Home

[DLP-Photos.com]

An interesting lead into the main course  That was some bus trip, I get etchy after 2 and a bit hours on eurostar :lol:

And I loved this....



looking forward to the other 1000+ photos :lol:  :lol:

Thanks - I will be updating my fotki-album and publish links as the albums will be finished, so you can see all 1202 photos - should you want to

[CentralPlazaPerson]

Great pre trip report Nicolai!  :mrgreen:  =D>
I can't wait until the main part!
Great photos also!

[DLP-Photos.com]

11th of October - Day 1
Finally back at the magic!

So we arrived in the Disneyland area just before 9.30 am and our very boring Norwegian driver told us that the first stop was Hotel Newport Bay Club where only four people would be staying. After they had left the bus he grabbed the microphone and said: "Next hotel is the one ending on Lodge - I don't know how to pronounce the first part - do that yourself!" I know that Sequoia isn't the easiest thing to pronounce, but when  you are driving people to Disneyland I think you should be able to pronounce it We arrived at app. 9.45 am in cold but sunny weather.

But most of the guests were getting off here including me and my mum - after receiving our check-in vouchers from the second driver and our luggage from Håvard the Norwegian driver we went to the Hotel Lobby to check in. We hadn't stayed here since 1998 and frankly I had forgotten almost everything about the the hotel, but what a nice lobby area. The wooden theme and nothern american lodge atmosphere fitted perfectly with the french autumn wheather and you were grabbed by the atmosphere from the first step inside the lobby.

The queue for the check in was pretty long so I started queing thinking that it might take a while, but no - the check-in system on the hotels are very smart and clever in my opinion. We were given the check-in vouchers by our driver, we gave this to the CM and were given the small check-in form to fill while queing. After 10 minutes I was at the desk, where of course I was told that the room wasn't ready before 3 pm, I was given the park tickets, the Hotel-Easypass and booked breakfast for 7.30 am. However, the CM had no more tickets for this time for Monday morning and asked us if we wanted to have breakfast at the Plaza Gardens in the park at 8.15 on Monday. We had never had breakfast in the parks before so of course we said yes After dropping our luggage in the luggage storage, changing clothes and preparing my camera we were now ready to leave for Disneyland Park - but first stop: Disney Village!



We always start our trip by wandering down Disney Village to catch the first magic by entering all the shops, so we started from the beginning with World of Toys, Hollywood Pictures and Disney Fashion, which were all filled with random merchandise and we couldn't quite figure out what to buy yet, but that was not the goal of the walkthrough either. We came out by Starbucks and we decided to pay them a visit on Sunday evening for a cup of something nice.



On my last couple of visits it has been a tradition for me to buy a figurine from the Walt Disney Classics Collection, so I entered Disney Gallery to see their range of figurines this time and boy, what a decision I would have to make I quickly spotted figurines of Mickey (from a Christmas Carol), Shere Khan, Judge Frollo and Jiminy Cricket that I would love to own - so now I knew from what I had to choose. After discovering the merchandise and Christmas decorations of the Disney Store we were now ready to enter Disneyland Park at around 10.45 am. Now the magical feeling really caught up with us - we were finally here again.



When we reached the entrance my mom entered the park with no problems, but my ticket didn't work. The friendly CM tried again and again, but ended up typing in the complete code on the back (man, did she do that insanely quickly!). This would be a returning problem for us on the trip, but the CM's were always very friendly and we saw them help many other people with similar problems - perhaps they should take a look at this at some point?

Anyway, we entered the park and the first glimpse of the characteristic Halloween decorations were to be seen on the Main Street U.S.A Railroad station - It's Halloween-Lo-Ween Everybody!



We slowly strolled down Main Street U.S.A catching the most magical atmosphere in the world - Main Street U.S.A was at its most beautiful state in the subtle autumn sunshine. We had a walk through all the shops to see even more merchandise (some of it very buyable and some it a bit cheap) - I was especially sadden by the sight of cheap latex monster masks in Lilly's Boutique, but otherwise the Halloween merchandise were subtle and actually quite nice. The shops already offered way more Christmas souvenirs than Halloween, which I find nice but also a bit odd. Here are some pictures of the beautiful Main Street U.S.A:







Unfortunately the great atmosphere was ruined a bit after exiting The Emporium, when we oversaw a Spanish mum going absolutely crazy on her poor little girl, who just stood there crying, while her mum kept yelling and shaking her. We both looked at each other and got a bit sad - this is not how a Disney vacation should be for a little child. Unfortunately we saw other incidents similar to this with mainly mothers losing their temper and letting it hit the children. Not very nice

We also rounded the  last bit of Discovery Arcade...



