A Million Splashes of Fun

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What a fun trip we had. I’ve been meaning to finish this for a while as it was an amazing trip. Of course when you’re home you look back on your trip and think of the memories that you made. In this blog I hope to cover a few things but first thing is going to be the travelling to Disneyland Paris.

With travelling to France from the UK, you’ve three options – Drive, Fly or Train. Train is the most viable option for me for a few reasons but the primary one is that Karen, my ever loving Disney girlfriend, lives in London. I fly over to London and we as stay in the Premier Inn at Kings cross the night before ready for the train the next morning. The Premier Inn is a nice big hotel with a Tesco near it, places to eat or get delivered if you are not wanting to venture out. The Bar and Block restaurant/bar below the hotel is very nice too. Staying at the Premier Inn does make it a lot easier to get to Kings Cross. It’s only a few minutes walk to the station across the road. If you’re wanting to grab a quick bite for your train journey, there’s a Starbucks there and a Marks and Spencer’s there too. M&S is perfect for picking up your drinks, snacks and even pastries such as croissants.

Eurostar is the best train to get and with early bookings, you can grab a return train from Kings Cross to Gare Du Nord in France for less than £100 each. That’s insanely cheap. Of course you can upgrade your seats and the prices can differ but can range from £35 upwards. Standard Premier is the name of the upgraded seats and you do get a meal with your chosen upgrade. You can upgrade both journeys or maybe just one the choice is yours. One aspect of using the Eurostar is you get to pick your seats. A handy tip I have is to pick seats near the luggage compartment, toilets and the dining cart. Once you’ve chosen where to sit, print your tickets off or download them on your Apple or Google wallet. Always best to print them because goodness knows what can happen with phones and pop them with your passport. You’ll need to make sure your passport is valid of course to enter through passport control and arrive 45/60 mins before departure.

While on the comfortable eurostar, it should take around 2 and a half hours to get to Gare Do Nord (our chosen train station). Of course this leave you a bit away from Disney still. Gone are the days of the direct Eurostar. What we use is a private transfer. We don’t want to end up lost, stressed or anything in the train station. KS transport Services where who we used for this trip big thanks to (dlptipsfortheirish for his tip on this company). It costs €80 but for us this was totally worth it. Our driver was standing with my name and it took around an hour for us to arrive at our hotel. That moves us on nicely to our next subject…The hotel

The view outside the hotel!

Karen along with myself stayed at Hotel New York, The Art of Marvel for the first time and probably not the last time. This was without doubt the best experience I’ve ever had at a hotel. From the valet getting our suitcases and taking up to the room, the check in, which was so simple and friendly. Oh and my lord, the smell in the hotel. Maybe controversial opinion but Karen and I preferred the smell in this hotel over Disneyland Hotel. Think an art of Marvel candle may have to be bought next time (spoiler I acquired one). When we were in the room we had housekeeping making sure everything was ok. This happened every night. Was so nice to have that and anything we needed was no problem. Upon entering the room, we had such a stunning room, a free 30th anniversary lanyard and some macaroons which were eaten of course. Every night the room would have the curtains pulled, sweets and a postcard on the bed. We looked out the window and could see, hyperspace mountain, Disneyland hotel and of course the Disneyland Paris castle. With this being a 4star hotel, you can see why. Karen and I enjoyed it so much, we have it booked again for our November trip. You felt welcomed and I think a lot of hotels have lost that personal touch, not here. A few nights when we were in our room, we could see the drone show – Electrical Sky Parade which was stunning. This was the first drone show we had seen and we were blown away by the scale of it too. Another bonus staying at this hotel I have to say!!

The stunning art and the first time I’ve seen my name welcoming me to Disneyland Paris

Is this the right door!?? Let me check

One of the huge benefits of staying at Art of Marvel hotel is the superhero station. This has some amazing interactive pieces such as Peter Parker’s room and Iron Man’s boots and here are a few of the fun items you can play around with. It’s so cleverly done.

On the Disneyland Paris app, you can then get a superhero meet. You can book one up to 7 days prior before you arrive so we booked this for our first full day. Once you book your time, this will appear on the app but better to take a screen shot as my app was playing up.

What you need to show to enter the Superhero Station!

Of course you don’t know what character you’re going to get with the meet and greet. We got Starlord twice, the one below was the best one. We were lucky with the others during our stay and had some great interactions and Marvel characters we had never met before and they were Black Widow, Doctor Strange, Star Lord (who didn’t like the fact he wasn’t on my shirt) and Captain Marvel. They were all great to meet and ones we had never met before.

Of course walking around the hotel there was so much amazing art. I’ve always loved Marvel art and on every wall there was something amazing. Each floor had something different, floor 2 for example was Hulk related and our floor was Guardians of the Galaxy. Even inside the room you have art on the wall and we had Karen’s 2 favourites, Iron Man and Spider-Man. If you’re on the fence about staying here, dont!! Book it and thank me later! You won’t regret it.

Some of the amazing art in the hotel!!

So I think that’s the hotel covered so let’s move onto something else and that’s the food. There will be 4 restaurants I will be covering here from buffets to sit down restaurants. Before I talk about them, let me discuss some things I highly recommend you do before you head to Disneyland Paris.

When we go to Disneyland Paris we always do half board so we have nothing to pay here rather than our drinks. We have the Emile menu worth €55 already paid for. When you’re pricing up your holiday take a look and see if it’s doable for you as it means you don’t need to take as much spending money with you. This is the most beneficial reason to get the dining plan as you’ve already paid for your breakfast and lunch or dinner. Even with the royal banquet lunch which is normally €100 per person, with the half board meal plan, you get this for €100 total extra. Working out at €50 per person. This gives you access to the Disneyland Hotel and some superb character meets of Mickey/Minnie/Donald and Daisy!

Once you’ve chosen your meal plan or even if you don’t want to get one you NEED to book your restaurants. Some of these like the hotel ones can be booked a year in advance. When I booked for Karen and I in November, I booked our restaurants and only one I couldn’t get which was Downtown. You can book through the Disneyland Paris app. If the booking is available it’ll automatically go to your trip date if the tickets are linked. You’ll get to chose how many people and what time. Book your most important one first and if you’re successful you’ll need to enter your mobile number (chose Great Britain if you’re in the UK) and your email. It’ll be part of your table bookings section and you’ll get an email like this

Karen and I always opt to pay for our food ahead of time and that way we maybe only need to worry about lunch or a light dinner. Something like Cowboy Cookout or Bella Notte is a perfect lunch sharing spot, again cutting down your cost.

Anyway let’s talk about the food we had

First up we get shrunken down to the size of a rat and dine at Bistro Chez Remy

This is a book way in advance restaurant! The tables go so fast!! As an example, I have this restaurant booked for our November trip. If I went to book now, I would not have a booking. Of course you can ask at your reception on Disney property or the restaurant themselves. Just don’t get your hopes up! The video below shows you some of the theming of this magnificent restaurant!

This is always a must do for Karen and I. The theming is just amazing and I love the booths which have plates as the backing of them. One big bonus is that you can go on the Ratatouille ride (which is incredible and one of our favourites) and then go into the restaurant. The menu is quite extensive and do you love steak? Then this is the place for you!! We always get this with the mustard sauce but you’ve a few sauce options!

This restaurant has a lovely atmosphere and I adore the music that plays here. It just gives you a nice relaxed atmosphere when you’ve had a hectic day in the parks. This restaurant also has their own house wine which Karen really savours with her steak!! I’m not a drinker so I’m taking her word for it. Another bonus is the staff are always very pleasant and with it being a busy and popular restaurant give them time to sit you at your table. Normally this won’t take too long but give them 10/15 mins after your booking.

Karen normally has the salad, steak and chocolate lava cake with custard! I on the other hand have the soup which can change but normally it’s pumpkin soup, the steak and this time I had the apple tart. I’ll say this now, I’ve yet to find a dessert in Disneyland Paris I love at a table service restaurant. I’m not a fan of nuts so if it’s got nuts in it, that’s me not getting it!!

Overall with atmosphere and the food we would give this 9/10. The steak done medium is always lovely and it’s what keeps us coming back!! They will only cook the steak medium or well done.

Now we move from one fabulous dining experience to one that for us, didn’t live up to Bistro Chez Remy and that is….

This has been somewhere we’ve been wanting to dine in for a while. When we were there in January 2023, it was closed for refurbishment and I then managed to get a booking for this March 2024 trip. I was very excited about it after securing the booking. When you walk in there are plenty of artefacts and pictures about Walt including a piano and here are a few I liked.

When you’ve spoken to the person taking care of the bookings you can ask if there is a window table available. We were lucky that one had just opened up. We were then seated some 20 mins after giving in our reservation time and name. When seated, we were given our menus and a leaflet promoting the Walt’s exclusive pin. This can only be bought if you’re dining in the restaurant and limited to one per person.

I was very pleased to have this Phantom
Manor artwork behind me!!

Ok let me start with the positives of the restaurant. The server Paul we had had only been there two weeks and he was terrific. We lucked out with him and only being there a short time he had a lot to learn I’m sure. I spoke to his manager when we were leaving to sing his praises. I think in this day and age people complain but don’t compliment if someone has done a great job. They were both thrilled at what I had to say and I wished him all the luck in his future. The setting of the restaurant as well is magnificent! On Main Street and if you’re lucky to get a table at the window, you could see something like this

We were lucky enough to see A Million Splashes of Colour from the window. This was great to see and Karen had the better view and these are her photos. To hear the music from Main Street and people watch was something else too. Below is a video which I hope you get the feel of.

Another kind of positive was Karen ordered the chilli con carne and she immediately didn’t like it. I asked if it’s possible to change it for the chicken and they were great and had a new meal out to Karen very quickly which was great.

Now for the not so good sadly. The soup I had was cold. Now I’ve never dined here and I’ve never had sweetcorn soup with popcorn in it. I asked if it was meant to be cold and he said no, I said well sadly it was cold. The chicken was edible but again wasn’t piping hot like say our steak the night before. In fact the warmest thing i had was my pineapple upside down cake. I even wanted the star dessert (character from Wish) but they said it wasn’t part of the menu even though on the front it said for adult and child menu. Sadly with the food being how it was, I doubt very much Karen and I would return giving this a 4/10 and that’s due to the setting and Karen’s dessert. I can honestly say out of the 4 but restaurants we had booked, this was our least favourite. Sorry Walt!!

As you’re leaving you can see photos of Walt during the different stages of his career and I took some on the way out.

