Our French and Belgian Adventure August 2018: Day Nine - Disneyland Parc and Inventions

[Em4owen]

Day Nine: Monday 27th August 2018 – Disneyland Parc and Inventions

Index

After a late night and busy day yesterday, we decided to take today easy and set the alarm for 8.30am (when you have children, that’s a lie in). The boys woke up at 8 so by 8.45am we were dressed and sorted, ready for our first breakfast in the Golden Forest Lounge. We were ushered straight away to a table after flashing our cards. Last year, we had vouchers and paper tickets but this time, everything was loaded onto plastic cards, apart from the free fast passes which were on paper. It made everything much easier to have it all loaded on and in one place. The breakfast here was so much nicer than the huge canteen of Santa Fe which we experienced last time, more intimate and more of a choice of food. There were the usual breads, toaster, pastries, fruit, yogurt and cereal and then hot items of beans, pancakes, scrambled egg, sausages, bacon and potatoes. We varied what we had each day and I can’t remember what we had. I took down soya spread and milk which we’d purchased in Belgium and kept in the fridge in the room which worked well.

After we’d finished breakfast, we saw Goofy was in the foyer so we decided to make him our first character meet. He was great and so much fun, as Goofy always is. Ashley was tentative and last year he didn’t like the characters at all and ignored them! He did smile and touch Goofy though so it was progress. We also got to use our photopass and got the one other decent photo of us all from the holiday where everyone was looking at the camera at the same time!

Whilst we were waiting, I’d been texting my cousin who was there for the bank holiday weekend and staying at the Cheyenne. We planned to meet up that morning so we walked over to the park. They had the same idea as us and were meeting a character at their hotel so we decided to use our hotel FP on Peter Pan while we waited.

After the ride, and still no sign of my cousin and as it was nearly 11, we decided to start queuing for Winnie the Pooh. If you read my trip report last year, you may remember that he wasn’t doing meet and greets when we were there and Hayden was bitterly disappointed as he’s his favourite. He has a much-loved and very floppy Pooh Bear that he takes everywhere so this was our priority for the trip! While we were queuing, my cousin arrived and she queued further back with her boyfriend and his sister. It was a great spot to meet up as the chatting made the wait go really fast!

Finally it was our turn and my cousin went back to her place in the line. Hayden was so excited but I think he also got a bit shy. Ashley though was in his element! He absolutely loved him, holding onto his hands. The character focused on Ashley as a result which was a bit of a shame as it was really for Hayden. It was a lovely, magical meet and I think we were the last ones before he had a ‘break’.

Next up was Casey Junior. Ashley was desperate to go on this ride, once he’d seen it as he loves trains and as usual it had a low wait time. We ended up going on it twice in a row and had to tell him no more as we had a meal reservation. He wasn’t very impressed by this!

We had booked a lunch reservation for 12.30 at Inventions. We didn’t do Inventions last year so this was another of our priorities for this trip. We’d heard nothing but great things on the dibb so were really looking forward to it. It was tricky to find though as it wasn’t really signposted in the hotel. I asked two CMs who directed me but it wasn’t until we looked at a map, we discovered it was up a level and then along a walkway to another part of the hotel. It was our first time in the Disneyland Hotel and I must say, I didn’t really like it. I think that Sequoia Lodge blew me away so much, it just failed in comparison. It didn’t have as nice a smell and I feel awkward in places like that, which are too high class for us riff raff!

We had to queue up outside the restaurant for about 10 minutes and whilst we queued, the characters walked past us so we knew who we had. We were a bit gutted to see we had Goofy as we’d only just met him a few hours ago but it was still nice. We were eventually shown to a table and here’s where I started not liking inventions much. We were just left there for about 30 minutes with no indication of whether to get food or wait for characters, nothing. Our waiter seemed to disappear and the boys were grumpy and naturally wanted food and drink. After about 10 minutes, I gave up waiting for him to come and take our order and went to get the boys some food.

As I returned, our first character arrived which I think was Goofy. The boys really loved the character interaction but I felt it was really disorganised and unclear as to what to do and when characters were coming and so on . My food went cold because of this and Owen missed one character, I think. I was not impressed and felt disappointed by it. Maybe it’s because I’m not a very laid back person and I like organisation, but we’d done Plaza Gardens before and that was really obvious what was happening and when characters were coming. The buffet had lots of choice, I guess, but lots of seafood and meat so not much for me to have. They had mashed potatoes made with olive oil which were good but I didn’t really get to eat much. Anyways, here’s who we met:

Goofy – several times. He even seemed a bit bored and kept coming back to us because he’d done all the tables. The boys loved him and he drew in Hayden’s book and broke his crayon!

Dale

Pluto – who also came over more than once and had a great interaction with the boys too. Pluto is one of my faves!

Daisy – who was gone like a flash of lightning!

Chip

Mickey – also very quick

We also saw Captain Hook and waited for him but as we’d been there for over 2 hours, we gave up. We had pre-paid for the meal when booking our holiday so only had to pay for drinks which cost 16.08 Euros for a coke and two orange juices. We left at 2pm and were back at our hotel for 2.30pm.

We were really excited to have a pool this time and so made our way over there for a relaxed afternoon. There were separate male and female changing areas so I took Ashley and Owen took Hayden. Ashley hates when anyone leaves the family group so spent the entire time screaming, joy! The lockers were free which was great and they give you towels as you come in. We were soon reunited in the pool area. It’s a lovely pool with a slide and waterfall type area and also an outdoor pool. The only downside is it’s all one depth and very deep so we spent the entire time holding the boys as they were too scared to let go. We only stayed for about an hour as we wanted to sample the free snacks in the Golden Forest lounge which are 4-6pm.

We loved the decor of our hotel!

The snacks consisted of soft drinks, water, brownies, biscuits, lemon cake, little canapé wrap-type things and fruit. You can help yourself to as much as possible and also take drinks away with you. We always had plenty of drinks for during the day as a result. We also noticed that it was quite busy, like breakfast, but everyone seemed to be British!

After our quick snack, we headed back to Disneyland Parc for the parade. We picked a similar spot to last year by the toilets, near Bella Notte. It was really busy and it was still with about 30 minutes to go. As the parade started, everyone around us stood up and we went to as well but then a man behind us complained, “It’s supposed to be for the children” and asked people to stay sat down. Everyone in our section did and remained seated for the duration. We saw everything okay but having seen it all before, I didn’t mind too much. The boys loved the parade again and afterwards it was ride time. Hayden wanted to go on the Storybook Ride as it had been down in the morning so we headed there. I think it was about a 15 minute wait and meanwhile Ashley complained because he’d seen Casey Junior so of course we had to go on that again for the third time today!

We left the park at around 6.30pm and decided to grab dinner from New York Style Sandwiches in the Village on our way back to the hotel. It was busy but not too busy. We got a selection of food to share between us - pepperoni pizza, pasta with tomato sauce and chips. We used drinks from the hotel. It cost us 23 Euros, so not too bad. Soon we were back at the hotel. The boys had a bath before bed and I read, whilst Owen headed back out to the parks. He said it was really busy with long wait times so he just looked around, took some photos and went in a few shops.

Spends: 39.08 Euros (but we did pre-pay for lunch).