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[BlackPearl]

At last beginning with my trip report.

First day, July, 26th

We started our journey on Thursday morning at about 7 o'clock, weather was great and spirits high. After stowing away all the suitcases, bags and everything in the trunk of the car, me and my two friends set off in the direction of Disneyland resort Paris. We were lucky, as even with some building sites, we had no traffic jam or anything alike.
Summer finally was showing it's power and the temperature was rising every kilometre we came nearer Paris. I was happy to have air condition in my car.
After quite a pleasant ride we saw this sign (one of my favourite signs!) at the motorway:

Only a short time now and I would be back in Disneyland!
I so like it when leaving the motorway and driving the long, straight road towards Disneyland. When the rooftops of Disneyland Hotel and NewPort Bay appear, I always feel happy.
My two friends also got excited when the Disneyland Hotel came nearer, as we were going to stay there.
       
(This is the fountain in front of the hotel's main entrance)

This time I tried the parking service of the hotel and it is great. The Cast member, who welcomed us, took care of the car and our luggage and guided us to the reception of the Castle Club. As my friends only knew that we would be staying at Disneyland Hotel, they were really surprised (took me quite something not to spill the beans before we arrived). We almost felt like some VIPs when the CM showed us the special elevator and we finally arrived at the Castle Club. The receptionist, who did the check-in, showed us around, explained breakfast and Tea-time and even had a reservation for Inventions ready for the  evening, if we would have liked to dine there. But we changed the reservation and booked a table for the next evening, because we wanted to eat at the Blue Lagoon on our first day.
Our room wasn't ready yet, so the nice receptionist gave us our park tickets, the VIP-Fastpasses (I LOVE them) and an elevator-keycard, so we could already use the special elevator, which takes you from the Castle Club to the entrance of the park. It's just sooo cool. Step inside the lift, put the keycard in the slot and down you are taken to the entrance, just two or three metres behind the ticket-checks.
It was about noon, when we finally entered the park and it was really hot now, but nonetheless crowded.

We walked down Main Street just as the Partytrain started. Got quite a decent spot to watch in the second row. The train is very colourful but quite nice, I think I like it even better than the old one. And the new costumes are just something special.
           
After the little train continued around Central Plaza, we headed for Buzz Lightyear's Laserblast. My two friends had never done that before. First use of the VIP-Fastpasses. Here we go, Space-rangers! Buzz was behind a construction curtain, but the ride itself was working without any problems. I like the tunnel where the light effects give you the feeling that you are speeding up. I got a lousy score, but nonetheless the ride is fun.
After a quick look inside the shop at the exit of Buzz's, we headed back to the Castle.

With the incredibly blue sky we had that day, it looked like a storybook picture, almost unreal. Not one cloud ahead.
We strolled through the Castle and then first towards Adventureland, because we still had to book a table for the evening. I forgot to do it at the hotel, because all three of us were so eager to enter the park.
After we got the reservation, we decided to do Pirates of the Caribbean later that day, because none of us felt like standing for an hour in the burning hot sun, even if I like the waiting area and normally don't mind queueing for PotC.
We did Peter Pan instead, where we could use the Fastpass again. I really like the little ride, even if it's a bit bumpy sometimes. I'm always disappointed, that it is so short. Wouldn't it be nice, if they would build part of it outdoor? So you could sail over Adventureland to Captain Hook's ship? Well, okay, maybe not too good in the cold and wet European autumn and winter, but still...
Alright, back to business. We refilled our water supplies at one of the market booths, before entering Adventureland again. There was a band of three pirates playing live music when we walked towards Skull Rock. With all the people around we nearly missed them.
Being in the right mood now (not that we weren't before :-D), we marched to the nearby bridge to enter Adventure Isle. We admired the view of Skull Rock and the ship for a while from under the shadow of the trees. Captain Hook's ship looks great after the refurb!