Next up with have the royal theme going on and Karen and I dined with Princesses at Auberge De Cendrillon

First off let me tell you that this is the best way to meet a high number of princesses! Think of it as Princess Premier Access here or the breakfast! 4 princesses you’ll meet to be exact and we’ve heard horror stories of the food here being not very good and let me say, this was one of the best experiences I’ve had dining in a while! This for me, triumphed over what we had at Walt’s! It really exceeded my expectations and this as well as the next place we ate were ones we instantly booked again for our November trip. We were wondering what princesses we would meet and…well let’s get the photos to do the talking

Three of the princesses we had met before in Snow White, Cinderella and Aurora but we had never met Jasmine before. We also got to meet two nice mice but couldn’t tell which one was which. I found Aurora and Jasmine the two best ones to interact with as well as Snow White. Sadly Cinderella looked like she should have stayed home and not gone to the ball as I can’t remember anything she said to me or Karen. Aurora was happy with Karen’s attire and the loungefly bag she had as well. I’ve put that below as well as my interaction with Jasmine.

Karen meeting Aurora

Jasmine and myself

The food in here was sublime. The soup I had triumphed over Walt’s and was piping hot. The bread of course had to be used to dip into the soup and I love the French bread. Always so delicious. Karen and I then had the following – Beef Casserole in a Red Wine Sauce, Glazed Carrots and Truffle Cream Sauce. My goodness this was Devine. The beef didn’t even need cutting, it just fell apart. This for me was the best mains I’ve had in Disneyland Paris. I enjoyed all of it and eagerly await eating it again. Of course the one thing I didn’t rate was…yes that’s right it’s the dessert. I had Warm Chocolate Lava Cake with Morello Cherries, Soya and Cherry Emulsion while Karen had Cinderella’s Dessert. Enjoyed it but couldn’t eat the white chocolate shoe as it was rock hard. Overall it’s a very good 9/10. Why 9? It exceeded my expectations, food was amazing and our server was again one of the best we could ask for. It’s a restaurant we will go back to time and time again! We even have the princess breakfast booked as well as the lunch did our November trip!

Last but by no means least, we have the Royal Banquet inside the Disneyland hotel as we keep the character dining going and our reviews of the sit down restaurants to and end!

This was the first time Karen and I would have been in the Disneyland Hotel since 2020 as it had a very lengthy refurb and while some of it is for the best, personally i think it’s lost its charm. Oh and don’t get me started on the smell…We used to dine in Inventions which was their character dining but now it’s the Royal Banquet with the Disney characters in some stunning costumes. You have different characters here for lunch and dinner – dinner is for the Disneyland Hotel guests only and lunch was for people staying at a Disney Hotel and of course we took some photos which you can see below.

Karen and I went to the Royal Banquet twice and l have to say the second time was a better experience. The first time we were seated at a table near the window but it wasn’t exactly the easiest to get out to have interaction with the characters for myself. Karen was able to ok whereas the second time was a lot better for us both and the food was better too. There’s a whole section dedicated to fish which wasn’t for us. The first time the stand out was the veal but the second time the steak was the highlight. They’ve plenty of desserts and these were a few that we tried. Not pictured but the best one for us was the Pocahontas colour of the wind one. The food was good but the main attraction here was the character meets

At lunch time the characters you meet are Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Daisy whereas at dinner, Donald and Daisy are replaced by Goofy and Pluto. These are some photos from both times were there

All the characters from our second Royal Banquet

Like I said before, the second experience was the better one with the characters and they did come around a few times. Karen and I had a great experience with our favourites and I’ll pop the videos below of the meets we had

Donald meeting me and loving my hat!

Karen and the magnificent Minnie!

With us having the meal plan, this was an additional £50 each for us. Honestly I feel like it was worth it and we already have it booked for our November trip. The food was good but I don’t think it was a great as Inventions was. The fish station really can be minimised and more other stuff perhaps vegan food or something. The fish section never had anyone near it the times we were there. I’d rate the character meets 10/10 but I’d rate the food 7/10. This buffet has it all but the desserts (funny right?) are where this really shines. It would be nice to know what food they’d have available each day since they do change it.

Well that’s the food taken care of and there’s one more subject I’d like to talk about. Sure we did some rides and met some characters but if I was to mention them all, I’d be here for ages. There was some meets we did and that was meeting and more importantly making new friends! That’s how I want to end this blog as for Karen and I, this really made our trip. First port of call is an old and a new friend!

Megan (meganlovesmagic on instagram) is someone who lives close to me so Karen and I meet up with her regularly but we had never met her fiancé Amy. She was delightful and so easy to talk to. Felt like we had known Amy for ages as the chatter just flowed which was terrific. So happy Megan and Amy are happy together and was great to see them in their element in Disneyland Paris! Wishing them many more years of happy Disney memories together. To keep the Northern Ireland trend going is Toby and Elaine

CHRIS..CHRIS. Was all I heard and I turned round and low and behold, it was Toby who had spotted me. Good eyes Toby. Was lovely to meet Toby who I’ve spoken to a good few times on Instagram but never met in person. Both Elaine and Toby were great to talk to and they were going to Tower of Terror so we went our separate ways. I was grinning after the meet saying to Karen, well that’s a nice way to start the day. Thank you both for stopping to chat to us.

Next up is the Queen of the bounds and that’s Sarah

Karen had interacted with Sarah on Instagram and it just so happened we were in the parks at the same time. Sarah was great at sorting out meeting up with Karen and when she saw us standing waiting for the parade, came over and joined us. Sarah was super to talk to and very friendly. Asking what we wanted to do after the parade and we went to Princess Pavillion where we met the sweet Snow White and then went and It’s a small world. Sarah bless her even recorded the full ride with Karen and I looking on at it as it was our first time going on It’s a small world. Thank you Sarah for doing that for us. It meant a lot. Even though Karen started talking to Sarah, I feel like she’s a friend of mine now. Just one of the kindest people I’ve met and always thinking of others.

Chris and Karen were in the parks but now we meet Peter as well as Hayley!

Peter (peterintheparks on instagram) and Hayley (hazzleizme) were our next ones to meet. We spent a bit of time with Hayley and I recognised Hayley from instagram and got to chatting. We didn’t spent a whole heap of time with Hayley but a very chatty person who just loves being in the Disney bubble and constantly smiling which is always a great trait to have.

I’d been following Peter on instagram for a bit and we noticed that we were crossing over in the parks for a few days. Had messaged Peter saying hope to meet up, not thinking much of that. My word I’m so glad I did that. Peter is one of the funniest people I’ve met. We walked down with him when the parade had ended, again another first for us. Can I just add the parade was great to watch and the tune was so catchy as well. Dream and shine brighter will be hard to top but A Million Splashes of Colour sure gives it a go!

Walking after the parade behind Hayley and Peter

Peter is constantly making jokes and is such a joy to be around. One thing about Peter is that he went on Big Thunder Mountain with Karen after its lengthy refurb and to see Karen and Peter skipping along to go on the ride not once but twice was heartwarming and the first time Karen had had company on big thunder. I was left holding the bags but I got to video them coming round on the train.

Peter and Karen on big thunder with a very naughty child in front!!

We went on Phantom Manor together as well and just had a ball. Peter is one of the best people I’ve met online and is just a fantastic human being. One of my favourite moments was telling Peter about the MagiPark app. Peter never knew about it and I just heard “Oh my Chris…that’s a game changer” every time I look at the app I think of that and laugh! Thanks Peter for being you!

Another person we had the most magical time with was Sophie from Most Magical Guides. Sophie actually had vlogged this series and you can find the playlist below

Sophie’s DLP March 24 playlist

Sophie is hands down one of the most vibrant, positive as well as talkative I’ve ever had the pleasure to be around. Sophie adores Disney and as you can see from her many amazing blogs, she’s so knowledgable and her positivity shines through. We met Peter and Sophie near Main Street arcade and watched the end of the parade. Again a first for Karen and I had some spectacular views as no one was in front of us. It was so terrific to watch the parade with Karen, Peter and Sophie. I’ve put the video below.

We had another first to go on and that was the Disneyland Railroad. Sophie gave us a great insight into this which was great as this was another first for Karen and I.

We also went on Pirates of the Caribbean together which was such fun and I love this ride photo. As someone who doesn’t go on a ton of rides, this is so special to me as I’ve done this with 3 amazing people and the front row too!

I wish Sophie nothing but the best with her new venture (follow most.magical.guides on instagram) as she is such a wonderful person. I’d like to personally thank Sophie for giving me some superb ideas for this blog and her encouragement as well in writing this. I really appreciate it and the zoom call was a lot of fun. Please subscribe to Sophie’s channel and I really hope I meet up with this amazing lady again. Her positivity and kindness should be bottled up and could make the world a better place.

To end this blog, there’s one more person I need to talk about and that’s me! I joke, it’s Karen of course.

Karen always says that Disneyland Paris is our special place and I couldn’t agree more. I couldn’t see myself strolling down Main Street with anyone else. Karen adores her loungefly and it’s always fun seeing what ones she brings to Disney. It’s always special going on these trips with this lovely woman I’m lucky enough to call my girlfriend. The main highlight was seeing Karen meeting a character that’s eluded her everytime we go and that’s the practically perfect one.

Mary Poppins, Chris, Karen and a penguin

That’s right, Karen finally got to meet Mary Poppins. I do want to cover the characters we’ve met in our trips but will be in a separate post. I was so happy that Karen got to meet one of her favourite characters with another one hopefully crossed off later this year!

Disney is magical but Disney wouldn’t be magical without having Karen to walk down Main Street and see what the day has in store! Roll on November for another first for Karen and I and that’s experiencing the parks at Christmas time! That will be super exciting.

Thank you all to the wonderful people who we met in the parks and thank you too if you read this far! I hope to cover the attractions and characters in a separate post soon. Make sure to follow me on Instagram with Chrisrsvltschstter!

Always remember as Walt once said “Disneyland is your land” do what makes you happy and enjoy the experience with friends or family!

Until our next trip! Thanks for reading!

It was certainly a time to celebrate!

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In a convention centre in a galaxy not so far away, I was able to attend Star Wars Celebration 2023. 2016 was the last time this popular convention was over in the UK. It’s been a long time coming and since then ReedPop have taken over organising this event. Sone good changes and some, not do good as I’m sure if you’ve read anything about it, you’ll be aware of! I’ll be showing the celebrities I met and giving my thoughts on the convention at the very end. I’ll also try to do this I’m timeline order as best I can, things just merge into one!!

Simon needed to go to will call to pick up his badge for the event. It proved fruitful as we bumped into Doug Chiang who was the co-producer of Obi Wan Kenobi and many other things. He was happy to pose for photos for us and other people too. I thanked him for all he has done for the Star Wars world and this photo came out really well!

With the start of the 4 day convention being Friday, we shall start there in a moment. For those wondering, I of course attended this convention with my lovely girlfriend Karen and met up with people I’ve not seen in many years. Thanks Dave, Gemma and Simon for making these 5 years since we last saw each other seem like it was yesterday. These people mean so much to me and have been through the hard times in my life and the good times too. They made the convention that much more enjoyable too. Spending time with them and memories to cherish forever. Thank you Karen, Simon, Dave and Gemma for making this one experience something that I will always look back and smile!

