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[Samanthad]

With only a few more sleeps to go (!!) here is the start of my trip report!

Pre Trip Report:

As an AP holder and my last trip being in March, I booked this quickie trip to break up the time until my 'big' Christmas trip.

We usually (my husband) drive from my home (Suffolk, UK) to DLP, but this time I am going without him, and instead taking my two children (aged 2 & 3) and my cousin. So, with this in mind we decided to take (for the first time) the Eurostar.

Eurostar tickets booked a few months back, we decided to go indirect via Lille as they were much cheaper (£69 return pp. from Ebbsfleet) and it also meant we got to the park 2 hours earlier (12pm rather than 2pm-ish). Children under 4 can travel on an adults lap for free, so my two go free (woo!).

We plan to drive to Ebbsfleet departing my house at 4:30am to get the 7:07 train, so it will be a long day seeing as the park closes at 11pm but we will be buzzing on pixie dust so it doesn't matter :-)

We plan on going straight into the park from the train, as we are only staying 1 night we will check in late and just take a backpack each. We have a stroller for the children so can always dump stuff on it!!

Now as for outfits...
I wouldn't usually make this note worthy BUT since I am going with another girl this time rather than my boring old husband 😝 We have decided to try our hand at Disneybounding... So prepare yourselves for some Disneybounding related photos from my trip report!! I am Disneybounding with a lion king inspired outfit on day 1 followed by a lilo and stitch inspired outfit on day 2. As for my cousin I don't know what she has planned but I am excited to find out!

I am not usually one for characters and have never done a meet and greet (I know!) BUT I have been inspired by a few of you to change my ways and participate in the meet and greet madness so this short trip will be all about the characters! I am hoping to do as many as possible but my main aim is to meet Tiana and hopefully another princess as well as woody. If I could bump into stitch my life would be complete 😍

It will be my daughters birthday on the day we get home from Disney, so this trip will be about treating her, which means princesses, princess dress shopping and dumbo rides :-)

I am also meeting up with a lady who along with her family members need sponsoring, so it will be a busy day indeed!

I will be posting each day from now... So check this space! :-)

[NCC1701Q]

This sounds like it's going to be an amazing trip - I hope it is gonna be as wonderful as you hope and imagine. Have fun!

[Samanthad]

Sorry it has taken so long to post my trip report... but here it is!

