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Halloween 2006 Disneyland Paris Trip Report Part 2


Cast Members:

Sarah: Totally Pirates of the Caribbean obsessed, Disney enthusiast, Pin
             Collector, only rides indoor coasters!
Tony:   Disney enthusiast, Pin Collector, Loves all extreme rides, eats for the
             UK!
Taryn: Aged 15. Disney enthusiast. Pin Collector. Loves POTC. Tim Burton
             Obsessed. Very theatrical and loves any excuse to dress up especially
             Halloween!
Daniel: Aged 12. Disney Enthusiast but doesn't like meeting characters unless it
             is spontaneous. Loves POTC. Nintendo player and Tim Burton fan!
Stephen: Aged 17. My stepson. Not really mad about Disney but loves extreme
                coasters.
Louise: Aged 15. My stepdaughter. Loves Disney and dressing up.

Plus our friends...who were going to Disneyland Paris for the first time ever!

Andy: the Dad
Jackie: the Mum
Josh: aged 15
Jake: aged 12, my son Daniel's best mate
Max: aged 8

Part Two: Its Halloween-lo-ween Everybody!!

Today I woke up with an even better feeling...it was Halloween and we were in Disneyland Paris!!!! The alarm had been set for 06:30 as we planned to be ready for breakfast by 07:00. It's not the easiest thing in the world to get six people up and ready within half an hour, but we more or less managed it and were ready when our friends and next room neighbours knocked on the door at about 07:10. Before this we had given Tony his birthday cards and presents. We headed down to breakfast; now I am a big fan of the Holiday Inn breakfast, and was interested to see whether The Explorers breakfast lived up to the standards I was used to. I am pleased to say that it did. Although you had to pay extra if you wanted anything cooked, which we didn't, the rest of the options were much the same as the Holiday Inn, and this is what was on offer:

A big bowl of sliced melon
Cubes of ham and cheese
Cereals (usual kelloggs stuff)
Crusty bread rolls
Croissants
Sliced bread for toast
Sweet buns
Yogurts (various)
Crème Caramel
Jam, Chocolate hazelnut spread, honey etc
Orange juice (with bits in)
Apple Juice
Chilled water
Coffee (not cappuccino)
Hot chocolate

I had .....a big bowl of melon slices,  3 croissants with chocolate hazelnut spread, a glass of orange juice and a café au lait! The breakfast room was large and spacious and as we were early it was fairly quiet and uncomplicated to get everything we needed (this changes when it gets busy!). Breakfast completed, we returned to our room to pick the camcorder bag, our Halloween accessories and our AP lanyards, and then we headed out to await the pink PEP shuttle. Everyone was really excited and our friends were looking forward to their first visit to DLP. Here we are all waiting for the bus! Can't you just feel that anticipation!!!!





One advantage of the Explorers is that you are first on the bus pick up schedule, so in the morning you tended to get a seat.

We arrived at the station, and hopped off the bus. The Village area was fairly busy already, it was about 08:45. We headed towards the Disneyland Hotel, and through the minimal bag check. Unfortunately as we were passing through the bag check, Tony mentioned to Andy that he didn't know why they bothered, as they could easily miss a bomb in a bag, judging by the brief and relatively pointless effort they made when bag checking. The next thing a big burly chap pulled Tony over to one side for a more thorough search,  and severely slapped his wrists for making such a comment. We all thought it was amusing and were saying things like "rubber gloves" rather loudly. Needless to say he didn't say that "b" word again during our visit.

We headed straight down to Guest Relations, where we purchased 2 day passes for Stephen and Louise and our friends bought day passes for their whole family, with the plan to redeem them for annual passes later on. This all went smoothly, and at last we were in the Park!! The Halloween theming on Main Street looked amazing:





Our first destination was Halloweenland,




and we headed up towards Phantom Manor, only to be greeted by a surly cast member who said that it was having technical problems....I suppose caused by playful spooks! Instead we went up to Big Thunder and as there wasn't much of a wait, we decided to ride this one. There seemed to be a longer wait for the fastpass machines than the actual ride, which is a bit bizarre! The ride was as good as ever. We then went into Adventureland and those of us without the wimp gene rode Indiana Jones...I think it was myself, Taryn, Daniel and Max who gave it a miss. Next port of call was my all time favourite.....Pirates of the Caribbean, and it was brilliant. The swinging pirate was actually swinging this time!
We then had a bit of a mooch in the shop, as this shop is a bit of a magnet to my kids as it sells Nightmare Before Christmas merchandise. We then had a look at the menu for Blue Lagoon, to see if our friend's fancied eating there...fortunately they liked the look of it so I popped in to make a reservation for 11 persons for the following evening.

