theDIBB - A Birthday at DLP

Thursday 2nd November - More time in DLP and WDS

Today I was awake a t 7 with the rest of the family waking up at 7.30 (with a lot of help from me!) We got up and ready, eating a brioche in the room and left the room at 8.10. We made it to bag check by the lake at 8.30 and headed towards DLP taking a rather slow wander through the village. We were at the gate for DLP by 9am and through the line after showing our Hotel Easy Pass. We went towards Fantasy Land but went to visit the dragon under the castle first. We then used the green pass to ride Dumbo, the tea cups and Peter Pan. The queue for EMH were excessively long, especially Peter Pan. We came to the conclusion today that as we had the green pass for Jack and were accessing the rides with minimal wait times there actually was no point in getting up for EMH tomorrow as it wasn’t really beneficial to us. We found the EMH at WDS much better and more accessible than here. Lie in for us tomorrow!

After Peter Pan we had a look through the shops and left DLP at 9.40 – it really was a whistle stop tour but not bad doing those three rides in such a short time frame. We headed to Eos in the village as I had pre bought breakfast vouchers from 365tickets. We ordered 4 egg, bacon and cheese muffins with cappuccinos for the adults and hot chocolates for the little ones. They have a very strange system in here…you order your food at the till and then they give you a pager whilst they make the food. It ensures that the muffins are fresh and hot but by goodness it takes quite some time to make such a simple order! Pager bleeped so I collected the food and we tucked in, with a nice view over looking the lake and DLH. Food was nice and fresh and a bargain price.

Once we had finished our breakfast we left EoS and went to have a look in some more shops through the village. I bought a park magnet from the Disney store which cost e4.99. We headed into WDS and went on Aladdin followed by Crush’s Coaster. We decided to queue for the 12.50 Mickey and the Magician show. We had tried to queue for the earlier showing of Mickey and the Magician after Aladdin but the queue was closed so as soon as we finished on Crush we hot footed it to the newly opened queue and were very close to the front. We didn’t use the green pass for this as we weren’t sure how to but as we were close to the front and the queue wasn’t moving Jack was able to sit on the floor and play on his phone whilst we queued. I think we were in the queue for half and hour and it’s typical that dd was asking for a drink just as we joined it yet unfortunately we hadn’t had the chance to fill our water bottles yet and I wasn’t sure if I could leave the queue and rejoin it so she had to wait.

It was a bit of a scrum to get into the theatre abut we managed to find pretty decent seats in the middle of the theatre, some way up. Wow! This show is absolutely amazing and I’m not ashamed to say I cried at the Lion King part. This was a phenomenal show and had I had the chance to watch it again I would have jumped to do it! The children loved it too. When we came out of the theatre we headed across the park to ride Rock n Roller Coaster again before heading into the 2.15 showing of Motor Action. Again this was a very good show. Similar to the phone in WDW which we had watched the start of but hadn’t seen all of it as it was called off due to inclement weather, so it was good to see the ending!

Next we decided to take a chance on ToT. When we did this in WDW dd was almost 5 and absolutely petrified of the ride but I really wanted to ride it again so managed to persuade her to do it. We used the green pass and there was a bit of a wait but we eventually got on. The cm that we had was amazing though and so in character, it really made the ride for us. Fortunately, dd did enjoy it and I think we’ll get her on it again in WDW!

We then walked around to Stitch and queued for the next English show at 4.15, again at the front of the queue line. This was fantastic! Stitch is ds’s favourite Disney character and he was chosen as one of the children that Stitch spoke to. Stitch told ds that he was his new best friend and it made his day. Whilst in there Stitch was also speaking to Josh (an adult) the planet killer…we will remember this for tomorrow!

