So What's It Really Like? - Day 2

[neilhd]

DAY 2 - Disneyland Park

Cast Members:
Neil (Me) - 30, Chief Reader of the Brits Guide,
Ele - 32, Knows every song from every Disney movie.
Jess - 12, Knows every word from every song from every Disney movie.
Joe - 3, Mickey Mouse Mad.

Dates: 7th April 2009 - 10th April 2009

We were up early - 6am - as I had got 7am breakfasts for us. Of course, this is 6am French Time, which is really 5am our time. And this was only a week or so after the clocks went back so part of me still thinks it's 4am. Still, there's Disney to do so no time for slackers!

Joe seems to be feeling a lot better today and isn't coughing any more than goodness. So a quick shower and we head to Chuck Wagons for breakfast. As we're there at the beginning of the first sitting the place is almost deserted. We load up our plates and have the pick of any table we want. The breakfast was actually really nice, but we don't waste time and are out of the door by about 07:40 to get the bus to the parks. When we get out of breakfast Goofy is standing there doing pictures and autographs so obviously the kids want to do that, so we do. In fact I didn't even notice him - it was Joe that yelled out "Goofy!" that alerted us to him! Naturally Joe won't look at the camera when his picture is being taken. He always says "Cheese" but does it whilst looking in all other directions.



We were in the queue at the main gate at 07:50 and are let in at 08:00 for EMH - the best invention ever! We go straight to do Buzz as Joe wants to do it. Yesterday evening the queue was posted at 45 minutes. Today we walk straight onto it and have a great time. After that, Jess and I rode Space Mountain, again with no queue at all, whilst Ele took Joe on the Orbitron. I liked Space Mountain - a bit better than the Florida one I thought. Ele and Jess then road Space Mountain whilst I took Joe back on Buzz. Then Jess suggested she look after Joe for a few minutes whilst Ele and I ride Space Mountain as we never get to go on rides together. So we left her to it (she's very responsible towards her little brother!) and rode SM again. This time there was a small queue because one of the two ride vehicles wasn't working, but it was only a couple of minutes. We collected Jess and Joe and headed into Fantasyland to ride Peter Pan, which we had to wait for all of 2 minutes for, and then did the Carousel. He we were, an hour into park opening and we'd already done several of the biggest draws in the park! Brilliant! We went back briefly so Jess and I could do Space Mountain again, but decided against Buzz as the queue had hit 30 minutes (before the park had even opened!).



Next we took a quick loo-stop for Ele to fix her contact lenses and worked out how to attach the rain-cover thing to Joe's pushchair as it was tipping down with rain. By the time we'd done all that it was almost opening time for the park and people were inside the park waiting to get into the lands. We joined the handful of people waiting by the shortcut to Frontierland by Liberty Arcade rather than standing in the main throng. There was no CM to lift the rope so as soon as people started going in the main entrance an enterprising girl decided to open the rope herself. We followed the throng to Big Thunder Mountain and joined the queue, which took about 20 minutes all told, as we had to wait for the ride to actually open. Joe was very excited to go on a "scary rollercoaster" and he absolutely loved it! So much so that he wanted to go again, so we got a fastpass for later, with a return time of 11:10 to 11:40. We went to the Phantom Manor next but it didn't open until 11am so we bought some popcorn instead and I wandered off to find a park map as we'd lost ours. We then decided to join the queue for Phantom Manor, which eventually opened at 11:10, leaving me worried we'd miss out fastpass slot for BTM. We just missed out on getting inside the house at one point, leaving me even more worried about the fastpass time as the minutes were ticking by, but eventually got on the ride, and I rode with Joe who was a little bit scared ("just hold me, daddy!") but he did enjoy it. Whilst on the ride it stopped for 2 or 3 minutes so I was getting even more concerned about our fastpass time. We got off the ride at 11:35 or something, so we ran back over to the Thunder Mountain fastpass line, only to discover that the ride was broken anyway! All that worrying for nothing. The CM at the gate said that they'd take the passes for anytime during the day because of that, so we decided to come back to it later.

