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[Komble]

Day One - 1st February 2016.

Welcome to my trip report! I'm Kimberley (also known as Komble) and this month I dragged my boyfriend (Patrick) along to Disneyland Paris, where we celebrated our fifth anniversary.

I waited over 308 days for this holiday, so the minute the clock struck midnight I was ready with my suitcase to be taken to the airport by Patrick's dad... We arrived at Luton airport at 1:20am, still too early to do anything (and most of the people around us were sleeping) but it was 3:45am before we knew it so we decided to have some breakfast at Burger King... The flight itself went perfectly and before we knew it we were through passport control and on the Magical Shuttle at 9:45am - 35 minutes after landing!

^{Our Magical Shuttle}

We were dropped off outside the Santa Fe, where we checked into our room with no problems at all (infact, they somehow got our booking twice and we ended up with two rooms and two sets of park tickets!) - we quickly resolved that problem though and were handed our room key and park tickets.

We quickly grabbed our backpacks out of our suitcases and left our suitcases behind in the baggage storage before buying our Photopass+ from the hotel shop - after a short stroll from our hotel through the village we hopped onto the RER towards Val d'Europe... We had a browse around the shops and ended up with eight litres of water and a bottle of wine for just over two euros.

We returned to the hotel slightly earlier than 3pm, so our room wasn't quite ready - we used this time to figure out the Photopass+ card and picked up our luggage on our way to the room.

We relaxed for a short while in the room and had some of the snacks we'd brought with us before heading off to the park - we were in Disneyland by 5pm, just as the parade was finishing up... We battled through the crowds and I showed Patrick the dragon under the castle on our way to Phantom Manor (when I'd been with my mum previously, we always started our trip with a visit to Phantom Manor, so I kept this tradition!)

^{The view from Phantom Manor... Big Thunder Building Site!}

Our next ride was Indiana Jones - something I was incredibly nervous about as I'd never been on a rollercoaster that went upside down before! - I loved it! It was amazing! I was incredibly proud of myself afterwards (although, I didn't want to go on it again as I found I banged my head around a lot on it!)

Next was Pirates of the Caribbean and Buzz! We put our Photopass+ to good use and grabbed our photos at the end. Our final task for the evening was to purchase some mugs for ourselves to eat our dinner from in the hotel room - I wanted to be out of the park by 7pm as I was far too tired to watch Dreams, and I didn't want it spoiled for me.

Dinner in the room was lovely - we failed to notice that the wine bottle had a cork so my tweezers were destroyed in the process of opening it - but that's okay, it was worth it!

^{Dinner is served, haha!}

I fell asleep shortly after 9:30pm, I had been awake for over 36 hours by that point and was ready for exploring the park the next day...

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I hope you enjoy my trip report just as much as I enjoy writing about it - I will start typing up day two now, which includes my first ever visit to Space Mountain, some terrible driving on Autopia and a lot of ridiculous wait times (in the best possible way).

[Komble]

Day Two - 2nd February 2016.

I kept a journal whilst I was away, but by the end of the day I still failed to remember exactly what we did and when (our days were completely hectic, so bear with me - this may not be 100% in the correct order!)

Breakfast was at 7am - a lovely breakfast consisting of croissants, pain au chocolat, bread rolls and cheese - or, in Patrick's case, croissants, croissants, croissants and more croissants! - I'll admit now that we made up some rolls for the park (doesn't everyone secretly do this?) and headed back to the room, where I sorted out our bags - making sure to pack our raincoats as it was due to rain! We then headed off to the park to make the most of our extra magic hours.

Our first ride was Pinocchio, the wait time said 10 minutes but it was more like 10 seconds as ten minutes later we were already finishing our second ride, which I think was Dumbo... We then went onto the teacups and the carousel. It was almost 10am so we parked ourselves outside of It's a Small World and ended up on the first ride of the day.

^{Please excuse me, I find the fish eye effect on my camera hilarious...}

After buying myself some Minnie ears and a Duffy tsum tsum, I was ready to squeeze myself into Orbitron and have a go on Star Tours, which were both very fun! - After chickening out on Space Mountain, we had a go on Autopia... Patrick made it his mission to drive terribly (see the video here!) - I spent the entire ride laughing and it made Space Mountain seem a lot less terrifying!

^{Was finally brave enough to go on Space Mountain... I loved it!}

After Space Mountain we had a quick spin on Buzz as it had a five minute wait time (I should probably mention now that most, if not all, the rides have been walk-on so far! Amazing!) - we then headed onto Snow White and then we got lost in Alice's Curious Labyrinth!

