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Old 11 Aug 15, 12:29 PM  
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**Leigh_11_22**
Helping Minnie
 
Join Date: May 13
Post Trip Pre Trip

Hello and welcome to our trip report for Disneyland Paris May 2015. I didn’t actually do a pre-trip report before we left as I promised myself that I would not start on one until I had finished our Florida trippy!



Some background into this trip then.

Cast Members:

Myself, Katherine 27. Trip planner.

Tom, 30. Birthday boy.

Aaron, 6. Adrenaline junkie.



We first visited DLP in December 2012 during its 20th anniversary celebrations and had the most magical time. We had no idea of what was involved in a Disney holiday and were completely overwhelmed by it all. Looking back now we missed out on lots of things by not doing our homework, but that didn’t matter then! We fumbled our way through, figured FastPass out, didn’t use our free meal vouchers well and watched dreams from Main Street every night.



It gave us the Disney bug and 6 months later we were pricing up another trip. However somewhere along the line four nights in Paris became 21 nights in Florida!






















Our Once in a Lifetime trip was amazing and tiring and as much as we are longing to return that won’t be happening for quite a few years.

This year saw tom turning 30. He and his friends had plans to go on a boy’s holiday in June to celebrate and Aaron and I were being left at home! In January I started thinking about planning something nice as a surprise and it started with a night away somewhere in the UK.

However, one thing led to another and soon enough I was on the DLP website looking at options for May half term, which fell the week after his birthday. I was set on this and began pricing up the different options for travel etc.



The current DLP offer was buy 2 nights get 2 free and this seemed like the best deal around. We had previously stayed at the Cheyenne but on doing my research and reading other people’s trip reports I decided that Sequoia Lodge was the best choice for us this time around The bar, outdoor decking area and pool were some of the key things that drew me in, but the location sold it in the end. I added the meal plan on to the booking as I had four restaurants in mind which all accepted them and it was a great way for me to pay in advance for more of the trip

Next up was sorting out getting there! This was tricky without Tom knowing! The flights that we needed were coming out on the expensive side so I started looking at other options. We live in the North West so I had never really considered anything other than flying before

The first option that I settled on was to drive east to hull and take the overnight ferry to Zeebruge. This price was great to begin with, only £190 for a cabin, however I left it too long before booking and it increased dramatically in the space of a month :angry:

I was back to square one and had resigned myself to paying for expensive flights when I decided to price up the Eurotunnel. The price surprised me and I did some maths to calculate the cost of fuel and to include overnight stays both ways and it still beat the cost of flying by about £250!

I booked a Premier Inn at Folkestone for the journey out and another at Maidstone for the return journey. The prices for these were great, only £45 for a family room, including breakfast on the way home.



We were booked up at last and I slowly counted down the days by myself! I paid for the entire trip in secret with tips that I earned in work, so that in itself was a surprise for Tom! At 60 days out I made some reservations at the restaurants that I had chosen for us. I initially wasn’t going to make these in case Aaron and Tom wanted to eat elsewhere but with it being the holidays thought it best to just make a decision and have something booked. I didn’t get the exact times that I was after as lots of slots had already been booked so I was happy about my decision.

Next up was to make a decision about when to tell them 
My original plan was to wait until Tom’s actual birthday which is the 19th, leaving just 6 days to go until the holiday. However as the time drew nearer I started to panic about the logistics of it all and decided it would be best if he knew a little earlier.

Easter seemed like the perfect opportunity so I planned a small treasure hunt for Aaron to do on the Sunday. I set it up so that the hunt took place upstairs and then took them to the living room. Once they got there I had lots of envelopes to open each with a note in them.

I didn’t record them opening them or take any photos for some reason but it was lovely. It basically said “let’s do something special for daddy’s birthday!” Then I had printed out a letter explaining that we were going to Disney and told them all of the information. They were shocked at first. Aaron believed me before Tom did!



After a couple of days of it settling in and looking at the brochures etc the excitement finally hit us! We counted down the days and made all of the usual arrangements. The euro rate was really strong so we stocked up. We bought memory cards and selfie sticks. We read up on the driving laws in France and made sure the car was up to scratch. We bought new Sketchers and rustled up R2D2 ;-)



Tom’s birthday was the week before the trip and he was thoroughly spoilt. We had cake and gifts with our nephew George, who shares his birthday with Tom. It was wonderful knowing that Disney was just a short week away.









The only thing left to do was to pack and get on the way!

**Leigh_11_22** is offline Girl Mouse Click to view Members Trip Plans Add Member to Ignore List
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