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...
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Being between maintenance downtimes, Buzz decided to take a second job as a stripper. Sleeping on the job didn't earn him much, though.
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Dance Time with Stitch looks... well, I'll let you all judge.
I'm looking forward to your trip report Lex :)
Quote from: "Agent Lex"(//http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3597/3368145395_14d71fcc17_d.jpg)
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 :?
Quote from: "The Butlin Boy"Quote from: "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.
I'm going to the magic tomorrow and I'll see if it is there still :D
Quote from: "Agent Lex"Quote from: "The Butlin Boy"Quote from: "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.
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!
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 :D
Looking forward to your Trip Report Agent Lex.. :D/ :D/ :D/
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.. :o
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.
Looking forward to the trip report :D/
But I do agree with everyone that it is bad that everyone saw Buzz in this stripped down version. That is not so good.
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! :(
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 :( )
What were the fireworks performed to ? :D
Quote from: "Elwell2009"What were the fireworks performed to ? :D
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 :D/ :D/ :D/
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!
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(that green spot is the St Patrick's Day programme)
And our lovely hotel room view of... uhm...
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...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 :P 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.
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The Disneyland Hotel, and beyond it... the park!
We came into the park, and of course straight onto...
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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.
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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!
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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...
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...yeah
And we went to grab some food at Cafe Hyperion...
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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...
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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...
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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!
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:
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:
Quote from: "The Butlin Boy"BTW; The fireworks were performed to the music from Fantasmic: a famous Disney show from both of the American parks :wink:
so st davids and st patricks both had fantasmic for the fireworks ?
great report of the first day Lex, I can't wait to see and read more!!:)
Nice start to the trip report!! Cannot wait to read the rest! :D
Quote from: "Elwell2009"Quote from: "The Butlin Boy"BTW; The fireworks were performed to the music from Fantasmic: a famous Disney show from both of the American parks :wink:
so st davids and st patricks both had fantasmic for the fireworks ?
Ooops! No sorry, I thought that was St David's Day, St Patricks was done to some Irish/Celtic music...my bad :oops:
Great trip report with some good descriptions and some magical photos =D>
I cannot wait to see and read some more :D/
Quote from: "The Butlin Boy"Quote from: "Elwell2009"Quote from: "The Butlin Boy"BTW; The fireworks were performed to the music from Fantasmic: a famous Disney show from both of the American parks :wink:
so st davids and st patricks both had fantasmic for the fireworks ?
Ooops! No sorry, I thought that was St David's Day, St Patricks was done to some Irish/Celtic music...my bad :oops:
Thats ok, will wait for a video soon :D
Lex's trip report :D/
Day 2 - March 16th 2009
We decided to wake up nice and early, for our early breakfast. But today we were going to have breakfast in the park, so we had a little extra lay-in time over the next two days! After our wake-up call, getting ready for the day, and walking around the lake...
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...we made our way to the park, for breakfast at Plaza Gardens restaurant. It was nice to have breakfast outside of the hotel, although it wasn't any more than the usual croissant/cereals buffet you see anywhere else. We were first ones into the restaurant for breakfast though, and if I hadn't been so hungry I would have gotten pictures of the lovely empty restaurant. Our plan for the day was to go to the Studios, but it was still early after breakfast so we took a walk around. First we went upstairs in the castle, and saw the Sleeping Beauty stained glass and tapestries.
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Ooh, sparkly!
We then took a short walk around Fantasyland, just taking in the atmosphere. We had planned to get through all of these attractions tomorrow morning, so there wasn't a rush to do everything. We did get to see the It's a Small World clock do its hourly chimes though. And early, too...
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But finally, we made our way to...
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The Studios!
And of course, we decided to get the big one done first, along with everyone else. Even though we got to the Studios long before 10, we still ran into quite a line for "Crush's Queue-ster". Still, I have to say it's well worth getting there early for this attraction - once the line's moving, they pump people through quite quickly so you're not in the queue for as long as you would be later in the day.
After Crush, we took a look at the show times for the rest of the day, and we made a plan. The first Moteurs... Action show wasn't for a good while, so we thought we'd quickly stop off at the tram tour.
By the time we were there, the tram tour was on its new route, basically cutting out the Pearl Harbour set and costume department. So they decided to take us around Catastrophe Canyon...
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...twice...
