My first experience of Disneyland Paris

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?