And the water of the lake is so clear now. You definitively can see that they did some cleaning and refurbishing. The wild ducks also loved it.  About ten of them populated the shore and the water. It's funny but there weren't any seagulls, while in November there were masses of them around the parks.


We crossed the bridge and walked up to the gangway. Aye! All hands on deck!
A fearsome pirate lady guarded the ship, but we were allowed to come abord. It would be fun, if you could sail with this ship. After expanding the pond of course ;-)
 
When we were leaving the ship, I tried to persuade the pirate to let me have the big parasol, she was standing under, but she would have defended it with her live. She had no other shadowy place on the ship and the sun was really burning down on the planks.  And I guess the pirate costume, as good as it looks, isn't that comfortable when it's warm.
We entered the cool caves of Adventure Isle and explored the maze ,,underground". I've visited Disneyland so often but still I'm sure, I haven't seen every cave or path down there. From inside Skull Rock, you can nearly imagine to hear the crocodile with the clock that's still after Hook  – tic - toc – Tic Toc - TIC TOC .... did you hear something? Oookay, better be out of the caves and back in the sunlight.

Here some impressions of the waterfalls of Adventure Isle:


We decided that it was time to finally check in to our room and strolled back in the direction of the Hotel. We took a little detour through the shop near Snow-White's. I never actually was inside it! After eleven visits! It's so cute, the little bridge and the house of the dwarfs and the animals doing the laundry (by the way, does anyone know, if you can hire them?).

After a short glance inside the shop, we returned to the castle and we just happened to find ourselves in the dragon's lair, must have taken a wrong turn ;-) The cave and the dragon look fantastic. The movement of the dragon is so smooth you actually take a step back, when she (or he) turns her (or his) head towards you. We watched the dragon for quite a while before leaving the cave.

We walked back to the Disneyland Hotel and took the elevator to the Castle Club floor. The room was ready, our luggage already placed there and it was just great.
Our room was above the entrance, a little bit to the right of the clocktower (seen from the front), surveying Fantasia Gardens with the flowerbeds and fountains. We could see the top of Tower of Terror and the roof of World of Disney Store. We had a little balcony, actually even two. Another half one shared with the room next door was the second one.
There were different kinds of tea and coffee to choose and a bottle of Evian for each of us as a little welcome present.
Views of a room with a view:

After relaxing and refreshing we entered the park again. We still had some time before our table would be ready in the Blue Lagoon, so we explored the treehouse of the Robinson's. Always worth a visit. I like all the details and the views over the park. Even with many people up there, who had the same idea as we had, it was nice, because noone was pushing or shoving, everone took care to let you take a picture before walking by. It should always be like that! We crossed the water mill at the bottom, looked at the laid out table in the open kitchen, climbed every staircase, glanced inside the bedrooms. We would have even tried the hammocks if they would have been accessible.


Well, our stomachs told us, that it was time for our diner at Blue Lagoon, and so we headed in that direction. After only some minutes we were seated at a table at the waterside. Choosing what to eat, took a little longer :-)
Here is what it looked like:

And that's why I do like this restaurant so much, it looks so fantastic:


After the delicious meal we were prepared for Pirates of the Caribbean.

It only had a waiting time of 15 minutes by now and it weren't even 10 minutes when we arrived at the embarking area. The three of us got the front row in one of the boats and off we went into the Caribbean night.
Every Animatronic was working, swinging pirate, prisoners and sword fighters. The poor cat was still on the wooden crate (somebody rescue her!), the dog still had the key.
The only thing that was missing was the bottle of one of the pirates on the first bridge. I guess someone was thirsty. Or perhaps Jack Sparrow is checking the place already.
The end of the ride was a little bit bumpy, as so many ships were on and bumped into each other when slowing down before the final stop.
After the Caribbean it was time for Indiana Jones and done in five minutes (more or less).

There was nearly no queue at all!
A little bit dizzy we found our way around Colonel Hathi's Pizza Outpost to Frontierland and Big Thunder Mountain (my favourite ride) We avoided the regular queue (waiting time 90 minutes!) by using fastpass and BTM alone is worth the VIP-fastpass. I really missed that ride! I love the Western themeing and the whole ride itself.

After escaping the mine we walked towards Central Plaza. We found a free table in front of Victoria's Home-Style Restaurant to have a drink and wait for Fantillusion and Dreams.

It was nice to sit down after being on our feet the whole day. We were watching other people, children running around, experimenting with my friends new camera (Nikon coolpix something ) She tried some of the many functions. The one, where you can choose the colour, that it will take and the rest of the picture is black and white, impressed me, but we only did those pictures with a mug as a motive.
At last it was time to find a place to watch Fantillusion and Dreams. We found a good spot between the two flowerbeds in front of the castle. As it was quite warm, we sat on the floor for a while with other guests.
Sadly, as it is already mentioned on the forum, some visitors sat in the fenced in   flowerbeds. About fifteen minutes before Fantillusion would start, some CMs began to get them out of there. On one hand I totally agree with them being told to leave the flowerbeds, but on the other hand it meant, that they all squeezed in between the people that had already found themselves a good point of view (among others us). Well, when Fantillusion finally started, many of the other visitors pressed nearer to the road, while we stayed in our place and now had quite a good view, as the Central Plaza is a bit higher than the road that surrounds it. Fantillusion was great as ever. I really hope that they won't cancel it forever.
 
And then finally Dreams was about to begin. I was getting so excited – I felt like a little child, grown-up woman that I am.
It was just breath-taking. I can't decide what I liked most. I guess the whole of it would be the truth; when the magic spilled out of the star, the fountains, the colours, the music, the towers changing, the castle transforming into Notre Dame or the lanterns from Tangled floating upwards. All of it just awesome.




When Dreams was over everyone was impressed. We walked slowly with the other guests towards the exit. Some of the Cast members waved good-bye from Main Street station with Micky-gloves. What a nice idea.

We waved back, as we passed underneath the station and left the park. We took the elevator and minutes later entered our hotel room. Someone had removed the covers of the beds, folded back the bedspreads and placed some chocolate coins on them.
There were at least three pillows for each of us and you could have ordered some special ones. But the ones we had were quite sufficient and only a short time after arriving in the room, we were fast asleep.


So much about our first day - sorry it took so long, but my laptop literally takes AGES (in big fat letters) to upload pictures
I will add some more and the rest of the report as soon as possible

[hawian rollercoaster]

Great report cant wait for more. If you dont mind me asking how much is it for a night in the castle club.

[BlackPearl]

Great report cant wait for more.

Thanks.

 If you dont mind me asking how much is it for a night in the castle club.

We paid about 3.500 EUR for 3 nights - 4 days (high season), including Buffalo Bills and the park tickets for all four days for three adults. But  we got quite a good offer from our travel agency, If you are staying with three adults it's about 415 off-season and 540 peak season per person and day.

[Martin B]

Great start, more please!

[petals]

great report so far

[BlackPearl]

Thanks Martin B and petals  

[BlackPearl]

So here's the next day:

Second day, July 27th

Our first breakfast in the Castle Club lounge! What shall I say? Just fantastic! The breakfast room is overlooking Main Street station up to the castle.

The white chairs with dark pink plush, real cuttlery (no plastic), porcelain plates and cups with Tinkerbell motive, an orchid on every table added to the atmosphere of Victorian age with a hint of Disney magic.
   
The breakfast room itself was quite cosy, I think there were only about fifteen tables, so no crowds or long queues in front of the buffet. And the food was delicious. You couldn't eat everything but we tried ;-)
There were boiled eggs, fried eggs, bacon, sausages, potatos, fruit salad, fresh strawberries and pineapple, different rolls and toast, croissants, Mickey-shaped waffles, pancakes, cereals, cornflakes, juices, coffee, hot choclate, tea, cold milk, hot milk, salmon, ham, salami, cheese, doughnuts and other things that I just can't remember at the moment.