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Then around the rest of the tour. Strangely, Jeremy Irons still said we were passing the Pearl Harbour set, even though it wasn't there. Guess they couldn't cut that part of the video out, huh. Then after the tram tour, it was time to walk past Armageddon, and make our way to queue for Moteurs... Action!
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I have to say, this being the first time I've seen this show, it was amazing! Absolutely spectacular, and a nice insight into how some of the effects are done. Though I do think they spent a lot more time talking than they probably needed to, it felt a bit too long between actual action sequences. Still, the amount of planning that has to go into a show like this must be huge, so =D> to the folks that put this together.
We then rushed over to Animagique, for the showing that was happening not long after we got out of the stunt show.
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I have to say, it was good, though I think I expected a little more from what I'd seen/heard. And my girlfriend got caught trying to videotape it :mrgreen: But we still had fun watching Donald's adventure, even if the moral seems to be that doing bad stuff is okay :P
Since it was a lovely day outside (and it would be for the whole trip!) we took a trip on Genie's flying carpets. Unfortunately, we were stuck in the back row, so all we had was the tilt button :( We had our little bit of childish fun on the magic carpet though.
After that, we decided to go back to Studio 1, to grab some lunch at the counter service restaurant there. I almost wish we hadn't, since the food was once again standard Disney counter service rubbish, though the Tower burger is a slightly original idea. The best thing to come from it, though, was the Mickey head chocolate brioche, which was tasty. And I managed to grab my only good photo in the darkness of Studio 1!
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Then we went shopping both in Studio 1 and the Studios shop. We even saw Mickey in the Front Lot, though we didn't go up to get our picture with him - we knew we'd get that tomorrow.
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(random child blurred out, for obvious reasons)
After lunch and shopping, it was still quite a while until the next Cinémagique show, so we thought we'd get the Art of Disney Animation done. Again, the headphones are annoying, they just don't sit on my ears right, but it was still fun. Especially the exhibit at the preshow, and the stuff in the postshow. Including, of course, that movie wall...
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And these awesome (and expensive) pictures
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I want one! Either one will do! :cry:
It was finally time to line up for Cinémagique. After passing the Toon Train...
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...we lined up. We were pretty near the front of the line, as the park was quite quiet on our visit, being in March. Once we got in, we sat down to watch the show, one of the only attractions I hadn't read all about so I wouldn't be spoiled by it. I'm very glad that I didn't as the show is fantastic! Even though I thought I knew the general idea of the show, it managed to surprise me more than once with the effects... and I'll leave it at that, so that nobody else ends up reading this before they go on. But it was really great, and certainly something I'll do again next time I go to DLRP.
As we came out of Cinémagique, time was once again on our side as we managed to walk into the preshow of Stitch Live, in English. This is another great show, and really well done. Stitch really interacts well with all the guests! He had to convince Lilo he was zat the zoo, by making the kids make pig and cow noises. Then he took a picture of the best pig and showed it to all of us! Then he found someone who was wanted for escaping space prison, and fell in love with a young lady... who was single! Stitch was her boyfriend for all of a few minutes, until he accidentally blew her planet up :( Then as usual, he had to escape the ship since Captain Gantu was after him. Very amusing show, another must-see :)
It was near the end of the day now, but we did manage to squeeze two more attractions in. First we went on Armageddon, with the extremely long preshow that felt longer than the actual show itself! When we finally got into the show room, we got a bad spot :( We could see the fireball airlock, but we couldn't see the one that crashes in at all. Still quite entertaining though, but I think Armageddon's a bit dated and it does need a change.
Finally, we went to do Rock n Roller Coaster, since it was right there waiting. After Space Mountain, my girlfriend definitely did not want to go on this, but it was only a 5 minute queue so I managed to pretty much walk straight on the ride. It was an absolutely awesome ride, and I loved it completely. The effects were just right, and that foggy layer of smoke was even there.
So now it was time to leave the Studios, and get to our dinner reservation... at Hunter's Grill, at Sequoia Lodge. This is a really nice buffet, and saving with our Half Board vouchers was good. Unlike the last night, we managed to get our drinks quickly, and I went up and had several platefuls of food :D It was all delicious, and as with every restaurant we went to the atmosphere was wonderful.
After such a tiring day, it was time to sleep again. Extra early morning tomrrow - booked into breakfast at 7am!