Wednesday 13th July

3am - Alarm goes off and by 4am we set off for Ebbsfleet.
6am - We arrive at Ebbslfeet. The place is empty, and the staff members there extemely helpful. A lovely gentleman explains where we need to go, what to look for on our tickets and explains to us that we will need to find our boarding location as per our carriage numbers. Very helpful! We head to the departure lounge which has a few (old but adequate) toys for the children to keep them busy. Our train arrives on time (7:07am), the train is full, and we find our seats and off we go. Getting on at Ebbslfeet was overall an easy experience. Even with two small children and a pushchair. There seemed adequate space for all of our luggage. We had both children on our laps, which was a bit cramped, but we managed thanks to the help of an ipad for distraction!
An indirect train, we had to change over at Lille. This was again, pretty easy and Lille is a nice, big station which is very easily navigable. The only issue this time was the train had very little room for luggage, most of which was full up, we were also on the upper deck of the train, meaning that I had to carry my double buggy, two children and lugage up the stairs to try and find space for it all and of course, our seats, but overall it wasn't a massive problem, as we found space for our things in the end and also found our seats.
A few stops along and we pulled into disneyland for midday. We were rediculously excited and headed straight to the park. Hit security quick and at 12 midday the security points were surprisingly quiet. I think this may be because we missed the earlier rush on opening and the direct eurostar doesnt arrive until 2pm-ish, leaving the entrance empty!
Passing security, which was extremely tight, we had all of our bags scanned just like in the airport, we had our push chair scanned as well as walking through an airport full body scanner. I felt extremely safe. There were also many more security on the gates than I have ever seen before in my previous visits.
Once through security we reached the ticket booths, again, empty where we walked straight up and got my cousin a ticket for the day. I have an AP but I bought her tickets on the friends offer they had running (35 euros for week day 2 park ticket).
Starving we headed straight to Casey's Corner for some hotdogs and sat and ate these outside and watched Donald Duck conduct his meet and greet (just around the corner to the left of Caseys).
After a delicious lunch we headed to get some fastpasses. We got to Buzz Lightyear's Lazer Blast to be surprised that there was only a 20 min wait. We got fastpasses anyway and then jumped on Autopia (20 mins wait). After this it was time to jump straight onto Buzz, which was the quickest fastpass for Buzz I have ever done (usually even with a fastpass there is a fair wait). Following Buzz we decided to head on over to Frontierland, where Tiana would be doing a meet and greet. We arrived there at 2:15pm to discover that she already had an hour wait! I was a bit disapointed as I was going to be making this trip all about the meet and greets, but with two small children (even ones that love Tiana and Naveen), I couldn't justify trying to make them wait that long. The M&G did look amazing, I watched the characters for a while and they were very animated and chatty and there was a photopass photographer there. I think in hindsight I would ensure I arrived 15 mins before the start time as it does look like a very good meet and greet.
Failed to meet Tiana, we rushed over to the other Frontierland M&G location opposite cowboy cookout BBQ. My son is woody obsessed, so was upset to find that it was Jessie doing the M&G. My son was kitted out in his woody costume and excited to show woody. The cast members confirmed that Woody actually does the morning M&G in Frontierland and then heads over to Toontown in the Studios to do the M&G there from 2pm. My son was seriously unimpressed and threw a bit of a strop so meeting Jessie was off the cards too.... at this point I wasn't doing very well with my M&G mission!!
Trying to cheer up my very tired son, we headed for Mickey Mouse M&G. The wait was 40 mins but I was determined to do a M&G. I was glad I wasn't deterred by the wait time, as I didn't realise that inside in the queing area there was a large cinema screen showing Mickey films, which kept the kids happy and distracted and the 40 mins went by fairly quickly. When we got in the room to meet mickey, the cast member was fantastic. He was very friendly to my children and called my son woody (as did the photographer), which made my son extremely happy. We finally met Mickey, and it was really special. My daughter was thrilled and wanted to keep kissing his nose. We all had a photograph. The photographer took about 5 on each of our phones as well as taking the professional ones. The photographer's ones were very nice, much better than ours, but this was a budget trip and unfortunately this time I didn't buy one.
