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[Agent Lex]

I promise I'll start writing this tomorrow, once I'm caught up with everything! In the meantime, here's a small preview for you...


Being between maintenance downtimes, Buzz decided to take a second job as a stripper. Sleeping on the job didn't earn him much, though.


Dance Time with Stitch looks... well, I'll let you all judge.

[The Butlin Boy]

I'm looking forward to your trip report Lex

That is terrible; while it's fascinating to look at, were they seriously showing that to the public, or did you just take a sneaky peek under the maintenance curtain. I really hope it is the later :?

[Agent Lex]

Nekkid Buzz

That is terrible; while it's fascinating to look at, were they seriously showing that to the public, or did you just take a sneaky peek under the maintenance curtain. I really hope it is the later :?

Unfortunately, there was no maintenance curtain, and the AA skeleton was on show to everyone entering the ride.

[CentralPlazaPerson]

I'm going to the magic tomorrow and I'll see if it is there still

[Aveen2008]

Nekkid Buzz

That is terrible; while it's fascinating to look at, were they seriously showing that to the public, or did you just take a sneaky peek under the maintenance curtain. I really hope it is the later :?

Unfortunately, there was no maintenance curtain, and the AA skeleton was on show to everyone entering the ride.

I am really shocked that they are letting the the Public see that, it ruins the illusion of Buzz being "real"- kind of removes the magic! :shock:  Would have thought they would have had this covered as Butlin Boy said!

Cant wait to hear your trip report Agent Lex!

[never2old]

Oh God, poor Buzz!!! Why didn't they just pull the curtain??? Or maybe they did and someone just opened it again...

I wonder how many kids came out crying after seeing Buzz turned into Terminator!

Looking forward to your report  

[Javey74]

Looking forward to your Trip Report Agent Lex..  /  /  /

Poor Buzz, and like everyone else I'm rather shocked at him being open to view like that..  :shock:  :shock:

I wonder if DLRP Management have decided that some things are better left to view than hide, in this case trying to show the public the complexity of getting a character like Buzz to move, showing all the inner working's, which is fine for the creative person, but not for the average Buzz fan..  

[Adam]

Whilst it is a shock to see Buzz like that, it is an interesting insight into the complex workings of Buzz.

I can only assume that someone opened the curtains, otherwise there would have been some sort of sign. At least Buzz looking like that can be explained to children as being due to him being a toy, relating back to the plot of the movies. It would be a lot more difficult to explain when it was say, Mickey.

[DLP-Photos.com]

Looking forward to the trip report  /

But I do agree with everyone that it is bad that everyone saw Buzz in this stripped down version. That is not so good.

[Magicalmouse125]

Look forward to your trip report Lex.

and why has buzz been taken apart. :shock:  

I bet that scared every single little kid that went in there!  

[Agent Lex]

Still trying to remember everything at the moment. We packed a lot in! I'm making notes now, but here's another preview.

[youtube:37kkoq2o]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z2zqDJNUsI[/youtube:37kkoq2o]

(sorry there's no sound, it was taken with my picture-camera, that has no microphone )

[Elwell2009]

What were the fireworks performed to ?

[Agent Lex]

What were the fireworks performed to ?

I'm not Irish, so I couldn't tell you exactly, though it sounded like general Irish music. They had an introduction in Irish/Gaelic as well as the usual French and English, which was a nice touch.

Anyway, without further ado...

Lex's trip report / / /
Day 1 - March 15th 2009

Our train on the Eurostar was set to leave at 9:53am, so we got up nice and early at 6:30. After getting ready for our big trip, and the usual last minute packing, we set off on the tube to King's Cross St Pancras station. We made it there much quicker than we expected, so we sat down to have breakfast at one of the overpriced restaurants there - a taste of the prices to come at Disneyland!

We checked in for our train early, so we could be sure we wouldn't miss the train. We even got onto the train before the boarding call, so one of the crew came round to make sure we were on the right train! But soon enough, the families started pouring in and we could tell we were on our way to Disney magic We even watched Lilo and Stitch on the train to get ourselves in the mood!

After the 2 and a half hour train journey, we arrived at Marne-la-Vallee station on time. As we got off the train, I realised they were playing the Mickey's Magical Party theme over the speakers, which made me smile (even though it was the remix version). I was all prepared for my few days in the magic of Disney!

We walked from the station to check in at the Newport Bay Club. There was actually hardly any queue, I think because we rushed off the train quickly to beat the crowds. At the check in, we booked breakfast early every day, so we could take advantage of Extra Magic Hours. We also picked up all the essentials, including our all-important Half Board Plus vouchers! After check in, we made out way to our lovely room at the hotel. I'd requested a king size bed, and I was told there was no guarantee, so I was a bit apprehensive walking into the room. However, when we opened the door, we found... this!


(that green spot is the St Patrick's Day programme)

And our lovely hotel room view of... uhm...

...the bus station.

