Highs and Lows - February Half Term

HappyPanda · 24 Feb 19, 10:22 AM

Hello everyone! We're back from our amazing half term break - I'm still planning to write a full trip report but until then I thought I'd share our highs and lows:

Highs:

Weather - Going in February is always a bit of a gamble, we've had sun, rain and snow before but nothing prepared us for the weather we had this week 14/17 degrees.. it felt so alien to be walking around in t-shirts in February.

CMs - We met so many lovely CMs on this trip, especially everyone working on ToT - we went on 11 times over our 5 days and they started to recognise us!

Studios EMT - We did EMT in the studios on 3 out of 4 of our mornings and it was amazing - all the rides were open and we got so much done; sometimes up to 5 or 6 rides before the park officially opened.

Princesses and Pirates Festival - This whole season is amazing the "Make your choice" parade is one of my favourite ever at DLP. Olivia was definitely Team Pirates and we watched their show about 4 times both at the castle stage and on main street and we also watched the dance battle in the hub. I went there thinking I'd be all about the princesses but actually their stops were nowhere as exciting as the acrobatic pirates ones.

Lows:

Princess Breakfast - I REALLY wanted this to be a high but it just fell flat. The food was fine, although Olivia only ate the Mickey waffle and the pastries as she didn't like anything else on the menu. The real disappointment was with the character interaction - we met Snow White, Cinderella and Aurora. They literally came up, asked if we wanted a picture and then off they went - no talking or hugs or anything. It was so different to the interaction we've had the Princess Lunch previously.

Other observations:

Indirect Eurostar - This was our first time using the indirect service and it was so much easier than I had thought it would be. On the way out we had to walk from Lille Europe to Lille Flandres - which is literally 5 minutes away. We had 50 minutes between our trains so even had time for a little browse round the big shopping centre - we could have easily spent longer here! As we got the earliest indirect service we were walking through the gates of the parks by 11.30am which felt amazing!

On the way back it wasn't quite as hassle-free as the TGV had been massively overbooked so there were no seats and we had to stand for the entire journey and it was so hot that Olivia started to feel sick; this actually caused her to spend the entire journey Eurostar journey back to London in the toilet as she was so scared she was going to be sick.

Aside from that though the check-in at Lille was completely stress-free, so much easier than having to deal with the scrum at MLV for the direct train so we would definitely do indirect next time.

kadypants · 24 Feb 19, 11:28 PM

Totally agree about the Princess breakfast. I thought it was perhaps just us, but we barely had any interaction. Jack hardly noticed Snow White had arrived at our table before she dashed off again.

Also totally agree with your take on Pirates and Princesses. We LOVED it all! We saw different elements of it at least 2 or 3 times every day apart from 1. Everytime we heard the music start we dashed to the nearest stop point. We're all still singing it now!

Animagus · 24 Feb 19, 11:45 PM

Looking forward to reading the full trippie.
Glad you had a great time. It's so nice to read about friendly CMs as sometimes the DLP CMs get a bad write up.

We are travelling indirect via Gare du Nord in May so hope we have a good journey.

Thanks for sharing your observations.

**Gill H** · 25 Feb 19, 06:50 AM

Glad you had a good time. What a shame about the breakfast - did you feed that back to DLP? Might be worth doing as it is a lot of money and the food doesn�t look that special. I have seen a video of the breakfast and the interaction seemed good, so it is a real shame if not.

The festival sounds fun!

HappyPanda · 25 Feb 19, 10:15 AM

Originally Posted by kadypants

Totally agree about the Princess breakfast. I thought it was perhaps just us, but we barely had any interaction. Jack hardly noticed Snow White had arrived at our table before she dashed off again.

Also totally agree with your take on Pirates and Princesses. We LOVED it all! We saw different elements of it at least 2 or 3 times every day apart from 1. Everytime we heard the music start we dashed to the nearest stop point. We're all still singing it now!

I'm sorry you didn't have a great experience either - it really has the potential to be lovely but it just fell completely flat. I felt initially that if we'd had Bethany with us it would have been a better experience as they seemed to focus a lot on the tables with small children but then you had small children and still didn't really have great interaction.

