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[yiazoo]

Hi all!
I am John from Greece and i am so excited that only 2 days are left to leave for DLRP that i started my trip report now! We have booked since November and we will be there on Sunday noon. My family is me, my wife and my 2 daughters 6 and 3 y.o. We are coming with some friends, a couple with their 6 y.o son.
We will be staying in Santa Fe for 6 nights. Our plans are (have been organizing everything months ago):

Arrive at Charles De Gaulle Sunday 12:05. Take the CDGVAL to terminal 2. Take the TGV 13:37 to Disneyland. Arrive at 13:47. Go straight to Santa Fe to leave our bags, relax for 10 minutes and at about 14:00 heading straight to Disneyland Park to start the magic. (i must tell you that it is our 4th time in DLRP, our kids is their first, so is our friends, their first too)
Monday: Disneyland Park all day
Tuesday: One day trip to Paris, our friends and kids have not been there so we will just see Eiffel, Notre Damme and 2 or 3 more places.
Wednesday: Disney Studios
Thursday: Studios and Park
Friday: Park
Saturday: Park until 16:30, same route back to airport, fly to Athens at 19:35

I guess i will have enough time to live every single moment of magic with my kids and not get extremely tired! Wish me all to have a good weather!

See you all after my return with lots of photos!

[kiki_304]

Fingers crossed for nice weather.

Have a great time (I'm sure you will as are you), hope the kids love the experience.  

Looking forward to seeing your pics.

[Bettan]

Looks like a good planning for your trip. You have lots of time in both parks. We are going to the park the 14 and 17 of June and I can hardly wait. Our plan is to go on attractions on monday because it's not so crowded then and do some shopping and eat at Plaza on Thursday.

[toritinker]

have a great holiday, sounds like a great plan!!!
i really liked the sante fe - great walk to the parks!!
cant wait to read your report
have fun!!! xx

[yiazoo]

Hi all, just came back home! Had a magic time, as soon as i find some time, i will write my report and give you some of my 600 photos! The kids loved it, us too, quite tired all now! Talk to you soon

[tubbsy]

Cant wait to read it and see your photos

[yiazoo]

Well, here is my trip report. I will not get into much details, I don't know how interesting will be for you, i'll try to give you the summary of my trip.

We started our trip from Athens airport at 09:30. 4 adults, 2 kids 6 y.o. 1 kid 3 y.o, 2 big luggages, 2 small, 2 backpacks and 2 strollers.
Arrived at CDG at noon. Took our luggage in about 20 minutes, but the strollers came about  20 minutes later. That made us run like hell because we had already booked our tickets for TGV. Imagine us, the kids and all the luggage running in an airport!!!. Took the CDGVAL and then the TGV which we managed to jump in 1 minute before it left! I was trying to take the tickets from the automated machines but they could not read my VISA so asked everyone in the long line to let me pass and take the tickets from the desk. All were kind to let me pass, so everything went ok, although running started early!

Arrived at DLRP at about 14:00. Went on foot to Santa Fe. Checked in, everything ok, stayed at building 45 first 2 rooms at the entrance. That was good for us because we are smokers and we had to leave the children in to sleep and stay on the stairs to smoke. We made the stairs private, every night we were out to have a beer and a cigarette!

And then the magic started. Had a quick lunch at sports café at village and headed straight to Disneyland Park.

Not to get into much detail, Sunday, Monday was for Disneyland Park, Tuesday Paris, Wednesday Studios, Thursday Park, Friday Studios (only for the stund show)  and Val D'Europe, and Saturday Park.

Without date order I will describe you the following:

Our trip was great, the kids loved everything. The little one was crazy for meet and greet and the shows/parades. My older daughter loved the big trills, we visited the Hollywood Tower 3 times, the crash and coaster and the Big Thunder Mountain.

On Sunday and Tuesday it was raining, not much but made things a little difficult, the rest of the days it was so hot like summer.

We missed the pirates, Katerina (my older daughter) was a little scared that we had to just jump over while inside and get out...then she wanted to go but the waiting time was quite long. Anyway, we enjoyed everything else.

We did all major rides and shows, except the 2 coasters of Park, Indi and Space Mountain. (at least I did the aerosmith, alone, it was great as always). Space mountain was closed until Saturday and on Saturday it had about 2 hours of waiting line and I was not in the mood to wait so long. Saturday was so crowded...more than 1 hour waiting line on all rides. During weekdays it was quite better, the most we had to wait was about 30 minutes and by using FP it was quite easy for us.