PS: I know, I didn't manage to get on this ride:
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But trust me, I rode it in the end... you'll see ;)
Coming up tomorrow - day 3, St Patrick's Day!
Fantastic report Lex, I'm glad you enjoyed your first trip to the Studios. Your photos and stories are great, and I'm looking forward to the rest :)
Great trip report and good pictures there Lex! :D
I'm happy that you enjoyed the studios and I'm looking forward to Paddy's :D/
Just back from the magic and on day 2 buzz had the curtain pull around him but i managed to get a pic behind the curtain and he was back to his usual self.
Today the curtain was removed.
Cool report! Going through Catastrophe Canyon twice must've been weird... Did they announce that they would be going through again, or did you just randomly start heading back through without any warning? :lol:
Quote from: "Agent Lex"Finally, we went to do Rock n Roller Coaster, since it was right there waiting. After Space Mountain, my girlfriend definitely did not want to go on this, but it was only a 5 minute queue so I managed to pretty much walk straight on the ride. It was an absolutely awesome ride, and I loved it completely. The effects were just right, and that foggy layer of smoke was even there.
You lucky person! Good to hear the smoke is
actually working. I'm sure they always turn it off whenever I go. :roll:
Sorry I've been lax here. Life caught up with me during the week, so I wasn't able to take time out to write up the last 2 days. I'll get onto day 3 tonight.
RnRCj, I added that smoke comment just for you. Thought you might notice it ;)
Brilliant report so far Agent Lex.. =D> =D> =D>
Pleased to see the 'A' of Annette's Diner is working again.. :mrgreen: Funnily enough, come to think of it, it took a while to get our drinks in there aswell.. :)
Well it certainly looks like you got stuck into the attractions over the first two instalments.. :wink:
Really looking forward to the next instalment.. :D/ :D/ :D/
Thanks again for sharing Agent Lex.. :wink: :D
Quote from: "Elwell2009"What were the fireworks performed to ? :D
the irish music was actually the riverdance music
Great report so far!!
I didn't know you could have breakfast in the park with the EMH, is it only from 8am or can you go before?
Your pictures are great - and the park looks so beautiful with the sun and blue skies!
Quote from: "never2old"I didn't know you could have breakfast in the park with the EMH, is it only from 8am or can you go before?
It's only from 8am, and you have to get a ticket from the hotel when you check in, like with the hotel breakfast vouchers.
Great trip report and photos Lex =D>
Glad you had a great time ! :D
So looking forward to coming back home in June now
Mr_B
Sorry this has taken so long, but here it is!
Lex's trip report :D/
Day 3 - March 17th 2009 - St Paddy's Day! :mrgreen:
Another busy day was planned for today - as well as getting lots of Disneyland Park done, there were St Patrick's Day events to be seen. Knowing this, of course we wanted to get in there for the Extra Magic Hours, so we had our breakfast at 7am at Cape Cod.
After stuffing ourselves with croissants, pains au chocolat and other breakfast goodies, we headed out extra-early to get to the front gate. since there was nobody else there, we took a few photos. We even found out exactly how far it is to Disney World...
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Only seven thousand kilometres... I wanna go there!
Eventually, of course, they let us into the park, and the first thing we did was rush straight to Fantasyland, by way of the Castle Stage, made up for St Paddy's Day...
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Then we decided to do a quick tour around the Fantasyland rides that were open that morning. First up was Peter Pan's Flight, which I was really looking forward to as it was always one of my favourites. Unfortunately, as I commented on over here (//http://www.photosmagiques.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6747), it was really dark. Too dark, and I think it spoiled the ride :( I know it's called a dark ride, but put a little light in there so we can see, Disney!
After that, we did the tea cups, which was extra fun. I took full control of the teacup, and kept spinning it in opposite directions! Then we went on the Carrousel, where I took a photo of the next ride we went on...
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Yes, it was absolutely dead during EMH. All the better for us!
So we went on Pinocchio, which was also fun. It's nice to do all the Fantasyland dark rides in the morning, let out the inner kid ready for the rest of the day :) Unfortunately, none of the other Fantasyland rides were open this early... so we went for another go on Star Tours. The fences around the queue area had been removed, so I could get a good shot of the X-Wing today!