By now it was time to go to the Annual Pass office to sort out all our passes, sponsorship forms etc etc. The wait was very long.....about 30 minutes, before we even got to see the CM at the desk. Once there, they were really helpful. We bought 2 dream passes for Stephen and Louise with the 10% off for sponsorship. Our friends bought 5 annual passes, with 20% off for the family discount, but no further 10% off for being sponsored. However they still stamped the parrainage forms for the sponsors, which was good.  The four of us (Tony, Taryn, Dan and I) were able to extend for another 12 months!!!!! The free gifts were rather good....Buzz Lightyear Lanyards (one of which I am now selling on Ebay as my stepson didn't feel "cool"  wearing it and bought a plain black one!!)

At last we were all AP holders!! By now it was time for lunch. The park was getting very busy and we headed over to one of our favourite lunch venues The Cowboy Cookout, where we all had, surprise surprise,  BBQ chicken! Outside Cowboy Cookout Tony spotted one of his favourite characters, so we had to have a photo of Tony with Chip or Dale on his birthday!



We then popped up to Phantom Manor, which was now operating, but had a 60 minute wait!!! As I was walking along by Phantom Manor, I felt something grab my shoulder and just thought it was Tony being friendly so I carried on walking and then  I saw something in the corner of my eye...it was a horrible scary face! I ran off screaming and made a bit of a show of myself to be honest. Apparently it was the villain from Pinnochio who had sneaked up on me! On the way out of Halloweenland we met a few old friends,



so Daniel stopped for a photo!!



We then wandered into Discoveryland, which was very busy, so we decided to use some of the anytime fastpasses we had been given with the APs  to bypass a 60 minute wait line for Space Mountain. Taryn and Daniel's wimp gene raised its ugly head so they decided to sit this one out, and I told them to meet us at the ride exit. Everyone else went on the ride, and it was amazing, although a wee bit bumpy! We waited by the exit for Taryn and Dan to appear, and we waited, and waited and waited! We then decided to see if they had been caught in the pull of any shop magnets, but we couldn't find them in the shop. So there followed a 30 minute period of wandering round a very busy Discoveryland, looking for the pair of them and getting more and more annoyed by the minute. Then Tony decided to have a look in the Arcade at Star Tours to see if they were in there...and we found them!!! They were very disgruntled as they had been waiting ages for us.....I guess we all knew that feeling!

Suddenly, it was about 2:30pm, and the plan had been to return to the Hotel for a swim and then to have a pizza in the hotel, before getting ready for the Halloween party later that evening. So we decided to head back to Explorers. Tony and the kids went in the pool, with all of our friends family, and I stayed back in the room as I was still doing the last minute touches to our costumes. They were all really impressed with the pool, especially compared to the Holiday Inn pool. Once everyone had finished in the pool, we headed down to the pool area, and the younger kids went into the play area (including some of the not-so-young kids), while the adults had a beer (as you do) and sorted out the food order. This wasn't as easy as you would imagine, as they serve pizza in the lower restaurant area, and other snacks in the upstairs bar....so we had to try and co-ordinate ordering for 2 families in 2 different areas at the same time, basically by the same two people, as it was very hard to drag the men away from their beer at this point, and they were relying very heavily on their "you speak French so much better than we do" excuse!! But of course, being superwomen, we did it with no problem!

