This is a retro trip report for 2014. I never did post it anywhere, and have gotten nostalgic on the one year anniversary of awesome European vacation with my then 16 year old son.
I'm skipping the first day and a half in London and seeing Monty Python, but will post if anyone is interested. We rode the Eurostar from London to Paris.
Getting out in Paris was CRAZY!!!
It was a huge station, packed with people, and only 4 machines people wanted to use for subway tickets, and dozens that sat empty that were for something else. There was also one ATM. We had no Euro, and my son had to go to the bathroom, of course, and it cost 70 Eurocents, or 1£, which was the first sign of how France was expensive.
Luckily the ATM worked. I had read a 5 zone ticket was like 9 €. The ticket machine, that was still mostly French, even if you chose English, would only sell me a 16€ ticket! and the descriptions and navigation of the machine were unbelievably poorly written. I recall the English guy in the food car buying train tickets. Sure wish I had asked him about it. Probably would have saved me a lot of headache, and money.
We finally get money and tickets, and find the train we need. Of course, Paris' train stations haven’t been updated since the war, so the platform we wanted had a single, 4 foot wide staircase full of people going up and down, and there was no way we were getting our luggage down it. So we waited for the tinyfunicular that was for handicapped, and people with strollers. It held 2.5 people comfortably, before luggage. And of course one woman cut in front of the entire line, even though she had no luggage, and was walking. She cut in front of a woman with a stroller even. We were not impressed
We finally get on the train, and some guy has two big coolers full of drinks, like he's going to sell them at a baseball game. He was leaking water all over the train floor. Luckily we were only on it for 2 stops
We then got on the slooooooow train out to the Disney resort, got on our bus to the Sequoia lodge, and got our room. I definitely saw the difference between this and other Disney resorts. It was nice, but not remotely worth the money, and check-in was VERY slow. And the staff didn't speak great English. It's not like there is a state of the art train that brings huge amounts of English people directly here, twice a day or anything.
PRO TIP: Ride the Eurostar direclty to DLP. Yes, there are only 2 a day, but it will save you massive frustration, and not cost much more time, or money.
I also stopped by concierge to luckily get reservations for Walts, Sunday at 9.
Our room was decent sized. Of course, we were prepared for the no washcloths, and barely cooling AC. It never got too cold on our trip, Thank God, because the air conditioners were capable of cooling the room 1 degree per day, and would shut off if they didn't sense movement, you know, like when you are sleeping. I was shocked that even Disney gave no wash cloths, but they did have shampoo, so we stocked up.
We got our stuff, and just walked to the resort. Our room was the closest possible to the path out to the lake at the beginning of Downtown Disney, so it was perfect.
Walking up to the parks is very unique. A HUGE open promenade between the parks and DTD. And you can't see the castle from outside Disneyland. Only a large hotel WAAAAY out of our price range. I was giddy with excitement, visiting my 4th Disney Resort, and 9th park.
Getting through the gates, and under the hotel, you could finally see what is easily the best Disney castle in all its glory. The day was pretty overcast, which made everything a bit gloomy looking, but also seemed to make the crowd small. Which was good, since we only had about 3 hours before park close. Since Disneyland stayed open to the late time of 10pm. A good 3-4 hours after the rest of Europe closes.
So, of course we take lots of pics of the castle, and go towards Big Thunder. The line was not too bad, about 30 minutes. The ride is of course totally unique with looooong dark tunnels leading out and back from the island the ride is on. As a roller coaster, this was a great, fun ride, and the section on the side of the island, over water, with a view of Phantom Manor was great. Plus, the fast dive for the tunnel return to the station was really cool.
Next we went over to a ride I had looked forward to every since DLP opened, Phantom Manor. It looks great from the outside, although I wasn't sure if some of the rundown look was theming, or reality. And the ghost town in front of it was truly a ghost town, with everything closed. There was no line, so we went to the dead center of the room, to find all but one new stretching portraits, and a completely different loading area. The first part of the ride was the same as Haunted Mansion, except on this night it was running in Simpsons mode, with no sound, and only the squeaking of the animatronics. I was waiting for an old woman in a chair saying something about the ravages of old age. This REALLY put us in a down mood.
Luckily, the sound returned at the ballroom, and the completely different second half through a ghost town. I was surprised there were no Hitch-hiking ghosts in the mirrors. Not sure if they were ever there. Surely they were originally.
Time was already running out, so we headed back to Indiana Jones. I wanted to to knock it out on a low crowd night, since I knew it stunk, and I had already ridden the Japan version, but it was new for my son. The walk back is just ridiculous. Past a huge restaurant that was of course closed. We had Half Board coupons, which I was starting to think were like Itchy and Scratchy money, since no restaurants were open, or they were not expensive, so using a half board coupon there was a complete ripoff.
We did a quick ride on the Temple of Peril, and walked to Pirates, which although it was just a few hundred feet away, was approximately a 15 minute walk due to the park's horrendous layout of deadends everywhere. The theming was really amazing. Huge buildings, the awesome skull waterfall, the Arabian Adventureland. When we got to Pirates, I asked a CM where the restaurant was. She pointed, but didn't tell me it was closed, which we found out after the long walk back to it. We decided we needed to skip Pirates and watch the Dreams fireworks show, since the crowd was light. We got a good seat pretty close up, and I went looking for food. All I could find was crazily overpriced hot dogs at Caseys. Really? No wonder this park struggles. After realizing I'd lose around 40 Euro if I used half board coupons, I paid with credit, and went back to my son.
The show was incredible. My first full on projection mapping castle show. And since it was the 4th of July, it was the perfect ending for us Americans. Some of the projections were really cool, but the Peter Pan shadow just didn't do it for me. And of course, we didn't understand a lot.
We hit the World of Disney shop on the way back to the hotel. Just as in Japan, I found it impossible to find a shirt that would fit my not that large body. And really there was a pretty paltry selection anyway. I did get my wife the Ratatouille chef's hat, which was crazy expensive, but really the only thing that just screamed Paris or France.
We got back to our room that had not really changed temperature while we were gone. Luckily, it wasn't too hot during our whole trip, since an air conditioned room in Europe really means the equivalent of a 70s era Motel 6 air conditioner.
We crashed pretty hard. We aren't early risers in general, and need to sleep in after two very long days, and this really hurt us on our trip, since if you started late, you'd miss half the day, since most places close so early. I did find out in the lobby that Ratatouille had soft opened that day for the first time, so I was REALLY hoping we'd get to ride it tomorrow.
I'm skipping the first day and a half in London and seeing Monty Python, but will post if anyone is interested. We rode the Eurostar from London to Paris.
Getting out in Paris was CRAZY!!!
It was a huge station, packed with people, and only 4 machines people wanted to use for subway tickets, and dozens that sat empty that were for something else. There was also one ATM. We had no Euro, and my son had to go to the bathroom, of course, and it cost 70 Eurocents, or 1£, which was the first sign of how France was expensive.
Luckily the ATM worked. I had read a 5 zone ticket was like 9 €. The ticket machine, that was still mostly French, even if you chose English, would only sell me a 16€ ticket! and the descriptions and navigation of the machine were unbelievably poorly written. I recall the English guy in the food car buying train tickets. Sure wish I had asked him about it. Probably would have saved me a lot of headache, and money.
We finally get money and tickets, and find the train we need. Of course, Paris' train stations haven’t been updated since the war, so the platform we wanted had a single, 4 foot wide staircase full of people going up and down, and there was no way we were getting our luggage down it. So we waited for the tinyfunicular that was for handicapped, and people with strollers. It held 2.5 people comfortably, before luggage. And of course one woman cut in front of the entire line, even though she had no luggage, and was walking. She cut in front of a woman with a stroller even. We were not impressed
We finally get on the train, and some guy has two big coolers full of drinks, like he's going to sell them at a baseball game. He was leaking water all over the train floor. Luckily we were only on it for 2 stops
We then got on the slooooooow train out to the Disney resort, got on our bus to the Sequoia lodge, and got our room. I definitely saw the difference between this and other Disney resorts. It was nice, but not remotely worth the money, and check-in was VERY slow. And the staff didn't speak great English. It's not like there is a state of the art train that brings huge amounts of English people directly here, twice a day or anything.
PRO TIP: Ride the Eurostar direclty to DLP. Yes, there are only 2 a day, but it will save you massive frustration, and not cost much more time, or money.
I also stopped by concierge to luckily get reservations for Walts, Sunday at 9.
Our room was decent sized. Of course, we were prepared for the no washcloths, and barely cooling AC. It never got too cold on our trip, Thank God, because the air conditioners were capable of cooling the room 1 degree per day, and would shut off if they didn't sense movement, you know, like when you are sleeping. I was shocked that even Disney gave no wash cloths, but they did have shampoo, so we stocked up.
We got our stuff, and just walked to the resort. Our room was the closest possible to the path out to the lake at the beginning of Downtown Disney, so it was perfect.
Walking up to the parks is very unique. A HUGE open promenade between the parks and DTD. And you can't see the castle from outside Disneyland. Only a large hotel WAAAAY out of our price range. I was giddy with excitement, visiting my 4th Disney Resort, and 9th park.
Getting through the gates, and under the hotel, you could finally see what is easily the best Disney castle in all its glory. The day was pretty overcast, which made everything a bit gloomy looking, but also seemed to make the crowd small. Which was good, since we only had about 3 hours before park close. Since Disneyland stayed open to the late time of 10pm. A good 3-4 hours after the rest of Europe closes.
So, of course we take lots of pics of the castle, and go towards Big Thunder. The line was not too bad, about 30 minutes. The ride is of course totally unique with looooong dark tunnels leading out and back from the island the ride is on. As a roller coaster, this was a great, fun ride, and the section on the side of the island, over water, with a view of Phantom Manor was great. Plus, the fast dive for the tunnel return to the station was really cool.
Next we went over to a ride I had looked forward to every since DLP opened, Phantom Manor. It looks great from the outside, although I wasn't sure if some of the rundown look was theming, or reality. And the ghost town in front of it was truly a ghost town, with everything closed. There was no line, so we went to the dead center of the room, to find all but one new stretching portraits, and a completely different loading area. The first part of the ride was the same as Haunted Mansion, except on this night it was running in Simpsons mode, with no sound, and only the squeaking of the animatronics. I was waiting for an old woman in a chair saying something about the ravages of old age. This REALLY put us in a down mood.
Luckily, the sound returned at the ballroom, and the completely different second half through a ghost town. I was surprised there were no Hitch-hiking ghosts in the mirrors. Not sure if they were ever there. Surely they were originally.
Time was already running out, so we headed back to Indiana Jones. I wanted to to knock it out on a low crowd night, since I knew it stunk, and I had already ridden the Japan version, but it was new for my son. The walk back is just ridiculous. Past a huge restaurant that was of course closed. We had Half Board coupons, which I was starting to think were like Itchy and Scratchy money, since no restaurants were open, or they were not expensive, so using a half board coupon there was a complete ripoff.
We did a quick ride on the Temple of Peril, and walked to Pirates, which although it was just a few hundred feet away, was approximately a 15 minute walk due to the park's horrendous layout of deadends everywhere. The theming was really amazing. Huge buildings, the awesome skull waterfall, the Arabian Adventureland. When we got to Pirates, I asked a CM where the restaurant was. She pointed, but didn't tell me it was closed, which we found out after the long walk back to it. We decided we needed to skip Pirates and watch the Dreams fireworks show, since the crowd was light. We got a good seat pretty close up, and I went looking for food. All I could find was crazily overpriced hot dogs at Caseys. Really? No wonder this park struggles. After realizing I'd lose around 40 Euro if I used half board coupons, I paid with credit, and went back to my son.
The show was incredible. My first full on projection mapping castle show. And since it was the 4th of July, it was the perfect ending for us Americans. Some of the projections were really cool, but the Peter Pan shadow just didn't do it for me. And of course, we didn't understand a lot.
We hit the World of Disney shop on the way back to the hotel. Just as in Japan, I found it impossible to find a shirt that would fit my not that large body. And really there was a pretty paltry selection anyway. I did get my wife the Ratatouille chef's hat, which was crazy expensive, but really the only thing that just screamed Paris or France.
We got back to our room that had not really changed temperature while we were gone. Luckily, it wasn't too hot during our whole trip, since an air conditioned room in Europe really means the equivalent of a 70s era Motel 6 air conditioner.
We crashed pretty hard. We aren't early risers in general, and need to sleep in after two very long days, and this really hurt us on our trip, since if you started late, you'd miss half the day, since most places close so early. I did find out in the lobby that Ratatouille had soft opened that day for the first time, so I was REALLY hoping we'd get to ride it tomorrow.
Attachments
Last edited by a moderator:
