Hello,
My name is Elly Thomas and I am 16 years old and my mum has asked me to write a Trip Report from our trip from the 16th-20th December. This is my first trip report and after reading so many great trip reports from other members I hope this one is okay. :D Our party was my mum,dad,me and my sister and it was our first trip during Christmas (which has been a dream of mine) we were also going to celebrate my 16th birthday on the 17th and my sisters 10th birthday on the 18th. :D
Our last trip as a whole family was in 2002 however my mum, my sister and I had taken a trip in 2008 but this was our first trip as a family for 10 years!!! So unsurprisingly my dad didn't remember much of the parks when we first arrived. :P
I wish I could write about everything but it would be impossible but I will try and write as much as I can so ENJOY!
Part 1: Arriving at Disneyland and the first day
We flew into Paris on the 15th December and spent a night in Paris (near Notre Dame) - IT RAINED SO MUCH !!! On the 16th we did some sight seeing around Paris before getting the train at about 4:15 pm ish. The train took about 45 mins and we finally arrived at Marne la Vallee - Chessy. My heart was pounding and when we exited the train station my sister and I couldn't help jumping and screaming due to the excitement of seeing Disney Village, the new WoD store, ToT, and the signs for DLP and WDS.
Although me and my sister wanted to go through to the parks straight away we had to check-in so we got the shuttle bus to our hotel, the Cheyenne. We had stayed at this hotel once before and had really enjoyed our stay plus the theming is great especially for my sister who is mad about horses (as well as Disney of course). We had a great check-in hardly any wait and our room was ready. We were staying in the Wyatt Earp. When we entered our room we were shocked and pleased to find Disneyland balloons all around our room, a birthday card from all the main characters, some chocolates and a lovely note from the hotel - it was a lovely touch and we were not expecting anything like this. I think it's touches like this that make Disneyland really special.
After making ourselves comfortable, unpacking and putting on a change of clothes we were ready to leave for the parks. At this time it was about 6:30pm later than what we had hoped but what could we do?
We all chose which character we wanted to have on our park tickets: my sister had Mickey, my mum had Daisy Duck, my Dad had Goofy and I had Pluto. :pluto:
We got the shuttle bus to the parks ( the Wyatt Earp block is the closest to the shuttle bus-stop which is handy when the weather is not great!) and we decided to go to the Disneyland Park. I loved the look of the WoD store but decided to go later on. We were 'welcomed' in to the park by a highly annoying voice when you put your ticket through the machine - Does anybody else find it annoying??? but as we saw the 20th anniversary sign we all gasped - it looked so lovely lit up in the dark and it was our first proper sight in the Disneyland Park. Being confronted by the tree in the plaza nearly brought a tear to my eye - all my years I had been dreaming of this moment and it was finally here - Disneyland during the Christmas season - wow!
We decided to walk through Main Street and take in the atmosphere. It really was a magical feeling walking through Main Street for the first time on our trip and getting a glimpse of the infamous Sleeping Beauty Castle. We loved the Mickey Mouse garlands too! :ears: :ears: :ears:
I'm going to have to stop for now but I will continue very soon! What does everyone think so far?
PICTURES WILL COME SOON!
What are your thoughts so far? :)
I can feel your excitement. Great start cant wait for more :D
How exciting! :D
Please let me know how the Birthday touches in the room were arranged, as I need to do this for our trip in September (my sons 21st Bday trip) :D/
Thanks for both of your comments.
Ravenseye- Me and my sister wrote a letter to 'Disneyland' to the Hotel's address (whichever hotel you are going to) explaining how excited we were to be celebrating both of our birthdays in Disneyland and how magical it was going to be etc... make it really personal if you are considering doing this yourself and we added our booking number at the end - not expecting anything just in case they needed to know who it was from - and when we arrived our room was decorated with balloons, chocolates and more. All free of charge and we were all amazed that they had done it. :D
I would recommend it though it was a lovely touch and I hope your son enjoys his 21st in Disneyland - I am sure he will it really was a magical experience for both me and my sister.