Tram tour had some problems, twice in the same day was closed for technical reasons and yes, 2 wagons stayed empty. I also did not feel the earthquake effect.

In Paris we visited the Eiffel tower, Champs Elyse and Notre Dam. I have been there 3 times so we went for our friends to see the most interesting areas.

Some points now that I want to mention:

-   We bought milk from the Esso store but I found out that there is milk in the hotel store too and much cheaper.
-   So strange (for us) that the Esso store stops selling alcohol after 19:00. We had to buy beer from Santa Fe bar to take back in the room.
-   Our room and hotel was just basic. Nothing more that expected. It should have an outside area to sit and have a beer. We discovered this area in Cheyenne on Friday and we were so sorry that we had missed it all previous days. It was so nice there (and very close to our rooms). We could just sit on a table, have a drink or a snack and let the children play.
-   Another thing that we did wrong was not eating lunch at the "all you can eat" buffet all days. We only ate on our last day at Alladin's restaurant and the food was great. All the other days we had a quick lunch at the rest of the fast food restaurants of DLRP and it was not tasty at all. I am sorry guys but the food (except the restaurants) was awful and very expensive. My advice: pay some more and eat at "all you can eat" buffet.
-   Does anybody know why the bottle of water costs so much in France? (I knew that, just mentioning it here). 2 or 3 euros for a bottle of water? In Greece it costs 50 cents.... I really cannot understand why is it so expensive.
-   You know where we had great lunch and quite cheap? In Val D' Europe. There are plenty of restaurants with great food. We also visited the aquarium. Very nice experience, but expensive too. I had seen a leaflet at the hotel saying special price for hotel guests, I forgot to ask the reception and when I went there and asked for the special price, the guy told me that there is not such a thing. Anyway we paid 15 euros per adult and 12 for the older kid. It was great, we loved the aquarium and my wife the shopping mall!!!
-   To French people: (friendly advice, I've been in Paris 4 times so I like, in fact love France) When a tourist speaks in English and asks you something in English try to answer in English too, not in French, you know that he cannot understand French, why are you answering in French???
-   Back to Santa Fe: We had breakfast the last 3 days, we saw the lines on the first days and were so scared but when we tried it, the line was moving very fast. Just 10 minutes of waiting time and easily found a table. It is so big that is quite easy. The bus was quite ok too. Waiting time 3-5 minutes and not so crowded as described and expected.


To close my report: It was a great trip, my kids loved every moment and so did we. I promised my kids to visit DLRP again in 2-3 years when they will be older and now that I have the experience I will avoid my mistakes and have an even better time.

Thank you all very much for your help to organize my wonderful trip, I hope I will be able to write another trip report in some years from now!


Here is a "small" video from our trip
[youtube:29sif8kd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DAJPcgOTGk[/youtube:29sif8kd]

[smurfy74]

thanks for sharing your great trip report i really enjoyed it

[tubbsy]

Great video and lovely photos

[toritinker]

thanks for the report!
sorry to hear about the Studio tram tour being a bit of a disappointment...a lot of people have been coming back saying that. I won't feel too bad now if we don't get to do it when we go!!

[kiki_304]

Fabulous report, photos and video.

looks like you all had a great time with lots of memories.

I usually fill up bottles of water from the fountains on the way in (for future reference).

[yiazoo]

That's what i did all the time! or buy big bottles from the Esso store for 85 cents! But still can't understand why is it so expensive! Thanks for your nice comments. We DID have a great time and still cannot forget it

[fairymom]

Sounds like a lovely trip. Where did you meet  Buzz, Donald and Sully? These would be high on my kids' list for character meets!

[yiazoo]

Hi, thanks for your nice comments! It was a lovely trip, and i will start planning for my next one in about 3 years when my daughters will be 9 and 6. We met Donald in front of Fantasia Gelati, near the it's a small world. Buzz met him in WDS near the Cars Race Rally. He was the only one that gave a stamp not an autograph!! could not write. Sully, who is Sully?

We totally have 32 photos of characters with my daughters. It is so lovely for them. They loved each one and each case they met one

[tubbsy]

Sully, who is Sully?

Big blue monster from Monsters Inc.