Easter holiday trip for DLP's 30th! - Day 2 now added!

[mr-paul]

Hello! Finally getting around to typing up a recap of my trip last month. If you were following the DLP trip planning forum, I wrote up our plans there, but will sum things up quickly here too!

We had a 5-day trip from 19th to 24th April, four adults - me (31), my mum (65), my brother (27) and his girlfriend (26). This was an off-site trip, driving over with a ferry from Dover to Calais, and staying at Aparthotel Adagio Serris. We were originally meant to go in February, but I spoilt everything and caught Covid! Luckily, we managed to rearrange for Easter at little additional cost.

As background, I am a Disney cast member in the UK and as such, we did not have to pay for admission to the parks and to keep costs down, we opted for an offsite trip. We have been many (10+) times before - my last trip was in October 2021 - and I probably would've waited until Avengers Campus was open for my next trip, but my bro and his GF wanted to go, and who was I to say no!

As annoying as it was to get Covid the week before our initially planned trip, there were several benefits to our delay - we'd get to see the 30th celebrations; shows, parades and fireworks would be back; no more passenger locator forms, no more masks, and the park open until 11pm!

A note - I will only be posting photos of myself/the parks/food, not the rest of my family for reasons of privacy.

Travel Day - Monday 18 April

Easter Monday! Our holiday didn't truly begin until the next day, but as many now do, we had decided to travel down to Dover the night before to break up the journey, and to get a ferry first thing in the morning. I'd spent a lovely weekend at my parents' house near Southampton, and we set off, picking up my brother and his partner on the way just after 4:30pm.

We had an early pit stop at Winchester services after the car alerted us that something was off with the tyre pressures. I had checked them and pumped them up before departure, and on checking them again at Winchester, they were fine. Stupid car. The traffic was quite bad on the M3, but then it was plain sailing around the bottom section of the M25, and then empty on M20 down to Dover. We arrived at the Premier Inn - Dover Central just after 8pm.

We had two rooms for the night, at a cost of £37 each. Had we travelled the night before, on Easter Sunday, it'd have been double the price. Bargain.

After a three-hour drive, it was time for some dinner. We opted to just eat at the Table Table attached to the hotel, as we wanted a fairly early night due to our early ferry.

I had the fish and chips, which was decent. My brother had the same, his girlfriend had the 'Smothered No Chicken' - basically a vegan alternative to hunter's chicken. Can't remember what mum had - might have been scampi!

(Sorry for the meal in progress photo!) The bill for four meals, two beers and two wines came to £63, so £15.75 each.

We then went to our rooms, and set our alarms to get up for 5:15am to leave the hotel at 5:45am.

Day 1 - Tuesday 19 April

Step Count - 25,584 (18.00km)

An early wake-up after a fairly decent night's sleep, it was time to finally get to Disney! Our ferry was scheduled for 07:10 in the morning, and we weren't sure how chaotic the port would be due to Brexit and the whole P&O fiasco. Luckily we had already booked with DFDS before all that kicked off!

The Premier Inn is minutes away from the port, and turns out we needn't have worried about queues of lorries etc. holding us up at all. The port was dead quiet! We suspected we may be ok as we were travelling on a Tuesday rather than a Saturday when many would be starting/ending their holidays, and we were proved right as we swiftly got through check-in.

One downside to our delayed trip was that when we booked for February, DFDS were including a meal voucher for each traveller for both the outward and inward journeys. Alas, this was only up until the end of March, so we could no longer benefit from this, so we had to buy our own breakfasts. Me/mum had pain au chocolats and a drink, bro and GF had cooked breakfasts. We paid separately - my breakfast was £4.40, it was around £10 for the cooked breakfast.

The ferry was dead quiet - hardly anyone on board, I think everyone who wanted food had bought it before the ship departed! The crossing was 90 mins long, and we wasted time doing our Wordles etc. and looking around the duty free.

The P&O ships going nowhere!

Thankfully we chose DFDS!

Pulling into France!

We arrived on time, and drove off the ferry at what was now 9:50 thanks to the time difference. We connected Spotify to the car's Bluetooth, whacked on a Disney songs playlist, and we were on our way!

Now let's talk about the drive. Does anyone love the french motorways like I do? I just find them such a joy on the route down to DLP. The A26 is a nice introduction to driving on the wrong side, two lanes, not very busy. After about an hour of that, you reach Arras, where you transfer onto the A1 down to Paris. Now you're up to three lanes, but it still all runs so smoothly, other than the occasional lorry overtaking another lorry slowing you down/forcing you to make a quick change over to the fast lane. The sketchiest part is the change over to the A104 once you get to Charles de Gaulle, and I feel on this road, with its lower speed limit, there's a higher number of idiot drivers.

