Girls on Tour! (well in Feb 2023!)

[LucyA]

So, as I’m the one isolating, I’ve been nominated to start this trip report. I’m hoping this isn’t going to be solo effort, I’m not very good at committing long term to things!

Let’s introduce ourselves, I’m Lucy, I visited DLP 3 times all over 15 years ago and have been to WDW about 8 times, stayed in many onsite hotels and love all things Disney. My travel companion is my lovely work companion and fellow Mouse lover, Kirsty. Kirsty as been to WDW many times but never DLP. I’m hoping she’s also going to be co-author of this report!

Ok - at this point I wanted to put in photos of us having lots of fun but apparently because this is my first time posting, I can't - you'll have to wait for that treat!

Anyway, Kirsty and I often spend time discussing past visits, upcoming visits, gossip etc but the past few years have been a little lacking! Kirsty managed to spend Christmas 2019 at WDW with her family but I had a Summer 2020 trip cancelled. With all the changes and uncertainty, it doesn’t look like there will be a visit to the US soon.

However……. you never stop browsing, and we were chatting about a girlie trip and had a sneaky look at DLP. We were very pleasantly surprised with the price. Not wanting to cancel another holiday, we’ve booked for February half term 2023 – surely that will be safe (fingers crossed!). We know this isn’t going to be WDW, but anywhere with Mickey is going to have the Disney magic that we all love. It has also given us something to plan (and who doesn’t love a plan!)

We decided that we needed all our money for snacks, so booked the cheapest on site hotel. We are staying at the Hotel Santa Fe for two nights in February. We will take the Eurostar and drive down (still need to book).

Dining
This is what Kirsty wanted me to spend my isolation time researching! Well, so far my research shows that there are not a huge amount of snacks, I’m hoping that the 30 year anniversary is going to change this.

So please, any recommendations much appreciated.
Is the Darth Vader waffle worth it? (again, I was planning on photos, DIBB had other ideas!).

What about the Croq’ de la Savane?! (which I guess is something to do with The Lion King!

or even Groot bread?

This is as far as I've got - any suggestions/recommendations would be gratefully received. We've only got a year to plan! This is also my first trip report so not sure I've done it right - photos don't seem to be showing but then I'm not very technically adept!

Looking forward to it already!

[bearandbuzz]

In the interests of full disclosure - I’m Kirsty!

I’ve done a couple, of trip reports in the past but all pre-COVID and it feels like a long time ago!

Lucy is a long time lurker, but as she hasn’t posted a lot she has been unable to post pictures so I thought I’d add these from her draft report.

(It’s a screen shot from an IPad so it’s not great, but you get the idea!)

Any ideas you have about snacks would be great. Both Lucy and I are used to living off the dining plan at WDW, so knowing we’ll be paying oop this time round means we want to make good choices .

Looking forward to hearing your suggestions.

[flo-tinka]

Great start ladies!
I’m going with DD for our girly trip in couple of weeks so have been reseraching on DIBB for tips and this is the snack list I’ve written down so far…
Anyone want to add to this?

Frontierland-Fuente del Oro churros and Nutella

Victoria’s- Hot choc n Nutella n milkshake

Boardwalk Candy Palace on Main Street USA. -Giant Mickey shaped cookie

Milkshakes at Five Guys?

Skyline Bar in Marvel hotel - Cocktails etc plus potato wedges and crudités etc

Bleeker Street Marvel Hotel - Elixir Lemonade, non alc mix it up! Potatoes and crudités etc!

[LucyA]

Originally Posted by flo-tinka

Great start ladies!
I’m going with DD for our girly trip in couple of weeks so have been reseraching on DIBB for tips and this is the snack list I’ve written down so far…
Anyone want to add to this?

Frontierland-Fuente del Oro churros and Nutella

Victoria’s- Hot choc n Nutella n milkshake

Boardwalk Candy Palace on Main Street USA. -Giant Mickey shaped cookie

Milkshakes at Five Guys?

Skyline Bar in Marvel hotel - Cocktails etc plus potato wedges and crudités etc

Bleeker Street Marvel Hotel - Elixir Lemonade, non alc mix it up! Potatoes and crudités etc!

See more...

Thanks for the reply, they all look great. Have a great trip, looking forward to hearing about it!

[LucyA]

So, we’re now 44 days out and have just had a planning day!

After much (and I mean much) dithering, this is what we’ve booked!

Day 1 - eurotunnel crossing, arriving in Calais at 6am, drive to Santa Fe. We have booked Walt’s for 2pm, so hoping we will make that! We will play the day by ear, perhaps hanging around for parade, maybe going back to hotel to chill and going back for fireworks…who knows?!

Day 2 - we have added the half board meal plan to our booking, we knew we wanted to have a sit down meal every day and once we’d booked them realised they would be about £40 and the meal plan was £44 per day, so we were virtually getting breakfast for free. So, we will have our free early breakfast, then head to the parks. Depending on crowds, we might get an ultimate pass. We have booked Lion King for 12.15 (£12 each) and PYM for 5.45 pm.

Day 3 - again, early breakfast at hotel, then parks for some revisits! We have put in out budget some money for individual fast passes, we’ll have to see how it goes. We’ve then booked Plaza for midday that we’ll pay for off plan as our finale!

Then just the drive back to Calais and home!

So we’re waiting for park times to add in parades, fireworks etc. is there anything else we should book or research?

[bearandbuzz]

Cocktails, don’t forget the cocktails Lucy .
We’re hoping to pay a visit to the Skyline bar in the Hotel New York at some point.

Having looked at some of the menus, I’m really looking forward to our reservations for dinner. I also quite like the look of the menu for the Downtown restaurant, but it seems we’re out of luck with making reservations for that one. Plus, we’ve run out of days to eat so maybe that’s a good thing!

As a side note, we were looking at the live wait times yesterday and were amazed by how (relatively) short they were. Only a few had over a 60 minute wait, the rest were averaging 1/2 hour, which I wouldn’t have expected for during the Christmas break. Anyone been out there recently and has noticed whether it’s quieter at the moment, or was that just a fluke?

[MrsBC]

Enjoy ladies - all of my DLP trips (apart from one with DH) over the years have been 'girls trips' with DD and a changing cast of family members!
Definitely have cocktail or two, and a hot chocolate - especially nice next to the fire in the Sequoia lobby!

[LucyA]

Ok, so we have now realised that lunch at the plaza isn’t character. As we’re paying off plan for this one, we’re not so sure it’s what we want.

We’ve now booked a character dinner on the first day at 7.30 pm and booked a lunch at chez Remy on day 3 but we’ve not cancelled anything!

Does anyone know how far in advance you have to cancel? Do you get charged? Also, is a character dinner necessary, will we get a chance to meet characters around the park and in the hotel, we’re staying at Santa Fe?