Latest DLP Trip - Highs and Lows

[stormflm595]

Hi all!

Just back on Friday night from my latest DLP trips and instead of doing a trip report (as I'm rubbish at them and stop midway as you all know ) I thought I would do a highs and lows post and a round up of my thoughts.

Highs

Food

The food this trip was wayyyy beyond my expectations! Usually I would rate the food in DLP as 'okay' but this trip it was all absolutely delicious!

California Grill is beyond a doubt the best table service meal I have ever had - I went for the Roast Pork Tenderloin with the Bean and Chorizo stew and then the Dark Chocolate Fondant with fresh raspberries, meringue and pastry croutons. It was so delicious that we passed our compliments to the chefs. The service was exceptional and our waiter attentive and hillarious! We even had a window view where we watched Illuminations during dessert! Very pricey but I will definitely be going back and 100% recommend it.

My favourite counter service was Fuente del Oro Restaurante - lovely fresh chicken fajitas and mexican rice.

Shout out as well to Vapiano in the Disney Village - what a great concept! We ate there 3 times in the end as the food was really good and you get HUGE portions so really filled our bellies!

Starlit Princess Waltz

What a beautiful show! As a huge princess fan, this really appealed to me and I was not let down. The choreography was very good and I loved the new designs of the princess dresses.

Stars on Parade

Very catchy music to a very colourful and fun parade. Really really enjoyed it, I thought this was on par with Magic on Parade even though there were less floats. Maleficent was fantastic! I noticed one or two things not working but it wasn't enough to ruin it - you wouldn't really notice unless you were looking our for any faults.

Hyperspace Mountain and Star Tours

Controversial I know but WOW WOW WOW! Star Tours was phenomenal! Hyperspace was incredible - it's still that classic launch ride but as a huge Star Wars fan I loved the new skin and story. I loved Mission 2 (didn't ride it as Mission 1) but I think this might be my favourite version to date.

That Big Thunder Mountain splashdown!

YESSSS IT WORKS AGAIN! Definitely got a faceful of water on one of our rides

Pirates of the Caribbean

It almost feels like a brand new ride...absolutely loved this and it's now my possible favourite ride over BTM Particular favourite moments was the visual effect on the ramp up of Davy Jones and/or Blackbeard and Red Head turning to piracy

Newport Bay Club

What a beautiful hotel - I have always admired it across Lake Disney on the way to the parks and back so this was the first time staying in it. It did not disappoint. All of the cast members were so lovely, the theming was spot on, the hotel itself clean and fresh. We particularly enjoyed and made use of the Captains Quarters bar every evening for a beer and a wine.

Lows

Crowds

Strangely, the past 2 times that I have been this time of year the parks have been relatively quiet. This time, it was as though the whole of Spain was there Have they changed the dates of their Summer holidays this year or has the parks just been extra busy due to the Anniversary?

Whatever it was, queues were insane - Pirates got to almost an hour sometimes with Big Thunder reaching 120 minutes! We still did most of what we wanted to do but at a much slower pace.

Character Meet and Greets

That being said, meeting characters was not feasable this trip. I was desperate to meet Donald and a princess I did manage to meet Goofy as his queue was suddenly short for a bit and I jumped in but no chance with any others. Even following ED92 on Twitter, I seemed to be in a different park or in Paris when unscheduled meets happened with the princesses and villains!

Illuminations

It's no Dreams, is it?

Eurostar - Paris side

We found the Eurostar so relaxing on the way there. Quite a different story on the way back. The train carriages got all mixed up - we were in carriage 1 which actually turned out to be carriage 18 even though we were told to stay put, then when we started moving we got told it was carriage 1 again. Then someone else came and told us this was carriage 18 AGAIN but that we could stay put. Phew! Not the staffs fault really but was not ideal. At least we got to stay put and in the end it turned out well for us as we ended up being the first of the train at St Pancras and through security and customs in 2 minutes!

Well...that's it! Overall I had a great trip! Now off to do some Walt Disney World planning!

[Mushu_Stitch]

Hi, we got back on Friday as well and definitely agree with most of your points. We stayed at the Newport Bay Club too and were beyond impressed with the place. It was amazing!

Have to say I laughed at your comment about the crowds as we spent a lot of time muttering about how rude the Spanish were and how you could think you weren't in France at all with the amount of them everywhere. They really were terrible for queue jumping as they always seemed to send one person to start queuing and then a huuuge family mob would join them when they were close to the front. It was really frustrating. It was the first time we went at this time of year and expected it to be fairly quiet but after seeing all the crowds we looked it up and apparently Spain don't return to school until the 19th (although it seems they go back this late most years so maybe the anniversary contributed a lot too). Even so, we planned our time well and still got loads done.

The issue with the train being back to front was a right pain for us. We had picked our seats online so we had a group of 4 around a table but instead got split up with no table and were all facing backwards which was far from ideal as 2 of the group get bad motion sickness while travelling backwards on the train so felt like a long journey home.