Mickey asked my son to high-five him, and my son did with such force I thought his hand was going to come off!!!!
Mickey took it like a pro though and was 'laughing'.
Out of the Mickey M&G and we headed next door to the train station at fantasyland.
For the last 3 visits the railroad has been closed, so we were very much looking forward to it. Its a nice little ride right around the park, and ideal for a time of the day where you need a little rest. We got on at Fantasyland. I would highly recommend avoiding getting on at Main St. which was rammed! We didn't have to wait at all at Fantasyland, but when we stopped at Main St, it was super busy, and they only allowed a few people on to ensure that there were seats for people to get on at the other stops.
I must say, I felt that we didn't really get to go on many rides at all, or do many M&Gs, not like any of our other visits, but I think this was because I wasn't giving it my A-game - we had been up since 3am and by 3pm I was done!!
I have a bad back - I had scoliosis surgery 9 years ago and I also have hypermobility syndrome so I have problems with my back and joins and a fair bit of pain. I have been reluctant to get a green card on previous visits, but this trip has really made me rethink my stubbornness for getting a green pass. By 3pm I could barely stand, which put me off going on any rides with a wait time over 20 mins, which was pretty much none. So we didn't get to see much. When I go again at christmas I will definitely be bringing along my doctors note for my green pass, as I most certainly ruined my own weekend with my reluctance to recieve 'special treatment'.
We managed to take a ride on Casey Jr. (20 mins) as well as Pays des Contes Fees with no wait time and then headed over to the princess pavillion... which had a 45 minute wait. Interestingly the M&Gs had a much higher wait time on average than the rides.
Late for the parade (gah!) we caught the parade by the start point, after this the kids were really tired and took a little nap in the pushchair, while we stopped for a coffee and a delicious crepe and did a bit of shopping along Main Street.
I am a little annoyed at my lack of planning for this trip. Usually my planning is down to a T, and I always make reservations in advance. But because it was my cousin coming along instead of my husband, I was reluctant to 'take charge' and make decisions on dining and make reservations in advance. This was a bit of a mistake because it meant not being able to eat until 10pm!! We dined in The Grange at Billy Bob's. This was quite a small buffet but overall nice. The waiter was extremely friendly and made a fuss not only of the kids but of me and my cousin as well (although I think he might have taken a special shine to my extremely attractive 21 year old cousin!!).
Eating at 10pm was a mistake as we then ended up running for dreams which we just about caught (11pm).
Dreams done, we headed back to where our shuttle bus was supposed to take us back to the hotel.
This is where my planning went wrong. I had taken an old timetable from a website for our the Disneyland B&B Hotel. Which stated the pick up location as in the Car Park at the end of the second travellator. There were sure plenty of shuttle busses there, but none for B&B. We sat there in the dark, until we were the last ones waiting.
Out of luck we thought we may have missed the last bus, in attempt to then walk 40 mins back to the hotel (as by my google map directions) out of the corner of my eye we saw a bus parked in the bus station outside the train station. It said 'Explorers' on the side, and knowing that our hotel was right next to it we jumped on!!
Thank god the bus was there, or I would have died walking back!
We jumped off at explorers which only took 5 minutes on the bus. We walked straight out of explorers and towards B&B. Only to find that our bus driver was driving past us to go to the hotel!! He was laughing, stopped for us and told us to get in and he tooks us to the hotel. Turns out, this was our shuttle bus to our hotel. The location had changed to being at the front with the other Disney hotel shuttle busses...which for future reference is very convenient if you get the location right in the first place!!
Back at the hotel, we checked in, got to our rooms and crashed out ready for the morning.

