A Magical Christmas day (note not actually on christmas day)

[Patrick]

Well here I am back and skiving off college to be asleep since I am so tired .  What can I say apart from oh it was nice to experience some of the Christmas things that happen.  On Saturday 10th December for all that did not know I went to Disneyland Resort Paris and really really loved the place again .
So here is a smallish trip report for me :wink: .

Got up at 2am, travelled about 4 hours to Liverpool Airport, got there at about 6:30am, had to sit around for a while then after all the anticipation it was time to get my passpor checked and find myself any seat on easyjet, have to say it was nice and nice to see the guy flying the plane had a sense of humour, like well we will be going over the Channel, of course that is unless I lose my way then I may end up who knows where.  We amazingly arrived at Charles De Gaulle about 5 minutes early which I found nice to yep I will definately travel Easyjet again.  After coming through the passport control and coming out the exit I found the stand for the VEA to Disneyland Resort Paris.  Naturallyu me being me had to help some people out who were lost since they wanted to get to the Selected Hotels of the Kyriad in Disneyland Resort Paris, so told them what to do, think they were releaved someone knew what they were talking about.  The VEA arrived although what can I say grumpy driver, wow he was so bored you could not see any excitment in anything on his face , oh well not to worry, although he did get to the resort about 15 minutes late which made me late for my little meet up with Jorien, stupid busses, of course during all this time my mobile was being swamped with text's from Jorien and anothr DLRP fan wanting to meet up already, wow I'm popular :lol: .  Got there about 11:15am, departed at the Newport Bay since I was not willing to wait till the coach station, walked into the hotel and wow what can I say I had never been in this hotel before and it hit me, it looked fantastic, now I've decided next time I am in a Disney Hotel it's going to be that one.  Came out the other side and was amazed I was at Lake Disney, just so magical so walked round and then the Village hit wow now it looks empty the old look was fine.  Also I found something odd, some guys were measuring something on the metal panels on the Disney Store :? .  
Got to the park, waited around for Disney fan to show, got ticket of course at discounted rate thanks to someones annual pass , walked in and then got tickets for Space Mountain Mission2 fastpass, the park was mad a 85 minute wait for Space Mountain, an hour wait for Pirates of the Caribbeanj, a couple of hours of waiting for It's a small world and god knows what else, so after we got fastpassm tickets we met with another Disney fan, typically a belgian one and then me and her walked around for a lot of the day, went to Phantom Manor waited in the 45 minute queue which seemed to go rather fast and then got in our doom buggie got round to the ballroom sene, then stop, ghost and ghouls have interupted out ride, but then that stopped and the must disappeared, the effects in the ballroom scene stopped working where the dancers looked like they were ghosts, but instead maintainence lights came on, the speel of french and english, dutch and german both over each other started playing saying due to technical difficulties the ride had ceased operation, but that we should stay seated.  So now we were now stuck, all we could hear was the squeeking of the animatronics dancing, we were stuck for about 15 minutes, then a cast member came along saw us taking photos, said bonjour and walked past :lol: .  Finally after 15 minutes of seeing the animatronics twirling to no music, the music appeared and the ride started again.  Everything from that point on worked fine, we then came out and talked with a pretty fun phantom manor cast member and then went to last chance for lunch.  After we headed over to Belle's Christmas Village and met with Jorien, nice meeting you again and thanks for the Sinta Klaase present .  Well we then walked back to Discoveryland and went on Space Mountain 2 times in a row wow it gets better every time .  Of course it being me something had to go wrong, and it did in the form of my glove falling out my hand on the way up the fastpass queue, so goodbye to my newly bought 2 weeks earlietr gloves :lol: .  Afterwards walked through the traffic jam of a walkway at the end of Discoveryland and headed for Main Street, by this time it was 3:30pm, time to go and stand at Town Square exaqctly where I stood for the Villains Parade in October 2004 and again got a fantastic view, if not somewhat annoying due to me standing there singing along to Chante C'est Noel and next to me a woman stood amazed that I knew EVERY word to the song, her facal expressions were just priceless, best part typically she was British lol.  After the absolutely wonderful parade that I think has to be my favourite daytime parade at the moment I said goodbye to the Dutch and Belgian DLRP fans and ran literally ran through liberty arcade, bumping into many french who were not happy I did that, oh well what a shame and then got ouit of the arcade and hjad to run on the outside of central plaza since the plaza was just too full the parade had just hit it by the time it had finished on town square, I was running back to belle's christmas village to see Belle's musical medley and to my amazement very few people were there, it was so strange since the park was way too full and I got a fantastic view for the show, will upload my video soon.  I just loved everything and it being in french just added to the magic absolutely fantastic added detail to the season, it's things like that as to why I return and return to the resort .  Well after it was about 4:45pm and I went for another walk about alone and really just love the atmosphere in Fantasyland, went into the castle wanted to go into the christmas shop got there and wow all I can say is no shopping was done in there.  It was way too busy there too.  So outside the castle took a couple of photos, walked round the outside near the royal castle stage I had forgotten absolutelyu how lovely the castle was since August and then looked at park map yay Beast is signing autographs so went and queued got picture though camera was on a weird setting and it came out with me and the beast in complete blackness and only showing the window in the background which was lit .  Oh well there was my chance and I missed it again to get a decent picture , maybe next christmas.  It was now about 5:15pm and I had to be out the park by 6pm to catch the eurostar so shopping it was.  Went to Main Street and really loved the atmosphere during Christmas there and went to Emporium, my favourite shop and after travelling through the shop which seemed to take forever in this new layout along with the wonderful children all over who you could not avoid to go anywhere fast, so found some gloves to replace the ones that I had to lost earlier and bought a Disneyland Resort Paris T-shirt, hardly the weather for one, but who cares it's a nice t-shirt as well as finding something that suits me very well, a GRUMPY hoodie, this was a great find since I am associated with always being Grumpy in college and so that was another item to add to my collection haha.  Well by the time I had got through the everlasting queue to the checkout I walked out, had one last look around Town Square and decided it was time to leave, on leaving the most intersting thing happened, I heard the Fairytaler Ceremony music starting and stood for a minute just round the side of Disney Hotel and actually started to smile and felt something magical and actually was crying a bit with joy that I had done it, that I had finally come to Disneyland Resort Paris at Christmas, after that I have been in a daze about it since and can't wait for my next visit to the resort.  All I have to say now is wow even with the crowds and queues I still had a fantastic day, especially magical and fantastic to have been able to for the first time go alone anmd for the day, so that's my day, hope it wasn't too long :wink: .  Photos that turned out ok to follow .