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As always, Star Tours was fun again, although I think Rex needed a little maintenance... his head wouldn't turn :(
Anyway, after Star Tours we went back to Main Street for one of my favourite moments of the day. This morning, for his daily meet and greet, Mickey was going to dress in St Patrick's Day gear! So we waited in the huuuuuge line for him to come out. There was no Character Express or Party Train to miss while we were there :( but we did manage to catch Good Morning Main Street, with a few characters coming out to say hello.
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Strange? Yes.
Finally, after rummaging through his wardrobe for those special clothes, the mouse himself arrived!
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Of course, there were lots of families in front of us who wanted to see Mickey, so we had a while to wait. While we were waiting... the Mary Poppins show started in Town Square! Unfortunately, we weren't in a great position to watch it, but I did get some snaps...
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And then, after waiting some more... and waiting... and waiting... Mickey went to take a break. Then we waited even more, and when he came out, a bagpipe player and drummer had joined him! So they were there while we were lining up, and finally it was my turn to see Mickey!
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I'm not looking at the camera because I'm looking at the professional photographer's camera, as you can see. Also, yes that is my pin collection on my Phantom Manor lanyard :)
Since we'd finished most of Fantasyland, after meeting Mickey we went to Adventureland to take a ride on...
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Yep, the sign was still ripped :(
We also managed to get a look at where we had our lunch reservation, Blue Lagoon. It didn't look busy this early in the morning, so we were happy, even though our reservation was in a few hours. We popped back to Fantasyland now, to get to those few attractions that were closed earlier. First off...
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I made it myself!
I actually took a load of photos here, of the parts that are still in good condition. Those being the parts too high for the kids to reach and break apart. After reaching the castle and then escaping the labyrinth, we went on Snow White. It's another really well-done, and I think underappreciated ride, like Pinocchio.
On our way out of Snow White, we managed to catch another of the impromptu shows - Sleeping Beauty had awakened!
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Another nice little show. I'm glad the park has these, even though they're not on the schedule, just as inbetween activities. It's something very unique to Disney :) So after watching the Sleeping Beauty minishow, we headed over to do It's A Small World. While we were queueing, we could see a meet and greet happening just on that path to Discoveryland (I think the gate was closed for parade prep, but it was before the gate obviously). Small World was actually a fun ride, it's fun to spot all the countries. And the post-show makes even less sense now it's not sponsored by France Telecom any more!
Now that we'd completed Fantasyland (except for the dragon, which we forgot about! :oops: ) we went back to Adventureland. First we went through the Aladdin walkthrough, which was fun even if not all the effects were working. Though I still think Aladdin looks creepy in some of them!
Then we explored Adventure Isle and the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse.
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Obviously not from the exploration route, but I like this one. I did get some photos from our exploration, but they're not on Flickr thanks to their upload limit.
Frontierland was waiting for us as we left the treehouse, so we went on, and discovered that the dead-end area is nearly as boring during the day as it was at night. Though at Woody's Roundup, Jessie came out for a while, drawing everyone to the centre area.
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(again, random kid luckily obscured by Jessie herself)
Then we went round to see if the River Rogue Keelboats were open today. They weren't :( so we took one of the larger boats instead, the Maaaaaark Twaaaaaiiiin. So of course we got to see Old Joe.
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And a nice view of our next destination...
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I love Phantom Manor. Though the final ghost town scene could be better, the rest of the ride is great, especially the Phantom AAs. And of course Boot Hill is excellent.
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It was nearly time for our lunch reservation now, so we went back for another ride on Pirates. We got a lot in during that time, didn't we? I just want to say that going at this time of year is great, since we managed to get a special event, fireworks, fairly nice weather and a lack of crowds. I recommend it to anyone!
After Pirates, it was time for our lunch at Blue Lagoon. We actually arrived early for our reservation, as I realised I'd made it a little late and we might miss the parade. After waiting to be seated, waiting for our drinks, and waiting for our food, we ended up very nearly not being late for the parade. It's a shame it takes so long to get anything at this restaurant, as the atmosphere is great, especially catching a glimpse of people going by on the ride. We didn't get a waterside table, but got a table on the next "row" so we could still see.
Once we were out of the restaurant, we rushed to Central Plaza to try to catch the St Patrick's Day pre-parade. Unfortunately, we juuuuust missed it, which means we didn't get to see the pipe band or the characters in their costumes :( But we did see the full parade, apart from the first float of course. One of my favourite photos from the parade was a complete coincidence, I managed to catch the crystal castle just as the sun hit the right angle...
