The Christmas one where Nanny came too.

[PoppyAnna]

The dates Wednesday 2nd December - Sunday 6th December 2009.

The cast:
Me, Joanne - thirty something Disney theme park loving stay at home Mum to....

Anna age 6. Food loving, show and attraction loving sweet little girl.

Poppy age 4. Fiesty, Buzz and Princess loving ticky little thing!

Richard - Forty something lover of the thrill ride.

Janice, aka Nanny (my Mum) the Fifty something lady who will "hold the coats" whilst we ride This trip is our Christmas present to Nanny

Day One Wednesday December 2nd

Packing finished we collect DD from school a bit early at 2:30 to get a head start down to Dover to catch the 4:20 ferry.

Richard traditionally changes the voice on the TomTom to Chip and Dale and the girls guess what we're up to
Needless to say they are very excited that Nanny is coming too

Once on board the ferry we have our fish and chip meal and toward the end of the journey I give the girls a wash and change them into their pyjamas and slippers to be more comfortable for the journey ahead.



We disembark the ferry in the pouring rain which makes the journey that little bit longer. Poppy sleeps nearly all the way down and Anna for about an hour and a half.
We arrive and the Citea Marne-La-vallee at around 11pm to no answer from reception.
I pace around the property in the cold and pouring rain starting to get a bit concerned that we won’t get in.
Eventually I find an emergency phone number and speak to the on-call receptionist who is lovely and assists me in getting in and getting our room key from the safe.

There is a twin and a double upstairs for the girls and me and Richard and Nanny is on the sofabed in the lounge/diner.
We take our overnight bags out of the car and after a cuppa and milk for the girls we get to bed around midnight.

The girls want to sleep with Nanny on her bed!


This is the Citea.



I'm glad we made the effort to start out on wednesday night instead of Thursday morning.

[PoppyAnna]

Day Two Thursday December 3rd

Part One:

After a wash and brush up we leave the Citea Hotel and make our way to Davy Crockett to check-in and get our park tickets and meals vouchers.

The check-in is smooth and although we don't have our cabin allocation I walk away with everything we need for the day ahead

We drive to the parks car park, this is a first for us as usually stay in a hotel from which we are able to walk to the parks.

Nearly there....


Getting closer....


Mission accomplished....


I pop to City Hall and make a reservation for Plaza Gardens lunch at 1pm and The Steakhouse for Saturday evening.





After meeting Santa Goofy we head up Main St



Everything is a walk on and we do Buzz, Orbitron, Small World, Alice's Maze, Beast meet and greet, teacups, Peter Pan, Pinnochio, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty story all before lunch!









Plaza Gardens for lunch.





Part two to follow...

[IsobelJackmummy]

Lovely pictures! I like the one with the beast, your girls are very cute!

[thelittlemermaid83]

Awww i can't wait for more!

[PoppyAnna]

Day Two Thursday December 3rd

Part Two:

It felt cooler this afternoon as we left Plaza Gardens so it was time to button up to keep super warm.
We discussed it over lunch and we were pretty sure Poppy would be able to get on BTMR so as we were off to the Winter Wonderland show and we were early we decided to check her height on the way.
As we were crossing the hub, Mickey's Magical Party Time was starting and although this wasn't my favourite thing when I saw it back in May the girls like it and Nanny hasn't seen it and we have plenty of time so we stayed and watched.



Off to BTMR.....



She got on!!!! She was so thrilled, so we all went on and it really was the highlight of the holiday as she was so thrilled to ride "like a big girl". BTMR is always great fun, we love it Nanny bought two ride photos to mark the occasion.

Next we head down to Woody's Roundup to check out the Santa situation before going into Mickey's Winter Wonderland Show.



We all enjoy the show especially the surprise at the end



When we leave the theatre it's apparent we've dodged a rather large shower and the temperate has dropped, so we head to fantasyland and indulge in hot chocolate.

It's getting dark now and after our hot choc we ride the Carousel which had just unloaded and we got straight on, I don't believe there were more than twenty people on it.