We actually had a corner room, which was nice and spacious, and we also had a view of the car park, but that was even less interesting Anyway, after unpacking our bags and getting settled into the room, we made our way downstairs to the Concierge desk, so we could make our restaurant reservations. Everything there went as planned, though in hindsight I probably should have made the reservations slightly earlier.

From there, it was onward, to the parks!

After passing through Disney Village a second time, we made our way to Disneyland Park. We had already decided that tomorrow would be our day at WDS, so we had an afternoon here to get on some of the attractions.


The Disneyland Hotel, and beyond it... the park!

We came into the park, and of course straight onto...


Main Street USA

Although the crowds were a little heavier than expected, it was still pretty light. We knew we had two things we had to do today, as they were closing for refurb tomorrow: Honey I Shrunk the Audience, and Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast. Since the queue at Buzz was 90 minutes, we decided to go to the Imagination Institute first.


The Imagination Institute topiary, seen from the queue.

Either I put my bag in the wrong place, or the mice effect wasn't working on my seat but everything else worked fine, and we had a good time. I'm glad they didn't re-dub it in English for the headphones, and instead used the original voices. After HISTA, it was about 4pm, so we thught Buzz would be quiet while the parade was happening, and we weren't wrong. The queue time had gone down to 40 minutes, which was an opportunity we couldn't miss, so we made a beeline for it.

Buzz was actually between two maintenance times, and I guess the maintenance crew hadn't bothered to put the Buzz AA back together for the uptime. So in the queue line, we managed to see the now-famous naked Buzz. I don't remember seeing any trace of a maintenance curtain, so either it had been pulled right back or it wasn't there at all!


Buzz was having another of those "naked at work" nightmares...

At this point, we decided our best strategy for doing everything would be to take the park one land at a time, which meant we had to finish off Discoveryland. We made our way back past Space Mountain, and this...


...yeah

And we went to grab some food at Cafe Hyperion...



As has been said elsewhere, the food here isn't great, but it made do for our quick lunch. Because we had our Half Board vouchers, we knew we would be getting some good food later in the trip, and planned to save money by having fast food rubbish for everything else. However, it is a nice environment, and having the Mickey shorts to watch while you eat provides a focal point for your interest.

After our food, we though we would go on Star Tours. For some reason, the main queue line had construction fences around it (blocking a good view of the X-wing ) and they had a temporary queue set up to get into the building. After that, it was the usual queue, with R2-D2 and C-3PO...


Unlike Buzz, Threepio had decided that stripping wasn't a good idea.

And onto the ride. We went on Star Tours a total of 3 times on our trip, and we were at the end of the row every time! Frustrating! :x But it was still enjoyable, even if it does need a bit of an update after all these years.

The last major attraction was Space Mountain. The queue was dying down now, toward the end of the day, so we got on fairly quick. Though I did manage to get this nice shot of the Columbiad base...



I absolutely enjoyed this ride, although my girlfriend thought differently. She doesn't like rollercoasters much, especially not ones that go upside down, though she had vowed that she would go on this one with me. To make up for it, I let her drive as we went around the track at Autopia. Though for some reason, they were frequently asking all of the cars to stop half way around the track, and not to check seat belts. It was very weird, but this attraction works well in the dark so we were happy.

The park was open until 10pm that night, so we though we would quickly get one or two more things done before closing. Now that we had completed Discoveryland, we thought we would hop over to Frontierland for a quick ride on Big Thunder Mountain. My girlfriend enjoyed this ride more than Space Mountain, so we were both happy with the ride. It's also a good ride at night... though I can't say the same about the rest of Frontierland.

We had a long walk around Frontierland for the rest of the evening, and we found out that it really isn't great by night. Especially in that dead-end area near Woody's Roundup and the train station, there are hardly any lights and you can't see much. In fact, it was so dark, I have no more photos from that day!

We then took the railroad around, for a grand tour and then back around to Main Street USA to finish off the evening. We decided that you miss a lot on the railroad at night as well (although the Grand Canyon Diorama and the PotC area are both well lit). After hopping off at Main Street, we went around the shops to finish off the day. We spent a lot of time in the shops this trip, and though the merchandise is the same in a lot of them, I still find it fun to look around.

Once we left the park, a short while after 10pm, we decided to grab some food at Annette's Diner (I wish I had a photo of anything in the Village, but for some reason I don't Anyway, the A in Annette's is working again now, Javey ). The food there was great, although we had to call over the manager to finally get our drinks! Our food was nearly cold by the time we had anything to wash it down with The service there was generally terrible, which is a shame. Though the manager did give us our drinks for free, for the trouble.

After some more browsing the shops in the Village, we called it a night and went to bed, ready for our first full day. Plan for tomorrow - the Studios!

[The Butlin Boy]

Great start to your trip report Lex, I can't wait for the rest

BTW; The fireworks were performed to the music from Fantasmic: a famous Disney show from both of the American parks :wink:

[Magicalmouse125]

Great start to what i'm sure will be an all round superb trip report.


Also i'm quite glad C3P0 had decided not to bare all. :lol: