"Right down the middle of Main Street FRANÇOIS!" Pre-Trippie

[oh_darling]

Hiya pals!


We are Libby and Ben.

You may remember us from such productions as…

Return to the Magic 2010!

and

Ben and Libby’s Adventure to Neverland! 2011

and now we are back for a new adventure

We are just two short weeks away from our 3rd trip to Disneyland Paris together We are getting so excited! I’m hoping this pre-trippie won’t be quite as long and excessive as our Florida one last year (boy did that go on a while…) but I find I can talk quite a lot when it comes to Disney holidays so we shall see So, without further ado!

Who are we?

We are me, Libby



I’m 24, a graphic designer, foodie, Disney lover, general America obsessive, always plotting ways to get us back to a Disney park ASAP.

He is Ben, 23 (24 in April)



Not sure why I chose the penguin photo, I guess I just felt like it was the right thing to do.

Ben is a Disney lover, basketball and Indiana Pacers superfan, fellow foodie and music obsessive. He would do anything to make me happy

Here is us not being normal:



And here is a nice photo of the two of us, they do exist! (actually theres loads and loads of nice ones from Florida, this is just the first one I came across! Jeez that photobucket account is biiiiiiiiiiggggg)



We’ve been together EIGHT YEARS this year which is actually insane. He’s my best friend, we do everything together and I’d be lost without him really. Currently we both live with the old parentals, saving up to move in together this year wooooooo Disney flat! (got my fingers crossed that they’ll have all the Mickey kitchen stuff in the shops at DLP now I actually have a reason to buy them )

How did it all begin?

This is a very special trip because it was booked ENTIRELY by Ben without me knowing anything and he told me about it on Christmas Day to my huge surprise!

Here is how he told me I did consider not posting all the layers but they really need to be seen I think!





(this was because I booked us a minibreak for his birthday haha! )

[oh_darling]

Hehe! I also received a selection of goodies to aid in my planning and researching



Isn’t he the best!? I mean isn’t that just the best thing ever. I was so shocked and surprised, I think I burst into tears the moment I spotted Goofy hahhaa! Seriously, I was so happy, the happiest I’d been since we got back from Florida I think. We had both been reallllyyy depressed since we got back and Ben said he had wanted to cheer me up. Well, you def did babe! Seriously the best Christmas prezzie I’ve ever had.

We both know we wouldn’t be able to get back to Florida in 2012, we had tentative plans of going back to DLP in September and maybe going away for a little break in the UK in March but that would have been a reaallllyy long time to go without a Disney trip! :O Florida is on the horizon for 2013 and we’ve sworn we will be going! But lots more exciting things will be happening this year now to keep us occupied!

So, back to when he told me. Once I’d finished crying and hugging him he told me the story – he’d booked it a couple of weeks after we got back from Florida and was very annoyed to find out a few weeks later that we’d be missing the 20th Anniversary celebrations by 2 weeks! Extremely frustrating that they didn’t mention it before hand Anyway, it didn’t matter to me as that’s only a small part of the visit (we find DLP have a tendancy to over-hype their yearly events and they really have a very slight impact on your overall visit…) so we continued planning for March! But, a couple of weeks ago we discovered the Sky deal – booked 3 days worth of tickets thanks to my Sky account and other kind family members and 2 nights at our old favourite Hotel Explorers, so we will now be seeing the fireworks after all, August Bank Holiday woooo! 2 trips in 1 year – greed central. While we’re on the subject of the time of year we’re going, I have to say we’ve been pretty lucky generally with all the closures that seem to be throughout March :O The only one we’re gutted about is Pirates, it’s closed all the way through our trip We can live without River Rogue Keelboats and the big boat although I would have liked to ride that. Bit gutted Walts is closed but probably for the best as it’s pretty expensive anyway.

So, we are going 11th March 2012 – 15th March 2012

Travel

Benji very cleverly booked us onto the Eurostar, St Pancreas straight to Disneyland Paris, with the Disney Express! Exciting, we’ve never had this before! So while we’re on the train we’ll get all our documents and check-in to SL We’ll get luggage tags too so that when we arrive at DLP we can leave our bags and head straight to the parks! Aahhhh luxury We received our travel documents last week and we’re sat together both ways, phew! Love the Eurostar, soooo easy and awesome to literally get off the train and be next to the parks!

[oh_darling]

The Hotel

It was all booked, I didn’t need to do anything! He has booked 4 nights in Sequoia Lodge – somewhere we had both wanted to stay, he originally tried Newport Bay as they had been the same price but when he went to book it the price shot up and he could only get a room on the Admiral’s Floor for wayyy more money! No thanks! He was really worried I wouldn’t be happy with SL (as if! ) because I’d always loved the look of NPB but I was so pleased with SL – it gets better reviews in both the Brits and Unofficial Guides, it’s smaller, cosier and perfect for a winter break I think can already picture us having a cocktail in front of the roaring fire mmmm!



He’s booked us a high floor in the main building, exactly what I would have chosen! Really excited to stay here, looks lovely in all the photos and having previously stayed at the Explorers and Santa Fe (which we both loved!), it’ll be a step up! I’m a bit confused about the room situation at SL as the lodge is being refurbished and they’ve swapped what is a Montana room and what isn’t etc but I’m hoping we’ll get a refurbished room – Ben’s already made requests for a high floor and non-smoking but I might email 3 days before asking if we’d be able to have a refurbished room. No harm in asking, right!


London

So, Ben had sorted our travel, hotel and park tickets. We had just over 2 months to go. I needed to plan something though!

First of all I booked us two tickets on the megatrain from Southampton to Waterloo on the Saturday. We stayed the night in London last time and it really made for a very pleasant experience (apart from our lame-o hotel! ) with a nice day spent in the City, Dreamboats and Petticoats at night and a leisurely stroll to St Pancreas in the morning. Sadly, Saturday nights in central London are not known for their cheapness so despite getting up at 6am for the Travelodge sale, the cheapest I could get us was the Kings Cross Travelodge, £80. This was about £10 more than the Kings Cross Royal Scott hotel which is just down the road but having had a not very nice experience there in 2010 we went for the other one. Looks to be literally a 5 minute walk to the Station too so that’s awesome.



(it looks incredibly grand here but my hopes are looowwwwww)

So we had our transport and our hotel…but I needed to plan something else! At first I was looking at Michelin star restaurants in London and sussing out the menus but most of the ‘deals’ weren’t valid on Saturdays so we’d be paying a lotttt of money. I then started looking at shows and kept coming back to one that I knew Ben really wanted to see (I’d already seen it) and that would be the perfect start to our Disney week…have you guessed yet? Yep, The Lion King!

Problem was, as I’m sure anyone who’s ever glanced at lastminute.com will know, tickets for The Lion King are ridiculously priced. £80 each for a 2 hour show!?!? Ummm not gonna happen! I was slightly disheartened but I kept looking, must have looked at every hit on Google after typing in ‘cheap lion king tickets’ but it was seeming like they just didn’t exist.

Then, on the Lyceum theatre website doing my usual scout of seats I noticed 2 seats that were just £37.50 each! I know, sounds like a lot right but that is actually a genuine bargain in theatreland. I was onto theatremonkey quicker than you can say awimbawey checking out the seats and they didn’t actually seem that bad – high up yes and possibly with a bar in front of them but I figured they couldn’t be that bad and if they are, well I will be having a large drink with dinner so everything will seem a lot less of a big deal

So I booked them, yay! Then later that night it was time to break the news to Benj! I picked him up from his house and we drove to the shop (probably to buy alcohol) and I had my brand spanking new Disney CD on with a song from the Lion King show playing. It’s an amazing song and is in fact what first got me thinking I’d love to see it (I saw it when I was like 17, can’t really remember it ) so I knew he’d love it. It got to the end of the song and I was like “awww that’s such a good song isn’t it babe” and he was like yeah it’s awesome (thank God he wasn’t like “no it was rubbish” hahaha! ) and I say “oh that’s a good job then because I’ve booked us 2 tickets to see it in London before DLP! ” Hahaha his lil face! Cute. He was so pleased So that was a job well done on my part I think! Tickets arrived and are now safely in my DLP folder so we’re all sorted.




The Plans

Now the most exciting part, our plans! Obviously I have done an itinerary on powerpoint complete with amazing Disney clip-art BUT I am actually finding it quite a struggle to plan! With WDW and our ADR’s everything was set in stone, we had somewhere we needed to be every day which made it really easy to slot stuff in around them. BUT with DLP, we have found we really don’t need to be making ADR’s even though I know you can – we’ve never been turned away from a restaurant and if we are, we’ll just go for a bev til we can go in!

And, what with there being only the two parks, our plans are pretty loose and it’s very much a take it as it comes kind of place. I KNOW, this is very un-Libby. I’ve tried desperately to come up with a plan but even the restaurants are swappable in most cases, we have EMH every day so that’s no help and aside from a few ride closures we don’t have many things that we need to do on specific days. To be honest it’ll be nice to be able to do whatever we fancy and we have a nice long time there so I think it’ll be a more relaxed break. We are very excited about taking advantage of the SL swimming pool in particular!

So, onto our loose plans!

Food

As I mentioned before we do enjoy our food and any holiday is essentially an excuse to eat loads and loads and loads of it. Loads. We love the restaurants in DLP and are looking forward to trying some new ‘uns and visiting old faves. Here is the list as it stands!

Annettes Diner – This is closed from the Tuesday of our visit, NIGHTMARE, so we’re squeezing in a visit for lunch on the Monday as I MUST HAVE a peanut butter and chocolate milkshake! Plus it’s a relative bargain* compared to a lot of the other restaurants in DLP.

*still eye-wateringly expensive

Planet Hollywood OR Rainforest Café – Haven’t decided yet! I know the food at both of these is mediocre at best but we’ve never done a RFC or a T-Rex or anything themed so we quite fancy it Leaning toward Planet Hollywood at the moment as I do love the idea of eating in the globe but it’ll be menu-dependant!

The Steakhouse – Seems to be one of the cheaper places to get a steak and they have nummy veggie options too (a very rare treat in DLP) so we’re game. This one is a definite.

Inventions – I have wanted to eat here for agesssss but was always put off by the price which is ridiculous and the characters at dinner which we aren’t so hot on to be honest. But, they do a lunch buffet which is 20 euros cheaper and minus characters, perfect! We’ll do this on our last day – nice big lunch to fill us up before the Eurostar in the evening I cite for all the seafood!

POSSIBLY – Manhattan or Yacht Club – Really can’t decide about these. I really wanted to do one as a ‘nice’ dinner – get all dressed up and have a really lovely evening. But, the prices are a bit ridiculous and to be honest we really don’t fancy anything on the menu’s! Either of them! It’s just a lot of money to spend when I’m not dying to eat there. It’s a shame but these are maybes. My plan is to scout out the menu’s when we pass by each hotel and if they are different from the current ones online and we like the look of the food, great! We’ll go. If not, we’ll count our losses and go somewhere else.

We have 5 ‘nights’ to eat but one of our nights is taken up by a very special event which I’ll come onto later, and one is the night we go home so we’re having a big lunch at Inventions. So this leaves us 3 nights and we only have 2 definite restaurants so one of these nights could either be at the Manhattan or Yacht Club, or we could just grab a CS meal. We shall see!

And the thing I am MOST EXCITED FOR in our whole trip – the Earl of Sandwich! I swear every time I start thinking about it I get excitement quivers and have to just sit and calm down for a little bit, I am SO excited that they’ve opened one in DLP! And that it’s the same menu! Eeeeeeeee. We are planning to go to EoS for most of our lunchtime eats, and probably a couple of late night snacks too! Oh my darling Caprese, it won’t be long til we are reunited again….



Alcohol

Okay so I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before but me and Ben, we like a drink. Or 6. I mean we hardly drank while we were in Florida…



(apologies for rudimentary montage, my Photoshop is having a tantrum)

...so we’re making up for it in DLP

Which brings me onto the highlight of the holiday in Ben’s eyes and the thing he is most looking forward to - Bar Crawl!

Okay that makes it sound really tacky and Brit’s-in-Ibiza so I’m going to call it “Drinks Around The Lake” instead Ahhh, how quaint! This idea stemmed from…well I think it stemmed from Ben actually and to be honest it is very obvious when you think about it! 6 hotels, 6 bars, 6 opportunities to sample a cocktail in 6 very different and lovely settings.

Basically, we will be dedicating an afternoon/evening to drinking around the lake, 1 drink in each hotel starting with the Santa Fe (my heart still beats for you ) and finishing with a flourish at the Disneyland Hotel.

Now, I want you to understand that we won’t be getting hammered – turning up at the DLH totally off our faces, drunkenly slurring about glowtini’s and trashing the Fantasia Bar – we won’t be getting that drunk because a. the prices are very very high for all alcohol in DLP so it’ll probably be small measures of wine and then maybe a cocktail at the DLH and b. it is Disney, lots of small children about and we go to Disneyland Paris precisely to avoid drunken loons in Magaluf and the like.

I’m really looking forward to it we had a mini-crawl last year at just the SF, SL and DLH which was really lovely and a nice opportunity to see all the hotels as they all have really lovely bars that I think a lot of people don’t make use of.

This is going to be such an expensive day! The average beer is about 6 euros, the average cocktail is about 9. Eeek! But we’ve budgeted for it and won’t be worrying about the prices, it’s all part of the deal

[oh_darling]

Okay, important things out the way (food and alcohol) here is the list of our must-do’s for this trip!

Must Do’s

Eat at Earl of Sandwich (my number 1 must do…is that sad!?)

Drink at all 6 hotel bars in one day (Ben’s number 1 must do. We are animals)

Try a croque-monsiour! I’ve never had one!

Watch the afternoon parade in the DLP! Never done this

Swim in the Sequioa Lodge pool!

Get a photo of Ben with Rex that includes his face!





