Just Can't Wait to be King of the Swingers! DLP Sep 2019: Day 4

[Gill H]

<<<Day 3


Today we were up at 6am, determined to get the most out of our last day. We were soon ready and packed, and headed down to breakfast, where we took full advantage of the buffet. Then we arranged to get our valuables back from the safety deposit box, popped back upstairs to finish packing, and within a few minutes were back at the reception desk.

We arranged to leave our suitcase in a luggage room at the hotel – we had considered using the lockers at Marne la Vallee or even paying for the luggage room in the park (which didn’t come free with our level of annual pass). However, in the end we decided we were happy to come back to the hotel later. So it was off again to the RER and soon we were joining the substantial crowd at security.

While waiting we spotted a girl with Gelatoni ears on. Gelatoni is a cat who’s a friend of Duffy – and if you don’t know who Duffy is, obviously you missed the brief period when he was popular in the American and Paris parks. Basically Duffy is supposed to be a toy bear belonging to Mickey. Mickey goes off on his travels round the world, and Minnie gives him a toy bear to keep him company. But Duffy comes to life, and by now he has a whole life of his own and a group of friends. He’s insanely popular in Japan, and the Tokyo Disney parks even have photo spots where you can put your own Duffy bear or one of his friends, to take photos of them. Gelatoni ears are a definite rarity in Paris, and it was nice to have another little reminder of our plans to visit Tokyo.

As we waited in the long queue for security, we heard an announcement in French, saying that guests could use the CM entrance. We power-walked over there, congratulating ourselves that enough of our rusty school French had survived to understand the announcement – because there wasn’t an English version! Ha ha, see ya later, monoglots!

Soon we were heading to City Hall and asking once again about Mastercard tickets, this time for Mickey and the Magician in the Studios. But again, there were none left. They must only keep about 4 tickets or something!

Anyway, we went through to BTMR which was showing 5 minutes – although as soon as Peter joined the queue, it jumped to 15. Still pretty good for this ride though.

Afterwards, Peter’s photo wasn’t showing up, and the CMs at the photo counter weren’t able to help. Oh well, maybe it would show on the photopass site later. (Spoiler alert ... it did!)

Meanwhile we breezed on through Adventureland, and into Fantasyland, mainly to have our first ride this holiday on my favourite – It’s a Small World. Yes, really. I know, I know … but there’s so much detail to spot, and I love the Mary Blair artwork. The ride had opened yesterday after its refurb, and was looking sparkling. Even the water was pristine and sparkled in the sun. The ducks were loving it.

And since the queue was low, we went back and rode it again.

[Gill H]

Next we headed to Discoveryland and Peter got himself a Star Tours FP. We decided to do something we’ve never done before, and meet Darth Vader, since there was only a very short queue for this. Generally we only bother with character meets if there’s virtually no queue – not that we don’t enjoy them, but we don’t tend to queue more than 20 minutes for anything at DLP if we can help it. Anyway, we were soon being interrogated by Vader and having our photos taken. I know there are doubts about automated photopass pictures, but the one here is very well done. However, when we got out to the photo counter, we couldn’t find our picture yet again. The CM, a lovely French lady called Fanny (what? Very popular French name!) tried for ages but it wouldn’t show up. (Spoiler warning again.. they did!)

We did, however, notice that the family in front of us in the queue had some castle photos in their photopass account, and we asked Fanny if she could tell us when photographers would be at the castle. She asked her colleague and searched around, and even had to look up the English word for the answer – which was … ‘random’. Ah, good to know. So there was a chance we might get a castle photo – but only if we happened to be there at the right time! Hey, I guess it’s a start.


Peter’s Star Tours FP window was opening, so he went for a quick journey to a galaxy far, far away, and I went to the shop, very nearby. I had a quick look at the merch but didn’t fancy anything, though the ‘Merry Sithmas’ jumper was tempting.

But I just grabbed a couple of cold drinks as it was already very hot again. The queue at the only working counter was huge and moved with glacial slowness, but eventually I glanced over to the other side of the shop and saw that someone had opened the other till – but hadn’t told anybody! Have you ever seen someone try to exit a queue swiftly but without drawing undue attention? I’m sure it’s possible but I don’t think I achieved it. But I did at least end up second in the new queue. And as a bonus, I got AP discount on the drinks (which only happens when you buy them from a shop, not a food vendor – top tip!)

When Peter got out of Star Tours we had our drinks and went to see Philharmagic – or ‘Mickey and his Philharmagic Orchestra’ as it’s called here. This works surprisingly well in the trademark DLP mix of English and French, although I do wish they would renovate the theatre and put Donald in the back wall.

Once we got back to Main Street, we had to cope with ropes and crowds as Jungle Book Jive was on yet again. We managed to manoeuvre our way to the front of Victoria’s, cross over and head up the ‘secret entrance’ to Frontierland, and over to Phantom Manor. There was a 20 minute wait, but we did it anyway – the queue moves quite quickly and there’s always lots to see, not least great views over Thunder Mesa.

After our final trip in the doombuggy, we decided to see if we could get our photo problem sorted. At the bottom of Main Street is Flora’s New Century Notions, which has a photopass counter, so we went in and asked if they could help locate our missing photos. Big shout out here to the amazing Mohammed, who soon spotted that there was a problem with Bluetooth on Peter’s phone (I can’t remember now whether it should have been on or off!) All the photos were in our account, and he got them to show up. Thank you Mohammed, what a star.