P&P far exceeded by expectations - just wish I could get the song out of my head now!

Originally Posted by Animagus

Looking forward to reading the full trippie.
Glad you had a great time. It's so nice to read about friendly CMs as sometimes the DLP CMs get a bad write up.

We are travelling indirect via Gare du Nord in May so hope we have a good journey.

Thanks for sharing your observations.

The CMs we met were all amazing, I can't think of a single bad encounter with one (wish I could say the same for other guests

)

I would definitely do indirect again, I've done the GDN route before and it's fine, really straight forward so I'm sure you'll be absolutely fine!

Originally Posted by Gill H

Glad you had a good time. What a shame about the breakfast - did you feed that back to DLP? Might be worth doing as it is a lot of money and the food doesn�t look that special. I have seen a video of the breakfast and the interaction seemed good, so it is a real shame if not.

The festival sounds fun!

I did walk towards City Hall after but the queue was out the door and Liv just wanted to get on with our day but I will drop them email. It wasn't terrible but for the price you pay you'd expect the princesses to least spend a little bit of time with each table - it's not even as though it was that busy, they had only half the restaurant full.

kadypants · 25 Feb 19, 11:58 PM

Originally Posted by HappyPanda

I'm sorry you didn't have a great experience either - it really has the potential to be lovely but it just fell completely flat. I felt initially that if we'd had Bethany with us it would have been a better experience as they seemed to focus a lot on the tables with small children but then you had small children and still didn't really have great interaction.

P&P far exceeded by expectations - just wish I could get the song out of my head now!

Yeah I feel like we weren't the "typical" princess demographic. In all fairness M was not in the best of moods and our normally attention-seeking 1 year old flirt turned into a shy little thing who cried each time a new princess approached. That probably didn't help matters, but J was interested and although he can be shy and struggle with what to say they didn't really try to encourage him as much as characters we've met at various other meets. It set the tone when a CM approached the table at the start to check if we had just one autograph book and that we had it open ready!

I don't regret doing it, but it's not an experience I would rush to repeat, not considering the price and the fact that I was the only one who even came close to finishing my meal (and we don't have particularly fussy eaters)

3family · 26 Feb 19, 08:59 AM

We were there Thursday-Saturday and full endorse your comments on the weather, EMH in the studios and the new parade. The song is very very catchy too

2017dream · 1 Mar 19, 11:15 AM

Indirect Eurostar - This was our first time using the indirect service and it was so much easier than I had thought it would be. On the way out we had to walk from Lille Europe to Lille Flandres - which is literally 5 minutes away. We had 50 minutes between our trains so even had time for a little browse round the big shopping centre - we could have easily spent longer here! As we got the earliest indirect service we were walking through the gates of the parks by 11.30am which felt amazing!

On the way back it wasn't quite as hassle-free as the TGV had been massively overbooked so there were no seats and we had to stand for the entire journey and it was so hot that Olivia started to feel sick; this actually caused her to spend the entire journey Eurostar journey back to London in the toilet as she was so scared she was going to be sick.

Aside from that though the check-in at Lille was completely stress-free, so much easier than having to deal with the scrum at MLV for the direct train so we would definitely do indirect next time.[/QUOTE]

Hi there
Could i just ask how do book the indirect eurostar..
Have heard lots about it but whenever i look can never seem to find how you do this ?

Sounds like you had a great time ..must admit i have a soft spot for the studios..I love the main park to live on main st would be a dream, but we always seem to have a great day when we go to the studios..

HappyPanda · 1 Mar 19, 12:41 PM

Originally Posted by 2017dream

Hi there
Could i just ask how do book the indirect eurostar..
Have heard lots about it but whenever i look can never seem to find how you do this ?

I booked our whole train journey through the Eurostar website - I just put in London St Pancras - Disneyland Paris and it brought up all the trains, both direct and indirect.

We were able to choose our own eurostar seats but the TGV ones were chosen for us and (as far as I could tell) couldn't be changed.