A French Disney home for the holidays…. COMPLETED - Page 30 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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A nice end to Paris, but too bad the two of you were so cold from that cold rain! Glad you had a pretty good meal to warm you up, even though the service was a bit laxed again....a recurring theme!
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Sunday 16 November – part eleven: what the heck have they done to my beloved donkey?
On the way out, I got a few shots of the Disney Village at night…
Mark insisted I got this one of the “Rainforest Caf”!
The LEGO Store was amazingly themed, and I loved the way they had the Fantasia scene…
… the dragon we all know and love from Downtown Disney….
… and even Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer!
We went into Disney Fashion next, which had some interesting items, but none really grabbed me.
Then we went into the Art of Disney, and found this abomination. What the heck have they done to my beloved donkey?
Our next stop was the Disney Store, where the question was “what have they done to Pooh and Tigger?” Oh well, I guess at least my donkey escaped that treatment anyway…
I’m pleased this place has stayed open, as I did assume it would close once the World of Disney Store opened.
Mark found a Grumpy throw in here that he ended up getting, then we made our way back to the hotel – as you can tell from these shots, it was still raining.
When we got back to the lobby for my last dose of eye drops, Mark literally dropped himself into a chair!
We headed back to the room, and I didn’t last much longer before heading to bed.
The weather today was dry and cloudy in the morning, but continual rain from the early afternoon and temperatures in the high 40s. The best thing today was the Segway tour The worst thing today was how wet we got during the Segway tour. The funniest thing today was our wonderful guide on the Segways Drew, who kept our minds off the terrible weather with some great stories! Today we tried eating at the Steakhouse in the Disney Village And the result was it wasn’t bad, and had a surprising amount of choice for a non-meat eater. The most magical moment today was stopping on the beautiful Pont Alexandre III on our Segways.
I woke up just after 7:00 am this morning, giving me another 10 hours sleep last night. Not bad, I think that’s a total of 41 hours’ sleep in the last four days!
We got going slowly and made it down to breakfast just after 9:00am, and of course there was a hulking huge line to get in there, although thankfully it moved quickly and we were seated a couple of minutes later. Interestingly, Winnie the Pooh was out greeting people, which we hadn’t seen this vacation in the hotel. I don’t know why we were seeing it today and not on the other days.
We were taken through to the California Grill section of the buffet (at night, they are two separate restaurants), and my first thought was “cool, a new experience”. Well that quickly dissolved, as we were surrounded by kids who were throwing tantrums, and quite frankly their parents didn’t seem to care on iota about that.
Even worse, while the main area is a buffet, but is laid out in pods, this is a more traditional buffet laid out in one line, which means everyone lines up – very frustrating if, like me, you couldn’t have cared less about the hot options, and only wanted to grab some cheese at one end, and then move out of the way. I was very nice and tried to say “excuse me” to the guy in front about three times, but after he kept ignoring me, I ignored him, grabbed what I wanted and then moved out of the way.
I was really put off going back to get any more food, and only did one more run after that. Even worse, Mark told me that the kids were going up to the buffet, regularly fingering the food, and putting it back down, which is absolutely disgusting. We both came to the conclusion that, based on the behaviour we’d witnessed here, kids shouldn’t be allowed up to the buffets, as they are just completely unhygienic.
I headed back to the room first, as I was having issues with one of my toes on my left foot. I have no idea what happened, but earlier on, it had just started hurting, and it was really hard to put pressure on it. Then it was fine, but the same thing happened as I made my way back from the buffet. Goodness knows what was going on, but I just hoped it wouldn’t affect our last day too much.
Anyway, as I left the buffet, I saw my donkey and my eyes lit up. I thought there was a nice, orderly line for him, so I got in line, but was dismayed a couple of minutes later when the Cast Member informed us there was no line. but I am not playing that game. We did this many years ago, and discovered that a) French families get preference over English families and b) adults only are right at the back of the line. I was not prepared to stand there and, quite frankly, get more and more mad about the situation, so sadly I gave up on seeing my friend today…
We finished up the rest of our packing, and it was quite easy, as we didn’t have to worry about weight. So long as we could deal with it, that was all that Eurostar cared about. That done, we took everything down to the lobby. We then had to check out at the departures area, rather than reception, which is an odd way to do things. I checked our transactions, and they were all correct, so that was it – it was charged to the credit card and we were good to go.
We headed off towards the Disneyland Park, and thankfully it wasn’t raining – well, for now at least. They were forecasting that it would rain later in the forecast… I still can’t quite wrap my head around seeing a Christmas tree next to a tree complete with fall foliage. It’s just such a weird contradiction.
As you can see, the park wasn’t exactly what I’d call crowded…
It’s here you really notice the difference between weekdays and weekends, with the latter much more packed than the former. I don’t think it’s anywhere near as prevalent at WDW, with the exception of the Food and Wine Festival at Epcot.
We noticed this coming along Main Street USA, and quickly moved out of its way…
… but these guys didn’t!
Then we saw the horse drawn carriage, which I was really pleased to see, as I always love seeing this. Somehow it just says Disney all over to me. Sure, there are other vehicles along Main Street, but this is my favourite…
We were going to go to Fantasyland, but we heard that the Disney Princess Promenade was going to start soon, and there were still seats going, so we decided to grab seats and see what it was like, having seen all the princesses gathering for it on Saturday. Now there were a few problems with this and, unfortunately, these are also endemic of the problems faced by Disneyland Paris.
One was the smoking. Despite the fact this was a show with a lot of kids around, because it was outside, there was smoking everywhere. In fact, we watched one parent nearly catch their kid with their cigarette, and take more interest in puffing away than her daughter’s obvious excitement at being able to see the princesses, which was very sad to see.