All that walking made us hungry so we sat down at a table outside and ate our lunches - just as we finished our last mouthfulls it started to rain so we popped on our raincoats and headed off to the Storybook Boat Ride and Casey Jr - both enjoyable but Casey Jr exceeded our expectations as we were asked to sit at the back... meaning we were going backwards, woohoo!

This is where I lose track of what we got up to but we definitely had a go on Pirates of the Caribbean and did the Aladdin walkthrough - we also did some browsing round the shops and before long it was almost time for the parade so we headed towards Bella Notte to watch the parade and grab some food.

We found out that it closed at 5pm so we decided to skip the parade and grab food instead - we both got a pizza, drink, garlic bread and ice cream - we were so full by the end that we put our leftover pizza in our sandwich bags (we had them when we got home from the park after watching Disney Dreams... it was just as good, but I'm skipping ahead a bit here)

^Pizza!

After our pizza we fancied a sit down so what two better rides to do that on than It's a Small World and Pirates of the Caribbean - after Pirates of the Caribbean we headed back to our room for a quick freshen up and we returned to the park just in time for Disney Dreams.

Disney Dreams was amazing - I may have shed a tear or two... After Dreams we did a bit of window shopping in Disney Village and relaxed in the room - I had a bath whilst Patrick watched the Leicester match (he's a big fan of Leicester and WiFi in the room meant he could watch them win 2-0).

^{Patrick found the arcade!}

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It was another early night as we were up early the next day - our plan was to finally venture into the studios... Which meant one thing... Tower of Terror!

[Komble]

Day Three - 3rd February 2016.

We decided that from this point on we'd use our extra magic hours to meet characters.. This morning's choice of character was Chip and Dale! After meeting them we headed towards the queue to pick up our reservation to meet Princess Aurora.

^{Meeting Chip and Dale...}

Once our reservation was collected we headed to the Studios and watched the stunt show, which was great! After the show we walked around before going to watch Cinemagique at 12:30pm. After Cinemagique we took a ride on Rock 'n Rollercoaster as (guess what...) it had a five minute wait - by the time we got to the loading station there was no-one around so we got straight on! I LOVED it!! I spent the whole ride singing (although Patrick pointed out that the music was incredibly quiet).

After that we went to watch Stitch Live - which gave us both a good giggle - and took my mind off the fact that Tower of Terror was imminent... There was a tiny bit of hail after we'd left Stitch Live so I didn't mind hiding out in the 15 minute queue for Tower of Terror.

^{Putting on a brave face in the Tower of Terror queue...}

^{Proof that I did it, guys!}

Tower of Terror was BRILLIANT!!! I cannot believe that I was so scared before - some of my favourite rides are now some of the ones which I was so nervous about...

By the time we got out of Tower of Terror it was almost time for us to meet Aurora - so we headed back to the park, stopping on the way to ask what time Au Chalet de la Marionnette closes, which was 5pm, so we decided we would skip our packed lunch and have lunch there after meeting Aurora...

Meeting Aurora was fun, and the food afterwards was delicious - the veggie burger was really good and Patrick had a beer with his burger.

^{Very tasty veggie burger, only 10 euros!}

^{Meeting a real life Princess!}

After lunch we decided to queue to meet Mickey Mouse, which was fun, and then we headed back to the entrance of Fantasyland to find a good spot to watch the parade - which was very enjoyable (and Patrick still has the song stuck in his head!) - we headed back to the studios after the parade, where we went on the Cars ride, RC Racer and Ratatouille (which said it was a 10 minute wait but ended up being less.) I should also mention at this stage that our Tower of Terror ride was in English (I think I have heard that this is rare... correct me if I am wrong!)

I was surprised to see that Crush's Coaster was open as I read that it was closed our entire trip - the wait time was 40 minutes so we gave it a skip hoping that it'd be open the next day...

We then went back to the park to find the perfect spot for Disney Dreams! - once that was over (and I'd taken plenty of videos of my favourite parts) we walked back to the hotel via Disney Village and Patrick bought me a Maleficent figure for our anniversary. Back in the room we ate what would have been our lunch and I had some hot chocolate before falling asleep almost instantaneously!

^{The mouse himself!}

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So tomorrow will be our final full day in the park - where we will be finishing up rides we haven't gone on yet, meet some more characters and have a tasty dinner at Annette's Diner!

[Komble]

Day Four - 4th February 2016.

We made sure that we were at breakfast for 7am sharp as we wanted to make the most of extra magic hours after we realised that it was one of the best times to get character photos.

When we got to the park we met Minnie and Mickey for a photo - I had Minnie Mouse nail stickers so I showed her and she loved them - we then held up the queue as Mickey Mouse tried running off with me - which caused a small lovers tiff and encouraged Minnie to run away with Patrick... All was resolved with a kiss and we got our photo.