After Stitch we walked across WDS and dd spotted Cruella De Ville and 2 cms walking her through the park. As I mentioned earlier in my report, Libby loves the villains and Cruella is one of her favourites. She pointed her out to me and so we shot across the park to see her but dd came over all shy and refused to speak so instead we just did a dodgy stalk of her as she had finished meeting people. At this point dd noticed that one of the cast members had a lanyard full of pins and as this has been a rarity in Paris she jumped on it instantly, asking the cm to trade pins with her. He stopped so Cruella and the other cm went off on their merry way while dh fumbled in his back pack to pull out the two lanyards. The children spent a long time talking to the cm and asking him to trade pins. He was English and was very friendly and happy to trade with the children and chat along with them. Once the impromptu pin trading had finished we left the cm to try and track down his character, he had no idea where she had gone to! We continued on our way to where we had been heading and dh, ds and dd went onto Rally Quatro whilst I stood and watched. We then went and rode Ratatouille, RC racer (which dh got on this time as he realised it wasn’t too bad and had been coping well with his kidney stones!) and finally Slinky dog before heading out of the park.

Whilst in the village we stopped by Starbucks to grab some drinks and some cakes. We hadn’t had a proper lunch but had been eating from our snack packs all day and just needed a little something to see us through to our reservation at Café Mickey’s. 1 orange juice, 1 smoothie, a white chocolate doughnut, a blueberry muffin and 2 caramel lattes cost e22.14. I also picked up the ‘You are here’ mug as Paris was to be the start of my collection, this cost e14.90.

We took our drinks and cakes and walked back to the hotel, making it back to the room at about 6.10. We finished our drinks, had a rest and freshened up before deciding to head down to the hotel bar at 6.50. I wanted to try a glowtini! Unfortunately, we reached the bar and it was closed due to technical difficulties! We decided to walk around the lake the opposite way and make our way into Hotel New York for the glowtinis. We also had time to stop for some nightime selfies and took some photos of NPB lit up at night, it really was beautiful.

We went into HNY and found the bar easily where a waiter seated us and took our order. We ordered 1 blue glowtini, 1 red glowtini and 2 children’s glowtinis, 1 with bubble gum and the other orange and passion fruit (we think!) The children’s cocktails came in a light up flashing cup which they were able to keep and the total cost was e50. This was expensive but a must on my list! We were however, a little rushed in here as it was gone 7 by the time we arrived and were seated and we had our reservation at 7.45 and still needed to get through security which we had noticed seemed busy on this side of the lake. We drank our drinks quite quickly but enjoyed them. I ordered the red glowtini and dh ordered the blue with each of us preferring the one we had ordered!

We just had time for a photograph by the Christmas tree before heading to security which wasn’t as busy as we had seen it previously.

We arrived at Café Mickey’s in time for our 7.45 reservation and we were held in the waiting area for about 15 minutes before being shown to our table. We had made this reservation for Libby’s birthday and whilst it was ok, I don’t think it is somewhere we would revisit when we go back to DLP. The setting was ok but the waiter just seemed to be very busy, even though it didn’t look too busy inside the restaurant where we w ere sat. Anyway, Dh and I ordered a diavolo pizza (salami and pepperoni) and a 1664 each, ds and dd ordered a pizza Mickey and a fanta each. The children had a dessert included in the children’s meal. The children’s meals came on a Mickey plate which was quite cute! The total was e91.94 and although cheaper than Rainforest Café I would return there over Café Mickey.

We eventually got the bill and paid then left at 9pm. We walked back to DLP and went to the bakery on Main Street where we bought 2 Mickey Head cookies and 2 Mickey head Marshmallows ready to watch Dreams. I had said that I would like to watch the show from the bottom of Main Street to get the full view of the castle so this is where we headed. However, I really wish we hadn’t bothered. We found a nice spot just beside the bandstand and settled ourselves there to watch while eating our treats. As it was getting closer to show time people came and stood in silly places right in front of us and blocked our view completely. We eventually moved to the front of the bandstand and perched on the railings in the hope we would have a semi decent view but typically enough the dad in front hoisted his child on his shoulders and completely blocked our view. When the show started we managed ot get a half decent view but the atmosphere was nowhere near as good as light night and I would not choose this spot again, much preferring Plaza gardens.

Once the show had finished we hot footed it out of the room and headed back to the hotel arriving at 10.45, where we had our night time hot chocolate using the room key in the machine before crashing.