While in Flora’s, we heard a familiar voice talking to some people, and looked over to see YouTuber Curious Axel. He’s been vlogging at DLP for years (although now he has moved to Orlando and is vlogging at WDW instead). We had a little chat, explained who we were and gave him a Great British Mickey Waffle badge – so Axel, if you happen to be reading this, hello and hope you gave the podcast a listen!

[Gill H]

We said our goodbyes to Disneyland Park for this trip, and went over to Studios. Tower of Terror had no FPs left by now, but we did manage to get a time slot on Lineberty for a meet with Daisy later on.

Meanwhile we got into the queue for Mickey and the Magician early. It’s always a good idea to be at least half an hour early for this show, as the queue turns into something of a stampede for seats once the doors open. Even though we were quite far ahead in the queue, we still struggled to find somewhere with two seats together. They really need CMs to be enforcing the ‘move right across’ policy in this place. The show was worth the bother though, it really is magical and is a priority of ours on every trip.

After the show it was nearly time for our meet with Daisy. Despite the slot coming up on Lineberty, there was still about a 15 minute wait, and that little corner of the Studios was a real sun trap at this point. Still, we had a nice chat to the people next to us in the queue, and had fun watching Daisy interact with the other guests. The family in front of us had a little girl who was rather scared at meeting Daisy and didn’t know quite how to react. The CM who was with Daisy was an absolute star, reassuring the little girl and getting her used to the idea of meeting a character. By the time the photos were taken, the whole family was all smiles.

And then it was our turn, and we were chatting with the world’s most fashionable duck. A fun meet with some great photos.

[Gill H]

Since we’d pretty much done everything we wanted to do, we decided to go for our lunch earlier than planned. We knew this wouldn’t be a problem – Restaurant des Stars has always been half empty any time we’ve been there. And so it proved this time – we were ushered straight in, and soon shown to our seats. As usual, we found plenty to eat there, and even some African-inspired offerings to tie in with the Festival – giraffe and zebra macarons.

We also found some adverts for a wine that reminded us of a certain cruise-loving Dibber, but we didn’t buy any!

I wish I could say it was a peaceful meal, but it certainly wasn’t. At the table next to ours a Spanish family were escaping the heat and having lunch, but it was all too much for the dad, who yelled at them for a good five minutes and then stomped out of the restaurant. My Spanish is virtually non-existent so I have no idea what that was about, but the family went on happily eating lunch, so maybe it was just a dad thing.

After lunch we decided it would be a good time to leave the park, go back to the hotel and sit in the bar with a cool drink. So we hopped on the RER and were soon sitting in the cool air-conditioned bliss of the Ibis. Oscar was at the bar, and we asked for our favourite way to beat the heat – a diabolo menthe. This classic French combination of green mint syrup and lemonade has magical properties when it comes to cooling you down. And when we asked Oscar for the bill, he only charged us 1 Euro each. I’m sure they cost more than that! What a gent.

Once we’d cooled off, we got our cases and headed back to Marne la Vallee on the RER for the last time. We found somewhere to sit in the station and waited for our SNCF train to Lille to be called. It felt very strange, not going through Eurostar security, but frankly a blissful relief as that is always such a stressful experience – you really are herded like cattle. By contrast, here we sat peacefully on a bench, until I decided to charge my phone at a nearby table equipped with charging points (very useful service, Marne la Vallee, thank you!)

All the trains seemed to be running late, and were only announced a few minutes before their departure time, so every few minutes there would be a mad scramble near us as another group of people rushed down the stairs to their train. When our train was called, we lugged the cases down the stairs as quickly as we could, and in our haste we ended up in the wrong seats on the train. It was fine though, as the train wasn’t busy. Again we were on one of the more modern seats, made for skinny people with narrower bodies than mine, and since the train absolutely crawled all the way to Lille, it wasn’t the most pleasant ride. However, when we arrived at Lille we found that changing was an absolute breeze. It was a short escalator ride to security, where there was a very short queue, and then we sat in the waiting area until our Eurostar was called. There was nothing in the waiting area, just a vending machine and some seats, but it didn’t bother us.

The Eurostar part of the journey home was uneventful and we mostly slept through it. And then it was home on the tube and the bus, and then finally back to our little flat and giving Cookie a big cuddle.

So that was our trip. Fun overall, though not without its challenges. I left determined to lose some weight and get fitter before our next trip (and in fact I did manage to lose 3 stone over the next 6 months, although some of that has snuck back on during lockdown). And now we are looking towards our next planned trip in November (thanks to DLP extending the annual pass validity). Let’s hope it’s a much more chilled experience, in every sense of the word!

Thank you for reading along. I hope it’s been fun to read about the park as it was last year, while we all adjust to the new and strange ways of doing things that await us on our next visit. But whatever happens, it will still be our magical home from home. Au revoir everyone, and here’s to the next time.

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[baggers]

Sounds like a great trip! Well done on the weight loss too

[Lillie]

Enjoyed reading your trip report, we hope to get back to DLP next year. Enjoy your November trip.