My DLP Trip report June 2011 About This Page:

[DisneyCarey]

Finally got around to putting some of the highlights together on our recent trip to DLP this past June. The lucky travelers on this journey, were me, my exhusband and our two kids, my son (13) and my daughter (11). Our Disney experience: I previously worked for The Disney Store, we've been to WDW twice, Disneyland too many times to count, and one Disney Cruise.

I had planned a 23 day trip to London and France, and had to include a few days at DLP. I'll just share our time at DLP on this forum. We left Maui on a Tuesday redeye flight and arrived in London Thursday morning. Did 4 days in London then took the Eurostar to Paris. Eurostar is a breeze, comfortable and fast, and you are underwater for only about 20 minutes.

From Paris we caught the RER train to DLP. It's a quick 35 minute ride and you end up right at the entrance plaza to both parks. It was easy to find the hotel buses, located right outside the train station. We did carryon only for this trip so we could have walked to the hotel, but decided to take the bus as we didn't know where it was at first. We chose the Newport Bay Hotel for our stay. I booked a package earlier in the year, that got us 4 nights for the price of 3, daily breakfast and parkhoppers for 5 days. The hotel was okay, but I"m pretty snobby about hotels and I don't think this hotel was that great -for the amount of money they charge. We had the regular 2 queen bed room. It was small in my opinion. There was a tv cabinet with few drawers, a small closet area with a safe in the bathroom area. The rooms have a nautical theme that looks really dated. I've always been annoyed that Disney has such cheap bathroom amenities, the generic shampoo and mini bars of soap-that's so Motel 6. Check-in was a breeze, however they do make you select your breakfast times for each day and give you passes. Not sure how strict they are if you show up earlier than your appointed time. Breakfast was chaos everyday. It was so loud in the dining room we could hardly talk to one another. There are two restaurants (the hostess each morning decides which one you get) that serve a buffet style continental breakfast, there was sliced cold cuts, tomatoes, croissants, rolls, cheese, cold cereal, yogurts, fruit salad, coffee, tea, hot cocoa, juices. We had the later times, 10 am, and the staff is already clearing the buffet by 10:15. They literally took a plate away as I was taking a slice of cheese. The staff always seemed to be rushing around in a race to get the place ready for lunch. Upstairs in the lobby, each morning a character would appear for pictures. The concepts of waiting in line are not practiced here. Everytime we went by there were gobs of people hoarding the character, trying to get pics.

We walked to the parks everyday, only about 15 minutes. I thought the Disney Village (their version of Downtown Disney) was just okay. There's definitely not enough retail shops. None of the shops are non-Disney. There's restaurants and a few Disney shops, but nothing on the scale of Downtown Disney's at WDW or DL. The food was also weak too. Our favorite place ended up being the Earl of Sandwich. It was affordable and fresh. We tried the Tex-Mex buffet ($30 per) and thought it was dreadful cafeteria food, however the best thing was the candy at the kids dessert table! We did eat at Planet Hollywood and that was pretty good with great service. We ate plenty of snacks in the park, popcorn, ice cream, etc. Be prepared for high prices though, you get so used to the Euro, you don't realize you just paid $8 for a hot dog!

It was kind of surreal to be walking down Main Street and realize you're in France. It pretty much looks exactly the same as the U.S. parks. The most popular ride by far was Big Thunder, if you wanna ride that, get there asap for a fastpass. We would get there by 11 or so, and the fastpass times were already at 8 pm! The park did feel smaller than DL. The Indiana Jones rides is all outside and we called it the "neck cracker", it was a very jerky coaster ride, practially no theming. Pirates and Phantom Manor are about the same. Fantasyland is complete madhouse-just like the mainland. Lots of crying kids and strollers ....it's reassuring to know that children around the world, no matter the language or culture, will cry and throw fits at theme parks!

Walt Disney Studios is where we spent more time. Our favorite rides are the Tower of Terror and the Rockin' Roller Coaster. We never waited more than 15 minutes for these rides. Crush's Coaster is also there, very fun ride, but no fast pass, the line was always at least 45 minutes. I hope they bring this to U.S. parks. There's a cool Toystory area for little kids with fun rides and character theming. One of the best live action shows we went to was the Moteur Sports Action show. It's a huge arena, and must hold a 1000 people, and it's a great car stunt show, lots of action and it's told in English and French. The absolute worse ride- and Disney should be ashamed, is the Studio Tram Tour. It was the lamest ride. There are only 2 short "action" type things you watch, you drive past some cars used in the movies and some props. That's it!

Overall, it was a good experience. You don't need to speak French to have a good time, however greeting everyone with "bonjour" was automatic, and "merci" when you bought something. Almost everyone spoke English. There were ATM's available everywhere to get cash (no service charge either!). There was a convenience store inside the train station that sold wine, soda, water, snacks, souvenirs, ice cream. The prices were much cheaper than the parks. We discovered though you can't buy wine at the store and take back to hotel via Disney Village. They have a bag check and no alcohol is allowed. So we had to take the bus back that day. The parks are not as clean and well maintained as the U.S. The bathrooms were always a hit and miss, sometimes they were spotless, other times it looked like they hadn't been serviced in days. People are very pushy, and have no problem cutting in line. We noticed this at both parks. One time an entire school group, 30 some kids, come running up behind us and swarm the line, literally pushing right past us and we were in the line already. The adults just shrug and don't say anything to the kids. It says no smoking, but people were freely smoking in the lines. The castmembers do not seem to enjoy their jobs at all, the only standouts were a couple of guys who worked at Tower of Terror and were always having fun in character with the waiting "victims". I'm glad we did 5 days because we didn't feel rushed, we could sleep in, take our time at the parks, revisit the things we liked, etc. From DLP we took the train back to Paris, then onto the south of France to stay with friends. We then finished the trip with a week in Paris. If you have any questions, fire away!

[chezp]

Thanks so much for sharing your thughts!

Your experiences pretty much match ours - we had exactly the same thoughts about the Newport Bay and found the same thing about smoking and the bathrooms.

[DebiDebiDebi]

Great report! Hope to experience it ourselves someday!

[Disneybine]

Thanks so much for your report! It's sad but true that the hotels, while nice, aren't on par with their American counterparts. The smoking and cutting in line are probably the things that annoy me the most at DLP. Not sure how much Disney can do about, though.

That said, there are a bunch of rides unique to DLP that are simply amazing.

Again, thanks for taking the time to tell us about your vacation!

[Colexis Mom]

Thanks for sharing your trip with us!

[barrackali]

In previous years (when I actually worked for DLP) we used to watch out for line skippers, this seems to be pretty much low on the list of priorities for todays castmembers. That would also be my main gripe about DLP.

Another thing that bugs me about DLP these days is the number of Roma gypsies congregating at Marne-La-Vallee Chessy train station, I have witnessed myself how they interfere with the ticket machines and then charge tourists to get through.