All in all though, we had a brilliant time and the small niggles didn't ruin it at all. The highs definitely far surpassed the lows for us 

[stormflm595]

Hi, we got back on Friday as well and definitely agree with most of your points. We stayed at the Newport Bay Club too and were beyond impressed with the place. It was amazing!

Have to say I laughed at your comment about the crowds as we spent a lot of time muttering about how rude the Spanish were and how you could think you weren't in France at all with the amount of them everywhere. They really were terrible for queue jumping as they always seemed to send one person to start queuing and then a huuuge family mob would join them when they were close to the front. It was really frustrating. It was the first time we went at this time of year and expected it to be fairly quiet but after seeing all the crowds we looked it up and apparently Spain don't return to school until the 19th (although it seems they go back this late most years so maybe the anniversary contributed a lot too). Even so, we planned our time well and still got loads done.

The issue with the train being back to front was a right pain for us. We had picked our seats online so we had a group of 4 around a table but instead got split up with no table and were all facing backwards which was far from ideal as 2 of the group get bad motion sickness while travelling backwards on the train so felt like a long journey home.

All in all though, we had a brilliant time and the small niggles didn't ruin it at all. The highs definitely far surpassed the lows for us 

100% agree Mushu_Stitch! I get quite bad sickness too so I was really relieved when we didn't have to move in the end...what a nightmare though!

How strange that we stayed in the same hotel and was on the same Eurostar home as well!

Glad to hear you had a great time as well! I loved it as always, even with the small niggles of annoyance like you mentioned!

[bluelady]

Very pleased to hear about California Grill! We've just booked it for our tenth wedding anniversary in November (Walt's is closed), but have reservations about the price. Which menu did you order from? Can I ask how much you paid for drinks there?

[Zee79]

We went in the 20th anniversary year and really complained about the Spanish. They were horrendous! I'm sorry if it upsets some but those we encountered were terrible, pushing children and queuing! OMG!.
We then had a run in whilst staying in the Cheyenne one December. A group of them took over the kids TV area pushing other children out of the way, they nearly took my daughter out in the restaurant itself pushing to get food (a cast member really shouted at them) then whilst we were eating, now bear in mind there were 10 of us, a family got their children to sit on our table with us! So they could eat in peace! This was what we were told when we confronted them! I love going to Spain and usually love everything Spanish but in dlp unfortunately I've had very bad experience with them and it was quite a shock. I'm still going back to Spain though 😊

Good to hear about vapiano, we were thinking about trying there when we go in a few months.

Can't wait to try out the refurbished rides 😁

[seraphelle]

Illuminations

It's no Dreams, is it?

This made me laugh a lot. Exactly what I said 

[stormflm595]

Very pleased to hear about California Grill! We've just booked it for our tenth wedding anniversary in November (Walt's is closed), but have reservations about the price. Which menu did you order from? Can I ask how much you paid for drinks there?

Sorry that this took an age to answer! The only set menu available last week was the Tinkerbell menu which if I remember correctly, was 89 euros for a starter, main and dessert and then 115 if you wanted to add wine to it (not sure if that was a bottle or a glass). If you have been looking at the menu on the DLP Guide, this one is out of date which I realised there.

You can also order of the full Starter, A La Carte (main) and Dessert menus and just get a main if you wanted to. As I wasn't keen on the starters, I just ordered from the A La Carte and dessert menu. My partner just ordered from the A La Carte. He had 2 beers and I had a sprite. I can't remember the exact prices though, sorry but there was a lot of choice so you could do as expensive as you wanted. Our bill came to 152 euros total before we tipped our waiter.

Yes it was really pricey BUT it was absolutely fantastic - the best food I have ever had at Disneyland Paris! I also asked for a table at the window so we could see the castle when I made the reservation which we had which made the meal even more special - watching the fireworks from the restaurant whilst eating dessert was something truly special.

I would 100% recommend it for a special occasion (even though ours was more a 'we're at disney!' celebration ) and even if it wasn't, i would still recommend to do at least once.

[stormflm595]

We went in the 20th anniversary year and really complained about the Spanish. They were horrendous! I'm sorry if it upsets some but those we encountered were terrible, pushing children and queuing! OMG!.
We then had a run in whilst staying in the Cheyenne one December. A group of them took over the kids TV area pushing other children out of the way, they nearly took my daughter out in the restaurant itself pushing to get food (a cast member really shouted at them) then whilst we were eating, now bear in mind there were 10 of us, a family got their children to sit on our table with us! So they could eat in peace! This was what we were told when we confronted them! I love going to Spain and usually love everything Spanish but in dlp unfortunately I've had very bad experience with them and it was quite a shock. I'm still going back to Spain though 😊

Good to hear about vapiano, we were thinking about trying there when we go in a few months.

Can't wait to try out the refurbished rides 😁

Oh I completely understand! We did hear a lot of Brits waiting for the Eurostar complaining - we personally didn't come across any rude individuals but we did experience queue jumping and people shoving past you as we were walking along

Yes Vapiano was great and the concept was so much better than your standard table service

[stormflm595]

This made me laugh a lot. Exactly what I said 

  It's a very good trailer for some of the newer films though!