This was a 4 day event and Friday was an awful start to the convention. Doors opened at 10am and Karen and I weren’t that late getting the Excel centre but we didn’t get let into the place until ages mins after 11. The amount of people around was pretty scary at times and trying to find your bearings was quite daunting. This was the queue to get into the building. People had the Lucasfilm panel to go to at 11 so I don’t know if people missed out or not.

We had a celebration store reservation at 11.30am so we needed to find that first and head into that. When we found it, our reservation barcodes were scanned and we entered the store. We were able to find everything we wanted and below was some of the T-shirts I managed to get. I also did pick up the Europe 2023 pin which goes well with the 2016 I got. The store had a lot of items and were restocking on a regular basis. We managed to head back in on the last day to get Karen the new Ahsoka T-shirt!

One other thing I wanted to do on the Friday was to collect my art prints that i pre-ordered. I had my email print out but I had to go to a poorly sign posted table and collect my ticket to then give to the artist. Sadly Joe Hogan wasn’t there to meet and of course I thought I’ll pick number 66 but that was already taken (curse you Tony 😉) so I picked number 45 (age I was at the time of the event) and got that put on the amazing Tales of The Jedi print. Really happy with the frame for the art. The Unbreakable Bond piece was done by Chris Dee who was fantastic to talk to and was so appreciative of the fact I ordered a piece from him. I also got Chris to personalise the piece for me and stuck with the number 45. There were so many amazing pieces of art there and we walked around it a few times. Simon even managed to complete a set of 9 art postcards…well thanks to us as he was missing one! You’re welcome buddy 😉

There were a few free autographed you could have got in the lead up to the convention and one was Sean Crawford who was Yak Face in Return of the Jedi. He had a huge queue on the first day and we managed to get it done. He was very nice to talk to and signed my item. Stupidly I forgot to ask for a photo with him but was given some free items

We of course had a few photo opportunities over the 4 days and the first one we had was with The Clone Wars trio. They were James Arnold Taylor who voice Obi Wan Kenobi, Matt Lanter who voiced Anakin Skywalker and Ashley Eckstein who voiced Ahsoka Tano. This was a great one for us as we both adore the clone wars and this photo op was cheaper than getting a photo op with Ashley herself so we jumped on this! This was a fun op and Karen and i worked out who we wanted to stand beside due to the T-shirts we had on to correspond with our favourite character. James and I weren’t doing the pose at first and then we did after a prompt from Ashley!

Shortly after this we had another photo op with the amazing Ming-Na Wen. Of course this lady was amazing as Fennec Shand in the Star Wars universe. We remembered her from E.R and of course she voiced Mulan in the Disney movie of the same name. What a lovely lady to meet and I cannot believe how fantastic she looks for someone who is near 60!! Amazing smile and we were glad to have met her. Karen even managed a wardrobe change too!

Saturday then rolled around and luckily i managed to get one of photos moved to later on in the day as we were worried incase we didn’t get in on time. We had our first photo at 11.50 so we were in with plenty of time. This was for this guy

We were so excited to meet Hayden and he was terrific. He said hello shook our hand and we posed for our photo. I think Karen said that he was her favourite and she loved him. He was super sweet and just one of those guys that deserves all the love and respect from the Star Wars fandom. They all do but it is heartwarming to see his appreciation of the fans after coming back for the Obi-Wan Kenobi show. Speaking of which…

This was changed at the 11th hour..a few things about it I mean. At 8pm on the Friday evening we got an email saying this –

Due to Ewan’s current filming production, and their COVID precautions, we have to take the following steps to ensure Ewan returns healthy:

Instead of plexiglass, Ewan will be posed with a lightsaber on one side of an R2-D2 with you on the other side (see image below)
There will be a quick temperature scan as you enter the booth
Sorry – NO HAND SHAKES
Sorry – NO TOUCHING

We were all taken aback by this but thought it would make a good photo. We had our temperature taken as we went in and we were told at the curtain no touching or handshakes. As we walked in, Ewan put his hand out and shook our hand. I was really taken aback by this and said hello to him and had our photo together. It was cool having R2 in the middle between us but sadly there was no lightsaber prop. I was just glad there was no plexi glass. We originally had Ewan in the morning at 10.45, moved it to the afternoon and when he was still taking photos after our Hayden, we got it moved again and got it some. It meant I was able to move from one Kenobi to another

We all have our celebrities that we want to meet and for the longest time, James Arnold Taylor had been one I’ve always wanted to meet. I adore his podcast Talking to myself and of course his portrayal of Obi Wan Kenobi in the Clone Wars. I really wanted to get something good for him to sign and got this comic from eBay very cheap. He was terrific and spend a good few minutes talking to me. I mentioned about his podcast and the fact he was over in 2017 but I was at a different convention. He was happy to pose for a photo with my item and thanked me for coming to see him. This made the day even more special as I originally booked him for Monday but something said to change it. I’m so glad that I did as on Monday, he was sick with a head cold I believe and wasn’t at the convention that day! I would have been really distraught if I didn’t get to meet him that day. Same happens to Vivien Blair who played Leia in the Obi Wan show, she wasn’t there on the Monday but was advertised for it. I posted the photo above on Instagram and tagged the Star Wars celebration page and got featured on their story which was terrific and even Daniel Logan aka young Boba Fett from Attack of the Clones movie. After we met James Arnold Taylor, we walked around and got some lunch. This will be one amazing day that will always be hard to top! This was the item I got signed by him.

We then moved onto Sunday and had another photo op booked and thankfully it wasn’t too early so we didn’t need to worry about getting there early. We got there for near 10am and got in within 15 mins and looked around and headed to our photo shoot with….

Katee had an incredibly busy Sunday as she was leaving early that day. She had autographs to do before the photo shoot and then was leaving. According to one of her associates, there was 257 photos to get done. We walked in, said hello and got our photo taken and thanked her as we walked out to pick up the print. The briefest interaction during the weekend but we understood why and she was pleasant. Really happy with the photo and after her appearances in The Mandalorian, one actor I’m happy to have met. She was awesome in 24 too!

There was one experience Karen had while she was in the Funko store buying The Armorer Loungefly purse and that was meeting The Armorer aka Emily Swallow. I wasn’t in the store at the time but I’m happy that Karen has a story to go with the purse she bought. She even managed to get a photo with her. Way to go Karen!! Great photo!!

Sunday wasn’t too much of an action packed day but one thing we had the privilege of doing was being part of the A Look-back at Obi-Wan Kenobi which was a panel we hit the lottery jackpot on. Simon, Karen and I were seated at the celebration stage so we can see them on stage! They had a dance contest with some cosplayers which was fun. After that, they got people dressed as Obi-Wan to come on stage and then Ewan McGregor came on stage. It was funny to see their reactions! They had Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, Vivien Lyra Blair and Indira Varma as well as the director Deborah Chow. I loved the label and one aspect was the favourite moments from the actors and director. That’s something they should do with all panels in my opinion! If you weren’t at the convention and want to see what happened at it, here you are – Obi-Wan Panel

Everytime I go to a convention with Simon we always get a photo together and this convention was no different. We had planned a different photo but times didn’t work out so he offered me to go in with him at this photo and he was someone I wanted to meet

A very nice guy who shook our hand and stood with his arms folded. I could see that out of the corner of my eye and thought I’d do the same. Simon and I thanked him on the way out to which Simon said “you didn’t smile did you??” I of course said no. We picked up the photo and laughed. Was another one that came out better than expected and another photo I got with Simon that I really like. Thanks Simon for letting me meet Moff Gideon and share this fun experience with you.

Monday was the last day of the convention and we were all sad it was ending. We got into the Bad Batch panel but plans changed. Simon wanted to meet Ashley Eckstein, Dee Bradley Baker and Matt Lanter for an autograph. This was more important to do. Karen and I went up with Simon and I videoed Simon’s experience meeting these great actors. Simon was kind enough for us to get in a selfie with these people and I can’t thank him enough for this. Karen and I even got to talk to Ashley Eckstein and it meant so much to us both but something Karen was really deliberating getting an auto from Ashley for an experience. No doubt if shes reading this she’s tearing up. She gave Simon a hug and thanked him. This is the type of person Simon is, so thoughtful. We didn’t ask for this to happen but he made it happen and Simon I can’t thank you enough for that. We even got a photo with Ashley and Matt

There was one person I met at the convention in 2016 and in 2023 and that was Samantha Alleyne who was the first female stormtrooper in The Force Awakens and Samantha has been in several other Star Wars properties. When we went up, Samantha knew who I was and was one of the sweetest people I’ve met. Even though she was poorly, you wouldn’t know. I was talking to her and got a few hugs and kisses too. Even on my autograph it says Love Always and not many people get that so I was honoured to get that from Samantha. It’s amazing to see her career grow and still know people who have supported her from the start. Samantha is a real chatterbox and that’s wonderful to people who will then remember their interaction with Samantha and it’s thanks to her, I’ll remember how special I felt chatting to her

Simon and Karen had a photo with Michelle Ang who voiced Omega in Bad Batch and then Simon and I had a photo op with Mike Quinn who was Nien Nunb in Return of the Jedi and the sequel trilogy. Always been one character I liked and was happy to see him pop up in the sequel trilogy. We were first to meet Mike and he looked so happy with his hands in the air, shook our hands and again, super happy with how the photo came out. It wasn’t until after that I noticed he had a Nien Nunb pin on.

The last thing we had to do was to say goodbye to Dave and Gemma who were kind enough to gift us some posters and a Jabba the Hutt Funko pop pin. Wasn’t fun saying goodbye to them but they made the convention so terrific and I can’t thank them enough for that! Two very special people I’m lucky to have in my life. I may not see them that much but know they’re always there for me and I can’t thank them enough for that.

Simon left the next day and we had a nice meal together. We even saw Mike Quinn in the restaurant which was funny. Simon is one of my closest friends and is someone that I know no matter if I’ve got a big or small problem, he will be there to help. We can chat on the phone and an hour phone call can seem 5 minutes. Simon is one of the kindest, warmest people I’ve the pleasure to call a friend. The little things he did at this convention meant so much to Karen and I. We did the 2016 convention together and it was great to do the second one with him. We all need someone like Simon in our life and his parents have done a remarkable job raising this young man.

On the way out, Karen who is a huge loungefly fan and collector wanted to get a photo with her newly acquired Phantom Menace backpack which we did. Walking down the concourse for the last time, we took some photos with the banners behind us. It was truly special doing this event with Karen. Karen was a Star Wars fan before we met but I think her love of Star Wars has grown a huge amount. From the love of the clone wars to reading newer books and of course her love for Baby Yoda. Seeing the look on her face when we met these celebrities and when she met Ashley on Monday meant a lot to her and her favourite meet ever apparently. Karen and I basked in the love of Star Wars from everyone around us and while it started on a bad foot, it ended so well and days we will always remember. Thanks Karen for being there every enjoyable step of the way as we went from tatooine to Mandalore! Thanks for being our travel guide and for being the special person you are! Love you!

