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[trickymickey]

Hi

Very first post so please go easy on me if this post doesnt follow a certain format or doesnt give the correct info!

Found this forum after looking up some Disney info after my visit.

Had 3 days at the park staying at New York hotel.

Hotel...... Was ok, nothing special, very basic buffet breakfast and air con not working. Though the mini bars sensor was working perfectly as I found out on check out with a bill of 4.20 euro for a can of Fanta lol!

Suppose the biggest perk of the hotel was the close proximity to the park.

DLP - first visit ever, generally liked it, but heres my thoughts......

Not many characters just randomly walking around, would have been good to high five Goofy as we walked down Main Street, instead the characters were heavily guarded in small areas where they seemed to be there to try and extract more money from you by buying the photos they took.

We just did a Disney cruise and the characters were far more accessible and frequently on view.

My other half complained about the ladies toilets - always dirty with wet floors, not very Disney.

Queues, over an hour on certain rides, didnt really expect this on a damp October weekend, though we think we might have hit French half term.

Got sick of the announcements in 2 or more languages, the stunt show was particularly bad, it took any momentum away from the show due to the lag caused by the announcements.

Should everything be in French? I always understood the park was for the whole of Europe and it just happened to be in France, but it seemed that everything from signage and staff and food was geared towards a French audience??

Food - well, typical over priced theme park rubbish is how we found it. We tried to book an on park restaurant for the first evening (Walts) only to be told that all the parks restaurants were full and our only option was fast food! So we headed back to our hotel and they got us in.

We liked the Disney attention to detail and the rides were good as expected, though I did think there would be more rides on the parks, the only thing that made up for the lack of rides was the length of the ride once you were on it, you did feel like you had a nice long go and not a 30 seconds on and off type ride as you do at other theme parks.

Fast pass, well for Big Thunder Mountain we handed over our Fast Passes only to be told it would still be at least 30 mins before we got on the ride!!

There seemed to be a lack of shows, my other half has been before and seen a Lion King show and a Mickey/Minnie on Ice style show - we asked and we were told the lack of shows was because our visit was "between seasons"?!

Couldnt work out why some rides had the fast pass facility closed all day - such as the tortise shell coaster in Studios, sorry forgot its name, (krushens?) probably due to the fact we didnt want to wait 80 mins so never got on it!

Halloween theming was good on Main St, again great Disney attention to detail.

Armageddon closed the whole time, though since researching Disney since we came back Ive read somewhere that due to cost cutting its not open daily anymore?


I REALLY wanted to enjoy DLP, but came away with mixed feelings, but at least that means I should go back again and see if it makes my mind up one way or the other!

Thanks for reading!

Tricky

[ilovedisneylandparis]

Sorry you didn't have the best time on your trip I find that the higher the price the better the food, so if you weren't happy with the typical burgers 'n' chips kind of meals, it might definitely be worth booking into Walt's or Blue Lagoon next time and see what you think of those. I reckon they have a lot of fast food-type meals because most people want to get in and out quickly to make the most of their time in the parks, but if you do have a bit more time to spare, I would certainly recommend the table service restaurants

As for the languages...I suppose the park is supposed to be for everyone and not just for France - I only speak basic French but I don't find it difficult to understand anything within the parks or the shows. I might be biased though, I've been going to DLP since I was little so I find that I get quite nostalgic about it and now love my Disney in French, I think I would be sad if it was all in English  :oops:

I hope you enjoy your next trip a lot more  :ears:

[SVioletS]

Well I was there from 17th to 21st October, and i can garantee you that the park only got packed during the weekend. From wednesday untill Friday it was really nice and pleasant! But during the weekend wow, it was too much!
As for rides, we did most of them with less than 20 min wait, but the most "famous" ones we did only during week days or during EMH.
Food wise, we only booked Walts in advance, all others we booked when we arrived on wednesday. during the day we had counter service food (aka fast food). Oh and yes, Walts was fully booked, as we tried to change our reservation for a later time and it was not possible!
I really don't feel that the park is directed to a french audience. Quite oposite, there's a lot of foreigners working there, and most of the CM's speak at least 3 languages: english/french/mother language.
I've never been to HNY, but Sequoia Lodge was quite nice! We even got upgraded! The breakfast could be a little better - it didn't inclued scrambled eggs...
The toilets, yes... wet and smelly, specially those in Fantasyland. It was a bad surprise. Not up to Disney standard i believe.
Finally, characters... We had a lot of "random" encounters, and we got a lot of autographs! When they take the pics, i didn't feel they were trying to get more money from us, only because we are allowed to take our own photos and the Disney photographer even took some for us with our cameras. And you're not obliged to buy the pictures they take! It would be nice to see more characters just hanging around, but they would just be overwhelmed by all the people. So i can understand why everything is so organized!

This was my 3rd trip (1st was a day trip in 2000; 2nd was a 5 day trip in 2010). In the last visits i never planned, and all went well, but this time i planned everything (restaurants for lunch / dinner; which rides we should do early morning, and which we could do later; checked which were open / closed for refurbishment; where we could meet characters, etc) and it helped a lot!

I hope you go back and have a better time!

[never2old]

Sorry your first visit wasn't quite that good!!

Regarding the crowds, unfortunately most weekends are quite busy - lot of people living close to the parks with annual passes... Only when the weather is very wet and/or very cold can you get a quiet weekend!

The fast food is mostly terrible, and over priced... We avoid it everytime we can. We always book a table service restaurant (as early as possible because they do get fully booked ) or a buffet (Agrabah Cafe is our favourite) If you have to go for fast food, we like Hakuna Matata (but it's not always open) or Mr Toad's Hall (hmm fish and chips!!!) Otherwise it's also a good idea to go to the Disney Village, it's (slightly) quieter than the parks at lunchtime, and you can usually find somewhere good to eat.

Very few rides actually have fast pass (Crush Coaster, the one with the turtle shell, has no fastpass at all), and if the parks are busy even with a FP you end up waiting quite some time (I'm surprised that it was still 30 minutes for BTM with a FP, though, how long was the normal queue? :shock:)

And as for shows, there is a big lack of them.... The Lion King show was cancelled a couple of years ago, and this year there will be no Mickey's Wonderland show (the show on ice). I guess all the budget is being spent on Dreams! (Did you get to see Dreams??)  They do have a few more little shows over Halloween and Christmas, but now most of the year all you get are the parades (and now Dreams)

I hope that if you do go again you have a better experience!

[DutchBrit]

We left on Friday the 19th and crowds mid week were very managable - as the others said, weekends are always pretty busy.

But even with it being "low season", I was quite surprised at how few of the resturants were open. Toad Hall seemed to be closed at all times, as were most of the take-aways in the Studio park. That was a particular annoyance, especially when I staggered off Crush's Coaster in dire need of a cup of tea and then had to queue for more than 10 minutes to get one!

In the main park everything seemed to be shutting at 5-ish, so indeed options were very limited. We ate at the Plaza Gardens twice: once with a reservation I'd made from the hotel the night before and once when we watched the parade right outside it and then ran like hell to get there. We were one of only 3 families that got into the "no reservations" queue before they shut it: the rest of the evening they were booked solid. But at least there you felt like you were getting something sensible to eat, and it only costs a bit more than the "fast food" options.

I agree about the toliets! None of them was anything to boast of, but the ones in Frontierland on our first evening at about 6 were simply disgusting. Half of them blocked and overflowing, and the smell was disgraceful. In fact I don't think I can remember going into worse, and that's pretty dreadful for a company like Disney.

I also thought there were less 'spontaneous' meetings with the characters compared to when we were there a couple of years ago. Then we bumped into quite a few, this time it only happened once at the quiet spot in Discoveryland as you go into Fantasyland. But we did get Goofy, Pluto and Chip and Dale, so that was quite nice.

I think they manage the language quite well. I think it's unrealistic to expect that you'd ever be able to build a park in France that didn't mean a fair bit of French about. You have to cater for the home audience! My french is terrible, but I never felt it was a real problem. But then, I do live outside the UK all the time, so I'm more used to it, perhaps.

[Eveline]

We stayed at Hotel New York between 15 - 20 Oct & were absolutely delighted with it. The breakfast buffets were fantastic - especially the 'famous' fresh orange juice that everyone raves about!

We never had to use fast passes the whole week as the queues were so short and we took advantage of Early Magic Hours for anything that may have been too busy later.

My daughter managed to get over 30 character autographs & photos without much effort - had great fun with them all, especially the baddies around the castle all day.

Ladies toilets were pretty horrible - first time we have found this and very disappointing.

Sorry you were disappointed this time - hopefully you saw the very magical 'Dreams' at the end of the night. Don't think I could have been disappointed in anything while watching that!