The rooms were lovely and spacious (we had a family room), new and clean. The hotel was the B&B Hotel Disneyland, a 5 min free shuttle bus from the park (easy when you know where), free parking, free breakfast and a bargain at only £60/night.

Day 2:
Thursday 14th July

Our alarm went off at 8am, but we felt rested and ready to go for another day.
Because we were heading home and checking out, we took our time to pack away and make sure we were properly prepared for the day. We got down to breakfast which was extremely busy but we still managed to find a table and we got what we needed without waiting.
Straight onto the shuttle bus right outside we headed to the park in less than 5 minutes.
We got off at the park to discover it was heaving... Bastille day. Oh, yes...
Today was studios day!! We had to wait a long time to get my cousin's ticket on this day, which made me realise how easy it is having an AP... I really take it for granted when me and my husband go!
Once in the park we headed over to get fastpasses for Ratatouille, but the fastpass return times were already at 5:30pm which was when we needed to leave the park to get our train, so unfortunately we needed to give that one a miss.
My son was desperate to go on the Cars ride (20 min wait), he loves it! And we followed that with the Flying Carpets (20 mins). At this point we headed over to see what times Mickey and the Magician would be showing, and while we did, Princess Ariel just popped up out of nowhere! We went and stood by a fence (opposite animagique) with her minder, and we walked over to her and were second in line to meet her! YES!!! Finally another M&G, this time made all the better with no wait time! My little princess was absolutely besotted by her, she loves the princesses and this made it amazing to see her as we wanted to meet her the day before at the pavillion. What luck!
After meeting Ariel we started to line up for Mickey and the Magician. We were 20 mins early but there was no way I was going to miss this show. I had not yet seen it. It was worth the wait which actually went quickly. We got in right near the front. The inside of the theatre was AMAZING. We all gasped when we went inside. Thousands of twinkly stars everywhere, it felt really magical.
My son was a little scared, it was dark and he found the screen they  had put in front of the stage a bit spooky for some reason. We managed to distract him just enough and when the show started he forgot all about being scared.
The show was incredible. It really was amazing. It featured so many characters, but I won't spoil the surprise any more than that.
On our way out of the Animagique theatre we saw Cruella Deville talking/scaring a crowd of people. I decided not to take my children over as they are a bit sensitive and I didn't want to put them off meeting the characters (as on our last trips they have actually been scared of meeting them...this being the first when they have wanted to see them!).
We decided to go back into the main park for The Frozen Sing-Along, which was really nice. The kids loved it and sang their hearts out!! The little girls that were dressed up as Anna or Elsa were invited to go and sit in the royal box!!
After this we then went and had dinner at Plaza Gardens. We loved it. The food was great and we really liked the atmosphere.
After dinner we jumped on a few more rides before doing a bit of (a lot of) shopping in World of Disney.
We got to the station for our indirect train home via Lille with an hour to spare. In hindsight, I wouldn't have bothered. For local trains they only release the platform number 10  minutes before departure. This was a nightmare, as although we were an hour early, we nearly missed our train. This was because we had a double buggy and were unable to go down the escalators. We got on the wrong lift and ended up in the wrong platform. We couldn;t navigate the station at all very easily and it was extremely crowded. We only just made it on the train by jumping on any carriage (not the one we were supposed to be on). and throw all of our things on including the kids still in the pram.
I presume this wouldn't have been the case for a direct eurostar train, but for ours to Lille, 10 minutes was not enough when with a double buggy you couldn't even make it through the crowds to the other side of the station in time!
At least we were on the train and headed for Lille. It did cross my mind that we may be in trouble for being in the wrong seats but I didn't care at this point... at least I was getting home!
Unlike UK trains, you can't walk from carriage to carriage... or at least you couldn't in the train we were on. So we were stuck on the carriage we jumped on. Luckily it was only half full, so I was able to get the children sat down. Once we had stopped at Charles de Gaulle we had even more room and I was able to leave my pram somewhere and join my children and my cousin. We ended up spreading out accross four seats (we only booked two) as it was empty enough to get away with it. So every cloud does have a bit of pixie dust I suppose!!
Once at Lille it was easy, we got straight through to our Eurostar boarding area, and from then on it was easy. We were back in the UK in no time and in our car on the way home!

As usual, I had a really magical time at DLP. I have to admit, it wasn't as magical as my previous visits. but it was mainly my fault. A quick trip to DLP isn't as simple as I thought it would be. At least not with two small children and a double pushchair and luggage.
I am glad I tried the Eurostar, as previously we have always driven, although it has made me see that driving really is the easiest way for our family to get to DLP.
I would certainly use Hotel B&B Disneyland again without fail, it was an exceptional hotel for the price.
I would never ever go to DLP again without making dinner reservations. I was right to do it on all of my previous trips and now having done a trip without reservations I can really understand how vital it is to make them... unless you have a lot of time to waste.
I don't think I will ever again do a full day in the parks following a 3am start and a day of travelling... how nuts! We were exhausted and like Zombies! Previously we drive over the night before, stay the night in a hotel and then head to the parks early in the morning....MUCH better to do the parks when rested.
I don't think I could ever do DLP with the children without my husband again...not while they are so little. My cousin did help out, but not in the way my husband does. I also missed being able to share the magic with him. I really do find DLP so special, and I just love sharing it with him too, so he was missed.
... looking forward to Christmas and a full 5 days at DLP!!! :-)

[daddyof2]

Thanks for the report

[Lavi]

Very interesting trip, to say the least! 

And very enjoyable trip report!
I also find that husbands are much more helpful with the kids than relatives that don't have their own

[perrollaz]

Thank you for sharing your two report! Sounds like quite an adventure 
I always wonder how you manage to keep the little ones entertained while waiting in the lines?