(massive fail on my behalf, he has not let me forget this)

I would quite like a photo with Rapunzel but I’m not really willing to wait very long so this may not happen…

Go on Casey Jr and le Pays des Contes de Fee’s – both were closed last time

Actually I’m going to stop here because I’m getting into ride territory and obviously we want to ride every single ride and see every attraction so this list would get very long and boring

The Plan

So, here is the plan as it currently stands!


Saturday 10th March

Megatrain to London at 1pm

Check in to Kings Cross Travelodge at 3pm

Get dolled up and go for dinner at Pizza Express opposite the theatre.

7.30pm THE LION KING!

As early a night as we can



Sunday 11th March

Get up, stroll to the Eurostar terminal grabbing some breakfast on the way and check-in for our train at 10.17am.

2pm – arrive in DLP! Go straight to Studios to watch Moteurs…Action because it’s closed as of tomorrow!

5pm ish check into the beautiful Sequoia Lodge

Evening – the Disneyland Park is open til 10pm tonight! Either have dinner at Planet Hollywood/Rainforest Café or just grab a CS meal if we are having tremendous amounts of fun and don’t want to leave the park



Monday 12th March

Up at 6.30am eeeeeek, breakfast at 7.15 and walk to the DL park for EMH at 8am! KEEN. Get those castle photos!

Lunch – Annette’s Diner!

Afternoon – Head back to SL to change/spruce up before Drinks Around The Lake

Start at Santa Fe, end up at the DLH!

Earl of Sammie for a post-drinks snack!



Tuesday 13th March

Possibly may not be able to manage EMH…

Whole day is free, no plans!

Maybe dinner at The Steakhouse?



Wednesday 14th March

EMH!

No plans for this day!

Dinner at wherever we haven’t been yet – maybe Planet Hollywood/RFC or Manhattan or Yacht Club if we fancy the menus!



Thursday 15th March

Final day EMH! Check out of SL and leave bags.

Lunch at Inventions

Eurostar at 7pm

Back to London at 9 – National Express booked to take us back to Southampton Very depressing trip home.

*Sigh* At least we know it won’t be too long til we’re back again! Yay!


So that is the plan as it stands and I think I’ve also covered everything else! Less than 2 weeks to go now! We’ve got our travel insurance and travel documents and we’ve printed out all our bookings and confirmations. Booked time off work, bought a new Minnie t-shirt (may have to get another if I’m honest) and obsessively checking the Paris weather each day. We’re going to get our Euros at the weekend and then before we know it we’ll be off! Eeee exciting!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this once again overly long pre-trippie I honestly did try to keep to short! I’m sure I’ll be back for updates in the next 2 weeks!



P.S if anyones wondering, the title is derived from a little singsong Ben had when we were talking about DLP, sung to the tune of “Main Street USA” and making François rhyme with USA which was one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard in my life.

[mummypig]

Wonderful pre-trippy as always. I love reading your stuff. It looks like a great plan. I know it's not Florida but it's a close second. Have a fabulous time. XXXXX

[kansaskitty]

Hiya pals!
So pleased the pre-trippie is up, and I LOVE how Ben did the present for you... he's so romantic! That was such a wonderful present! And it's so close until you'll be there, waka waka!
I actually like the idea of the drinks around the lake, we like the odd tipple too! Your plan looks awesome, I've only been to DLP for one day but it was amazing and it sounds like you know your way around pretty well so I'm sure you'll have a fabulous time. Getting a few more relaxed days in sounds like a good idea to me. Also getting the Eurostar will make everything so easy too, you're travelling in style!
Also I'm keen to see how you get on swimming in March! Or is it inside!? Lol!
It's also exciting news about the flat too, keeeeep saving! (If you can manage to hold yourselves from booking anymore Disney trips, you lucky ducks!) Squee!

[MissVincent]

i have stayed in that travel lodge - it was actually okay but that was a few years ago!

sounds like an awesome trip

[Gill H]

Oooh, a new Ben&Libby trippie, how exciting!

I think (from my phone conversation with the lovely Thomas at DLP Central Res) that they have finished the refurb now, and the rooms have swapped back to what they used to be. Standard = lodges, Montana = main building. (Or as he pronounced it "STEN-dard or MON-tunuh?")

We have booked a Standard room which should be fine. The lodges are literally steps away from the main building.

So glad you are going to see The Lion King too. It's awesome!

[Guest]

Hi lovely

I have stayed at that Travelodge MANY a (drunken) time and it is actually really nice! I used to stay there so often that the staff knew me!

Looking forward to the report... once I have finished reading the Florida one... I'm only on day 9! That annoying thing called life keeps getting in the way!

x

[Guest]

That Ben really loves you Libby!
A favour - don't go wrecking DLRP - Darrin and I are there at the end of April!
Enjoy yourselves hun!