[lynny]

I have to say i agree with a lot said here and a lot i dont......this is the 1st year i've missed in 9 yrs andi've always stayed in the New york(standard and empire state club)and i think the breakfasts are fab,so much choice and a great hot selection.
The parks are always busy at weekends and as i work in a school i always have to go when it's the school holidays(very busy) but you know what i've always still got on loads of rides and my daughter has always met loads of characters.I think it all comes down to a bit of planning and experience.Ithink when you've been a few times and you get to know the layout of the parks etc and the busy rides you can time it right and get done all you want to do.

As for restaurants we always book for our evening meals before we go,just to make sure and during the day we just eat at the fast food places as its only a snack.

I have found he toilets not to bad on previous trips but it sounds like it's gone a bit down hill.On previous trips i recall there being someone in or around cleaning them often.Sad to hear the standard is dropping :cry:

The organised character meets are great i think and i never felt like you had to buy the pics as they always allow you to take your own.I do however wish there where more random characters on standard days like they have on the halloween parties as thats when my daughter has met a lot like peter pan,alice and the mad hatter etc be nice if they were around daily

oh well roll on feb hotel new york and hopefully lots of characters

btw hope you do a more detailed report and we can see some of your pictures

[trickymickey]

Thanks for all your responses, I'll try and pick up on them in this post.

Geekyjo - yes fast food isn't our food of choice but we were told that not a single non fast food restaurant had availability that night - so lesson learnt - book in advance!

SvioletS - I just think certain things should be left in their original native language like the Indiana Jones ride and not be called temple du peril etc and yes I standby my comment that the stunt show was far too drawn out with the different languages.  Re the characters we just came off a Disney cruise and I guess we were so used to lots of direct character access that it all seemed a bit contrived on the park.

Never2old - when we had a 30 min fast pass wait the regular entry was showing at 70 mins.  Yes saw dreams on both nights but would still have preferred some daytime shows like lion king - but maybe you can't have everything! Re the crowds, you are right everytime we entered the park the vast majority of people seemed to have annual passes, I'm sure Disney likes the revenue but I wonder how much better the park experience would be for everyone else if year passes didn't exist and this stopped people using DLP like their local park?!

DutchBrit the toilets were vile, well so my other half says and she's not normally one to complain. The gents urinals were not looking their best, bit like what you would expect from a busy pub around closing time. However the ladies cubicles were revolting with all manner of unflushed things floating in them (glad I'm a bloke lol) - I mean c'mon Disney it's not rocket science, if you have a theme park on a weekend running fairly full then you need an attendant in each toilet block all day. It's a poor show to think Disney can get so much right like attention to detail on the rides, perfect costumes and parades and then let itself down with the loo's.

Eveline yes the baddies round the castle were funny and very accessible and yes dreams was spectacular.

Lynne, maybe you are right and it comes down to better planning, overall we did enjoy it but compared to the Disney cruise which was most magical the park seemed lacking somewhat

Phew! Think I've covered everything!

[trickymickey]

Oh, and I forget the biggest issue of all!.....

No tonic water in the mini bar, neither could we find any in the stores/restaurants in the village. Strange thing is, the mini bar stocks gin, but no tonic, when I enquired at check out the guy said in France gin isnt drunk with tonic!

Another lesson learnt, pack my own tonic next time!


And finally lol......

On a 2 or 3 night stay we dont tend to get our room serviced we just leave the Do Not Disturb on and usually find there are more than enough towels and toiletries to service our needs. We do this so we dont have to lock away our wallets, ipads, passports etc (though I know a responsible traveller always should regardless) as no one will be entering our room.

Well.... we returned to the room after our day out to find that the DND sign was missing off the front of the door, it had been put back in the room and the room had been made.

Now, Im not sure which part of DND the maid didnt understand but the room should not have been entered against our wishes!

[AislingM]

Any chance you could do a report on your Disney Cruise??  Would love to hear about it, Sorry to hear you had such a negative experience although I definitely agree about the bathrooms!

[trickymickey]

Hi AislingM

It would probably take ages to write a cruise review, especially if trying to explain it to non cruisers, so can I suggest a great site called Cruise Critic and its a MUST stop place before ever choosing a Disney cruise, it will give you the low down on the ship, the itinerary, the best cabins, the best shows and loads of hints and tips and tricks to get the most out of your cruise.

Here is the link to the Disney cruise forum

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=167

And here is the link to Disney cruise reviews

http://www.cruisecritic.co.uk/memberrev ... .cfm?sr=uk

Of course if you have any specific questions then I'd be more than happy to answer and if you ever think of taking the plunge then message me and I will help all I can.

Rich

[AislingM]

Your a star, thank you for that!