P.S Another tip for celebrating your birthday - buy a BIG birthday badge and wear it throughout the day - you get a lot of extra attention from various characters (even in the parades) and staff - even at the stunt show but more of that later on in my trip report - carry on reading to find out. I hope this is okay for you!
I hope the rest of you are enjoying my trip report - comments and feedback are welcome as its my first one I would like to know how it can be improved.
Great so far. Keep up the excitement level !! I stayed in the same hotel last week. Just Great!
My daughters bday is the 10th may and we are going to dlrp cheyennes mon 13th May. Do you think we could still get away with a birthday badge? Mines the 18th may. We leave on the 16th. We might both get Disney birthday badge day :-) ?.. What do you think? My daughter will be 6 and I will be 27!
hi. mdw
I booked my last disney trip in the march then called to upgrade to the new York form SLodge, (my birthday present from hubby ) i told the man that it was for my birthday.
We arrived in June checked in and when we walked in the room there was 2 stitch teddys (for my kids) water, and chocs. it was lovely. We then went to the park and when we returned there were balloons on one bed plus a note from the manager (a pre written one i would think) wishing us a lovely trip and if we needed anything to contact them. and then every night our bed was turned down and had chocolates put on the pillows..
I was over the moon was such a lovely touch.. Want it to happen every trip now. lol
@mdw - you ought to get away with it - as you will read later on in my trip report me and my sister wore the badges for an extra day after our birthdays after finding out what the benefits were. No one checks so you don't have to worry about that and it really is a magical experience. As long as you wear the badges on different days no one will mind and it is worth it as you will find out - Enjoy your trip!!! :D
Just a quickie - I have uploaded my Disney pics to flickr and have tried uploading them on here with no success could someone help me please? Thanks in advance :D
No matter I have figured it out!
Some Pics from my trip report (so far)
Warning they have been taken on my phone so some of them haven't turned out well!
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IMAG1689 (//http://www.flickr.com/photos/92204967@N02/8380547353/) by Elly.Thomas (//http://www.flickr.com/people/92204967@N02/), on Flickr
The Birthday Card left in our hotel room
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IMAG1688 (//http://www.flickr.com/photos/92204967@N02/8381628400/) by Elly.Thomas (//http://www.flickr.com/people/92204967@N02/), on Flickr
The letter from the hotel and some of the chocolates (in a mickey mouse shape)
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IMAG1690 (//http://www.flickr.com/photos/92204967@N02/8380547059/) by Elly.Thomas (//http://www.flickr.com/people/92204967@N02/), on Flickr
Just a few of the many balloons left in our hotel room
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IMAG1691 (//http://www.flickr.com/photos/92204967@N02/8380547441/) by Elly.Thomas (//http://www.flickr.com/people/92204967@N02/), on Flickr
In we go!
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IMAG1692 (//http://www.flickr.com/photos/92204967@N02/8381627568/) by Elly.Thomas (//http://www.flickr.com/people/92204967@N02/), on Flickr
Just entering the parks
Hope you are enjoying it so far!
Thank you for bday advice everyone. I need to add Disney Express to my package so I will mention it then :D thank you. Soooo excited
Hi,
Sorry for the wait guys :cry: I was going to write my second instalment today but unfortunatly I have been unable to as I have been having to revise for 2 of my exams next week and some mocks I have the following weeks. :oops:
So sorry for the wait but I hope you understand and I hope I can update you with the second part some time next week.
Thank you for your patience. :mickey2: :minnie: :donald:
daydreamer i would like to email as we have a birthday to during our stay can u confirm the email address u sent it to so we know where to send ours many thanks
Hi Chickadee84,
We actually delivered our letter through the post to our hotel and not through email, so I am sorry I cannot help you unless you want to send your letter through the post - it might be better as they are more likely to do something special for you.