I had a very nice toasted sandwich and a free sample of a very fruity Halloween cocktail while I was waiting. Once we had eaten it was time to go and get ourselves ready for the Halloween party. This involved painting one child almost completely blue, and face painting 2 others and myself. It was very stressful as Taryn was in perfectionist mode and was complaining every time her paint was streaky, but in the end we were all ready bar myself. I had trouble with my theatrical make up which was horrible and wouldn't go on without streaking so in the end I washed it all off and had to go as a white-skinned "Tia Dalma". So we were finally down in the lobby ready to go at about 8:15, and we caused quite a stir in the lobby and had to pose for a few photographs. Here we are in our costumes:

Tony – as Capt. Jack Sparrow:



Daniel – as Beetlejuice



Sarah – as Tia Dalma




Louise as Sally and Taryn as Emily the Corpse Bride



Stephen as Darth Vader



Andy as Herman Munster, Jake as a gothic vampire, Josh as Scream and Max as Zorro:



Jackie as a Pink Lady:



and here is a group shot of most of us:


 
When we got to the park we were directed over to the Studios entrance, where a great mass of people had congregated ready to go in for the party. The party was supposed to start at 8:30, but there was no way they were going to get this amount of people in by 9pm. It was good fun waiting though, as we could have a look at everyone's costumes and the atmosphere was amazing!

The mass of people finally started to edge forward and we had to show our tickets at about 3 checkpoints before finally getting to the turnstile by about 9pm. Main Street was absolutely heaving with people. At the central plaza we turned into Halloweenland and headed for Phantom Manor. Phantom Manor was unfortunately being guarded by some rather scary creatures,





one of whom grabbed Taryn and refused to let her go for a while!





Eventually we managed to get past them and up into the queuing area. Phantom Manor was spooky but there were a lot of stops along the way, and we managed to have our "goblins and ghoulies" moment, so Tony was happy!!!

After this we wandered up to Adventureland to ride Pirates...the place was wall to wall people, and we kept our weather eyes open for Captain Jack but we didn't see him...instead we saw some rather strange white creatures on stilts, who were lurking around the entrance to POTC. We rode POTC, and then took a walk up towards the central plaza to grab a drink at Casey's Corner. The music on Main Street seemed to be a constant replaying of the song..."happy happy happy happy Halloween"...which I thought was far too twee and not as atmospheric as "Halloween-lo-ween", or "This is Halloween..." etc . We sat down for a while in Casey's and enjoyed a beer / coke depending on age, while watching all the costumed people outside. There were some fantastic costumes eg .the Scooby-Do gang, Edward Scissorhands etc so I decided to pop out and film a bit with my camcorder. Max, who was dressed as Zorro, had a swordfight with an adult Zorro, which was funny. Taryn was having her photo taken by all and sundry and loving every minute of the attention. Tony was also getting a lot of attention from Japanese women, who thought he was the official Jack Sparrow, although with that moustache you have to be kidding!

All in all the atmosphere was amazing...with everyone getting on really well and being really friendly! It was time for the "Ghost Ship Cavalcade" but we weren't very well positioned, and just saw bits of it from a distance. At the end of the parade the crowds dispersed a bit and we headed into Halloweenland as most of our group wanted to ride Big Thunder. Taryn and I decided to give it a miss, and as we were waiting for the others we heard the familiar strains of the Dead Man's Chest soundtrack....and the fireworks started. With the rest of our gang in the Big Thunder line, we ran to the central plaza and  tried to video what we could of the fireworks through the trees. You couldn't even get into the central plaza itself for the mass of people. The fireworks didn't really last long, and despite the Pirates soundtrack, I so much preferred last year's fireworks etc.

We then went back to wait for the rest of them, who eventually  disembarked from Big Thunder and said...we need to go and see the fireworks! I told them they had already been and gone, and they were quite disappointed. By now Max and Josh were getting very tired and flagging a bit, it was probably about 1am. The evening had really flown by, and because we were always fighting against the crowds, it hadn't been as enjoyable as 2005. Saying that, the atmosphere had been fantastic, and interacting with all the other costumed guests had been great fun! The characters had been much less evident, possibly we were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the entertainment had made less of an impact, but nevertheless we had enjoyed it immensely.

We wandered back to catch the bus, feeling rather drained by now, and ready for our beds. But first some of us had an appointment with the shower to remove all that blue paint. (and then I had to soak a bunch of towels in the sink, so as not to shock the housekeepers!)