... before reaching Central Plaza with Sleeping Beauty Castle in all its glory. The Mickeys Party C**p at the front is very huge, ugly and out of place, but hopefully we will get the Castle back to it's original beauty by next year  [-o< .

We decided to start the day in Frontierland in order to try Big Thunder Mountain, which is one of my favorite rides. My mom usually has to consider whether she dares to try it or not, but she said that she would try it  right away to get all the worries away, so we jumped in to the 40 min. queue, which should prove to be the longest queue of the whole trip. Although I tend to use fast pass for BTM, I have to try it once without fastpass because I simply love the atmosphere of this waiting area so much. Everything from the wood to the themening and the music fits perfectly together and you are just hit by the true atmosphere of the Wildest Ride in the Wilderness. While queueing we spotted the Keelboats and said to ourselves that we would rush to them straight after BTM, since we had never tried the Keelboats before, nor had we seen them opened before - we were extremely excited.



I loved the ride as always and so did my mom - she always does when she tries it But what did we forget? Yes, the Keelboats After BTM we went to the Lucky Nugget to watch the witch from Snow White (one of my mom's favorite characters) and after this we had forgotten the keelboats, but we kept our hopes high that they would be open Monday or Tuesday as well....

The Witch interacted great with the audience and her make-up was pretty impressive - she even offered a nice, tasty apple, but we turned the poor old lady's offer down After our encounter with her, it was almost lunch time and we wanted to go to Toad Hall as we simply love the Fish'n'Chips they serve. On the way to Toad Hall our ear drums were almost splitted by Minnie's very squirky voice aboard her Party Train. I actually quite like the song and the characters were great, but her voice made it almost impossible to enjoy the rest They should send her over to Monsters Inc. Scream Acadamy





We went through the Castle and the Dragon's Lair on our way to Toad Hall...






When we reached Toad Hall we noticed the new menu choices and we chose a "Menu Mr. Moustache" because we wanted a double Fish'n'Chips this meant that I had an extra box of french fries and 3 mini muffins, while my mum had a side salad and a bag of sliced apples. All for 24.60€ with drinks included. Disney has never been cheap with food, but with the quality of the Fish'n'Chips in mind we actually found this quite reasonable...







... and we were certainly full after the lunch, so we were now ready to explore more of the parks - starting with one of Mr. Toad's close neighbors: Pirates of the Caribbean. This is without a doubt my favorite attraction and this ride made me so happy this time. It almost felt like I tried it for the first time: I didn't spot any effects missing (the fighting pirates could be more in sync, but they were way better than last year), the lightning seemed much better and everything just seemed to work perfect and when this is the fact on Pirates, this attraction is a piece of pure imagineering BRILLIANCE! Later on I tried to take photos (no flash of course) and some of the results will be posted in a later installment

After Pirates we strolled around Adventure Isle, bumping in to Captain Jack himself in the caves and ended up by Pont Suspendu, which we had deliberataly ignored in the past due to our fear of heights. But being there we just walked over it as if it didn't bother us at all - a nice feeling and especially my mom was very proud of it





After this we went back to Fantasyland past Skull Rock and Captain Hook's ship, which is shocking to see in it's current state. It is so faded that you doubt whether it has ever been red - they have to refurbish this as quick as possible!



In Fantasyland we tried Pinocchio and Snow White - the two classic attractions that you HAVE to try when you are in Disneyland - otherwise it is not a real trip. Having said this I remember that I didn't try them until my third trip in 1998, because I had been too affraid in '94 and '96 :lol:






You can take good photos on these rides without using flash and ruin the attraction for the other visitors


Both attractions seemed in very good conditions and as I have written in the Snow White topic you could see that this attraction had just reopened from a longer refurbishment - mainly due to the very bright colors and the whole feel of the attraction.







After this we grabbed fastpasses for Peter Pan which fitted so we could go there after watching the parade at  4.50 pm It was time to go back to the hotel and get our room before coming back to watch the parade. On the way out of the park we bumped into It's Party Time ... with Mickey and Friends. We didn't watch the whole show this time, but agreed to watch it on Monday evening. We did discover one thing though just by walking past the scene - almost no one was dancing along! More on this show will follow in day 2.