The second was the sheer selfishness of people. The second the princesses started to appear, everyone rushed over to get the best possible view they could, and everyone started to stand up in front of us, so we had to as well. I managed to get a few shots of the start of the show…
You would seriously not believe how far away I was, how much zoom I was using and how high up I was having to shoot these to get over people’s heads – it was insane. However, I think I did pretty well, although the final straw came when the tall guy in front of us decided to stand up on the seats in front of us. Now we were standing, and two girls were standing on the seating behind us, so they could see past us. Fair enough, but unfair of a guy that big to turn up and block everyone else’s view. Mark told him to move and he did, but to be honest, I’d had enough. It was just insane with no organisation (a big problem Disneyland Paris has) and we headed off.
Now here’s the irony. As we walked along the back of the crowd, I commented to Mark you actually had a better view from back here, and I managed to stop and get a few more shots of the rest of the show, which consisted of Anna and Elsa singing “Let It Go”…
Seriously, this show was no longer than about 10 minutes. It really wasn’t worth the chaos beforehand to see it. It was nice enough, but for goodness sake Disney, provide us with a longer show. We saw the Halloween show here a couple of years ago (I forget when now! ) and that must’ve gone on for 20 minutes or so… Anyway, at least we got to see Anna and Elsa without having to wait in line for them, but more of that in a moment…
A frustrating breakfast followed by frustrating time at the park! I hope things improve. It really does seem that there are more and more rude people around.
I wouldn't be able to stand all that smoking. Glad you were able to see some of the show, but as you say, they need some help at DLP with a few components.
Just getting caught up again! Great pictures from your Segway tour! You guys covered so much ground despite the rain! Glad you were able to get in for dinner, even though you had to go out in the rain! Sorry about the service, but it looked delish! Sorry the buffet in the morning wasn't more organized. And those meet and greets sound like a nightmare! How can there be no line? Great pictures of the Princesses from so far away!
I hope your day gets better. I wouldn't have been able to stand around all those people smoking. The segway tour of Paris looks very interesting, if a bit long. Sorry about the rain.
Liz
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Wow, that Princess Parade does look as if it highlights the problems DLP has - I have commented before at great length on the issue of people smoking everywhere, despite Disney's smoking policy. I complained to Disney about this in June last year, after our last visit, as the CMs seem to ignore the policy too, and certainly don't do anything to enforce it.
It is so frustrating to be surrounded by other people's smoke everywhere you go! I accept that people choose to smoke, but I choose not to, so please don't make me inhale your carcinogenic haze.
I also feel your pain about the rudeness and selfishness of a lot of other folk at DLP - they do not know how to take their turn fairly, and the most important thing to them is to either watch or film parades etc., no matter who they have to push out of the way or stand in front of in order to achieve this! Grrrr!
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A frustrating breakfast followed by frustrating time at the park! I hope things improve. It really does seem that there are more and more rude people around.
Oh trust me, things seriously do improve - you wait until you see how!
I wouldn't be able to stand all that smoking. Glad you were able to see some of the show, but as you say, they need some help at DLP with a few components.
I keep hoping every time we go that the Disney ethos that we all know and love from the American parks will make it over to Paris one day... so far, it hasn't, but I'm an eternal optimist.
Wow, that Princess Parade does look as if it highlights the problems DLP has - I have commented before at great length on the issue of people smoking everywhere, despite Disney's smoking policy. I complained to Disney about this in June last year, after our last visit, as the CMs seem to ignore the policy too, and certainly don't do anything to enforce it.
I remember you complaining about it and I don't blame you. We should've done, but we were just so busy when we got back that I never got round to it.
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It is so frustrating to be surrounded by other people's smoke everywhere you go! I accept that people choose to smoke, but I choose not to, so please don't make me inhale your carcinogenic haze.
Very well said!
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I also feel your pain about the rudeness and selfishness of a lot of other folk at DLP - they do not know how to take their turn fairly, and the most important thing to them is to either watch or film parades etc., no matter who they have to push out of the way or stand in front of in order to achieve this! Grrrr!
Thankfully there are magical moments to come on this day, after the poor start.
Monday 17 November – part two: 180 minutes… that’s a short wait!
We made our way into Fantasyland…
… and, as we did, we spotted these guys coming out…
As Mark said, he wasn’t going to attempt to see them, and again a lot of that is down to the complete disorganisation that surrounds the characters here, as it just puts us off bothering to try with them. Please Disneyland Paris – introduce civilised queuing for your characters like every other Disney park in the world!
Instead, we made our way over to It’s A Small World, as I wanted to experience the holiday version again…
When we got there, there were two lanes open, and everyone was filtering into the left hand one. Goodness knows why, so of course we went right, and wouldn’t you know it, we literally walked on to the next boat, while everyone else in the other lane was still standing waiting!
I think I enjoyed this more the second time around, as I knew what was coming, and also what I hadn’t managed to photograph last time, so I could get some different shots this time…
When we came out of there, we happened to go past the greeting area for Anna and Elsa and it was showing a fairly short 180 minute wait. I know they must’ve been expecting a lot more people, as there was enough queuing area to take you back to the 240 minute mark.
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Glad you had a pretty good meal to warm you up, even though the service was a bit laxed again....a recurring theme! 
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Oh well, I guess at least my donkey escaped that treatment anyway… 
but I am not playing that game. We did this many years ago, and discovered that a) French families get preference over English families and b) adults only are right at the back of the line. 
) and that must’ve gone on for 20 minutes or so… Anyway, at least we got to see Anna and Elsa without having to wait in line for them, but more of that in a moment… 
Great pictures of the Princesses from so far away!
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