What's so special at Castle Club is, that every morning the Disney characters come to the tables. We saw Mickey and Minnie, Donald, Goofy, Rabbit, Eeyore, Pinocchio, Guepetto, Princess Tiana, Smee, Chip and Dale, Pluto, the fox from Pinocchio (can't remember the name) and the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland. They weren't all there on one day of course, but at least four to five different ones every morning. And they were so cute. They even came to our table evey time, although there was no child with us (after all we are aged 39, 39 and 42!!) and it was really funny.
     
We enjoyed breakfast and then got the car to drive to Marne-la-Vallée. I had promised my friends, that we would visit the shopping mall and the outlet village, although it meant one day less in the park.
It is only a five to ten minutes drive to the parking area in Marne-la-Vallée.
Even if you can't buy much in the outlet village (at least not with my budget) it is a nice place and the air conditioned shops in the shopping centre came as a welcoming chance to escape the heat and sultryness. In the outlet village they had installed a little Eiffeltower, some oversized kissing lips and a car out of green artficial grass. And on every bench there were placed two green pillows.
 
We looked in some of the expensive shops and after spending some hours in the shopping centre we decided to go back to the hotel for the tea time.
When we entered the lobby of the hotel the Disney characters had just arrvied at the end of the stairs. You have to admire the CMs who impersonate them. They are so in character. Goofy danced around with one of the guests, Donald was surrounded by children and Pluto was playing around the lobby.
 
We watched until they left and then climbed the stairs and walked to the elevator.
Back at Castle club we got a free table right in front of one of the windows and enjoyed tea and in my case coffee with a nice view on Main Street station.

All three of us liked the tea time. You can choose between various teas, coffee, soft drinks, sandwiches, fruits, little cakes, cookies and so on, and all are soooo delicious. (I guess I'll have to start saving up for another trip like that)
While we had our tea, it started to rain but at least it wasn't a thunder storm.
After tea we continued our shopping day with leaving the hotel in the direction of World of Disney Store (finally!)


The shop does look great. I took more pictures of the merchandise and the shop itself than buying something. It is really a nice place for shopping.
And although it was busy the staff was good-humoured. One of the CMs played with a remote controlled truck of Cars. She was quite good at it.
I found some Pins and the 20th anniversary book. Well, I couldn't resist that.
I also like the cups with Grumpy and Tigger, but I only took some pictures of them, as my kitchen is quite small and already overfilled.

 
While waiting for my friends, I walked along the shelfs and displays watching other customers. I saw three grown men searching excited through the dolls of the Disney princesses. This special ones which show the princesses as little girls (quite cute). I'm glad, that there are other ,,grown-ups" who are also Disney-mad and not only children.
As it was starting to rain again, we stayed a little longer in the shop than planned.
Finally when the rain had nearly stopped, we brought our purchases back in our hotel room. After visiting the hotel shop as well we got ready for diner at Inventions.
The restaurant is nicely decorated with old devices (like old cameras and telephones) and sketches of old machines and vehicles. And once again we had the pleasure to meet Disney characters. At the table next to us sat a man, with whom the characters interacted as with an old friend. I'm pretty sure they knew him. Perhaps he is a CM as well, normally working there. It was fun to watch them, teasing and hugging him :-)
Well, we enjoyed our diner. The buffet was really great and you got many different things to choose.
 
After diner we said nearly at the same time: "What about Dreams again?"
Laughing as we had the same thought, we entered the park and found quite a good place to watch, behind the fence of the flowerbed on the right side of the castle. It was raining again and so we opend our umbrellas and waited patiently for Dreams. Of course we closed the umbrellas when the show was about to start. After all the rain stopped more or less at the second when Dreams began. Nice timing :-)

It was as good as the day before. You just don't want to leave the park afterwards.