If you’d made it this far, thanks very much for reading this. The convention did have its good and it’s bad. The bad being the fact things were crammed in together. Other halls were empty and could have things in it. Looking back on it, you’ll remember the good over the bad and the good far outweighs the bad. It’s been a few weeks now since I’ve been home and I wanted to get this done while things are reasonably fresh in my mind and apologies for getting this done so late!

Ive tried to think of a way to finish this blog and think there is only one way of doing that.

Goodbye and May the force be with you!

Disney has me in a spin!

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Disney is a massive part of many people’s childhoods and while we all love the visuals popping off our tv or the cinema screen, there’s one more memorable thing from Disney.

The music!!! Mention a Disney movie to any fan and they’ll be able to mention (or sing) a certain song from that particular movie! All the way back from Snow White in 1938 to the likes of the captivating Encanto in 2021, it shows the legacy of Disney music and how much it’s a part of our lives then and still is today.

Can you honestly imagine the likes of The Jungle Book without music? Would we have fallen in love with Timon and Pumba if they never sang Hakuna Matata? Elton John, Billy Joel, Michael Bolton and Tom Jones are just some of the amazing singers that have given us great pieces of music in Disney movies and we all I’m sure have a Disney playlist set up on our Spotify/Apple Music or iPods with our favourite tracks.

Since late 2020 I’ve started collecting vinyl records after my girlfriend Karen bought me a vinyl record player for Christmas. Soundtracks are my main collection and it’s lovely to be able to pick up some Disney vinyl to listen to. I actually bought a Disney vinyl for someone leaving somewhere I worked before I even started collecting and when I started collecting it was one of the first picture vinyls I bought and that was The Little Mermaid.

For the next few blogs, I’ll be talking about the vinyl from the oldest to the most recent. This won’t cover all the vinyl I have but thought that this may be something interesting to talk about and first up to go for a spin is…

The classic Mary Poppins vinyl from 1964

Music and lyrics fine by the amazingly talented Sherman Brothers, there are so many iconic tracks on this timeless classic vinyl. We even have a break down of the movie on the back of the vinyl with the track listing which I thought was a nice touch.

Sometimes on vinyl I find certain tracks can be omitted due to lack of space but I believe all the tracks we know and love are here…even supercalifragilisticexpalidocius. I always love the overture from the intro of the movie and A Spoonful of Sugar has been one that moved up in my rankings after watching the amazing Saving Mr Banks movie where we see The Sherman Brothers make up the song!

Two of my favourite songs from this movie are Jolly Holiday and Chim Chim Cheree followed closely by Let’s go fly a kite! They are like a lot of the songs here and are so catchy. You can’t help sing along when you’re watching the movie or if they pop up on your Disney playlist. Both of course feature the vocal talent of Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews and you really can’t picture other people singing it in the movie. I’m sure when you get caught up watching the musical Mary Poppins the actors there play the characters brilliantly!

If there was a song in Mary Poppins I really don’t care for, it would be Sister Suffragette sang by Glynis Johns as Mrs Banks. It’s not one that I cared for watching the movie as a youngster or even now. You can’t win them all I guess.

Mary Poppins came out in 1964 and fans young and old still watch this movie and with the likes of Mary Poppins Returns or Saving Mr Banks bringing Mary Poppins to the forefront for many people that can only be a good thing! Mary Poppins will be a character we will love forever and the music that accompanies the movie can just be the spoonful of sugar we need to put a smile on our face! Like most things Disney, it has the magic touch of standing the test of time and people still wanting to meet Mary and Bert in the Disney Parks making her The Perfect Nanny!

Disneyland Paris March Marathon!

Why the title you ask? Well all will become clear later on. If you are new here then welcome to the Vint-age blog where I will be discussing the good, bad, food and characters from my girlfriend Karen’s and my most recent trip to Disneyland Paris. This was our second trip to DLP and we had stayed a few days longer this time and of course as soon as you come home, you are looking to go again! People have their favourite holiday resort they go back to time and time again (heck the tv show Benidorm got 10 odd series out of it) and I’ve seen a lot of Disney pals go back time and time again! Its what people buy annual passes are for aren’t they? Anyway enough rambling. Let’s start off with the Bad. Now let me make this clear, that there was certain things out of our control so I’m just listing them here!

First off, was the weather. We were very very lucky to see the Frozen 2 An enchanted Journey parade on the Tuesday as the weather was quite sunny and it boded well for us not to get soaked as we did pretty much every other day. Thursday we got soaked and i mean soaked. We had to hang our trousers up to dry and pretty much every evening was horrible so we never got a chance to do the illuminations. We were pretty knackered by the evening time anyways and were fine with it. Would rather enjoy our time there and have a nice rest when you can. Also if you’re going here during the winter months, get an umbrella. I got mine from Poundland and it was superb!! Was able to bin it afterwards and so happy i brought one with me!

Second up is the collapse of Flybe! Again this was something out of our control and when it collapsed late Wednesday night, I was in Disneyland Paris and had to try and book a flight home for the Saturday. Luckily I managed to get a Premier Inn hotel near Heathrow Airport and a flight home a bit later than originally planned. Also managed to cancel my original hotel and not get charged for that which was good. I have like many other claimed my money back. I am thankful that this happened after I got to my destination rather than after it! We didn’t let this affect our holiday and got on with things as I had stuff booked for when we got back so that was alright.

Whilst the Cheyenne is a lovely hotel, so near the park with the help of the shuttle buses and it taking a few minutes to get there, they really need to sort a few things out. First off is the curtains. Get curtains that don’t let in any light. Was so hard to try and pull the curtains, position them to cover the windows. Oh and the bed was much worse than last time. You turned over and it creeked, then the duvet would go off you as it was like the towels, not made for you! That’s the only gripes about the hotel as its very nice and love the western theme outside and the Toy Story theme inside.

Oh and Buzz Lightyear laser blast was closed so that really ticked me off. I love that ride and missed it a lot!

Lastly the thing I would say is bad is the real lack of Frozen and Star Wars merchandise in every shop. You would think that because its the season of the force and the Frozen Celebration, there would be a lot more. Sadly the pins and tshirts/hoodies were few and far between there. Karen and I also wondered why there was no package to meet certain characters etc. Last September we did the Lion King experience package which was terrific but no such thing here for Frozen. You could have charged 99euros for a meet and greet with Olaf, a frozen inspired drink with tumbler, priority entrance to the Frozen Musical Invitation and a 15 euro voucher for example. Karen and I never saw the musical due to the queues being horrific. People were queuing about an hour/hour and a half before shows were due to start.

Ok enough with the Bad, onto the Good stuff now.

First off Karen and I both enjoyed the Frozen An Enchanted Journey Parade which we had a really got spot for. Both at the start when the float comes out and also when the stars are dancing on the podiums in the middle You can tell the kids (and big kids) enjoy singing along to the songs and seeing the parade in full flow. The songs are all the songs from Frozen 2. Even though I knew this, I was a bit surprised that Let it Go wasn’t featured since how overplayed it was when the first movie came out. The float that had Elsa’s horse Nokk at the front, had Anna sitting down with Olaf spinning around and Elsa at the very top of the float. I totally forgot that at the back of the float had Sven there who would move his head and ears and Kristoff would be talking to him as well. Really well done and I did manage to capture a few photos which I will put below. Karen did get quite emotional watching the parade and I know she was super excited to see this parade and I was too. We went to see Frozen 2 together and the music has a special meaning to us both. I have a funny feeling that Anna points to Karen and acknowledges her ears that she got so many compliments from throughout our stay.

The Star Wars show – Legends of a Galaxy Far, Far away was terrific. I managed to see it in English while Karen was waiting for Crush’s Coaster (more on that later) and then a day or two later we saw it in French when we met Chewbacca! The amount that is covered in the Star Wars show was terrific, from C3-P0 with R2-D2 to Rey with BB-8 and also Kylo Ren with Captain Phasma. I had a pretty good view for this and took some photos which I will do post below. The music really adds to it and I always find the John Williams soundtrack always gets me as I have so many happy memories of Star Wars watching it with my father and I think its only a matter of time before we see The Mandalorian as a meet and greet sometime down the line due to the popularity of the series.

I have uploaded some of the video highlights from Frozen An enchanted Journey Parade and the Legends of a galaxy far, far away incase you are interested to watch, then you can click here!

Another good thing was the pin trading! Karen and I are new to pin trading but so many groups and a friend Victoria, were posting where the trading post was each day. We did manage to do it a few times but were unaware it was only 2 per person. Oops! The guy running it was funny but you could tell that he took this position seriously. I did head to Pueblo trading post which was near big thunder mountain. It is only open at the weekend and seems to have some pins there that you cannot find in the other shops in the park. There was a Frozen 2 group pin which we only saw in that shop as well. Did pick up a good few things such as the Pin Trading Folder and my wonderful girlfriend Karen gifted me one as well so one is near full and I have one to get to work on. Pin trading with people’s lanyards you find some are more picky than others. I did get refused on a few but it didn’t put me off doing this. I came home with a lot of pins I had bought and traded for as well! You can see below what I came back with!

Karen and I always travel across to DLP via the Eurostar and this again was very handy to do. This time we upgraded our seats to the Premier seats and had a little table in front of us. We were well looked after and the journey was pleasant and very speedy. Didn’t notice the time going in and we also booked Disney Express. This ensures that on the train you are given your passes for the parks with all your meal plans loaded onto it and given your photo pass token if you have paid for one. This also means that you can go to the Disney Express kiosk at the top of the station and your suitcases are taken to your hotel. This was super handy for us as we didn’t need to go and check in straight away. We went to the park for a few hours, had dinner in Inventions (more on that shortly) and then headed to the hotel. After the long wait last time (an hour and a half i believe) before we checked in, this time we walked straight up and got checked in and got a kettle for the room as I brought tea bags and lattes for the room.

Last up is Cafe Fantasia, which is in the Disneyland Hotel. This was on Karen’s list of things to do and she became addicted to the Olaf Hot Chocolate. It did taste nice but not something I would have drank. I did have a non alcoholic cocktail the first time we were there and it was ok, however the second time I had some pineapple juice which was lovely! Its a really lovely intimate setting with a few tables inside, we always went for the table near the window which gave us a lovely view outside. Some people prefer to sit outside as you can then sometimes see the characters coming through the hotel to go to Inventions. See the photos below of the cafe and the items we had to drink. If you are wanting to get out of the rain and want a reason to go to the Disneyland Hotel, I would highly recommend this. One thing to say is expect to pay a few extra euros for your drink because of the setting. This didn’t put us off going as we loved the quiet!

Ok let us more from the good to the food. One of the traditions that Karen and I have when going to Disneyland Paris is going to Inventions on our first night. This for people who aren’t aware is a buffet in the Disneyland Hotel, right across from Cafe Fantasia. We had a reservation for 6.15 and joined the queue slightly before 6 and the queue behind us seem to grow and grow! We were then put into the right hand room as you walk in and there was only us there! It made for a lovely setting as in a way we had the characters all to ourselves! Minnie took a while to arrive but we had great interaction with every character. Goofy tried to hide under the table and managed to get his trouser leg caught up on his shoe! Was something funny! Minnie noticed my Mickey Mouse hoodie and the Mickey Mouse phone cover I had. I guess it had to be a woman to be a bit more observant than Mickey! I was thrilled when we went in and sat down and heard the footsteps and it was only Donald Duck! As many of you know, Donald is my favourite Disney character and getting to have a chat with him before we even started our food was brilliant! All the characters give you a bit of time before they move on and if you are in two minds between Inventions and the character breakfast, I would highly recommend Inventions due to the time they give you. Much as I love the character Breakfast, it is a tad rushed for adults so they get some time with the kids which makes sense but hey, we are all kids at heart right? The food was good but not as great as last time in our opinion. Seemed to be a lack of meat variety, however the steak was nice as well as the sausage and ham slices. We used one of our meals from our meal plan and ended up paying 50euros extra as we had a few drinks and Karen had tea as well. Certainly something we always look forward to on every trip!

Next up we had two character breakfasts, one with the Princesses and one with the characters! We briefly discuss the characters one. The breakfast is in Plaza Gardens and again its a buffet breakfast. I grabbed a few waffles with maple syrup which was lovely and Karen got some bacon, french toast and a crossiant. The beautiful thing of the buffet is you can have as much or as little as you would like. Generally you get 5 characters and we met 3 as we had already met Tigger the night before and Eeyore the previous trip and Karen had a fast pass for Big Thunder Mountain which she was eager to go on again! We met Mickey and Scrooge McDuck who we had met the previous trip but a new one to us was Daisy Duck. She was brilliant. I said that I loved how sassy she was and she pretended to flick her hair back and strutted off. I really enjoyed the meet with her as did Karen.

Next up was a first for us which was the Princess Breakfast in Auberge de Cendrillion. You go in and check in and wait until you are called and then seated. Certainly a system that Plaza Gardens could do with as that is pretty much a free for all! You had a set menu to eat from and had some venison sausage I believe, a mickey waffle and an assortment of items given in a little glass. This for us was the best and inexpensive way to meet some of the princesses as the wait times in the Princess Pavillion can top about 2 hours. We had finished our breakfast and the princesses came round and talked to us. Was lovely to meet and talk to them. Aurora would have been my favourite from the 3 of them even though they were all lovely. You are asked if you have any allergies but can remove things from your breakfast like we did with the eggs if you so desire to.

We did eat in a few other places such for dinner such as Plaza Gardens, Chuck Wagon cafe (right near the hotel), Annettes which had some amazing burgers but the service in there was quite slow. We also had some lunch at Cafe Hyperion, Casey’s Corner and the sports bar in disney village which does a mean beef hot dog! The last place that I am going to talk about is Bistro Chez Remy. This was something that as soon as we had booked the dining plan we thought we would do. This was something I had seen in vlogs and was really keen to do it and it really did not disappoint either Karen or I. They take you to your table and because we had a booking it was pretty much straight away. the tiles on the floor go from small to big and you can see about the decor yourself how well imagined it is. We went for the soup and the steak. The soup (my god the bread was tremendous) and our waitress Siham was an absolute star. She even swapped the soup for the salad for Karen at no extra charge. I have never had this at any restaurant I have been in. We then got our steak with the chef sauce, which was like a mushroom kind of sauce and it wasn’t bad. Maybe if they have some kind of gravy sauce would have been great for me as I love my gravy. The steak was delicious and this for us was the meal of our trip. Karen even had a glass of wine and after we took the amount off from our meal plan there was maybe 18 euros left to pay which was most reasonable. I also mentioned to Siham’s management team about how attentive and how good a server she was. Oh and one last thing. If you go here, make sure to ask to get a napkin signed. As you can see, makes for a nice memento of your experience in there and I am positive that we will be dining in there again!

Ok so last up is the characters. I am not a big roller coaster person before you ask about where all that is but I can tell you that Karen fell in love with Big Thunder Mountain, thought Indiana Jones (the ride) was too short, Crush’s Coaster was nuts and always enjoys Hyperspace Mountain! We had a photopass so I will put Karen’s photos from her rides here. She was a bit annoyed that you can’t really see her in the first Big Thunder Mountain ride but you sure can in the second one!

Star Tours was good for me even though I thought I had lost my wallet…that had aged me 10 years but anyway, enough about that and lets talk about the characters we met.

I have still got a 100% success rate on Lineberty! I managed to get us Mickey, Olaf and Vampire Stitch (twice). The Lineberty app only works when you are on disney property and I always seem to hit it well round the exit of Hyperspace Mountain. This app is like a virtual queue system and notifies you of when it is near your turn and then when it is your turn. Its a very handy app and managed to get Woody and Buzz last year with it and I thought that Olaf would be the most difficult so I tried for him on the Monday knowing if I didn’t get him, I would have other days to do that! The reason we did Vampire Stitch twice was because our photos from the first time never appeared on the photopass. First up we will cover Olaf since he was our priority to meet. You went into the animation hall to meet him and went over to the lineberty cast members, showed them your number and they let you in. Kids of course were trying to join but were not allowed as the Lineberty meet and greets are only done through the app. I let Karen go first and Olaf loved her ears made by queen ursula uk and they had some nice photos together, I then got a warm hug from the snowman and then we had some photos together. The photopass photographer really captures the moment as you can see from some of the photos from our Olaf meet. Was a nice one to get done so early and was pleased that we got to meet everyone’s favourite snowman!

Next up we while go for Vampire Stitch. Before we went there was a Phantom Manor Mickey meet which we were both quite eager to do but when it changed to Vampire Stitch, we were fine with that as we had not met Stitch before. So meeting him twice was good fun and hes quite a cheeky character. He even said I was number 1 as he loved my impression of him and said to Karen to do it but sadly she can’t. He is very interactive with people and even took some kids Captain America shield which was funny! I think at the time of writing, this is the only way to meet Stitch in any way so it is handy and right beside phantom manor too!

Last up from Lineberty was the main mouse himself – Mickey Mouse. This was labelled as WDS character when i booked through Lineberty and when we showed up it was Mickey Mouse. We wanted to meet Mickey but at his normal meeting point, its normally one hour wait or so for him and this made it so much easier to meet him and get the meet done very quickly. We had a lineberty ticket for him the day before but had to cancel it as it clashed with something else but I explained to Mickey that we had to cancel it and he was glad we came back the next day to meet him. It is in the same spot where Buzz normally meets through Lineberty so we knew where to go to. Photopass photographer again did a great job as you can see here

Ok we will go on from one mouse to another, Mickey to Minnie Mouse. However Minnie was in her splendid cowgirl outfit. Thankfully we chose a day were the sun was out and that way she was in the outfit as we noticed if it was raining heavy, she was wearing her normal outfit. The guy had my phone to take some photos and my god he took a ton of photos. Don’t worry I am not going to post them all here but just a select few. Was really happy to meet her and the cowgirl outfit is very bright and colourful as you can see from the photos. Im also going to pop the Genie photos in here too. Karen is a huge Aladdin fan and wanted to meet the Genie for some time. He was good and the lady took a few photos for us. Right place at the right time and slightly before we met him, the heavens opened and we waited 5 minutes and got to meet him!

Next up is the Star Wars duo of Darth Vader and Chewbacca. We will go for Chewbacca first as he was a new meet for Karen and I. We did queue up for him one day but the queue didn’t seem to move so we went back another day. I would say that this is the longest queue we had been in to meet a character and was hoping that Rey would be with him but sadly she wasn’t. For some reason I thought it would be a photopass meet but it wasn’t. We still managed to get some amazing photos. One of which was when I said to Chewbacca that he had more hair than I did and then he put his hand on my head. Think I would suit a chewie styled wig. Darth Vader was another fun meet and I always find him very intimidating and the meet is just superb. Saying about my loyal service to the empire and I kept staring at him and he said it was “impressive”. We only had to wait about 10 minutes for him and the time flew by. Thing is that you are under cover so it kept us dry. Very happy to get the two Star Wars characters done!

Last characters we met where two on my list and they were Chip N Dale. We had queued for them one day but it was going to clash with meeting Stitch so we went back on Friday and again when we queued it was fine then after we met them, the heavens opened. These guys where very cheeky again. Chip said he was keeping his eyes on Dale as Dale is the worst behaved out of the two of them! They were great fun to meet and I was glad we rounded off the trip meeting these two cheeky chipmunks. This was a photopass meet so have some great photos which you can see here!

Lastly if I was to offer you one piece of advice is to say, wear comfortable shoes!! We did 38 miles in 6 days which is just over 6 miles a day! Even though I am home a few days, it is taking a few days to recover from all the walking. I wore waterproof memory foam skechers which were super comfortable and not once did my feet get wet! It certainly burns off the calories and makes sure you sleep at night with all the walking! The picture below goes from Sunday to Friday!! oh and a marathon is only 26 miles so we did a marathon and half in a way!

Thank you so much for reading my blog. Karen and I had the best week together and did so much stuff but I assure you that we are already looking to go back next year to what is becoming our home away from home!

Thought I would end the blog with some pictures of the castle and again thanks for reading and I have a few ideas for the next Disney blog! Enjoy whatever magic you have planned and until next time

Some more Disney talk!

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Hello all. Its been a while since I have talked to you about Disney hasn’t it? Hopefully you haven’t said to yourself “Not another Disney post Chris!”. I am pretty sure you haven’t said that to yourself! Well in just over 2 weeks time, my wonderful girlfriend Karen and I are off again to Disneyland Paris! We had such a fun time when we went in September 2019 (you can about My first experience of Disneyland Paris right here) and when we came back, it only took a few days until we decided to book again and we will be there for the Frozen Celebration as well as the Legends of the Force which pleases us both! In fact I am hoping to vlog a couple of the days we are at the parks and have put up a little trailer if you would like to check it out you can here – my youtube channel!

So before we go, I had wanted to talk about some of the films I have watched since last we spoke and will do it from least favourite to favourite. The last film I watched was Aladdin, the live action remake The Last of the Disney movies I needed to watch before Disneyland Paris has all the movies that I had never seen before and what ones I liked and what ones I didn’t enjoy.

Before I start on the films i have to talk about a certain tv show that I am sure you have all seen one of the characters on the internet!

That’s right, I am talking about The Mandalorian. I will not go into spoilers for this show as a lot of people are waiting until March 24th when Disney+ finally arrives in the UK. This show is fantastic. I was gripped by the show as it just “feels” like Star Wars. It just works and the chemistry between the cast is amazing. Of course who can forget Baby Yoda/The Child. Awwww he’s so cute, I don’t know how many times Karen said that when we watched this together. Karen likes Star Wars but she loved this show and we are both excited to see Season 2 when it starts in October. Pedro Pascal is brilliant as “Mando” and I especially loved Carl Weathers as Greef Karga in this. There are quite a few cameos in the series and some you will know, some you may not. If this is how the Disney+ exclusive Star Wars content is going to be, then more of it please! The Kenobi show can’t come here fast enough.

Ok so first up is….

Ok let me start this off by saying that I love the original Lion King movie, the soundtrack the voice cast, the animation. There isn’t much I did not like about this movie. Shame I cannot say the same for this version of the movie. The only saving grace was that James Earl Jones was the voice of Mufasa again, although this couldn’t save the movie for me. There didn’t seem to be any emotion from the characters and while it looked amazing, the scenery couldn’t help it. I just didn’t connect to the movie the way I did with the animation version of it. We always compare the newer ones to the older ones like we did with Aladdin but sadly this was a movie I doubt I will ever watch again and how you have the likes of “The Circle of Life” or “Can you feel the love tonight” not sang by Elton John baffles me. If you haven’t seen this movie and are a fan of the original, I suggest you keep it that way!

So next up is :-

I really enjoyed the first movie and for me was an unexpected gem to watch so I had big expectations for this movie and it delivered. It was a lot more action paced than the original. I fell in love with Maleficient after watching the original Sleeping Beauty and the fact that Angelina Jolie potrays the character doesn’t hurt matters. I loved Robert Lindsay in this and Michelle Pfeiffer was excellent in this too. Sadly I don’t remember much about this movie music wise but the final scene was very powerful and Karen really enjoyed this movie and it will be out on DVD/Blu-Ray quite soon I believe. An enjoyable movie and if you are a fan of the original then this is bigger and bolder than that in my opinion. Hopefully the next movie doesn’t get a frosty reception:-

Frozen…..I’ll never watch that movie. I didn’t watch it until Karen and I got together and I ended up watching that with her. To my surprise I enjoyed it although I still think “Let it Go” is a very overplayed song. Karen and I went together to watch this in the cinema and I really enjoyed it. I would go so far as to say that I enjoyed this over the original. The music was amazing with “Show Yourself”, “Into the Unknown” and my personal favourite “Lost in the Woods”. The character growth in this movie for all the main 4 is terrific and learning more about their past too. It is more comedic than the first one for me and you will be thanking your lucky stars if you know a Samantha after the movie. You will understand when you see it! It was one that I went on spotify to see about the music when the movie was over. Give it a go, you will certainly not regret it.

Last up….

So this movie happened…..there is STILL a lot of talk about it online (especially Twitter) 2 months after it was in cinemas! This was for me a much better movie than The Last Jedi. I really didn’t enjoy that movie at all and this brought it back for me. If you enjoyed The Last Jedi, that’s great and I respect your opinion on it. We are all different and would be boring if we all like the same thing! This had the Luke Skywalker that was the one we all fell in love with, not the one we saw in The Last Jedi. Poe Dameron, who is my favourite had a much bigger role in this movie! We saw the return of Lando which was much welcomed and great to see Billy Dee Williams back on the screen after Return of the Jedi. John Williams provides another fantastic soundtrack which is more of the same music we are used to in the Skywalker Saga. I won’t go into detail about the storyline incase someone reading this hasn’t seen it. JJ Abrams did a great job trying to tie up all the lose ends made from the start. Some were resolved and some weren’t but I came out of the cinema happy with what I had witnessed and look forward to the blu-ray release of this.

Before I wrap this up, I wanted to talk about a few documentaries that I have watched very briefly. You can find the Walt Disney 2 part documentary on Amazon Prime and I found it truly fascinating learning more about the man who created the Disney empire. If you have Amazon Prime, I really recommend you watch this and you may even learn something about him that you didn’t know. The Boys which is a story about The Sherman Brothers was really interesting. Talking about their early days in songwriting up to the most recent times. It was a joint effort done by their sons as Dick and Robert became estranged years later. Hearing about a song that was omitted from Mary Poppins and was replaced with “A Spoonful of Sugar” was really surprising as it was Julie Andrews who said that it didn’t fit the Mary Poppins character! This was a great documentary hearing how 2 of Disney’s amazing song writers had such an amazing bond with Walt Disney. Lastly I watched one about Floyd Norman who has worked at Disney for so long, he was let go when he turned 65 and then went back there again and at the age of 80 was still employed there! A lovely man who seemed to be liked by everyone he encountered in the Disney complex. His wife, (who worked with him) telling the story about how he still went to work if she was sick! It was such a lovely documentary and learning more about one of the great animators!

Lastly we still have some Disney fun to come this year with Onward out first followed by Mulan, then Black Widow, Soul and lastly Jungle Cruise. I think Black Widow followed by Soul will be the 2 I will look forward to the most. Mulan, I am unsure about because there is no mushu and none of the songs from the original movie. What ones are you excited for? Thank you so much for reading more about me writing about Disney movies again! Until the next one!

My first experience of Disneyland Paris

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It was the start of March that my wonderful girlfriend Karen and I had booked our holiday to Disneyland Paris. It was something for us to work towards and for me….to work through the back catalogue of Disney movies that I had never watched. I think I did a good job of viewing a lot of them before heading over. We had our plan of what we wanted to do and booked through Disneyland Paris direct website. I had so many questions about things and the customers service there was tremendous I must say. For example, we had booked the Santa Fe…after watching Cars (didn’t like the movie) and noticing there was no air conditioning, we phoned to upgrade to the Hotel Cheyenne. This was done with ease and was hassle free. Now I am going to write about the bad, the character meets and the memories. So lets start off with the bad

The Bad

Ok there isn’t a whole lot to put in here thankfully but I must say that the check in to our hotel was horrible. Took us around an hour and a half to get checked in. Kids were throwing things around and just seemed to go on forever. When you want to get into the parks it really held you up. I also had asked for our magic Pass to become a charge card. This wasn’t done and I was still trying to figure out how to use my Curve card (managed to get there in the end). After having payment declined in Inventions, I had to use my standard card which was fine but didn’t want to use it all the time since they charge per transaction. I also had asked for my room to not have feathered pillows or duvets but there was feathered pillows in the room and I’m allergic to feathers. Thankfully this was sorted quickly and got some normal ones delivered to the room. How many times did the Jungle Jive Parade need to be on? think it was 3 or 4 times a day. Finding the shortcuts around this was a key thing! Another big gripe of mine was the real lack of organisation at Plaza Gardens. Basically it was a free for all with people shoving in and everything. Oh and the food we got from The Lion King Experience was one experience I would rather not go through again. Was horrible! A taste of africa it may have been but not for us sadly. The actual food and experience inside was great however queuing outside was not!! my face in the picture below says it all I think.

That’s all I can really think of that was bad and kinda put a bit of a dampener on the day as this happened on the first and last day we were there. Least we know for next time! Ok now to go onto the good stuff

Inventions

Inventions – Wow. This was the first meal that Karen and I had in Disneyland and what a way to start it. For those who don’t know, this is a buffet restaurant with Disney characters who interact with you. Oh and you get to go in the Disneyland Hotel. My lord it is beautiful. There was a young girl dressed as a princess walking down the stairs and it was so funny seeing her pretending she was a princess. The food was really nice I thought. Had some roast beef with some potatoes and gravy. The desserts were plentiful and we spent a good few hours in there and will 100% go back again to there. It seemed more an intimate setting and the characters spent a little more time with you and came back round a few times. Minnie seemed smitten by me! Ill put a few photos down below but I would really recommend this. Especially if you don’t want the long queue for Meeting Mickey which was around 75 minutes for us.

The Lion King Experience also falls under the good too! We paid for a package which included 2 seats to the Lion King experience stage show, encounter with Minnie in her safari gear, “lunch” at hakuna matata with Rafiki and Mickey in his safari gear, a lion king souvenir cup with a non alcoholic cocktail and a 15 euro gift card. The stage show was truly worth the amount alone. It was great to have a shorter queue and great seats for the event. I gotta admit, I did cry when it started. The music is just amazing and getting to experience this with Karen was also just amazing. The scenery and just everything was faultless. I would for sure see this again and would highly recommend this to anyone going when this is on next year. The cocktail in the lion king souvenir cup was lovely. We got our mug at the Red Garter saloon so we could have them in our room. Something different to drink and really enjoyed it. The lunch I have already covered but the experience with Mickey and Rafiki for me was a little rushed compared to inventions. That was the only minus point on this, The experience with Minnie was amazing. I had originally booked our tickets through Lineberty app and we had a long wait and at 4pm we were ticket number 56. We really wanted to go and relax at the hotel for a bit so I cancelled them. At 10.30 the next day I booked them at opening time and we were ticket number 5 so were seen shortly after 4pm. This was one meeting I was glad we did and Karen and I were laughing when we came out from meeting her. The 15 euro gift card I had until the last day and got myself a Disneyland Paris Donald Duck shirt. Karen pretty much used hers within minutes of arriving. I kid but it was the first day anyway from what I remember. This was something I was really glad that Karen and I had booked and to experience these new and timed exclusive events.

The Hotel Cheyenne

We had upgraded to this hotel from Santa Fe because of the Toy Story Theme and the air conditioning which was a blessing as it was nice to come back and relax in a cold room. We stayed in the Jesse James part of the building and it was so close to everything. A laundry room that had a vending machine, washing machines and an ice dispenser which was super handy. You had the amazing Chuck Wagon restaurant there and a general store as well as a Starbucks. A few minutes walk to the free shuttle bus which took around 2 minutes to get to the park and this was so handy. It would be very busy at times and if you missed one bus, another one was round soon enough. This certainly beat a 15 minute walk every morning or evening. The bed was certainly comfortable and not rock hard like we read on certain facebook pages. There was toy story themed soap, shampoo and conditioner. Yes I did take a souvenir home with me. We also used the Disney Express so upon leaving, we dropped our suitcases off and went into the park. This was straight outside and was something we will be using again! There was a few plugs around, 2 beside the bed and then a few usb ports. There was 2 euro plus, and a uk plug on the desk. I brought a 4 plug adapter so was easy to use one plug and get stuff charged. Think it was £3 in Asda. If you are staying here, the one thing I would highly recommend is take a big towel. The towels there are so small they barely wrap around you. For a 2 star hotel, this will certainly be where we stay again.

The Character meets!