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There are LOTS more photos from the parade on my flickr, which I'll link at the end of day 4.
We ended up following the parade around to Main Street, so we could look at the photos we had professionally taken earlier with Mickey. I ended up buying one of the photos with me and Mickey, which now has the prime place in my room :D
By this time, there was only one show left of the pipe band and Irish dancers. We made our way to the Castle Stage in plenty of time to see the pipe band. They were amazing, and it's not every day you get to hear music like this at Disneyland! But the best bit was definitely when this man got this drum out...
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...because it meant it was time to clap along to a very energetic song! Everyone was clapping and having a really good time :) Then it was time for the dancers to come on stage and perform. Just like the pipe band, it was something you don't often see at Disneyland, but it was still brilliant. And as I believe is usual, they got Chip and Dale to join them for the final dance.
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After that show finished, we decided that we had done nearly everything we wanted to do today, except to see the dancers perform on the Central Plaza stage, and of course the fireworks! So we camped out on one of the benches at the very end of Main Street, had a hot chocolate, and waited. We got to see the pipe band go by on their way to the Castle Stage again...
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And the castle start to light up as it started to get dark...
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As the crowds gathered, we were glad we had chosen this spot early. The crowds were huge, but I think we got possibly the best spot - we could see everything on the stage, and the whole castle, from our spot, although it was still pretty central. And my girlfriend could stand on the bench to record the fireworks :D This is my recording though, on my camera that has no audio :(
[youtube:3e0da3yy]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z2zqDJNUsI[/youtube:3e0da3yy]
(I know I already posted it, but I wanted to show you again :P)
After the fireworks, it was time to leave for another day :( But we had an excellent St Patrick's Day at Disneyland, and managed to do nearly everything we had left to do! Finally, we did our usual nightly shopping at the Village.
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We decided that, since we had done much more than we thought we would today, that tomorrow we would have a later breakfast and not worry about Extra Magic Hours so much. So I re-booked breakfast at the checkin desk, they were really nice about it :)
Finally, we went upstairs to bed and slept, after a fun but tiring day.
Excellent stuff - looking forward to the next installment =D>
Mr_B
Thanks Lex!! :D Fun read and great pictures ;)
What a great, filled day!! Thanks for that!
And you forgot about the dragon?? You realise that now you're going to have to go back, right?? :wink:
Looking forward for more!
Excellent report so far, I'm looking forward to the rest. Thanks for sharing it :)
Great report and fab pictures!! =D>
even more great pics
seeing all the rports an dpics on here just keeps wanting me to go back and back again!
Quote from: "Agent Lex"(//http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3594/3368162187_1c8eb3d1a5.jpg)
Only seven thousand kilometres... I wanna go there!
Don't worry once the Tardis has been invented for the general public, it'll be much easier.. :lol: :mrgreen:
Quote from: "Agent Lex"Then we went on the Carrousel, where I took a photo of the next ride we went on...
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Yes, it was absolutely dead during EMH. All the better for us!
So we went on Pinocchio....
Mmmmm, strange Pinnochio was not part of the EMH when we went in Feb, although Snow White was.... :?: :?:
Another great instalment there Agent Lex.. =D> =D>
Looking forward to more.. :wink: :D
Quote from: "Javey74"Mmmmm, strange Pinnochio was not part of the EMH when we went in Feb, although Snow White was.... :?: :?:
Maybe I got the order mixed up. To be honest, I don't remember the exact order we did things in Fantasyland, I used the order of the photos on my camera to try to figure it out!
Quote from: "Agent Lex"Quote from: "Javey74"Mmmmm, strange Pinnochio was not part of the EMH when we went in Feb, although Snow White was.... :?: :?:
Maybe I got the order mixed up. To be honest, I don't remember the exact order we did things in Fantasyland, I used the order of the photos on my camera to try to figure it out!
They must change which rides are open during EMH, because most times I've been, Snow White was closed and Pinocchio was open.
wow, great to read! can't wait for day four!!!
now, I am planning on going at exactly the same time as you did in 2010 (march 14-17, sunday-wednesday)!
do you recommend it? what was the weather like? the temps? was it really crowded (I guess Sunday was?) or kind of empty? (St. Patricks Day would fall on Wednesday, the day we would leave.)
How long did you have to stand in line for the attractions? crush's?
thanks for the infos and thanks for your excellent report!!!