^{Meeting Minnie and Mickey Mouse!}

After we were done with Mickey and Minnie, I spotted Donald Duck in the distance so we stopped to have a quick photo with him... It was coming up to 10am so we went to Adventureland to have a photo taken with the Genie from Aladdin before heading towards the studios.

^{Meeting Donald Duck...}

My memory is terrible but I think our first stop was the animation studio which was a lot of fun - I also enjoyed drawing Donald Duck at the end of it...

After the animation studio we went to Armageddon and then headed off to meet Spiderman, which was cool! The wait said 30 minutes but it was much quicker than that and before I knew it we were heading towards the Toy Story section where we went on the Slinky Dog ride as the queue was quite reasonable (we waited for 3 minutes, of course!)

After that it was time for Crush's Coaster - another ride I'd never been on before - we had to wait 25 minutes but it was VERY worth it - we had so much fun spinning around! After we got off Crush's Coaster we headed to the final ride for us to do... the Toy Soldier Parachute Jump. This was the longest queue we'd seen so far at 35 minutes, so we decided that we would go on it as single riders as it was silly to queue for so long... We got on fairly quickly (between 5-10 minutes) and then it was finally time for lunch!

When we finished our packed lunch, we went back to the park and had a browse around the shop, where we stumbled upon... Perry! - we had seen Perry for 5 euros in the sale, but today he was reduced even more so we purchased him for 3 euros and made it our mission to take him on some rides with us!

We popped in to watch the Jedi Academy, which was really good! Then we headed off to go on Buzz and Space Mountain with our new friend, Perry.

A quick spin on Phantom Manor and then we took Perry to Pirates of the Caribbean for another Photopass+ photo!

The path was closed as it was close to Disney Dreams so we walked the long way around (we were hoping to get to Annette's Diner before the end of Dreams to skip the rush!) - we noticed that It's a Small World was completely empty so had a private boat journey all around the world (we also filmed it...)

^{Perry on Space Mountain!}

^{Perry on Buzz...}

^{Perry enjoying a cruise around the Caribbean}

After our private journey around It's a Small World, we continued around the long way and hopped onto Star Tours whilst the wait was zero minutes... We still managed to get to Annette's before the end of Dreams and got seated straight away (ten minutes later there was a huge queue lining up outside!)

I had a very tasty veggie burger and a small bottle of cider... Patrick had a bacon chilli burger and a beer.

After we had finished at Annette's (no room for milkshake!) we had a roam around the shops where I bought an ewok toy, Shellie May tsum tsum to join Duffy and a ring - Patrick also purchased me a ring as an extra anniversary gift, and a Stitch Yoda! - I also bought Patrick some Star Wars lego for his anniversary present.

Once our shopping was complete we returned to the room and had a lovely sleep, (not) ready for our final day!

^{Waiting for our food...}

^{Food at Annette's!}

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It's almost our last day, thanks for sticking with me through this trip report - I hope you're still enjoying it...

Here is a bonus video of a preview of Crush's Coaster... It looks a bit rough and unsafe to me!

[Komble]

Day Five - 5th February 2016.

We woke up for breakfast at 7am, and then headed back to our room to pack - we decided at breakfast that because we had so many euros left over, we would skip making rolls and grab some lunch in the park.

^{Perry didn't fit in the suitcase, so we had to carry him around with us!}

After breakfast we went back to the room to pack our cases (which was a huge struggle due to the fact that I purchased far too many soft toys and so we left some crisps behind and left Perry outside of my case) - once our cases were packed we said one final goodbye to the room (and did a video room tour, for those who may be interested!) and headed off to store our luggage and check out. We then went on a little tour of all the different hotels - we even saw a man training a falcon outside the Newport Bay!

^{We bumped into the falcon later that day outside It's a Small World (look at his little helmet)}

As we were walking through the village we stopped to see if the Star Tours collectable coin was available yet - but the machine was still out of order - after exploring our final hotel, the Disneyland Hotel, we headed into the park for some lunch.

^{Perry looking at the castle...}

I decided to get a veggie burger from the Hyperion Cafe but Stitch was just outside so I HAD to queue to meet him! We were right outside Star Tours so Patrick left me in the Stitch queue whilst he went off on the hunt for the collectable coin. A few minutes later he was walking towards me with a big smile on his face... he asked inside the Star Tours shop and they had one!

Before we knew it we were front of the line and we had the best character interaction with Stitch (who fell in love with Perry - video here!)

^{Stitch with Perry on his head...}

We then went to grab my veggie burger and I purchased Patrick a coffee to drink whilst he was waiting... although a minute after we sat down the Jedi Academy started again so we watched that as I ate my burger.

