. T and M had kindly allowed us to leave our baggage in their room for ease of collection later on and gave us a spare key. We had also left the purchases from yesterday in that room. Therefore I once again headed early into the parks, this time accompanied by Emmy. Seeing very substantial queues for the EMH characters in Main Street USA, I instead decided to head over to the Princess Pavillion ticket queue. Arriving at 9:20 it was an hour and a bit before tickets were going to be given out and there were dozens of guests in the line ahead of us.

It never ceases to amaze me how human behaviour can turn so negative in competitive situations. A number of guests tried to cut the queue and/or get more than one ticket. But what took the biscuit for me was the family of four in front of me. There were two cast members giving out tickets, and as they reached the front, having talked with one another all the way up, they suddenly didn't know each other and asked for two different tickets for their families of 4. They said they hadn't read the requirement to have the tickets of the guests not present, and also one of them asked for a slot later in the afternoon as they had so much planned. I think the CMs knew exactly what the guests were doing, but to avoid delaying the queue they gave them their two tickets for four guests. Sigh.

In any case, we got a time slot 11:45-12:15 for the two of us and with 10:45 approaching it was the perfect chance to go and  meet Merida in Frontierland. I was particularly looking forward to introducing her to her fellow redhead Emmy. Or so we thought... as we approached her meet & greet spot guests were starting to dissipate and a quick enquiry of the cast members at the front revealed that Merida wasn't available today :-(

Such is life. Santa Jack's Christmas Grotto was the next stop and though we had a 40-minute wait, Jack was really amazing. His interactions with guests were great, and he also came up to the queue from time to time to entertain those who were waiting. At one point he even asked the guests to sing Happy Birthday to one of the cast members, conducting and everything before cutting everyone off after the third line saying "actually, it isn't her birthday, sorry".

When it was our turn I asked Santa Jack if he had any presents for us and he played along very well, identifying the presents for himself, Sally, and Xero, before apologising that he had run short.


That conveniently brought us into our Princess Pavilion slot, so it was back to Fantasyland (navigating carefully around Frozen: A Royal Welcome).

Request to fellow guests: If you're waiting for your appointment at Princess Pavilion and you're early, please stand clear of the entrance and don't queue up, as this obstructs other guests who are arriving at the right time.

Having figured out that we were the only people in the vicinity with a valid ticket, we navigated through the crowd of guests and joined the queue. The theming in the queue is quite well-done in my opinion. It took a long time for me to realise that the location was the former home of the post-show from "it's a small world", and it also took quite a while (20 minutes or so) to get to the top of the queue. I had decided arbitrarily that I'd rather not meet Snow White, so I told the CM at the top of the queue that I'd already met her (a little Snow White lie ) and was directed to the left-hand side to meet... Princess Aurora.

This is not the normal time for a 32-year old man to be struck speechless, but I'm a bit embarrassed to say I was in awe of the princess and could not blurt out much more than "very pleased to meet you" and "have you been busy today".  I still can't believe now how I didn't come up with anything more intelligent to say, even "I was in your castle earlier, that dragon is very scary". Aurora very graciously handled it well and invited me for photos, which Emmy joined in on after the first few. They went straight on the PhotoPass and we didn't delay to look at them on the way out. I'm not sure I'm fully comfortable posting this photo up yet, but here's a good one of the Cheshire Cat plants in lieu.


Random thing I learned: The Princess Pavilion photographers have a much more expensive professional model of camera than those out roaming the park. I guess the princess photos are big sellers.

There was still time to get more out of the PhotoPass and we headed for Marie's meet & greet near the entrance. It was disappointing that so many guests had vandalised the little storybooks on the railings near her queue. She got through guests quite promptly and Emmy and I had some really fun photo poses. We would have been grateful if the photographer had taken a couple more shots as one of the poses he only took one and it didn't look good. Particularly when guests are using a PhotoPass+ and not taking pictures on their own slower cameras, I think photographers should be freer with the shutter.


We met up with the family again briefly before they watched Disney's Christmas Parade, and after that Emmy and I took her parents T and M for lunch at Plaza Gardens. The cast member on the till at the entrance was clueless, sadly, taking two minutes or more with each party. Why they didn't open any other tills I don't know. We got shown to our table and our drinks were brought over with little ceremony, and we were able to go and fetch the food.

I couldn't fault any of the food, and I must confess to stuffing myself pretty full. The drinks service was somewhere between mediocre and non-existent, however, and we had to go to great efforts to flag down cast members for refills. If they are offering free refills, it seems to me that there must be a better way of facilitating this.

We met Mileto again at the end of the meal, and introduced our respective families, but decided to go our separate ways soon after – I think they had a Jedi Academy appointment. I handed over the PhotoPass+ to C at the entrance to Princess Pavilion so they could go and see Aurora too – P had been in the queue behind us earlier and we hadn't realised it. With 3pm approaching, I decided that the Chaparral Theatre was the place to be for another round of Frozen Sing-Along.

I was probably one of the loudest singers in the house through that sing-along not even losing my place when I got hit by a beach ball during "In Summer". But as we went through the final chorus of "Let it Go", I think some of those artificial snowflakes must have got in my eye as there were a few tears. Definitely not anything to do with the fact that I would imminently be letting the magic go. And my voice faltering was certainly due to not having drunk anything for an hour or two.

We popped back over to the Princess Pavilion to collect the PhotoPass+ and say our goodbyes to Emmy's family. My Moves app informs me we stopped at the Emporium on the way out but I don't remember it.

There was one final character meet to try, with Buzz Lightyear, one of Emmy's favourite characters. So we went over to Toon Studio where unfortunately there was a double disappointment: firstly, Woody had replaced Buzz, and secondly, as we arrived the cast member manning the queue closed it because Woody needed to go and rest. So we didn't get to meet him; instead Emmy was gracious enough to give our last time over to me having my sixth run on RC Racer. With about 20 guests in the normal queue and 5 in the single rider line, I went to the normal queue which slightly confused the cast member assigning guests to gates, but he recovered quickly enough. No trouble with the ride this time, and afterwards it really was time to leave.

We walked back to Sundance with sadness and picked up our suitcases from T and M's room. We also sorted through the big shopping bags to pick out the things we'd bought, and it was then that I realised that there was no sign of the Jack & Sally pins we'd bought. They weren't on the receipt either, so we figured they must have gotten stuck in the basket at the Emporium the previous day. That was a bit of a downer for us, but given that we had still got quite a bit of time before our train, we decided to pick up the yellow bus to the SNCF station and, leaving Emmy with the bags, I went back into the security cordon and poked around Disney Village, eventually finding the desired pins in the Disney Store. Yay!

Unfortunately, that really was it. Up the stairs, through security (with another officer giving me trouble about my Irish national ID card; this guy was in plain clothes so I asked to see his first). The security guards also got suspicious about my baggage where I had a couple of bottles of the delicious Irish drink Tanora which Emmy's family had very kindly brought for me.

And so ends what has turned out to be a jumbo trip report. We're back next on 14 February... already counting down!

[stifle]

Well, that was a long report! Here's a few photos I took that are too good to share but I don't know where they fit in the report xD

[sophstar007]

Thankyou for sharing I really enjoyed reading your trip report 

It is such a shame you missed out on Merida and Buzz...but I guess it won't be long until you are there again so hopefully second time lucky!!