A Cowboy Christmas: November 2018. Day 4 - Home, Home on the Trains
 

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Jessie the Yodelling Cowgirl writes:

Howdy pardners! It’s time to join Wild Gill Hiccup and Pardner Pete as they saddle up and hit the homeward trail. Hope you don’t get saddle-sore just readin’ about it! Take it away Gill…

Today was going to be a sad day as it would be our last at DLP, and we wouldn’t even have time to go to the parks! We needed to leave by about 10am so we could get to Gare du Nord to catch our Eurostar. Unfortunately that was the only problem with those £29 tickets – you have to travel at rubbish times! And because it was so late on Thursday when we arrived, it almost felt like we’d been done out of two days in the parks.

So we had decided to take it easy this morning, with a leisurely breakfast, a visit to Salon Mickey and a last browse round the shops.

Unfortunately my body clock was still in ‘park mode’ as I woke at 6am and couldn’t get back to sleep! So I got ready and woke Peter at 7 with a coffee. I did most of the packing while he got ready – let’s face it, packing to go home is a lot quicker than packing to go away! And by 8am we were strolling in to breakfast at the Chuck Wagon.

We presented our free half-board vouchers and asked to upgrade to the buffet breakfast, which cost us 7 Euros each. Again, it was nice to be seated first, rather than have to struggle finding tables with a tray full of food. We definitely approve of that change!

We took it in turns to get our food. Cheyenne now includes hot options in the breakfast, which is a great improvement. We helped ourselves to a selection of hot and cold items, including the usual ‘miel pops’ (honey pops) cereal which you don’t seem to find in the UK any more but is always available in DLP! We took our time and ate as much as we wanted. While the food is not exactly gourmet and certainly couldn’t beat a ‘full English’, there’s all the usual suspects available, and I do like a variety of meats and cheeses at breakfast – very continental I know! Is the breakfast worth full price? (Which I believe is about 13 Euros?) Probably not, but if you are going to fill up at breakfast and skip lunch, it might work out well for you.

It was strange to hear announcements over the PA saying ‘Disneyland Paris is now open!’ I don’t think we have ever been late enough at breakfast to hear that, we like to be first in the park and dance down an empty Main Street. But today we took advantage of our leisurely start. After breakfast we went back to the room for the last few bits of packing, and wrote our comment card. My only comment for improvement was the same as usual – please put kettles in the rooms permanently, us Brits love a cuppa in the morning!

Then we bid farewell to the Cheyenne, taking the opportunity to snap some pictures now that it wasn’t foggy or actually raining! Stand by for photo overload…

Then we headed out onto the path...









And down towards the lake.

Apologies for all the photos but there wasn't a lot else to see today! Besides, the Cheyenne was worth it.





Lovely red leaves!



Yay, we can actually see Panoramagique today!

We strolled on through the Village, listening to the Christmas music playing over the PA system. It was the tree lighting music loop and included our favourite DLP song, ‘Chante, C’est Noel’ which they really need to bring back properly. They do use snippets of it in the shows, but it is such a great song and deserves to be heard in full.



We walked on through Fantasia Gardens, where they were playing Disney park music and we joined enthusiastically in a chorus of ‘There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow’. This reminded us of Geoff again as it was one of his favourites. Sadly we never got the chance to take him into Salon Mickey with us – not as exclusive as Club 33 maybe, but I think he would have enjoyed it.

We’d decided to keep our luggage with us, and looking at the queue outside the luggage room at the park entrance, we think we made the right decision! There was a huge queue of people dropping off their luggage. Usually we would have used the luggage transfer service at the hotel (even though the price has shot up in recent years, it’s nice to have your cases taken to the station for you!) but there was no need today.

So we knocked on the door of Salon Mickey (getting the usual curious glances from people going through the turnstiles!) and soon we were seated on the lovely comfy sofa enjoying our free coffee and cookies.

Eventually it was time to say goodbye to Salon Mickey and go for a last browse in World of Disney. And since Peter had been so nice buying me the toy soldier plushie, I let him spend most of our remaining Euros on something he had been coveting – a Stitch Christmas hat.

Once that was sorted we strolled over to the station and were soon heading into Paris on the RER. Unlike Thursday there were no crowds to deal with today, and it wasn’t long before we arrived at Chatelet and changed to the Line B for the one-stop journey to Gare du Nord.

At Gare du Nord we had a little time to spare, so I grabbed the chance to have a go on the free piano upstairs and we gave people a quick rendition of ‘I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas’. Then we went through security and into the departures area. The previous train was just being called, so we managed to get some seats, and it wasn’t long before we were going down the escalator and onto the train.

The journey back was uneventful, and an hour after arriving at St Pancras we were back at home and cuddling Spikey.



And that’s it really. We would have loved a longer trip, but since we originally weren’t going to be able to go at all, we were happy with a quick Disney fix. The Cheyenne was great and I wouldn’t hesitate to stay there again – although I have yet to stay Golden Forest at Sequoia Lodge, so if anyone fancies letting me hide in their suitcase I’d love to try that next time!

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed our adventures. Do check out Peter’s videos of the trip and our DLP haul.

The 'box set' of Peter's videos is here:

A Cowboy Christmas The Box Set

As for the future – several possibilities are on the horizon, but they will have to stay under wraps for now…


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Another lovely trip. Thank you for taking the time to post these. I love the way that you write, all of the detail is wonderful as are your photos. X

Another great trip. I have just read it all and it certainly beats doing the ironing! I love all your pictures of the Cheyenne. I think it is such a superbly themed hotel and it is our go to place to stay at DLP.

Hope you can get back for a longer trip soon.

I'm really excited now! Lovely photos of the Cheyenne.

It sounds like you really had a fab trip. You had a great mix of park time and relaxing. I see what you mean about the restaurants and waiter service versus buffets.

Just found your trippie, DD and I do love DLP at Christmas time and we haven't been for a couple of years. Cheyenne has been our 'go to' hotel for the last 5 trips and we can't fault it. Thanks for posting.