Anyway, my point is the drive down was very smooth. €23.40 in tolls (which came to £19.42), and we arrived at the Disneyland Paris car park at 12:45 - less than three hours after we got off the ferry. The car park costs an eye-watering €30 per day if you're not a hotel guest, but luckily for us, getting into the car park for free is one of the perks of my job.

It's actually a fair walk from the car park to the parks - especially as the moving walkways weren't working (are they permanently broken?) So if you're staying on-site or even in Serris/Val d'Europe, I wouldn't recommend driving. We just came straight to the park as we wouldn't check in to the hotel until later.

One thing to note, and we'd discover the full ramifications of this shortly, is there were a lot of signs up saying 'parcs complet / parks full'. There were no reservations available for anyone wishing to buy a ticket on the day. Luckily, I don't need reservations, and after a bit of confusion finding which Guest Services counter I needed to go to to get our tickets, we were in!

Always magical to see the castle again, especially as it was under scaffolding for my last trip in October!

So, what to do first? What we came to find out very quickly, was that it was very, very busy. A combination of the 30th anniversary and school holidays meant queue times were BIG. As we were here all week, we didn't feel the need to over-queue for things - we had plenty of time to get things done. After consulting the app, we went for Star Tours, as it was listed at 30 minutes, and mum and brother hadn't visited since its renovation to its new version with multiple pathways.

I can't remember which planets we visited, I just remember we had a bunch of particularly lively French teens who were screaming at every moment, and even clapped at the end like they were Americans on a plane

From here we went to the Discoveryland theatre and watched Mickey's Philharmagic, a fun 3D film starring Donald, taking you through various Disney films/songs. We had a 10 minute wait before watching this.

As I said, the park was rammed. We decided now it was time to stop for lunch, and made our way over to Fantasyland. We opted for Pizzeria Bella Notte, where we all had the menu of a Mickey-shaped pizza, side (garlic bread or salad), drink, and dessert (mini magnum or yogurt) for €16. I get 25% discount on food and merch, so with four of us, this effectively made one meal free. Our bill effectively came out as £40 - a tenner each for a pretty substantial meal.

The next part was when we truly realised how busy the park was.

There was a queue to get in the maze. Yep. A queue for Alice's Curious Labyrinth? Have you ever seen it not be a straight walk-in? I haven't!

And yep, we actually queued at least 15 minutes to get in it, just as we were there and the queues for everything else were so ridiculous!

By now it was gone 4pm, so we decided to dip out and check into our room. We walked back to the car and first drove to Auchan at Val d'Europe for supplies for the room - croissants, pain au chocolats, ham, cheese, crisps, wine etc. We then got to the hotel, where we decided to pay for the underground car-parking at a rate of €15 a night. When I last stayed, I had just used on-street parking about a 5-min walk from the hotel, but with four of us we decided to just fork out for the convenience of just knowing our car would be safe there without having to check on it until Saturday, and especially as we were in a bigger car that would be harder to find a space for.

On our initial trip we were meant to have a two bedroom apartment, but unfortunately moving our trip meant we could only get a one bedroom. After the whole 'I don't mind where I sleep' conversation, we settled on me and my mum taking the bedroom, and brother and GF taking the sofa bed in the living room.

Once we were all settled, we headed back down to Disney Village, just a 15 minute walk from the hotel. With it still looking quite busy in the parks, we stopped off at the Sports Bar in the Village, where it's Happy Hour between 5 and 8pm on Mon-Friday, making a pint of beer or glass of wine only €5.

After this we decided to head back into the main park to get on some rides now the queues had died down. We headed straight to Pirates of the Caribbean, which was just a five minute wait, followed by Indiana Jones and Phantom Manor, also with minimal waits.

It was now around quarter to 10, and we decided to call it a night at this point.

Although we maybe hadn't got on as many attractions as I'd hoped (looking at this crowd calendar, it says 97% packed on that day!) It had been a long day and we decided we'd be best off going back to the room to get some sleep before an early start and even more fun tomorrow!

[Guest]

Brilliant TR! Wow you managed to bag some bargains I need you on our holiday! Your journey certainly seemed to go very smoothly, if I’m honest that’s only part I’m worried about, CDG airport having had a bad experience there the last time.

I am so excited for the 30 th celebrations, unlike many others I do watch them before I go, and I’ve even taught my grandaughter the words to the Dream and Shine Brighter song so we can sing it together!