We looked at our watches - it was 2.50 pm and after a quick glance at the information board seeing that Phantom Manor had 5 minutes waiting time we decided to visit the old manor for the first time on this trip before leaving for the hotel. Everything worked almost perfectly on the ride, which (just as Pirates) seemed brighter in the right places compared to last year.



I wanted to try Big Thunder Mountain in the evening and went to get fast passes, but when I tried to get a fast pass I got a plain ticket from the machine with the text: "Non valid fastpass ticket - You already have one active fastpass ticket for Peter Pan's Flight. Come Back after 18.05." I was a bit surprised as I hadn't noticed the notice in the Park Guide about these restrictions that certainly wasn't there last year at this time. But nothing to do, I just had to wait for my fastpass until we had visited Neverland with good old Peter later Sunday afternoon

Day 1 to be continued...

[never2old]

Great first part!! And amazing pictures! The one of the Discovery Arcade, and the one of the dragon, are stunning!

Looking forward to more  

[CentralPlazaPerson]

Great so far Nicolai!

[Aveen2008]

brilliant read and photos so far! /  I also noticed no one really dances alot to MMPT which is sad because I really wanted to dance hehehe

[DLP-Photos.com]

Day 1 - continued
"I'm taking photos in the rain all night long"

When we came back to the hotel we got our room right away. It was room 3166 in the south wing just a 1.5 hallways away from the elevators, so it was very close to the lobby, restaurants and the boutique. It was a single-bed room, but it was no problem as I had never seen such a huge bed before The room had a nice view of Newport Bay Club and outer southern strings of Rio Grande (is it actually called this in this position?). Well, after app. 30 minutes in the room we were ready to leave again. I brought my tripod for the camera this evening in order to take some night time photos of the park. We wanted a good spot for the parade on Main Street U.S.A, because this would be the only time we would get to see the parade during the trip.

After trouble with my park ticket once again we got in and got a great spot right outside the Emporium opposite Town Square Photography. With 40 minutes until the Halloween Parade began I went to the Cookie Kitchen to get some delicious chocolate cookies to enjoy before the parade. This is a tradition for us and it is not a real Disney holiday for us, if we don't get one of their yummy cookies while waiting for the parade. Queueing for cookies on Main Street is a nightmare however with people walking through the queue all the time, but I got our cookies in time for the parade and returned to our spot in time for the lovely Halloween Pre Parade, which was great to see again having seen it last year.



The music and acting is great in this little parade although it could be a bit bigger and it is a bit disturbing to see Judge Claude Frollo go completely dancing-crazy to a modern remix of Cruella DeVille :lol: This year the parade was lead by the witch from Snow White in stead of Gruzella, which was nice as it made the parade even more Disney The pumpkin men and women are the highlight of the parade though... On the Villain's float we joked about the resemblance between Gaston and former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen :lol: We had quite a good laugh out of that...







After the Pre Parade there was a little break (10 minutes) before Disney's Once Upon a Dream Parade began. I absolutely love this parade; the floats are creative and very beautiful and filled with details. The Characters interact greatly with the audience as do the dancers and this time we captured the show stop of the Dreams of Fantasy float, which was really great and funny with lots of acting and audience interaction. Unfortunately the Dreams of Adventure float wasn't part of the parade - I assume it was out for refurbishment. Last year this was the case with the Dreams of Romance Part 2, which was back this year and boy, this float is filled! I cannot imagine how they can fit Princess Tiana onto this float next year! (Wondering smiley)


:lol: Look how happy this little Tigger was when Tigger came jumping by



All photos of the parade will be available from my fotki album soon...

After the parade we wandered towards Peter Pan's Flight to use our fastpasses - we stopped in Sleeping Beauty's Castle to take photos on the first floor. However, I took some better photos up here on Monday morning, so I will be posting those in that update, but here are two photos that I did not retake on Monday:





Now it was time for Peter Pan - 1 minute of waiting time with our fast passes = GREAT, when the normal queue was running at 40 minutes This ride was in a way better state this year in comparison to last year, when it was so dark, that you were unable to see the details in London like the driving cars, Neverland was very dark too. This year all details were bright and clear and when they are this it isn't hard to understand why this attraction outbeats Pinocchio and Snow White. When you fly over London it is just breathtaking and I love this attraction. Great!