So over to Indiana Jones it was. The plan had been to grab a fastpass for it, but the fastpass machines were not open (this seems to happen a lot here, I don't know why) but the queue was only 20 mins anyway so we did a rider switch for it. Jess and I rode first, then Ele and Jess rode. It was really good, shame there isn't one in Florida, too!



By now we were all hungry so we went over to Pizza Planet. On the way Minnie's Party Train pulled up. A whole bunch of characters came off and walked right by us, as we were basically standing in the place where they go for autographs, but they were immediately mobbed by OFKs ('Orrible French Kids), so we decided against trying to get autographs. We carried on to Pizza Planet and the kids went off and played in the play area whilst Ele and I bought the food. The kids had Mickey pizzas (we buy these from Tesco for Joe - he loves them), Ele had a bigger pizza and I had a pizza burger. They were okay. Not great, but not awful. Expensive, of course. Once we'd finished we saw the line for Star Tours was only 20 mins so headed into that. I'd introduced Joe to Star Wars a week or so ago, and he quite enjoyed it, so at least he recognised C3P0 and R2D2. I'm a big Star Wars nut so I enjoy this ride anyway. And the queue - I love seeing the droids! At first it was weird hearing C3P0 speak French but of course he is a protocol droid fluent in over 3 million languages, so I suppose French should be ok! I actually enjoyed the ride more than I did in Florida, although it made Jess a bit motion sick (as it did in Florida!). Joe enjoyed it, too.

When we came out of there the Party Train was just leaving (I imagine it had been and gone since we first saw it), so we watched it go. After Star Tours we went back to Frontierland to do our Fastpass for Big Thunder Mountain. Joe enjoyed it even more the second time around. After that we went over to ride Pirates Of the Carribean. This was also a short queue and I think it was also better than the Florida ride. We were sat at the front of the boat, which was nice. When that had finished we had a look around the gift-shop but didn't buy anything. We then bought a coffee and I had to go into the stall and help the woman unlock the coffee machine as it was stuck. We then headed to have an explore around Skull Rock which was fun - an amazing man-made creation.

Once we'd finished there we went back to Fantasyland because Joe wanted to go on the train, so we bought Joe a lolly and Jess and Ele a toffee apple (or Pomme D'Amour as they are over there) and decided to do a lap of the park on it (the train, not the apple).



It was a nice relaxing ride around, and when we got to Main Street who do we see waiting to get on but our next-door neighbour! They didn't spot us though, so when we got off at Fantasyland again we went down and said hello. Having proved that it is indeed a small world after all, we went to go and ride it's a small world (please start singing!) for a fix of possessed Chuckie-dolls. Jess didn't want to but she was forced on, as it's against the law to go to Disney and not go on it! The "queue" was about 10 people so we were straight on, also to the front of a boat. Incidentally the boats for this ride are identical to the POTC ones.

After we'd finished on there we went to do Pinnochio and Snow White. We had never done these before and probably won't bother again. Snow White was marginally better than Pinnochio, but they both suffered from the same problem - the speed of the ride vehicle is too fast, meaning you don't actually have time to take in anything in each room. Luckily they were both very short queues.

We had a final spin on the carousel, then went back to Main Street for an Ice Cream. Joe had zonked out in his pushchair by this point so we decided on a nice stroll back to the hotel. Once we got there we called in at reception to ask for some extra pillows. By the time we'd walked to our room they were already there - good service! We then made some sandwiches for dinner using stuff we had bought with us, and then went to bed.

We managed to do basically everything we wanted to in one day which I was very pleased with. I had expected to have to come back to do some things we had missed, but that wouldn't be necessary now.

[Lil_Missy]

Wow you got a whole lot done today. I found that you can pretty much do the Magic Kingdom in a day and the studios in about 2/3rds of a day so going to look forward to what else you get done out there.

[Guest]

Another fab read

[AmandaB]

Sounds like you had a very full day.

[2waterford]

wow sounds like you had a very busy day. Well done on getting so much done on your first day. xx

[mossyflossy]

some fab photos, sounds as if you all had a great day!

[sungiggs]

great read

[Strommie]

Lovely busy day

[roonlou]

Very impressed with your ability to "do" the whole park in one day! You should get a medal for your efforts!

[Guest]

Another great report with lovely photos.