Let it snow, let it snow...the cold never bothered me anyway! First full day

[burns3466]

I woke to the chirpy tones of Mickey Mouse telling me it was time to have fun in the parks and wishing me a great day... I can think of worse ways to be woken up at 7am It was still dark outside and even though she was in DLP, my DD is still NOT a morning person. I'd allowed for this when I booked the call - she needed a good half an hour to gradually come round. If she had been sleeping beauty, it would have been a very long book and movie. That poor prince would have had chapped lips by the time she managed to come round!

I wasn't sure what we were going to do for breakfast this morning. We were on the dining plus plan but having seen Restaurant En Coulisse the pervious day when we were walking round the Studios (which is where we were supposed to use our breakfast vouchers), there was no way I wanted to go back there. I had asked at reception if the vouchers could be used anywhere else, but was told the only other option was to pay 15 Euros each per day and eat in the hotel restaurant. I thought that was far too expensive, so politely declined. I had also asked for advice on the Dibb boards before we went and Gill H kindly gave me some ideas. One of which was the New York Style Sandwich cafe in Disney Village. I decided to try our luck there and asked the lady behind the counter if she would accept our vouchers. She was very happy to do so and was very helpful. As my DD is gluten intolerant, she couldn't have the pastries on offer but she isn't much of a breakfast person anyway and just asked if she could have a piece of fruit instead. It took a little while for the lady to understand this request as I think (and quite rightly so) that she struggled to comprehend why we would come all the way to Paris and not want a warm, fresh crossaint Anyway, I was just expecting two hot drinks, a pastry and an apple, but we actually were served all of that, plus the choice of an orange or apple juice each, as well as two 12 inch baguettes! I popped the soft drinks and the baguettes in my rucksack as that would be a drink for later and I could nibble on the bread if I got peckish. We really liked it here - the staff were friendly and it was close to the hotel so we ended up going there every morning for breakfast. So much nicer than an omelette burger

I knew that not all rides were open for EMH so we planned to ride Rockin Roller Coaster and get a fast pass for ToT. However, as we walked round to ToT they told us that the fastpass machines don't open until 10am! By that time, the park would be open to the general public so we decided to just start queuing up straightaway as we were already there - the wait was only about 40 minutes and it went quite quickly to be honest. It was bitterly cold though and as we were queuing, the first flakes of snow started to fall... and it basically didn't stop snowing for the next 3 days!

Now, I have a love/hate relationship with ToT. I love the way it dominates the skyline in Studios and I think the theming and the actual ride concept are brilliant. However, I hate rollercoasters and rides that drop me and I am absolutely terrified of ToT. When I started to book this trip, I promised my DD that I would go on everything at least once. Part of that agreement was that she would go with me to the Phantom Manor. She has no fear of rollercoasters (she went on Sheikra when she was 10 years old) but strangely, she doesn't like things that jump out at her. The deal was set and then I found out PM would be closed for a refurb when we were there I was so disappointed...I had really been looking forward to this one. Hey ho.

As we got nearer the front of the queue, I got quieter and quieter. My heart was racing and my hands were clammy. I was really scared! You can see just how scared I was by this photo (I can't believe I'm sharing this! ).

What makes it look worse is that everyone else around us appears so calm and relaxed We came off the ride and the adrenaline was coarsing through my veins so much so, that I was trembling all over. I gave DD the photopass card and told her to go and get it scanned because I seriously needed a moment to compose myself Once recovered, I told her that as I was now fired up, we should go on Rockin Rollercoaster and then that was two of the worse rides for me out of the way! There was hardly any queue and as predicted, I screamed the entire way round... This is DD's favourite ride. It combines her two loves - rock and roll and rollercoasters. When we got back from our trip and saw the plans to transform it for Marvel, she was gutted. It is a shame and I will miss it, but I understand that Aerosmith are just not very relevant to kids today (my DD being the exception). Every time we checked the times for this ride, it was never more than about 10 minutes, so I could see it was nowhere near as popular as it had been when we went on it in Florida, when we had to get fast passes.

We then decided to take a walk over to the Magic Kingdom so my blood pressure had time to recover. As cold as it was, the snow did make the parks look rather pretty. We took some photos and then made our way to the barriers. We found quite early on that people tend to congregate by the barriers directly in front of you as you walk in, but we just walked further down on the right and were through in no time

This park was so gorgeous! I liked the way it looked like Disneyworld in Florida but it also had little differences that made it a bit special, like the horse drawn cable car, the indoor arcades which run parrallel to Main Street and the castle. I think this is my favourite castle. It looked more medieval and fairytale-like. The dragon in the dungeon was also a brilliant addition. Unfortunately the castle balcony was shut so we carried on through. I wanted to go and see Indiana Jones and I was very niave as I thought it would be like Florida and be some kind of stunt show. Erm... nope... it's another rollercoaster that bloody goes upside down! DD thought this was hilarious. We did meet Rafiki on the way back though so that cheered me up.

By the time we came off we were frozen so we thought we'd go for lunch. This is where I realised I'd made my first mistake. I had made sure that months before I had made reservations for dinner each night, but thought we could wing it for lunch. I was very wrong. Everywhere we went was full, probably not helped by the weather. We actually ended up at the Steak House in the village in the end and we had a really lovely lunch. Again, the service was extremely good and the food delicious. I was surprised it wasn't busier.

We then decided to go back to the hotel for a bit to warm up but when we got back to the park later that day, we didn't realise we'd missed the parade and watched the last 5 minutes of it. We made a note to come back for that tomorrow. We made our way to Thunder Mountain next and this was one of the highlights of the trip. It had stopped snowing for a bit and the sun was just setting. The mountain was a beautiful orange colour with a dusting of snow all over it and as we went round on the ride, all the lanterns were coming on and the park just looked so pretty

We had reservations at Captain Jacks tonight. Great place, great theming and the food was again delicious. We both had the Mahi Mahi fish - amazing! My only criticism was the service was rather slow and we were concerned we wouldn't make it back in time for the fireworks. We finished with just enough time to nip round and ride Pirates before rushing round to the castle for the fireworks. By this time it was snowing quite heavily and my DD asked if we should perhaps give it a miss and come back the following night. But I told her that if this weather didn't ease up, there may not be any fireworks tomorrow so we should man up and huddle together for warmth to watch it now!

Overall, it was ok but I mirror many of the other comments I've seen that it just ain't wishes. Still a nice way to end the evening though. Frozen to the core, we shuffled back to the hotel. It's a real shame that everything closes so early in DLP and there isn't much to do in the evenings for grown ups. What we would have loved that night was to have got into our pjs, snuggled down in our beds with a hot chocolate and watched a Disney movie on TV, but I was really confused that a Disney hotel doesn't have a Disney movie channel... ! All we had on offer was the Disney channel and the programmes they show make me want to pluck my eyes out with forks and pour cement in my ears. The only options were to read a book or have an early night. We did find out though that we could use the sauna and steam room in the hotel spa for free so that's what DD did. She loved that!

As we'd done a lot of the rides we had wanted to do today, I asked Mickey to wake us up a bit later tomorrow. Having checked my step counter I saw that we'd walked 6 miles that day, which for me was 18,500 steps!

Second full day to follow...

[kadypants]

What a brilliant first day!

It looks like the snow made everything look so magical.

[burns3466]

Thank you :-) It was a good day and I was surprised at just how much we managed to get done! This proved to be very lucky for us because the snow really kicked in the following day...