Thanks for the heads up about the happy hour, reckon we will certainly partake in that!

Pirates is my absolutely must do ride, I can’t remember being on the Paris one, that whole area is just so well themed.

Looking forward to the rest!

[SuziQz]

Great 1st day. I do like their Indiana Jones ride 🎢 Looking forward to seeing more about your trip 😀

[mr-paul]

Originally Posted by Nanna Frozen

Brilliant TR! Wow you managed to bag some bargains I need you on our holiday! Your journey certainly seemed to go very smoothly, if I’m honest that’s only part I’m worried about, CDG airport having had a bad experience there the last time.

I am so excited for the 30 th celebrations, unlike many others I do watch them before I go, and I’ve even taught my grandaughter the words to the Dream and Shine Brighter song so we can sing it together!

Thanks for the heads up about the happy hour, reckon we will certainly partake in that!

Pirates is my absolutely must do ride, I can’t remember being on the Paris one, that whole area is just so well themed.

Looking forward to the rest!

See more...

That song has been stuck in my head since - I love that you've already learnt it!

Happy hour is definitely worth taking advantage of - it's both at the Sports Bar and Billy Bob's opposite. One tip for Disney is that all the bars across the hotels/Disney Village generally have the same drinks menu, but the price varies depending on where you're drinking! On my trip last October I had a Long Island Iced Tea at the Skyline Bar at Art of Marvel - €16 😱

Pirates is a classic and the Paris version is definitely a good one - how it goes through the restaurant is a nice touch too. It's now had the updates to add Captain Jack into it too.

Thanks for reading!

[mr-paul]

Originally Posted by SuziQz

Great 1st day. I do like their Indiana Jones ride 🎢 Looking forward to seeing more about your trip 😀

See more...

Thanks for reading! Yes, Indiana Jones is one of the great unique rides only at DLP. And it always has surprisingly low queues as it's hidden in the back corner of the park!

[ArielChip]

Enjoying your trip report. Thanks for taking the time to write it.
Just wanted to ask how your hotel stay was because I’m trying to find somewhere for one night before our Disney stay (so we can make the most of our park days) and I’m strongly considering the one you stayed in but I’ve read mixed reviews. Thanks ☺️

[mr-paul]

Originally Posted by ArielChip

Enjoying your trip report. Thanks for taking the time to write it.
Just wanted to ask how your hotel stay was because I’m trying to find somewhere for one night before our Disney stay (so we can make the most of our park days) and I’m strongly considering the one you stayed in but I’ve read mixed reviews. Thanks ☺️

See more...

I wouldn't hesitate booking it. It was clean and a good place to crash at night. Beds perfectly comfortable. A few bits rough around the edges and in need of redecoration, but as long as you go in not expecting luxury, it should fit your needs. And it's in a great location - pretty much the closest off-site hotel.

My only gripe was in the little kitchenette, it had pretty much all the crockery/cutlery we needed other than a sharp knife - we had to get by cutting tomatoes/bread with a table knife.

[mr-paul]

Day 2 - Wednesday 20 April

Step Count - 30,854 (22.24km)

Our first full day, and another early start! After how busy we found it on the Tuesday, we knew it'd be crucial to get to the parks early to get as much done as possible before the crowds really ramped up. I woke up at 6:30am, had a shower before the rest woke up, and over the next hour the rest awoke and got themselves ready, and we ate our croissants and pain au chocolats picked up from the supermarket for breakfast. Extra Magic Hour started at 8:30am, so we wanted to be down there in good time to get in right when the gates opened.

We left the room just after 7:45am and took a stroll down.

Now, my strategy for EMH is always this - Peter Pan first. A short ride, a classic, must-do and a firm favourite, but one you don't want to be stuck in a 50 minute queue for. Head straight there from the gates opening and you'll walk straight on.

Next up, cut through Adventureland and get on Big Thunder Mountain.

I'll always maintain that this is the best version of the ride in the world. We probably queued about 15 minutes for this, which considering how bad the lines were getting later in the day, is well worth it.

On a side note, when the queue splits, which way do you go - left or right? We stuck with going left on this trip!

From here we jumped lands again, cutting across Main Street and on to Buzz Lightyear. We probably waited about 10-15 minutes for this. I won!

Our next stop was Hyperspace Mountain. It was only showing as a 20 minute wait, and we were now out of the Magic Hour. My mum decided she wasn't going to do loopy coasters on this trip so stayed out with the bags and decided to have a look in the Star Traders shop. Unfortunately, while we were in the inside part of the queue, it went conspicuously quiet - the coaster had stopped running. Yep, it had broken down and they cleared us all out via the FastPass/Premier Access entrance. Damn.