It's not five oclock ish and we decide to grab a quick bit in Fantasyland and share an adult and two child meals between us as none of us a very hungry.

The girls are still energetic considering their short night sleep and long day
so we head back to Main St for tree lighting, Castle lighting and Fantilusion.
None of us have seen any of these before and we are really surprised how great it all was.











We exit the park after Fantilusion very quickly and in no time we're back at DCR and thats when we find out that we have one of the brand new two bed cabins I must say I was soooo happy, I had heard that the old style cabins were a bit shabby and as we had my Mum with us I wanted the trip to be perfect for her, and we couldn't have asked for more - thanks Disney

The link to the cabin review is here.

[Jets fan]

Great trip report and photos. Your girls look like they really enjoyed it

Tina

[Disneyfanswicklow]

Really enjoying reading about your trip. Your photos are lovely - you can really see the excitement of the first timer on BTM! Glad you got such a nice cabin, especially for your moms first time (she will want to go back everytime he he). Looking forward to the rest. Thanks for sharing

[PoppyAnna]

Originally Posted by IsobelJackmummy

Lovely pictures! I like the one with the beast, your girls are very cute!

Thank you, thats very kind of you.

Originally Posted by thelittlemermaid83

Awww i can't wait for more!

I'll try and get day two up tomorrow Em.x

Originally Posted by Jets fan

Great trip report and photos. Your girls look like they really enjoyed it

Tina

Thanks Tina, they did!

Originally Posted by Disneyfanswicklow

Really enjoying reading about your trip. Your photos are lovely - you can really see the excitement of the first timer on BTM! Glad you got such a nice cabin, especially for your moms first time (she will want to go back everytime he he). Looking forward to the rest. Thanks for sharing

Thanks, you're welcome.

[Ms Poppins]

Your daughters are beautiful

Photos are fab - the castle looks absolutely stunning....lucky you being there for Christmas season. Can't wait to read more.

[PoppyAnna]

Day Three Friday December 4th.

Part One:

We had to unpack and get everybody settled last night so it was a very late night for the girls, with no EMH this morning a super early start is not required so we arrive at the Parks car park around 930am and get to park in section "A" again. It feels quite quiet which is good as I thought the crowds would pick up today with it being Friday.

Goofy off to meet Goofy!



We decide it's a Studios kinda day today and as Disneyland Parc was done pretty throughly yesterday - makes sense!







Look at that blue sky, goodness, it could be florida!
If only it were warmer than 5c.

First stop.....





Then Anna and I take Nanny on Crush's Coaster. It took Anna a while to get used to Crush, she really didn't like it the first time she went on it back in May, but loves it now. Nanny really enjoyed it too. Daddy and Poppy went on Cars twice whilst we queued 20 minutes for Crush.

Next stop Stich Live! This is good, but it was so much better on previous visits, not sure the audience were fully awake yet!



After a snack stop, Myself, Richard and Anna go on ToT - Poppy now meets the height requirement but really doesn't want to ride. Nanny and Poppy go off for a walk around the shops
Anna DOES NOT enjoy ToT it's more something she has to do on every trip, we first took her on ToT just aged four in Florida, and now its a tradition.
The CM's on this particular visit were tip top and she got into a staring competition with one of them for ages. He also made a big fuss of her when she got off For me, the CM's can make your ToT experience so good....

Inside.....


Getting scared...


Done!


Next stop it's Blockbuster cafe for lunch - what an awful experience!
There was a new CM on the till that clearly wasn't up to scratch for busy lunchtime service and really couldn't cope with the vouchers and the fact that we wanted to buy a childs pizza on top of our allowed meal deals
We sat in the Pirates room and Cpt. Jack Sparrow was roaming around but the girls showed little interest (bit young for Pirates?) and neither did anybody else - I think people were cold and so was their food after the queing experience!



As it's only on once a day we decided we would do Motors Action!
We got good seats but were sat in our seats for a while before the show started and Poppy started getting a bit bored....