We wanted to have dinner at Colonel Hathi's Pizza Outpost, as we really like the Pizza Royale and the restaurant had been closed on our last visit. Once again we were met by the new menu choices and we ended up with two Menu Baloo with Pizza Royale, side salad, fruit salad and Cola Zero. I like the themening of this restaurant and how it somehow still feels like the old Explorers Club, although you hear the Elephants' March every once in a while





After leaving I went to get the fast pass for Big Thunder Mountain that I was unable to get earlier in the evening. The time table said 20.30-21.00, so I barely got a ticket as all the machines were closed. The CM had 3 fast pass tickets left and he gave all three to me We went to check if the Keelboats were open but they had closed for the day, so we took a ride on Molly Brown in stead in the early twilight which was a beautiful ride and very relaxing as always. I extended the legs on my tripod and used it as support on the deck and got some video footage and some good photos of which some of them can be seen here:






Funny timing with this photo secured me some great assistant flash from the on-ride photo flash :mrgreen:

After this it was almost time for my night time photo trip around the park, but we went to It's a Small World at first. Unfortunately I cannot say the same thing about this lovely attraction as I have been able to say about attractions like Pirates, Phantom Manor and Snow White. IASM could really use a refurbishment - it seems a bit "used" and some of the dolls aren't working probably - although still a lovely attraction this ruined a bit of the experience and I hope the main problems will be solved during the big refurbishment in November

As we came out of It's a Small World and I was all ready for my night time photo tour the rain started falling I was very irritated by this as this meant that my lens/filter would be covered in rain drops and the camera had to be protected against the rain, so unfortunately I didn't get as quite as many shots as I had dreamed about, but with wonderful help from my mum and an umbrella I ended up getting a good set of photos which I am really proud of :-) The best can be seen here and the rest will be available to see in the fotki album to which I will link to in my final report installment.

















The night ended with another ride at Phantom Manor before I ended with my fast pass ride on Big Thunder Mountain which is extremely fun by night Although I had 3 fast passes I only had the time to try it once, so I had to give the CM all three fast passes. Upon exiting Frontierland we passed Lucky Nugget and saw what seemed to be a rat outside, which wasn't very nice. But we said to ourselves that it was probably just Remy who used his night off from Restaurant des Stars to check out the beautifully lit up Halloween decorated Frontierland

We ended the lovely day on Starbucks where my mom got a tall Cappucino and I got a Strawberry and Cream frappucino (very fat, but very delicious). I actually ordered a Frappucino Framboise, but during their 3-way-ordering system it got changed to a strawberry and cream frappucino, which irritated the CM that had made the Frappucino Framboise so much that he threw the glass into the sink so there was frappucino all over the kitchen

We did a little shopping in the village before going back to our room to look back at an amazing first day in the park and be ready for another magical day that would include breakfast in the park, Walt Disney Studios, Café Mickey and our huge shopping evening.

Day 2 will arrive tomorrow

Day 1 statistics:

Rides: Big Thunder Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, Adventure Isle, Pinocchio, Snow White, Phantom Manor, Peter Pan's Flight, Molly Brown, It's a Small World, Phantom Manor and Big Thunder Mountain.

Shopping: Mickey's Magical Party Pin, Sequoia Lodge Pin, Disneyland Magnet for my work, Zero plushie

Photo count: 525 photos

[Aveen2008]

wow your photos are beautiful! =D>  =D>  I love reasing your report it makes me feel all excited hehehe! Can't wait to read and see more! /

[Masamune]

Oh my, why does Gaston look so old? Do not want.

Pics are awesome! Just wish my eyes could un-see the scary old Gaston.

[never2old]

What a great first day!! And another set of stunning pictures - the night ones are pure magic!! Thank you for sharing with us!

We must have crossed each other again in BTM, we went in one of the last trains of the day!

[Soap]

=D>  Great report and some lovely pictures! Looking forward for the next day....

[kiki_304]

I am really enjoying the pics and report (even though I only just got back myself).

Looking forward to day 2's report and pics.

[Annet]

You've done a lot in one day, and your pictures are great!
Especially the ones taken at night, that always makes a magical sight.

[DLP-Photos.com]

What a great first day!! And another set of stunning pictures - the night ones are pure magic!! Thank you for sharing with us!

We must have crossed each other again in BTM, we went in one of the last trains of the day!

Thank you so much. I was so annoyed that the only during our trip had to come on THAT evening, so I am very happy that I got some good night photos and that you like them. In my Fotki album there will be many more to see

Funny how we crossed each others way almost all the time

You've done a lot in one day, and your pictures are great!
Especially the ones taken at night, that always makes a magical sight.

Yes - it's great to go in low season as you can manage to do a lot more in one day

[Annet]

That's absolutely true. I'm afraid it'll be a lot busier next week.
But unfortunately we were bound to the kids school vacations for our trip.