Ok now this may take a few minutes as I would like to do this for each individual meet. Before that, with some of these meets like with Minnie in her safari gear, we had the photopass and this was great to have as we had images load up on the app and then download them to the computer to have really high quality images. We were able to get some photos seperate and then some together. Major thanks to Simon for this tip! First up is one I was super excited to meet and that was the Dark Lord of the Sith himself, Darth Vader! This was such a good meet to have! was funny queuing up and seeing people going to the cast members and asking what it was. There was a little girl behind us with her father and god love her she was scared to death. I told her that her dad is strong with the force and she needs to be strong like Rey. When we went in, I was amazed that he actually spoke. He said there was a rebel spy nearby and wondered if it was us. Karen said “not me” and when Vader said that she could tell the Emperor, she said “i’d prefer it if you told him”. This was a really good experience and one im sure we will do again as we were laughing away as we came out and saying how good it was.

Next up is Woody and Buzz who I had to get through Lineberty. Lineberty is an app that acts like a queuing system for you and tells you when it is your turn to go. I went on at 9.45am like everyone and tried to get a ticket for Buzz and missed out. While Karen was on Hyperspace Mountain (yeah not for me) I just went on to have a look and there was a free space. I snapped it up and told Karen when she came off the ride that I managed to get us Buzz. We had a lunch reservation that day and went and asked if we could be seen sooner. The cast members said only if they could come to lunch (it was the hakuna matata lunch) so we said they could have it all. They kindly let us through. I managed to get Woody when 12.45pm hit and got that straight away. Was super happy to get them both. Buzz was brilliant and wanted to get into my bag as it was designed to be like his toy packaging. He was very funny and was high fiving and doing all that. Was great to get the first lineberty guest done and this was our first venture into Walt Disney Studios Park as we needed to head to Toon Studio which was an ok park but we need to spend more time there the next time.

You can’t meet the space ranger without meeting his cowboy pal Woody. We were staying in Woody’s roundup room and I got us the tickets like I said earlier through Lineberty. When I went up to meet Woody, I told him to reach for the sky…instead we did some lassoing and then some form of line dancing. Thankfully there is no video or photo evidence of this! Phew. I had no idea how tall Woody was and he is gigantic! Again such super fun to meet him and Karen really enjoyed meeting him! I love the photo of Karen hugging Woody and looking at him! Again the photopass photographer did that so major props to him!

To complete the trio, after we had finished the Lion King experience, there was hardly any queue for Jessie who was starting in 20 minutes. This was one of Karen’s must meets and she was a sweetheart! She pointed to my bag and said about how much she loved buzz and i said what about me, she drew a heart for me and I said I’ll not tell buzz to which she put her finger to her mouth to say stay quiet. I was so happy that Karen got to meet her and she was so lovely and fun to meet. A character with so much energy and again the photopass photographer took a really lovely photo of Jessie and myself hugging. That’s one of my favourite photographs of me with a character. Was terrific to get the Toy Story gang completed in a day!

Another one of Karen’s must meets was someone from Aladdin. We went there for about 12.30pm as he was there till 12.45, had a break and would be back for 1pm so not long to wait. This was the first character we could have a conversation with and he was terrific. Asking where we were from and if we used a magic carpet to get there. Sadly he was back in the afternoon with the Genie but we had to leave then. Karen was made up that she got to meet him and commented after about how lovely he was. She was fairly laughing when we met him too which was nice to see and he took his time with people as well.

Upon entering the Walt Disney Studios park, there was a brief meet and greet with Max from A Goofy Movie. I said to him that I met his dad yesterday and he was being funny when we met him in Inventions. Took about 5 minutes to meet him and was a fun meet. Sadly we did see Bert and the penguins there a few times but the queues were closed when we went up.

Last up was my top meet of the trip and that was with the main man himself, Donald Duck. I had tried to meet him one day but the queue was taking forever and we went back the next day about 15 minutes before he was due to arrive. This was probably the longest queue we were in…sorry I was in as Karen was sitting down! This was such a funny meet as I said to Donald I loved him and showed him my tshirt. While Karen was taking photos, i said to him about my phone case and you can see he moves and blocks me in the photo. You can see one of the photos where he is pointing to the phone. Pluto was with him too so to get the two of them together was great. This was again something Karen and I were laughing about and the cast member was great taking the photos of us together.

That was all of the character meets we did on our trip. I also have to say quickly that everywhere we had some food was delicious and so many lovely places to eat….and McDonalds too ha ha. We had a lovely burger at Cafe Hyperion, a delicious hot dog in the Sports Bar as Annette’s Diner was packed! Just have a think of were you want to eat and we even managed to get a few slices of pizza from the Red Garter Saloon to take to our room. That was super handy.

Of course I have so many wonderful memories from my time there with Karen and we are looking to have a few more days in the park when we go back and have tried to figure out where to eat etc already. To witness the castle was amazing and to go through it was lovely. Sadly the walkway upstairs was closed and everytime we went to go underneath to see the dragon, it was closed due to the parade so again something for next time. I’ve put below some photos that bring back some wonderful memories when I look at them

So that concludes my Disneyland Paris report. Travelling from and to with the Eurostar was hasslefree apart from the delay we had coming home. Thankfully we were able to claim compensation for our hour and half delay. I really enjoyed myself and was lovely seeing Karen enjoying herself as well as buying what she wanted like some Disneyland Paris exclusive Pandora charms. No doubt more will be bought when we go back. Thank you so much for reading and I hope to continue doing more Disney blogs as I have found these really good fun to do

Until next time…..maybe we will have a roarsome time again on our next trip?

So what’s in your top 10?

Remember when I asked people about their top 5 Disney tunes? Well I asked my friends and youtubers/bloggers about their Top 10 Disney movies of all time. “That was really hard” was said an awful lot by the people I asked to contribute their list as there was so many to chose from. They were allowed to chose classic and new live action remakes as well as Pixar movies. Some may have The Muppets since they are under the Disney banner now but Star Wars movies were not allowed. Using Disney Life was a great way for some people to look through the catalogue and see! First set are some of my friends that I asked followed by Youtubers/Bloggers and then my girlfriend Karen’s list and finally mine. Think mine has changed numerous times and will probably change before hand. So let’s get it started!

Nicole

1. Lion king new

2. Tarzan

3, Jungle book new

4. Lady and the tramp

5. Beauty and the beast

6. The Little mermaid

7. The Rescuers

8. Cinderella

9. Toy story

10. Finding Nemo

Johnny

Toy Story
Tarzan
102 Dalmatian live action
Holes
Peter Pan
Mulan
Hercules
Monsters inc
Muppet treasure island
Treasure planet

Kirsty

1- lion King

2- toy story 1

3- incredibles 2

4- frozen

5- cool runnings

6- toy story 4

7- Aladdin

8- finding memo

9- herbie goes bananas

10- big hero 6

Dave

In no particular order:

Lion King

Aladdin

Beauty and the Beast

Pirates of the Caribbean Black Pearl

Moana

Toy Story 1

WallE

Robin Hood

Aladdin live action

Hercules

Simon

1. Lion King

2. Beauty & the Beast

3. Aladdin

4. The Sword in the Stone

5. Peter Pan

6. Robin Hood

7. Toy Story

8. Frozen

9. Moana

10. Bedknobs & Broomsticks

Gemma

1. Lion king

2. Aladdin

3. Beauty and the beast

4. Nightmare before Xmas

5. Little mermaid

6. Moana

7. Frozen

8. Aladdin live action

9. Toy story

10. Jungle book

Susan

Mulan
Hercules
Hunchback of notre dam
Sleeping beauty
Basil the great mouse detective
The fox and the hound
Oliver and company
Robin Hood
Sword in the Stone
The rescuers

Stacey Louise – YouTube Channel

1.Mary Poppins

2. Saving Mr Banks

3. Aladdin

4. The little Mermaid

5. Cinderella

6. Maleficent

7. Beauty & The Beast (live action)

8. George of the Jungle

9. The last song

10. Wall-E

Stolliedays – Stuart/Hollie – YouTube Channel

1) The Lion King

2) UP

3) 101 Dalmatians

4) Toy Story

5) Lady and the Tramp

6) The Little Mermaid

7) Monsters Inc

8) Aladdin

9) Beauty and the Beast

10) Moana

Thaydsnysologuy – Oli – YouTube Channel

1 – Toy Story (the original one)

2 – Tangled

3 – Cool Runnings (made by Disney so I guess that counts haha).

4 – Moana

5 – The Little Mermaid

6 – Cinderella (2015)

7 – Inside Out

8 – Beauty and the Beast (2017)

9 – Oliver and Company

10 – Zootopia/Zootropolis

Helena – YouTube Channel

1. Hercules

2. Beauty and the Beast (animation)

3. Inside out

4. Lion King (animation)

5. Hunchback of Norte Dame

6. Tangled

7. The Goofy Movie

8. Oliver and company

9. Coco

10. Moana

Amy – spoonful of disneylife – WordPress Blog Page

So my top 10 are..

1. Beauty and the beast

2. Tangled

3. Hercules

4. Ratatouille

5. Aladdin

6. Monsters Inc

7. Toy Story

8. Finding Nemo

9. Peter Pan

10. Tarzan

Zoe /Caffeine and Pixiedust – YouTube Channel!

1. Mary Poppins (original)

2. Tangled

3. Brave

4. Cinderella (Live action)

5. Peter Pan Return to Neverland

6. Sleeping Beauty

7. Maleficent

8. Moana

9. Toy Story 3

10. Saving Mr.Banks

Oooh and a special mention to my favourite Pixar short – Piper (and The Blue Umbrella if I get to pick two ha ha!

Karen

1. Beauty and the beast.

2. Mary Poppins.

3. Aladdin.

4. Lion King.

5. Hercules.

6. Little Mermaid.

7. Beauty and the beast live action.

8. Lion King live action.

9. Mary Poppins returns.

10. Toy Story 2.

My top 10

The Emperors New Groove
Tarzan
Saving Mr Banks
Christopher Robin
Moana
The Lion King (animated)
Aladdin (live action)
Monsters Inc
Coco
Toy Story 2

Some movies with sequels or prequels like Finding Dory, Monsters University, Ralph breaks the internet and The Rescuers Down Under sadly didn’t get any love from us all!

I just went through some of the movies that did not receive ANY votes! This is the part where people think “I forgot about that one” or may be on their honourable mentions type of list. So here they are – the bottom ten that didn’t get any votes!!

So if I get this right here are the results and I have had to use the Old and New Together to seperate 2 of them.

Beauty and the Beast animated – 9 votes

Beauty and the Beast live action – 3 votes

The Lion King animated – 9 votes

The Lion King “live action” – 2 votes

So Beauty and the Beast has 12 votes and The Lion King has 11 put together with no seperating the animated versions of them both!

In third place is the animated version of Aladdin with 8 votes and that is in joint third place with Moana….You’re Welcome as well as the original Toy Story!! 3 movies with the same amount of votes!

In forth place is one that kinda shocked me, not because its terrible but just didn’t expect it to be that high up is Hercules with 7 votes and in fifth place is The Little Mermaid with 6 votes!