[Jorien]

Glad you enjoyed your day. Very nice meeting you too!

Guess i'm spoilt with my previous two visits during christmas season, because i didn't enjoy myself that much this time. Indeed the park was way too crowded and it was very cold. Normally when it's cold i don't mind, you can go into an attraction or have a seat somewhere, but this time you had to wait such a long time to enter. I've never experienced the park this crowded before.
Especially between the enchanted fairytale ceremony and the fantillusion parade you could see it was too crowded. I'm really glad nothing bad happened, because people wouldn't have come out of it savely i think.

And to be honest i didn't like the christmas tree on central plaza. It's already very full with decorations there, and the tree seems so small there. I loved it when it was on town square.
I liked the lampposts, especially how these take part in the ceremony, but i liked the arches more. It had more christmas atmosphere. There seemed to be missing something now on main street.
The castle looked great though after the ceremony, couldn't stop looking at it, even during the fantillusion parade (which was great also!!)

Normally i want to go back straight away, this time.....it might take a little while for me to go back there. Glad i know the whole experience can be lots better/more magical, if this would have been my first time at dlrp......no idea if i would have gone back then!

[Anthony]

It's funny that in the last couple of years, Halloween and Christmas actually seem to be much busier for the resort than Summer...   :? I suppose it's good their seasons plan worked, but now they need to get people to visit in Spring and Summer again!  :lol:

It's good to hear you both had a good time, even it wasn't quite as good as previous visits.  I never realised your visit was SO quick, Patrick!  Doing DLRP in a day with travel from Darlington?  You must be crazy...     I'm very impressed that it worked though... It must have been much cheaper without having to pay for a hotel overnight.

[Patrick]

Thanks for the comments, it really was a fantastic day if not too cold,  but hey that's what gloves are (supposed) to be for :lol: .

Here's my first of the 2 videos I got filmed that day since my hands were freezing to the camcorder filming even one I though doing 2 was enough, so here's Le Parade de Noel, ENJOY !
http://www.patmagic.net/christmas/Chris ... Parade.wmv

[Patrick]

Oh yes I also promised photos, well all I can say is I hope to get a decent camera for christmas, this one seemed to be packing in on Saturday maybe it was the coldness :? , I mean the heat of the summer broke my camcorder and to think I don't have a guarentee on my camera anymore argh :x .











And here's me looking like a goof

[Jorien]

Here's my first of the 2 videos I got filmed that day since my hands were freezing to the camcorder filming even one I though doing 2 was enough, so here's Le Parade de Noel, ENJOY !

LOL!! That's exactly what i thought too, when i recorded the christmas parade. I was actually planning to film more things (like the fairytale ceremony and the fantillusion parade), but i thought it was enough after filming this parade. Still can't believe i kept the camera that steady, being so cold.
About thinking your photocamera had troubles because of the coldness......also that's something that i thought of, my pictures aren't that bright either.

Thanks for sharing your video by the way, i'm downloading it right now. Will let you know when i've seen it.  :wink:

[Kristof]

Great to read that you had a good time!

[Patrick]

And finally I got round to being bothered to upload it, here's Belle's Musical medley, enjoy :wink:

http://www.patmagic.net/christmas/belles.wmv

[Anthony]

Cheers for the videos and photos!  :wink:

Did you actually buy that hat, or just scare people in Belle's Village with it? lol

[Patrick]

No didn't buy the hat, just felt like trying it on, was the only one that fit, I wanted a Mickey one though his santa hat did not fit and the Stitch ones were sold out everywhere in the park .