Huxwolds (et Lola) En Tournee - DLP Feb 24 - Summary & Final Thoughts

[HEMANCLOFTY]

Huxwolds (et Lola) En Tournee - DLP Feb 24
Summary & Final Thoughts

Index
Day 4 - Paris & Travelling Home (Sun 11/02)

So, we’ve been back almost 5 weeks and, as usual, I’ve really enjoyed reliving our trip through my weekly trippie updates over the last 4 weekends - Thanks very much if you’ve been reading along 🤗

We all really enjoyed our little long weekend getaway, and finally getting to experience our closest Disney resort.

It certainly met our expectations for a little Disney fix, but it was never going to beat the US parks for us.

Having Lola join us for what will hopefully be the first of many Huxwolds adventures was fantastic, and experiencing the parks through a newbie’s eyes made it even more magical. Overall, I think we found the right balance between a typical Huxwolds theme park trip and taking it a bit easier to take into account some things Tom and Lola would like to do (and the rain too).

Speaking of rain, it didn’t spoil our experience at all. I quite like being bundled up in warm clothes on a chilly theme park day, especially if it means the crowd levels are a bit lower.

So, to wrap up this trippie, I’ll break my review down into the various elements…

Hotel Cheyenne…

We really liked this hotel. The location was spot on for walking to the parks / Disney Village and back, which we did multiple times per day. We only needed to use the resort bus on our arrival day (as we were all shattered), as the walk was so quick and easy…

The theming in the room, lobby and buildings is really well done - it definitely felt Disney, but not too in your face. Our bed was very creaky, but comfortable and it was nice to have housekeeping come each day to refresh the towels and toiletries.

Disney Village…

We really liked it. It’s not Disney Springs, but it had just enough of the shops and food options that we needed…

Earl of Sandwich is always a winner for us, and they had some good options (like Double-up for €5) that made it really good value.

Having a McDonalds was great too, for a quick and cheap lunch (and breakfast too for Tom and Lola). Again, they had some unique menu items, and it was a novelty using the recyclable cups and dishes…

I hindsight, I wish we’d nipped into the Village on Sunday morning before going into Paris, as either a Maccy’s or Earl of Sandwich breakfast would’ve set us up nicely for the day.

Disneyland Park…

It’s a really lovely park. Familiar, but with lots of unique things to see and do too. And because we’ve done versions of the rides in Florida and California, it didn’t matter that Big Thunder Mountain was closed, or that we didn’t do Hyperspace Mountain.

I agree with the popular opinions that Le Chateau de La Belle u Bois Dormont is the prettiest Castle…

Rhythm of the Pride Lands was a real highlight of the trip for me, it totally had all the feels and I think it’s my favourite of the 3 Lion King shows…

The Parade was good too, as were the Fireworks. It would’ve been nice to see the drones though, especially for the Electrical Sky Parade.

Food in the park was a bit hit and miss. The Mickey Beignets we had for breakfast were awesome (and good value), but trying to find snacks or counter service food after 6pm was a bit of a challenge…

Walt Disney Studios Park…

A bit of a mixed bag of a park, not helped by lots of construction walls. I enjoyed walking through Sound Stage 1 entrance area, and the Paris area was my favourite theming of the 2 parks (it definitely had Epcot vibes)…

Avengers Campus in California is the better of the two. We didn’t do Webslingers, but the Iron Man re theme of Rocknroller Coaster worked well.

Crush’s Coaster was good (but not worth the huge queues it gets) and Ratatouille was fab, but not our favourite trackless dark ride.

We enjoyed our meal at Bistro Chez Remy, which we booked after discovering Ratatouille is Tom’s favourite animated film whilst we were in California - so that did give it bonus feels. The food was good though, and not too badly priced in comparison to what they charge for table service meals in Florida…

Again, we agree with the general consensus that Walt Disney Studios is the weakest of the 8 Disney parks that we’ve visited (so far). But it was still a good day.

Paris…

It’s fair to say that Rich and I aren’t fans of City Centres / City Breaks and it’s unlikely we’d have ever ventured into Paris had it not been part of a theme park trip. I’m definitely a “there’s the tower, get a pic, move on” kind of girl.

I also think that, had it been just me a Rich, we’d have opted to go to Val d’Europe instead.

Having said that, the few hours that we had was nice, and it was lovely to see Tom and Lola enjoying it…

Between the Ubers, overpriced lunch at La Dome and our treats at Carrette, it was an expensive afternoon, but I am glad that we went for the Ubers over the train so that was money well spent.

Transport…

I’ve always been up for driving and taking the Euro Tunnel, but you can’t beat flying for the convenience (and saving time). Both Easy Jet flights were good. The seats were comfortable and we landed on time both ways…

Taking a check in case is a must do for us - saving the faff of squeezing everything into restricted hand luggage sizes, and the weight of lugging them around the airport.

We didn’t like the stress of finding the TGV train platform and using the ticket machine at CDG. Yes, the 10 minute journey to DLP is quick, but by the time we faffed, paid €88 for the tickets, then had to get to the hotel from the station when we were all tired, we may as well have just got an Uber straight to the hotel…

So overall, it was a great little trip.

We’re not in a massive hurry to return to DLP, but I’m sure we will at some point once the construction at Walt Disney Studios Park is complete. It’s also good to know that it’s there should we ever need a quick Disney fix.

However, saying that I think Europa Park is a better park / resort (plus it’s got Rulantica)

So, what’s next for the Huxwolds (et Lola)?

We all have our New York trip coming up at the end of June, which we are really looking forward to (pre trippie here). I expect we’ll split up a couple of times to do our individual couple things (me and Rich are definitely doing Six Flags Great Adventure), but it will be nice to do some things together too.

Tom and Lola are off to Tenerife for a week with Lola’s parents in April, and Rich and I are currently pondering ideas for a week away in September (possibly a cheeky week in Orlando, but it’s also been a while since we’ve done Port Aventuara and we still have lots of European Theme Parks on our Bucket List, so Belgium, Madrid or Lake Garda could be in the mix too.

For now, thanks again for enabling me to share this adventure - air revoir 🇫🇷