DisneyDreamer
Thanks disneydreamer for your reply sorry i got ur name wrong in my previous post, i haven't got enough time now to hand write a letter as we go on monday 28th febuary , i have however sent a email to every address possible that i could find so i will just hope now. :)
It fine! Well I wish you a great trip I am sure you will enjoy it now matter what happens!
DisneyDreamer
I know its been a while and I'm sorry but I am finally writing part 2 now. :)
Part 2: The first night continued
So my sister wanted to see the dragon in Sleeping Beauty's Castle so instead of going through the entrance we took a detour around through to the dragons lair.
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IMAG1853 (//http://www.flickr.com/photos/92204967@N02/8381690820/) by Elly.Thomas (//http://www.flickr.com/people/92204967@N02/), on Flickr
Not a great photo but you get the idea!
My sister loves seeing the dragon, and it was my dads first time of seeing it and he liked it too. After going up through the stairs and having a look around the shop - there really are some beautiful items there - we went to fantasyland. But it had started raining really heavily :( not great for the first night. So we decided to run undercover and go to the Snow White ride. The queue was really short, should have been 2 mins or so but after 2 carts going through fine the ride just stopped moving and it had broken down - typical.
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IMAG1694 (//http://www.flickr.com/photos/92204967@N02/8381724324/) by Elly.Thomas (//http://www.flickr.com/people/92204967@N02/), on Flickr
Snow White
My sister then saw the carousel all lit up and looking lovely and as she is a horse fanatic we decided to go on them next. The queue was about 10 mins long so it was okay.
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IMAG1695 (//http://www.flickr.com/photos/92204967@N02/8380642853/) by Elly.Thomas (//http://www.flickr.com/people/92204967@N02/), on Flickr
My sister on her horse just before the ride starts
So that's our first done and it was very enjoyable, for our next ride we decided to try the next dark ride - Pinocchio.
The queue was short only about 5 mins which was surprising as I thought people would be covering from the rain but it was better for us. We really enjoyed this ride and it was better than my dad remembered (he said).
When we got off the ride we could see the glowing lights from the tea cups - my Dad really wanted to go on this ride so that was our heading. The queue was non-existent - we waited for the ride to stop (only about 40 secs) then we were on. With my dad at the wheel the ride was really fast and very funny - my sister couldn't stop laughing for the whole ride. Then after a loo break we saw the small queue for the Peter Pan Ride - one of our (mum,me and my sister - dad couldn't remember) favourites! The queue was only about 5 mins - me and my mum were amazed, and during the queue when we were discussing how well we had done for queue times my dad couldn't believe it when we said Peter Pan can be an 1 hour or more wait. So we all enjoyed Peter Pan and planned to go on it again during our trip and my dad loved it too. :D
So after Peter Pan fantasyland was closing to prepare for Disney Dreams! We had to walk through adventure land which we found very dark and dangerous underfoot. But skull rock looked great. We decided to wait for our first time watching Disney Dreams. We found a good spot behind the chip&dale snowmen. When we checked the time we realised it was only 9:00 so we were going to have to wait an hour in the cold and rain but we did. I won't go on about Disney Dreams because you know how amazing it is already but wow - its incredible and my sisters face said it all. :-o We were going to see that again.
So after Disney Dreams we wanted to eat so we went off to the Disney Village and decided to go to Planet Hollywood. Some people had the same idea but it was relatively empty. It had completely changed layout from the last time we had been. We all had different burgers which were all really nice but the service was really slow - the waiter was very friendly though and at the end of the meal he gave my and my sister a kinder egg which made a nice touch. So after our meal we were all very tired and got the shuttle bus back to the Cheyenne and went to sleep.
Tomorrow it was my birthday...
I hope you are enjoying it so far and once again I am sorry that it took so long!
part 3 coming soon ...
Nice report so far, keep going :D
You were really lucky with the Peter Pan queue. The last times we went we always used Fastpass.
Great report! :)