Nanny and Anna had a repeat of the staring competition to pass the time.


We enjoy the show and as usual it went with a bang!





Next, it's around to the Backlot tour.....



We pass the development of the Toy Story area....



On the way out of Backlot, Cruella de Ville is signing autographs. The girls jump at the chance and hilarious exchanges pass between both of them, she was a pro CM of the best quality





Part two to follow :

[Dianetigger]

Fantastic!! Your girls are beautiful and full of smiles!

[PoppyAnna]

Day Three Friday December 4th.

Part Two:

We stroll around to see if the Monsters Inc. characters are out but they are not and all of a sudden Anna takes a big dip - she's complaining of a stomach ache and has gone really pale. We dip in and sit outside En Coulisse and get drinks ordered in. After half an hours rest and much cheering up and pulling funny faces from us Anna is back on form.



Richard and I suggest going to see Animagique, luckily a show is starting pretty soon, when we enter the theatre is almost empty so we settle into our seats and let the show begin.
My mum and the girls really love this show, it really does appeal to all in our party.

It's getting quite dark and cold now so we decide on a stroll around the park in the dark before heading out.







Poppy asks if she go to the "nuseum" - she means the "Art of Animation". She loves this place and we spend about thirty minutes playing around.









We're off to Annettes for Dinner - I'm no fan of Annettes but I may feel differently as we're not "paying" for it. When we visited in May I felt we were totally ripped off when we payed over 100e for a burger meal that wasn't that nice. As we are leaving the Studios at roughly closing time I don't feel we have much choice of restaurant at this time.



Three Eurochick burgers and three cocktails are ordered for the adults. The girls have milk and pasta and shepherds pie. No chips for them!



The meal was okay, I must say the eurochick burger was better than their beef burgers, and the girls seemed to enjoy their dinner.

After paying we return home to DCR and all go to bed.

EMH next morning......will we make it.....?

[kizzabel]

cant wait for day four! super TR!

[PoppyAnna]

Originally Posted by Dianetigger

Fantastic!! Your girls are beautiful and full of smiles!

Thank you.

Originally Posted by kizzabel

cant wait for day four! super TR!

Thanks, I will try and get it done asap

[PoppyAnna]

Day Four Saturday December 5th.

Part One:

In a word.....no! As we had a fairly early night I wanted to make EMH, but it didn't happen. A certain person seemed to drag their heels and was in no hurry to get going I got ready, lay the table, put the kettle on and went to get the breakfast a usual, but this morning it was raining Anna wanted to come with me to the breakfast hut today, so off we went and we arrived to a short queue as it wasn't yet 0730.

We arrived at the car park around 0930 and decided to head straight for Father Christmas. Already the crowds were building and the queue to go through the bag search was very long. We were third in line for Father Christmas. The girls waited very patiently for 20mins until opening at 10am.





We're going in....



We made it





The line for father Christmas was so long when we came out and you could tell the park was getting really busy. Next we took a stroll around the treehouse and over to Pirates....









We ended up queing for Pirates and weren't used to that!

We couldn't believe how busy the park was, it was raining now and we headed from Pirates through to fantasyland for a cuppa. The queue for Peter Pan was almost back at Pirates - I hated the crowds and the smoking was really getting on our nerves. We saw that the Winnie the Pooh show was soon due to start at 12 so we popped into toad hall for warm drinks and took them into the theatre with us. The girls sat at the front on their own while we sat two rows back - such a sensible idea, wish all the smaller shows were like this
The girls love this show which I'm really surprised about, I thought it was going to be too young for them.

We left the theatre all feeling a bit hungry, Toad Hall was now packed out
So we thought that Cafe Hyperion would be a good choice due to it's size and large number of servers - what a mistake I know you're not supposed to but we found a seat and Mum sat with the girls (for one whole hour ) whilst we queued for a burger lunch. It was an awful experience with pushing a shoving and arguing (not by us).
We thought we might get a go on Buzz but the fastpasses were gone and the wait time was 65 minutes

Cont...