After I finished my burger we went to the arcade and had a go on Dance, Dance, Revolution together to use up the remainder of our arcade tokens. We then walked to Hakuna Matata, where Patrick got himself a kebab sandwich meal and a hot chocolate for me! (I also stole some of his ice cream!) - there was a man walking around the restaurant with a drum so we both had a quick go before heading off to do some last minute shopping... I also noticed that the Legends of the Wild West walkthrough was also open so we had a quick look around that. They had also started decorating the park ready for Swing into Spring so it was nice to see the decorations.

^{My veggie burger!}

^{Patrick's kebab}

Before we knew it it was time to leave Disneyland and head back to the hotel, where I picked up a Disneyland 2016 pin before our Magical Shuttle arrived... before we knew it we were through security and sat on our plane. The flight home was good, although I was incredibly tired and had a terrible headache.

^{Saying goodbye to our hotel...}

I was excited to hop into bed, although, unfortunately, the next morning I woke up... not in Disneyland...

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So, that is the end of my trip report! You can view a playlist of all our videos here...

My final thoughts:

- The short queue times pretty much made the holiday!
- I am so happy that I was brave enough to go on rides I was too scared to before!
- Disney Dreams lived up to my expectations -> it was incredible...
- The hotel was fantastic and I would stay there again!
- Photopass+ was worth it, especially once Perry got involved!
- Lots of nice photos and videos to remember the trip (over 1000!)
- I need to start a plan to get back there someday, perhaps 2018?
- The holiday was a complete success, no doubt with help thanks to all my plans & this forum.
- Tower of Terror, Space Mountain, Rock 'n Rollercoaster and Crush's Coaster are now amongst my favourite rides.
- Most importantly, Patrick loved it too <3

[tigger1974]

What a brilliant report!  Looks like a wonderful time was had by all.  I must say you are much braver than I am,  I shut my eyes and screamed when I rode Space Mountain!
Looks like there were quite a lot of characters out and about (Stitch is adorable isn't he??) which I hope made up for the closed attractions.
Thanks for sharing your holiday 

TTFN

[Komble]

What a brilliant report!  Looks like a wonderful time was had by all.  I must say you are much braver than I am,  I shut my eyes and screamed when I rode Space Mountain!
Looks like there were quite a lot of characters out and about (Stitch is adorable isn't he??) which I hope made up for the closed attractions.
Thanks for sharing your holiday 

TTFN

Thank you! I felt incredibly brave once I came off Space Mountain, the fact the Photopass+ gave me the chance to savour that moment forever was great... I must admit that we didn't really notice the closed attractions - Big Thunder Mountain and Peter Pan were the only two that I was sad about...The programme said that Crush's Coaster would be closed every day of our trip (which I was also sad to find out) but I was shocked to find it open?!

Stitch is one of my favourite characters, so he was definitely worth the wait!

[lovindisney87]

Fantastic trip report we were there the week before you and the rides were mostly walk on then as well. I agree about photopass+ I would definitely get it again we ended up with 75 photos over 5 days. We are already trying to figure out how soon we can save up to go again 

[norhel]

Nice photos and report :-)

[DisneyGagaChick]

Ahh I loved your report!! Making me so excited for me holiday!

7 sleeps for me!

[Komble]

Fantastic trip report we were there the week before you and the rides were mostly walk on then as well. I agree about photopass+ I would definitely get it again we ended up with 75 photos over 5 days. We are already trying to figure out how soon we can save up to go again 

We ended up with quite a few - unfortunately I didn't realise until the last day that most of the characters in the hotels had a Photopass+ photographer with them but I was still pleased with the photos we did end up with!

Nice photos and report :-)

Thank you

Ahh I loved your report!! Making me so excited for me holiday!

7 sleeps for me!

Oh my gosh, I hope you have a fantastic time & the queues are just as good for you!

I wish I was back there right now... instead I'm stuck in rainy England with a uni assignment due in on Thursday.

Patrick did surprise me with some pain au chocolat earlier to gently ease me back into my normal routine tomorrow :')

[seraphelle]

Lovely report, thanks for sharing 

[stifle]

I love your ride pictures, especially Space Mountain Mission 2! Nice touch that they managed to put in 2 astronauts behind you...

[Komble]

Lovely report, thanks for sharing 

Thanks!

I love your ride pictures, especially Space Mountain Mission 2! Nice touch that they managed to put in 2 astronauts behind you...

I thought that was a good touch, too!

[DisneyMumOf1]

We were there same time as you but stayed at the Sequoia. That freaky hale storm wednesday was weird huh? Luckily I got it all on video. We also saw the man training the falcon but we spotted him at the entrance to the castle  Great report.