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[never2old]

Hello all!

So I'm back from great trip! I still need to go over the pictures (took over 1000 pictures  :shock: ) and I'll post some of them later... In the meantime here's a quick summary!

We left Saturday and spent the afternoon in Val D'Europe doing some shopping, before heading for dinner in the Disney Village and the Steakhouse. Dinner was yummy (I had the burger, it was delicious, and the bailey's creme brulée for dessert was as good as it sounds). We had a quick stop in the new Starbucks (it was its first day), it was quite packed, and looking great   .

Sunday morning we were back and checking in at the Newport Bay around 8am... After a lovely latte in Starbucks, we headed for the park...  As we always do during the EMH, we headed straight for Buzz Lightyear (where too many of the lasers didn't seem to be working right, once mine didn't even light up  :evil: ... they should really check them out more regularly!!!). We had a few goes on Buzz, then continued with Space Mountain, before heading towards Fantasyland.

When the park opened, POTC was the first stop. It was looking brilliant. In fact, POTC was probably the ride we did more often   , almost all the time you could walk straight on it, so we ended up doing four or five times each day.... The octopus at the beginning (the one in the ship, just when you go past the Blue Lagoon) was missing, but everything else seem to be working great (or better than other times...) The dueling pirates looked OK, but it looks strange without the sword noise. The one thing that was working just great were the water effects... I came out with a wet bottom quite a few times!! (may explain why I ended up getting ill, but more of that later)

Another ride we managed to do several times (also because short queues) was Phantom Manor. That too was looking great. For some reason Tuesday morning it opened late (and there was a huge crowd waiting outside the gates), and by the time it opened it had a 30 minute line, so we had to give up on it on our last day. But Sunday and Monday it was around the 5 minutes wait, so we simply HAD to do it  :wink: .... The one area that needs a bit of maintenance is Boot Hill, the plants are so grown that some of the tombs you could hardly read.

Thanks to the fastpass, we did Big Thunder Mountain a few times. The normal lines were between 45-60 minutes (Sunday evening it was down to 15 minutes which turned out to be more like 5, which was great). BTM was definitely the ride I enjoyed the most during this visit. Everything was looking and working beautifully, including the waterfall at the beginning, and it was really exhilarating!!  Love it love love love it  =D>  =D>  It did however break down Monday night, we saw some people stuck there for at least 15 minutes (a bit annoying since we had fastpasses for it, but we gave up on them and went to Pirates instead, ended up doing them twice in a row)

As you may know I usually wear glasses, and I take them off in Space Mountain (and RNRC) to be safe... So I had never actually seen much inside those rides. Well this weekend I was trying on some contacts (on Monday), and for the first time I could ride them both and see!! And it was like doing them for the first time!! SM I loved. The first time I did it with the contacts we were seating in the first row of the first train, it was like we were alone in there,  and it was incredible!! I had never seen all the stars  :shock:  Really beautiful. Then in WDS and RNRC, similar tale, only there I could see the tracks a bit better, all the lights (not sure there was much smoke though), and it was more fun (and less terrifying) than ever before!

Something else I really enjoyed was the Party Time show. I wasn't expecting much, I confess, but I was pleasantly surprised!! We saw it twice, first on the Sunday, then again on Monday (this time I also filmed it). It was good!! Fun, and full of energy!! Really enjoyed it  =D>

Monday we also went to see the Stars 'n' Cars, frankly that was a bit more disappointing. We got a spot in front of the stage. The stage show was OK, but you really need to choose what you want to see. Either you see some cars arriving, or the other cars arriving, or the characters, or the show. But you can't have it all. Also here I did something stupid  :oops: ... I was filming the show, or so I thought, when suddenly towards the end of the Pretty Woman song I realised that at some point I had pressed the pause button and forgotten to put it to record again  ](*,)  so I only have part of the show on film  ](*,)  ](*,)  Definitely not a highlight!!

Another low was lunch at the Restaurant des Stars. We went there when Remy was supposed to come out (14:15 to 14:45 the program said), we were there from 14:00 to 15:00 and no Remy    The food was OK, but the place was very noisy, and some parents were letting their kids run wild in the middle of the restaurant which made it worse  :evil:  

Tuesday morning I woke up feeling ill    I had had a cold the week before, which now was coming back, and it was feeling worse and worse as the day progressed. So we ended up leaving a bit earlier than planned on Tuesday (and as a result missed the OUAD parade). I was rather sad to leave, but I guess I would have been sad also if we'd left a few hours later. But we thought it would be better to leave on a high note (ie just after one last go on BTM) than later when I would be feeling really bad.

Overall it was a great trip   . The crowds were a lot worse that I was expecting, to be honest. Sunday was probably the best day, Monday and Tuesday it was quite packed!! I guess the Italians and the Spanish already have their school holidays (their numbers were higher than usual), but with the fastpasses, and the EMH, and a bit of tactics, we didn't actually do any long queues (longest was 25 minutes for TOT), so it wasn't too bad. And the weather was gorgeous   , which is always appreciated!!

I will post some pictures later... Thank you for reading!!  

[dagobert]

Great trip report so far. I can't wait to see some pictures. I'm sorry that you got ill.

Is Space Mountain still very bumpy?