It was now gone 10am and EMH had been a success, so we decided to take a pause to get a drink and a snack. We ended up at the Cookie Kitchen on Main Street. The queue here was rather slow - there are two lines/counters but the second only opened while we were already in the first queue!

We all decided to get these Mickey shaped doughnuts - or as listed on the menu - a Celebration Mickey Beignet. These cost €4.50 each, were HUGE, and filled with Nutella!

All fed and watered, we headed back out and had a look at the queue times. Everything was getting a bit busier at this stage, so we went towards the two rides still listed as a five-minute wait - Casey Junior and the Fairytale boats. By the time we'd got there, it was more like a 10-minute wait for Casey Junior and 15-20 for the boats by the time we got on that, but these are always worth doing when everything else is getting busy. By the time we left this area, both were listed at 25 minutes.

Again in search for a low wait, we headed back to Frontierland for a ride on the riverboat. It was now midday and the weather was glorious.

We decided it was now maybe time for a middle of the day break, so headed back out to Main Street, where we caught the Dream and Shine Brighter show/parade. This is new for the 30th anniversary, is on about five or six times a day, and the music is very catchy!



Several floats of characters make their way up Main Street before the characters get off and dance at the hub/roundabout in front of the castle. As well as the main crew, you get to see the likes of Genie, Rapunzel, Peter Pan, Alice and Mad Hatter, Judy and Nick from Zootropolis, Joy from Inside Out, Miguel from Coco, Woody and Jessie and maybe more I've forgotten!

Via a walk through the shops, we left the park and headed back to the hotel room for lunch. I went and bought a baguette, which we ate with ham, cheese, tomato and crisps we got the night before. The others had a little lie down, while I sat restless!

Once everyone was refreshed, we decided our plan of action was to try and catch a couple more shows. We thought we'd see if we could get into the Lion King: Rhythm of the Pridelands show without having to pay the reservation fee. The last show of the day was at 4:30pm, so we gave it a shot. We arrived at around 4:05-4:10, and made it into the queue. They shut the queue not too long after we joined, so you do need to be there 20-30 minutes before showtime to get a seat.

We were sat right at the edge of the theatre, but the way it's designed is that there's not a bad seat in the house.

A fantastic show - the acrobats and dancers are so talented.

We then decided to catch the main parade - Disney Stars on Parade at 5:30pm. We managed to get a spot standing just by the main hub from the entrance of Frontierland.

One thing I don't like with Disney crowds for parades is how many adults that were sat on the kerb or stood at the front with kids behind them. Let all the kids sit at the front - it'll be even more magical for them. Anyway, here's a bunch of photos.

It was now close to 6pm. We had a dinner reservation tonight - the tex-mex buffet at Billy Bob's for 7pm. We decided to exit the park at this point and head to the downstairs patio of Billy Bob's first to have a happy hour drink (€5 beer and wine!) before our dinner!

We then headed up for dinner - €38 per adult including a soft drink. It's a bit expensive, but I love mexican food, there's a good salad bar for starters, and plenty of desserts. With my 25% discount it became a more palatable price, coming out as £94.81 for the four of us (£23.70 each).

I didn't really take photos of what I ate, other than keeping the theme of Mickey shaped food!

Absolutely stuffed full, it was time to head into the park again for some late night fun! It was about 20 to 9 at the point we re-entered the park.

Looking to tick another couple of attractions off the list, we walked up through the castle and into Fantasyland. Here we rode Snow White and Pinocchio, with around 20 minute waits for each. Again, not rides I would wait much longer for, but Disney classics.

Some of the others were getting a bit tired at this point, around 9:30pm, and they all decided to call it a night. I decided to keep going though, knowing it was the best time for getting on rides. I went to Space Mountain, after the disappointment of missing out earlier, followed by Star Tours. Now approaching 10:30pm, I decided to risk another ride on Space Mountain before the fireworks, and getting out of there around 10:50, dashed over to watch the Illuminations and the new drone show!

No photos of them from tonight, I decided to just soak it in and feel the magic. Leaving the park at half 11, I power-walked back to the hotel and crashed into bed at 10 to midnight with everyone else completely conked out!

Thanks again for reading!

[Guest]

Wow very impressive! We will be taking long afternoon breaks ( well I won’t but the others will!) I might go and visit the other hotels and walk around the lake while the others nap.

I love that 30 th parade and intend seeing it every day, the song is in my head while I’m typing this!

Weather is looking a bit cool the first few days we are there but then heats up a bit.