Points make Paris… LIVE UPDATE 5/2 About This Page:

[chezp]

Points make Paris…

Pre-trip report – part one: “yes, we’ll do it”

Dates: Friday 29 April – Monday 2 May
Adventurers: Me, Cheryl (43) and DH Mark (50)
Destinations: Disneyland Paris
Resorts: Relais Spa Val d’Europe and Disneyland Hotel and the Hotel New York will also be making a guest appearance in this trip report
Meets: Mark’s parents Dave and Barbara, and his sister Sara, her husband Tom and their two daughters Evie (12) and Daisy (7, turning 8 while we’re there) will be joining us
Celebration: enjoying a Bank Holiday weekend away with family

Before I start, I think I should explain the title of this trip report. For those familiar with TV game shows in the UK in years gone by, you may realise it’s a play on a familiar phrase, which would be “what do points make?” at which point the audience would yell “prizes”. For the rest of you, I felt I had to explain the slightly odd title, as there was some British humour in there.

Points are the start to this trip, and in this case they’re of the Disney Vacation Club variety. We normally don’t have this problem, but we ended up with 101 points that had to be used by the end of July 2016. Knowing that we wouldn’t be returning to Walt Disney World until later in the year (September as it turned out), I started to look for options closer to home.

I’ll be honest here, Disneyland Paris isn’t our favourite Disney park by a long shot. In fact, it’s probably one of our least favourite, although in fairness, every time we go we always say firstly, it’s not as bad as we remember it, and secondly we enjoy it more than we expected, which is a good sign. However, what it is is pretty much on our doorstep.

We live about 40 minutes’ drive from Folkestone, home to the British terminal of the Eurotunnel, and from there, you can take drive on to a train that then takes you through the Channel Tunnel over to France in just 35 minutes. Once you get there, it’s about a three hour drive over to Disneyland Paris. You can also take the passenger train from Ebbsfleet or Ashford (each about half an hour’s drive away from us) and there are some services that run directly to Disneyland Paris. However, as I’m sure you can imagine, those are not cheap, and with only one service a day, you’re tied to an arrival and a departure time. We’ve done this a couple of times before, and while it’s certainly convenient once you’re on board, we found it was a pain to be arriving at the same time as a whole train load of people, and the boarding facilities at the Disneyland Paris weren’t exactly great, shall we say?

Anyway, that’s how close we are to Disneyland Paris. If we need to, we can do a day trip there – been there, done that a couple of times, but we prefer a slightly more relaxed approach these days.

In early May, we have a Bank Holiday weekend, which means the Monday is a day off. It’s also the only Bank Holiday weekend of the year that doesn’t fall during a school holiday, which is why we like to go away for it. Prices remain low for short breaks, whereas with all other Bank Holiday weekends, they go through the roof, because they’re part of at least a week long break from school. By then, it’s also usually good weather.

So that’s the where, and the when. At first, we were planning on staying at Disney’s Hotel New York, which is the second most expensive on-site hotel. We haven’t stayed there, but we had heard good things about it. However, around the start of 2016, I realised I’d made a minor error with the budgeting of our DVC points. Not only did I have 101 points to use up (and a two night stay at the Hotel New York would cost 107, so perfect…) but I also worked out I had another 600 points that needed to be used by July 2017. Now usually that wouldn’t be a problem, but this year, it was. We had our September 2016 trip all planned out, and our next big trip back to Walt Disney World wouldn’t be until December 2017. For some reason, I thought I could hold all 600 points for that trip, but Points have an expiry date, and for these, they wouldn’t last until Christmas 2017. Now what?

Well, for starters, it meant we could stay at our favourite on-site hotel, the Disneyland Hotel, which is literally right at the entrance to the Disneyland Park. We’ve stayed there a couple of times before, and absolutely love it there. If we had our way, it would be the only place we’d stay on our Disneyland Paris stay, so of course we changed our minds, and figured we’d go for there, rather than the Hotel New York.

That still left us with quite a few more points to use up. Well, in late 2015, one of Mark’s sisters, Sara, started to talk about going to Disneyland Paris with her husband and two daughters. I told her about our plans for the early May Bank Holiday, and given it would be the eighth birthday of one of her daughters, Daisy, I suggested it would be wonderful if they could join us. We started to look at packages, and they were pricey, as they tend to be at Disneyland Paris. This is one of my gripes with the place, as it costs a heck of a lot more to stay there than at Walt Disney World. We’ve never forgotten on our first stay at the Disneyland Hotel (for which we also used our points), where we got talking to a father who was there with his daughter, and when he told us how much he’d paid for a week there, we told him he could’ve got a couple of weeks in Florida for that price.

Sara wasn’t sure whether to go with a package, and said she’d wait until after Christmas to see how their finances were, which was fair enough. We went round to see her a couple of weeks into the new year, and she was still talking about going to Disneyland Paris, which allowed us to have a conversation with her. It went something like this:

“Well, if you really want to go to Disneyland Paris, then we’re prepared to use some of our DVC points to put you up in a hotel there. It’s not the top priced one, but it’s the second best one, and from what we’ve heard it’s really good. We could pay for two nights for you there, so you can have a long weekend away. All you’d have to pay for would be park passes, getting there and back, and spending money while you’re there.”
“What seriously?!”
“Yes seriously”
“Oh my goodness, I can’t believe it!”

Her reaction was priceless, but I knew she would be a push over. It was Tom I was concerned about. Tom has never been to a Disney park in his life (I know, right? ) and therefore, through no fault of his own, he has no idea what they’re all about. We spent the next hour or so answering his questions, showing him photos of the Hotel New York (I think that might’ve been a clincher ) and reminding him that it would be Daisy’s birthday, and she’d have an absolute ball. They’ve also had some challenges to deal with over the last couple of years, which I won’t go into here, as that’s their personal business, but that’s why we wanted to make the offer, as they seriously deserve some luck and a lovely holiday.

Not long before we were due to leave, I said as a parting shot that I’d need to know fairly soon whether they were up for this or not, as I’d need to get it booked with the DVC. Having made the offer, I didn’t want to leave it too long, and then discover that there was no availability, which was a possibility. Because the DVC exchanges points with Disneyland Paris (don’t ask me for the ins and outs, but I’m sure Disneyland Paris gets some form of payment along the line for letting DVC Members use their points there), I figured there’s a limit to how many times they’ll do that, and I didn’t want to reach that limit.

The next words I heard were music to both our ears. Sara said they were pretty much there, and really wanted to go for it, and then Tom just said “yes, we’ll do it”. I was so pleased that we’d managed to talk him into it, as I know once he gets there, he’ll love it.

Next: “oh, then there’s that awful ride that Barb likes….”