[never2old]

Thanks Dagobert!

We did SM 4 or 5 times in the three days we were there, and to be honest it never felt too bad!! Not as smooth as RNRC, of course, but better than other times definitely!! (although every time we were in the front of the train, with more leg room, which probably helped...)

[never2old]

Some pics:

The Newport Bay is not getting any smaller (especially if you get a room which is like 10 minutes away from the reception  :roll:) but looks beautiful.


In October we'll be staying here though:


Around the lake


Best way to start the day!!


Off to Discoveryland!




And to Fantasyland.. First stop the Castle




Wasn't spinning quite that fast...





Happy me!


I love this bit of Fantasyland. And it's always nice and quiet!


I never noticed the pumpkin in the gates before:


My dear hubby (notice the great t-shirt   )


Cinderella's sabots (clogs is it, in English?)

[Clarebelle]

once again amazing photos! I have never noticed the clogs where are they?

Hope you enjoyed NPBC, I cant wait to go  /

[The Butlin Boy]

Thanks for sharing your great trip report and your fantastic photos, I especially love the Lake Disney and the first Space Mountain ones =D>

I'm glad that you had a great time, despite being ill towards the end as well

[never2old]

once again amazing photos! I have never noticed the clogs where are they?

Hope you enjoyed NPBC, I cant wait to go  /

The clogs are in the courtyard with the carriage, they're on a wall to your left as you leave it. You're going to have to go back to see them  :wink: !

The NPBC was great, but we were a bit too far away from the reception area... We had to go past the pool and all. Still, room was lovely, and dinner in the Yacht Club was very nice!

Thanks for sharing your great trip report and your fantastic photos, I especially love the Lake Disney and the first Space Mountain ones =D>

I'm glad that you had a great time, despite being ill towards the end as well

Thanks  

[never2old]

Around Phantom Manor:



Best view of BTM is from PM...


Hidden Mickey in PM


And around Boot Hill:


Slightly overgrown plants...






And the views from Boot Hill





Really like this one:


There's someone there...

[never2old]

Aboard the Molly Brown













Not an animatronic....


And in the fastpass line for BTM (first ride of the trip   )

[Epcot_Boy]

We left Saturday and spent the afternoon in Val D'Europe doing some shopping, before heading for dinner in the Disney Village and the Steakhouse. Dinner was yummy (I had the burger, it was delicious, and the bailey's creme brulée for dessert was as good as it sounds).

The creme brulee is indeed yummy

Thanks for sharing your break with us

Epcot_Boy :ears:

[Aveen2008]

Hey

sounds like you had a great time (appart from feeling unwell near the end). Your photos are also great!! Hehe you got one of the Stork, I remember seeing him the first time I was on the Molly Brown and I couldn't work out if he was real or not because he was standing pretty still hehe :lol:

thanks for sharing!! /

[smurfy74]

glad you had a good time, i just got back a couple of hours ago, from what has been one of my worst trips in years ( I am writing to complain (not about the queues) - we arrived the day you left ), the queues were awful - 120 mins seen most of the day today on BTM and 90 mins on SMM2 when it was working.

We had a lovely coffee caramel frappucino in starbucks and like you were impressed. Phantom manor was great and im glad you noticed all the floral growth in boot hill too :-)

Im glad you had great weather as it helps make the trip , and I was pleasantly surprised with Mickeys show, I really loked it. Did you watch Stitch in DISCOveryland, i will be interested to see what you thought if you did. Great pics too.

[never2old]

Thank you all  

glad you had a good time, i just got back a couple of hours ago, from what has been one of my worst trips in years ( I am writing to complain (not about the queues) - we arrived the day you left ), the queues were awful - 120 mins seen most of the day today on BTM and 90 mins on SMM2 when it was working.

We had a lovely coffee caramel frappucino in starbucks and like you were impressed. Phantom manor was great and im glad you noticed all the floral growth in boot hill too :-)

Im glad you had great weather as it helps make the trip , and I was pleasantly surprised with Mickeys show, I really loked it. Did you watch Stitch in DISCOveryland, i will be interested to see what you thought if you did. Great pics too.

Sorry to hear you had a bad trip   , what happened? And sorry to hear the queues got even worse  :shock:

We didn't actually catch the Stitch show this time (we were going to on our last day but we ended up leaving early, so we missed it) I had seen it in May, though, and I was also impressed with it   ! Not sure Stitch added much to it, really, the show would have been good without him there, but the dancers were very good, and I thought the show had a lot of energy. But now having seen both, I prefer the Mickey one...

I'm working on the next set of pics, will upload them soon!

[never2old]

After Frontierland, Adventureland... It was looking really good. Very green, very lush, and at one point some slightly grey clowds gave it all a very dramatic look... I really love this part of Disneyland. And it's usually the quietest  :wink:











Someone has lost their head... (or maybe I should say skull....)










The POTC side entrance to Adventure Isle was closed


And yes, it's still ripped (but my husband thought it was meant to look like that, make it more atmospheric or something, so maybe most people don't notice...)

[The Butlin Boy]

Thanks for sharing even more of your amazing photos, the Adventurland ones are fantastic :mrgreen:

Shame about the POTC sail though :roll: