My myself and I - A solo trip report Day 1

[dav220588]

Day 1 - Tuesday 25th August 2015

So here we are, day 1 of my trip report. This includes all travel and a bit of Disney stuff. You'll see why it was only a bit of Disney stuff when I get to that part of the day (building suspense already, clearly I'm a natural storyteller!).

My day began at 4:30am! Well I say it started, the previous day actually didn't end as I couldn't sleep so gave up and just got up. After getting ready and catching a cab to St. Pancras (I live in Hoxton for anyone who knows London so it's only 10 minutes away) I was checked in good time for my indirect train to DLP. On a side note I'd have much preferred the direct train but I booked this trip a month ago and it was more than twice the price. Apparently my time isn't worth that much .

The train ride was easy and uneventful, and I will say that living in London I find the Eurostar to be absolutely brilliant. There really is no comparison to flying. It's so much less stressful. Anyway I arrived into Marne la Vallee on time (around 12pm local time) and jumped on the RER back to Val d'Europe where I was staying at the Ibis budget for a few nights. Now I stayed at this hotel in May with my girlfriend and thought it was ridiculously basic, but I was on my own, it was really reasonably priced and the Disney hotels are just stupidly expensive when booked last minute so I decided to go for it! My room was ready and so by about 1pm I was in the resort and heading into Disneyland park!






First stop in the park was to collect my annual pass. I went for the fantasy pass as didn't think the extra perks of the dream pass were worth it to me. No pic here but you can see it on my Instagram account (username is dav2205).

Once I collected my annual pass I'm not going to lie the tiredness absolutely floored me. I knew that jedi training academy was on in Cafe Hyperion and they had changed up the menu a bit so decided to have a quiet hour or so and check it all out -






The food was actually pretty good. I've had some genuinely horrific food at DLP over the years but this was tasty by fast food standards. Also think it's cute how they've given everything a Star Wars twist!

I also thought the show was really cool and a welcome addition to the park. All I know is if it was there when I visited as a kid I'd have been all over it! Some of the effects in it were also really cool, and I can see it being popular for a very long time!

At this point I started to realise why I usually don't visit the park in the summer time. It was BUSY. So much busier than May. It was so busy, it was raining and I was so tired that I didn't bother doing anything else in Disneyland Park and decided to head over to the studios and see if the queues were shorter there.

In short, they weren't. In fact the queues were so long for all the rides that I did one of my least favourite attractions at either of the parks. The stunt show. Or at least it was one of my least favourites because I found myself actually enjoying it. It's probably to do with the fact I haven't seen it in over 10 years!



I don't have any more pictures for today, but can tell you the only other thing I did was Ratatouille (thank goodness for the single rider line - only had to wait 15 minutes!) which was absolutely superb as I remembered it. The trackless ride system is so clever and for me it's got the qualities that make it enjoyable to all age groups which is just Disney personified.

At this point it was about 6pm and I just couldn't take anymore so decided to bail on the parks for the day (one of the perks of having 4 days there I suppose!). I headed back to Val d'Europe and stopped off at the supermarket for some breakfast supplies and sushi for dinner. After a quick call home and to the GF I was out like a light at 9:30 with my alarm set for EMH the next day (which totally didn't happen but I'll explain that in the post for Day 2!)

[NatOwls]

Thanks for sharing !
We've not been to DLP yet, but it's on our list of things to do
Looking forward to reading the rest of your TR

[Gill H]

Good first day. I tend to avoid eating at Cafe Hyperion because of the crazy queues, but Videopolis is one of my fave places to crash when tiredness hits. And the show looks great!