[lynny]

hi love your report esp as its the castle club:-)

can i ask you though as i'm thinking of booking inventions for me and my 11yr old in feb and god she is fussy is it ok for children?? is there pasta or rice or chips and plenty of bread.lol
thanks

[BlackPearl]

hi love your report esp as its the castle club:-)

Thank you!

can i ask you though as i'm thinking of booking inventions for me and my 11yr old in feb and god she is fussy is it ok for children?? is there pasta or rice or chips and plenty of bread.lol
thanks

Yeah, there was lasagne, fries, rolls/bread already in little baskets on every table, dolphin-shaped fish fingers and pizza,  I'm pretty sure she will find something and after all Mickey and Co will be there too!

[BlackPearl]

Here is day number 3
July 28th

Woke up early and stepped out onto the balcony. It was an unusual sight, Fantasia Gardens without visitors. Only a gardener was watering flowers. Everthing was so peaceful and quiet. I just couldn't bring myself to dressing up already and going down to take a picture. I enjoyed standing on the balcony and admired the view for a little while.

After another delicious breakfast we left the hotel and walked through Fantasia gardens towards the Studios.

 We were a little late and the park was already open. Therefore the queue for Crush's was already 70 minutes! As I wouldn't ride with this coaster, my two friends queued up for Crush's, while I did a little Studio Tour, taking lots of pictures. I strolled through the shops and so on.
 


Isn't she beautiful?


After about an hour I decided to watch the turtle shells go by and saw, that they were doing a security check by letting them drive without passengers. I watched about 10 empty ones before the first with passengers came in sight. But no sooner than it had disappeared, the whole ride stopped again. I fear the poor passengers were now stuck somewhere inside the coaster. I tried to get my friends on the mobile phone. They were already in the building but there must have been more than one breakdown that morning. We agreed, that they would send me a message on the mobile as soon as they would be out of the ride. It was only about ten minutes later, when they closed the ride completely. I met my friends near Cars. They were frustrated because they waited so long and then still couldn't do Crush's. We decided to watch Cinemagique, which cheered them up again. It's such a great movie and show.  
After Cinemagique we managed to reach the Stunt show ,,Moteur... Action" just in time when they began to let in the visitors. The show was good, but I think they could do with a little more action with Lightning McQueen. Herby was a little bit more fun, to be honest.
My friends wanted to ride Rock'n Roller Coaster next. I found a free bench and got myself a nice cold Coke while waiting. As they could use Fastpass it was less than ten minutes until they returned.
Still a bit down because of Crush's breakdown, we decided to leave the studios and have our last tea time in the hotel. We wanted to watch the parade in the park afterwards. On our way back to the hotel, we had a look at the pavement in Fantasia gardens with the different designs of the years. I think it's a nice idea, but just a little bit expensive.
After a good cup of tea my friends spirits were finally restored and we could continue with visiting Disneyland park. We simply entered and found a good spot for watching the parade just in front of the station. We sat down and waited, watching the people pass by. On the other side of the street where two little girls with fairy wings running excited around. It was fun to watch them.
Two CMs with white Mickey-gloves, directed the traffic. One of them gave us the advice to
take up as much space as possible on the pavement, because otherwise many people would just squeeze in between us and we wouldn't be able to see a thing.
I would not have had a problem with sitting there even through the parade, but I finally stood up, because I feared for my fingers to be trampled on. Some people just don't care about anything.
Well we nonetheless kept our good mood and finally the parade was on. It took some time until the fairy godmothers and the first float reached Main Street station.
The movement of the fairy godmothers really looks amazing. I'm still not sure, how they do it. With segways perhaps? But then how do they steer? It must be difficult to move like that, and they are pretty fast. The new coaches of  Snow-White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty looked good, too. It was nice to see some new floats between the old ones.


(Peter Pan was looking like that because someone pulled faces at him.)


After the parade we waited for a moment to let the masses of people get away before we walked through one of the passages towards Discoveryland to do Buzz's again. This time we were really glad to have fastpasses, because the regular waiting queue was really long. Buzz was still behind his curtain but then again no breakdowns on the ride itself.


This evening we had diner at Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. We made it just in time to see the pre-show, a band playing Western music with Goofy entertaining the audience.

I just like the Western show with the riders, buffalos and the stage-coach hold-up.

After the show we stayed a little while at Billy Bob's and listened to the live music. We managed to visit the shops in Disney Village just before midnight and then did a real late night shopping at World of Disney store. They were open until 1 o'clock!
When we returned to the hotel, it was somehow strange. We were the only guests in Fantasia gardens. The entrance of the park looks fantastic at night. Pretty tired but happy we reached our room.

[norhel]

Nice report :-)

[BlackPearl]

Day four, July 29th - last day

Sadly our last day in Disneyland dawned. We got up early because we still had to pack and we wanted to do it before breakfast.
While packing we realized that we were missing two jackets. We knew we had them the day we arrived, but as it was so hot every day, we didn't miss them before.
We asked at the reception and one of the receptionists immediately phoned the lost and found of the hotel. He was pretty sure that his collegue had only forgotten to place them in our room. He was very helpful (I must admit, I forgot his name, shame on me) and in less than 5 minutes he had found our jackets. Relieved we finished packing and setteled down for breakfast. We were really lucky this morning as Micky and Minnie visited breakfast and Eeyore and Pinoccio followed shortly after them. Oh, I will sooo miss all of this!
The checkout was easy. You leave your luggage in your room and it will be taken to the luggage storage in the lobby.
When we gave back our room-key after breakfast we got another special one, so we could still use the elevator on our last day.  
I felt happy when we entered the Disneyland park again, but at the same time a little bit sad, because it was our last day.
We started with Discoveryland.





Star Tours was our first ride this day. Even if you can see it's age it still is one of my favourite rides.
We continued with Fantasyland and Adventureland. Sadly Pirates was closed, some technical problem  :cry:  
We made our round to Frontierland and Big Thunder mountain.
The little waterfall at the end of the first ascent worked perfectly. It was the first time I got really wet on BTM :-D Well, I didn't mind. Thanks to VIP fastpass we did the ride three times in a row and I felt really dizzy after that. I never rode it so often in such a short time. Even my friend, who does every coaster she sees, got dizzy and agreed to have a break.

We had a late lunch at Agrabah Cafe. The food was okay but the place was untidy, even though there weren't many other guests. Glasses were dirty and there was dirt on the floor, and even some of the plates weren't very clean. Well, as I mentioned, the food was good as ever so we managed to ignore the uncleanliness somehow.

We decided to drop Phantom Manor (so sad), the waiting time was just too long, and watch Tarzan instead, as we missed it the previous years and it's a great show.
I wish they would do something like the Lion King show in Videopolis again, or Mulan.
I can remember that they once showed parts of Hunchback and Beauty and the Beast there (or some kind of medley of scenes from various movies). The scenery of Lion King is still there, so I hope they will use it again (I keep my fingers crossed!).

(it is worth to look upwards sometimes :-) )
One last time we strolled through the shops in Main Street. I don't know why, but I always think of Main Street USA when I smell candy floss, popcorn and caramel :-)




(the shop-windows of the hotel-shop)
Then it was time to get our luggage and the car and drive home. We delayed our departure as long as possible, but we had to work the next day, so finally we had to leave.

So that much of our four days at Disneyland. We had a great time and will definitively come back :-)

[never2old]

What a wonderful report, thank you so much!!

And I love your pictures, they're excellent!! Thank you for sharing your trip

I too want to go back...

[BlackPearl]

What a wonderful report, thank you so much!!

And I love your pictures, they're excellent!! Thank you for sharing your trip

I too want to go back...

Thank you.
I can't wait to go back!