So here it is!!! The Top 10 compiled from the list above and I hope to Zeus I got it right

: 9 votes animated

: 9 votes animated

: 8 votes animated

: 8 votes

: 8 votes

: 7 votes

: 6 votes

: 4 votes

: 4 votes

: 4 votes

Thank you all so much for reading and this is the last blog I am doing before my trip to Disneyland Paris which if I do this right, should be in a couple of days! I’m hoping that there is more still to come and I am sure that there will be one regarding the trip after I have been home and digested it all!

Retro never seems to go away!

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As i currently write this Blog i’ve been on a bit of a Disney kick due in part to my good friend Simon’s incredible vlog of his time in Disneyland Paris – Check out his Youtube Channel here. Due to this Disney kick i bought myself a Mickey Mouse in living colour dvd which has his animated shorts going back as far as 1935. Now im not going to go that far back but i wanted to do a blog talking about some of the properties that meant a lot to me when I was a kid and still do. These will be inspired by the tv show, the toys or maybe even both and with Power-Con helping to showcase Kevin Smith’s upcoming Masters of the Universe Netflix series it helped me get the inspiration to do this blog!

As you can see above some of the dvds i have in my retro collection ranging from Masters of the Universe to the likes of Scooby Doo and Transformers. I have my awesome buddy Mike Lacey to thank for the amazing Optimus Prime pictured here. I used to always want one of these when i was a kid but sadly Santa never brought one for me. Thanks to Santa Mike i did get one and was amazed when i opened it. A missing piece of my childhood came into my life when i was an adult and i think in all honesty I appreciated it more now! Some of the graded comics are also from Santa Mike and a few I have done myself with maybe one or two to be added! The TMNT abbey road print is signed by Kevin Eastman. I managed to snag this at London Film Comic Con in 2015 and there was only 200 of these available. The art down the side was done by the amazing Martin Griffiths! These were commissions that I had done and I think that the He-Man one would be my favourite but this would be a very hard decision to make. The frame at the top is an authentic He-Man animated cell from the Filmation show! I was given this I believe many years ago as a birthday present.

One thing that the retro side of cartoons has over the new ones is the theme tunes! Im going to post links here to my favourite animated intros that i never tire of or have as ringtones on my phone!

Now don’t get me wrong there are some other cracking theme tunes out there like Duck Tales, X-Men and Transformers would be my honourable mentions. Now you may think hey Chris, Spider-man isnt retro, hey its 24 years old now!! That to me classifies as retro!

I was going to fill this up with photos of me with some toys that mean a lot to me but i decided against it. Don’t panic, instead you can watch a video that i was using on a segment for my YouTube channel called Rewind to Retro. Here it is!! I hope you enjoy it and seeing photos of the younger Chris.

Many people who know me, will know that the biggest thing i took from my childhood and turned into a huge passion of mine was Masters of the Universe. He-Man has always been a part of my life and i think those people who know me can testify to that!

This is a tv show that I can always watch – the theme music, the animation, the stories are always timeless to me, i can always stick on an episode or two of this and it takes me back to my childhood. Happy memories of a simpler time where maybe missing your favourite tv show was the biggest problem you faced as a kid!

Podcasting is something that I have enjoyed doing and with me having done quite a few interviews, I would post my favourite ones down below for you to listen to.

Alyson Court Interview – Alyson Court was the voice behind Claire Redfield in Resident Evil 2

The voice of Lion-O from Thundercats – Larry Kenney Interview

Michealangelo from TMNT even stopped by – COWABUNGA!

Will kids have the same view of their childhood tv shows as we do? Will Peppa Pig or Fireman Sam and all that stuff? So many things now are getting revamped like Duck Tales, She-Ra and TMNT for example. These are ones that have been around for a while but are still going strong. The animation may be different but you will find that a lot of them have the same heart. Do yourself a favour and watch something from your childhood. I know that this isn’t a Disney vlog but still goes on the retro side of things and I hope you enjoyed reading this short blog. The next one is the last Disney blog before Karen and my trip to Disneyland Paris. Thanks very much for reading and until the next time!

The Last of the Disney movies I needed to watch before Disneyland Paris

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Not long to go now!! Incase you didn’t know, I head to Disneyland Paris very soon. Less than 2 weeks to go and i hope to bring you a blog of what I have done there when I return. Before I actually go though, I had some catching up to do. This was with some Disney movies that I hadn’t seen and wanted to watch before I head to Disneyland. This was the “big” movie list so no ones like High School Musical and all that (im a secret fan and love them all….ok thats a fib) . I had watched a few of them and will rank my top 5 of the newest ones I watched. I will give brief synopsis of the ones that didnt make the list.

5.Cinderella

Ok don’t have a go! Its taken me to be 41 years of age to finally watch Cinderella. Of course we all know the story of it and I have heard the live action remake of this is meant to be quite good too. The story is so beautifully told and with the animation being done in the 1950’s shows how good a studio Disney is. I really enjoyed the character of Gus in the movie who is one of the mice. He brings so much fun to the movie and is one of the more comedic characters. This is certainly the oldest movie on my list and one of the most magical tales as well. Its great to think how many generations of families have witnessed this movie for example. One amazing thing that Disney has!

4. Frozen

Yes this is on the list! Yes I did enjoy it! Yes I should have watched it sooner! I held off watching it for so long because of that “Let It Go” song was so massively overplayed when the movie first came out. Once the song was played (only once in the movie) I was enjoying the adventures of Anna, Olaf etc searching for Elsa who gave them a very frosty reception (sorry had to). The music in the movie is so catchy and my favourite tune is Love is an Open Door! This was one that I had stuck in my head for quite a while after watching it. This is probably the most musical Disney movie I have seen for quite some time but I didn’t really mind that once the movie started. I certainly didn’t want to build a snowman but I did also enjoy “For the First Time in Forever”. With me watching the first one, I am intrigued to see what the sequel has in store later this year. This movie I certainly appreciated for the visuals as well as the music. The voice acting in the movie is terrific as well! For all those who are waiting for it, here it is. You were right!

3. The Princess and the Frog

This was a real unknown one for me. Very few people I know had watched this and actually gave me more information about. When watching the film, I had no idea of the plot. All I had known was that is was set in New Orleans so I had a feeling that the music may be a bit on the jazzy side and I was fine with that, even more fine when the music was coming through my speakers. The voice casting in this one again was terrific. Oprah Winfrey as Tiana’s mum was amazing and for me Keith David who played Dr Facilier I recognised straight away as he plays David Anderson in the Mass Effect series and he has a pretty unmistakable voice. My favourite song from this was Almost There which is a tremendous song and also helps picture the restaurant that is Tiana’s dream from a very early age. You can feel the family spirit in this movie and for me my favourite character was Ray played by the amazing Jim Cummings. The voice just fits the character perfectly. If this is one you haven’t watched, I really recommend it!

2. Monsters University

Monsters Inc for me is one of my all time favourite Pixar movies (that isn’t Toy Story) and I had never watched the prequel. First of all let me say that the kid version of Mike is one of the cutest things I have seen (as well as the baby version of Dory). This shows Mike and Sully as well as Randall going through Scare School at university. Just looking at the voice cast, I had no idea that Helen Mirren played Dean Hardscrabble. She fits the role very well. It still has the same heart as the first film did and I’m excited for the Monsters at Work Disney + show as it still has John Goodman and Billy Crystal are reprising their roles. This was certainly the most comedic movie on my list. I can’t remember much of the music but then again there wasn’t that much. That’s my runner up, so what is Number 1 on my list?

1. Mulan

Wow is all I can say. This was a movie watching I had no expectations from and walked away loving it. Ming-Na Wen as Mulan, Eddie Murphy as Mushu and the late great Pat Morita as The Emperor. I’ll Make a Man Out of You by Donny Osmond is such a catchy song and if i was to redo my blog about the Disney music tracks, this would no doubt feature there as it is such a catchy tune and certainly the only Donny Osmond tune I have ever listened to. The storyline follows Mulan becoming a soldier to stop her father going to war. She has to pretend to be a man to join the army ranks and shows a great level of character and terrific storytelling. Out of them all, this was the movie I really enjoyed the most and am interested to see what the live action remake has to offer. It needs to stay close to the roots of this one and have that catchy tune. I highly recommend this one for you to watch if you haven’t seen it!

So yes Mulan was number 1 and a highly enjoyable movie which I was certainly most pleased with viewing. I’m sure you’re asking about the ones that didn’t make the list. well here they are with a small synopsis

Brave – A good movie with a strong female lead. Again no idea about the story so i had to bear with it…..get it?

A goofy movie- I don’t get the popularity of this movie really. was something I just couldn’t get into. Maybe another viewing is needed

Finding Dory – I loved Finding Nemo and this is a good movie but sadly couldn’t make the top 5. Doesn’t have the charm of the first one but the colours are just amazing

Many adventures of Winnie the Pooh – I think i watched this when I was a lot (and I mean a lot younger) as I remember vaguely the intro to the movie. Just a real charming movie that you expect from Pooh and friends. Has the introduction of Tigger and basically is three stories put together but is just lovely for all ages

Pocahontas – I’m sorry but what a boring film. Nothing really happens in it and the ending has to be one of the worst I think I have ever seen in a Disney movie. Mel Gibson as John Smith was very good but there isn’t much in this movie that would want me to watch it again.

Ralph breaks the internet – It comes to something that Frozen made the list and this didn’t. Gal Gadot as Shank was very good but the movie itself just was pointless. I enjoyed the first one and I think that Fix it Felix was very much misused in this movie as the chemistry between Ralph and Felix was as good as Ralph and Vanellope. Just a movie that sadly didn’t need to be made!

So they’re obviously my opinions on the movies, you are welcome to yours and I respect your opinion, please respect mine as I am sure you will do. So what’s next for the Disney blogs? Well there will be a new retro one up tomorrow and next monday will be the last blog before my trip to Disneyland Paris. What is it about? Well it kind of ties into what I have talked about today but with a difference…..tune in next week and until next time

AD/GIFTED.. Maple and Whisky Candles Review

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A Spoonful Of Disney Life

Last week I was very kindly sent a couple of candles from my most favourite ever candle company.. Maple And Whisky Candles. If you’ve had products from them before you’ll know just how amazing they are. If you haven’t then what are you doing?! Read this review and then go and get yourself some candles! 😛

Maple and Whisky create Disney candles that instantly transport you right back to a moment or experience from your trip and that is truly a talent! And that to me is exactly what you’re looking for!

So I chose Banshee Flight and Polynesian. Let’s take a look at Banshee Flight first!

I chose this because I’ve actually had this on my wishlist for a very long time! We first experienced Flight of Passage for the first time last year and the scent that hits you while on the ride is so beautiful…

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AD/GIFTED.. Maple and Whisky Candles Review