Are trip reports still a thing? A post(?)-Covid DLP TR - October 2021

[steve_rob]

Given that it's been over 18 months since the DLP part of this forum has seen one, I guess we're well overdue for a new trip report and so why not me to kick it back off?

Admittedly it's going to be a short and sweet one as I don't exactly have tons of photos to pad it out with. Having been to the parks so many times, I tend only to take my camera in if there's something specific/new that I want to capture - already got good shots of most of the things I wanted to take on previous trips. But I'll try and find a few for you!

First, a quick introduction and a bit of background to this report:

It's just me and DW, both in our mid-40's. She's been going to Disney since she was a kid, first with her family to Florida in the early '80s (and very frequently since then) and to DLP fairly regularly since it opened in 1992 - too many visits to count in total! My first Disney park experience was solo to Anaheim in 1997, but since then all have been with DW (including before she was DW!) and can be seen listed in my signature below. Our last visit was for runDisneyParis weekend in September 2019, where I did the 10K on a very dodgy ankle.

We didn't book this trip until very late on - we're usually obsessive planners and have our holiday dates lined up 18+ months in advance but given the pandemic, at the start of the year we decided to just book some time off work in June and October without any plans to go anywhere. If the stars did not align and things were still bad at that time, we'd have a relaxing week at home, but if everything had started opening up by that point in the year, we'd try and go somewhere on at least one of those weeks.

The week in June came and went and while we did get a few day trips into London out of it, there was no proper holiday. I had managed to get away for a short cycling break in Inverness, Scotland earlier in the year but that was a solo trip as DW couldn't get the time off. So as we approached October, she was determined to get away for real given that it had been two years without travelling more than about 50 miles from home for her. We had originally hoped that America would be open by then, but that was not to be (if it had, we wouldn't have gone to WDW anyway - we feel we can only do that justice with a multi-week holiday), so our thoughts started to turn to Paris.

As soon as France was added to the UK's Amber list in early August, we started to sketch out a plan - we would do a three night midweek trip, Monday to Thursday, flying from Heathrow to Charles de Gaulle airport and staying off-site as close to DLP as we could. Ostensibly this was to save money, as the cost of the holiday was going to be more expensive then usual (flight prices higher due to pent-up demand and our late booking, plus the added cost of Covid tests while in France and also back in UK afterwards), but also it was a little bit of an experiment on our part.

We have previously stayed at most of the on-site hotels, but our favourite / most frequent has been the Disneyland Hotel. Yes it is the most luxurious, but the main reason is we appreciate the ability to pop back to the room quickly if we need to and also not have to face an extra 20 minute schlep at the end of the day (on no-doubt already tired legs) especially as we're not quite as young as we used to be! Of course this hotel is currently shut for refurbishment, so we faced a choice of picking something like the Hotel New York, or perhaps looking slightly further afield...

We knew the area around the Val D'Europe station (one stop down the line from DLP if you're not familiar with the area) quite well, having been to the shopping mall there on a few previous trips, but we weren't sure of what hotels were nearby if any. A quick look on Google Maps showed that there were three in a small group at one of the alternate entrances to the station (e.g. at the other end of the platforms to the main entrance near the shops) - an Ibis, an Ibis Budget and a Residhome. Checked them out online and the Residhome looked perfect for us, as it had a mini-kitchen so we would be able to do our own breakfasts with supplies from the Auchan supermarket nearby. We worked out that given it was less than 100 metres from the hotel entrance to the station and the trains were every five minutes (and only 3 minutes journey to the parks), we would probably even get to and from the parks quicker than it would take to walk to the Newport Bay (and about even to the New York). And the cost wasn't bad either - we got three nights for the same price as one at the HNY (albeit without tickets included in the price of course).

So flights (with Air France) were booked, hotel room reserved, 3-day passes bought from Disney (chose to get proper tickets posted to us rather than printing off PDFs - more on that later) and we were suddenly all ready to go with only about seven weeks notice! Stay tuned to find out how we got on...

 

[steve_rob]

Monday - Leaving on a jet plane

Just the act of driving down to Heathrow to catch a flight was exciting enough! We're both a bit weird and have always loved airports (which is odd considering I didn't get to fly anywhere until I was 19) so to be back after a two year absence was cool, even if still only about 2/3rds of the airport facilities were open (shops, restaurants, etc.)

The Air France flight was rammed - I did not see a single spare seat, which I don't think I've ever experienced before. However compliance with masking was absolute - one or two people at the gate did try to wear one under their chin but were quickly corrected by staff. Did not get any drinks or snacks going out, but we weren't expecting them anyway and besides, you're only in the air for about 50 minutes. We were 5 minutes late taking off, yet 5 minutes early landing - must have been a good tailwind!

Got through immigration and customs pretty speedily. We had all our documentation ready, including both the English (NHS) Covid app and the French (Tous Anti-Covid) app with their respective QR codes, plus the signed declaration forms, but apart from stamping our passports we were pretty much waved through. We had pre-booked a car from Inter Service Prestige (have used them a few times before) to get us from the airport to our hotel and actually caught our driver by surprise with how quickly we'd got through - he hadn't even had a chance to hold up his little sign with our name on!

Got to our hotel not long after 4pm and checked in without a problem. Room was perfectly acceptable - decor may have been a little dated (odd colour scheme and weird shiny vinyl covering on the sofabed), but was clean and compact with a comfortable queen size bed and a decent shower and that's all you really need. A/C fan didn't seem to work very well (e.g. hardly any air coming out of it at all, even when on max setting), but the windows did open, so used those to keep the room at a decent temperature.


Outside of hotel - station is to right of camera, less than 30 seconds walk away


In our one bedroom apartment/room, kitchenette ahead, one of two sofabeds to left


Main bedroom with queen size bed

As we had only bought three day DLP tickets, we'd deliberately chosen not to go into the park on our first day and instead used the evening to go to the Auchan supermarket in the Val D'Europe mall to buy our evening meal (the kitchenette had a microwave and a hob as well as a mini fridge/freezer) as well as for the next few days worth of breakfasts. Ended up buying way too much as we couldn't choose between everything on offer! I ended up with some kind of microwaveable Chinese chicken ready meal (fairly good for what it was) followed by some doughnuts for dessert and bought croissants and cereal for the morning (plus fresh milk - none of this UHT rubbish!). Can't remember what DW bought, but put it this way - we certainly didn't starve! We also stocked up on bottles of Coke/Coke Zero to put in the fridge and some snacks for the room so we didn't have to pay theme park prices.

By the time we'd eaten and unpacked our cases, we only had time to do a little surfing on the web on our various phones and tablets (hotel's Wi-Fi connection was decent thankfully) before it was time to head to bed - was going to be an early start tomorrow, as we wanted to be there for rope drop and we weren't sure how long the security processes were going to take.

 

[Karin1984]

Not sure if trip reports are still a thing. I still love reading them. I am not good at writing them. With longer trips to the US or Asia I lose interest in writing it after a while, and selecting, uploading pictures etc. is a pain.
And with Paris, I am there a few times a year, so if I bother with writing something, it's just highlights.

Either way: Keep on posting!

 

[steve_rob]

I know how you feel - this is only my second ever trip report and the first one I did (for a WDW trip) I only posted the first 9 days (out of 14), then ran out of steam. About three weeks after my last entry I sneakily updated it with one last post that crammed the last five days in!

But a Paris trip is by its nature a lot shorter, so easier to do a report for, plus I thought this forum was looking so lonely with no new reports that it was just begging for an entry!

 

[Mskia]

I am so excited to see a DLP trip report. Planning my first visit for next year. It would be nice to read what it is like now. Thank you!

 

[steve_rob]

Have added a few pictures of the hotel to my Monday post. Will post about Tuesday at some point tomorrow with any luck.

 

[steve_rob]

Tuesday - Where it very nearly all went wrong!

We are SO organised, except when it turns out that we aren't. Up nice and early, showered and breakfasted, proceeded to the station to purchase our book of 10 tickets (ended up getting another book of 10 later which saw us through the whole trip) and only had a two minute wait for the next train - even had time to work out where we should stand on the platform to ensure that we were near the escalators at the other end.


Train approaching Val D'Europe station, taken from the footbridge

Once out of Marne la Vallee station, it was then time to work out where you needed to queue to get in, as there were loads of different lines set up in the courtyard between Disney Village and the Parks, each one separated by temporary plastic barriers. There was one line reserved for staff, another five or six for guests from the on-site hotels (as they could get in for early access already), about 10-12 for other guests like us and then I think three that only allowed you to access the Village - luckily each one which had a member of security staff stationed at the front to check you were in the correct line, that you had a park reservation for that day (they didn't scan it, just wanted to see you had one) and to scan your Covid QR code for proof of vaccination or recent test. We had imported our QR codes from the NHS app to the Tous Anti-Covid app and while both were accepted by the staff, it was easier to use the French app as it had one combined code that showed a double vaccination, where as with the NHS app they needed to scan both codes from the individual jabs, which obviously took longer.

That then got us into the queue for the security scan, which didn't open until 9am for off-site people, so we had about a 15-20 minute wait. Luckily it was reasonably warm that morning, so we didn't mind too much - the later it got in the week, the colder the weather was. The usual bag scanners and metal arches were in play once the gates opened, but the whole thing ran very smoothly and efficiently. That gets you as far as the fountains at the top of the gardens in front of the Disneyland Hotel, at which point you have to enter another plastic barriered snaky queue, which ends up with you seemingly walking the length of the gardens down, then up, then down again, in order to enter the park. This is only in use during the morning rush, I think just to ease the flow of people who would otherwise race to the ticket gates - for the rest of the day you can proceed straight under the hotel as usual.


View of the Disneyland Hotel BEFORE our ticket panic attack!

While we were making our way through this second set of lines, we were listening to the pre-recorded statements being given about having your tickets and park reservation codes ready to scan, when DW suddenly looked at me with a shocked face. "Do we actually need the physical tickets?". "Yes, don't you have them in your purse?" (she has always kept the tickets). "No, I thought once we'd registered them on the website and used them to make a park reservation, we were done with them. I'm not even sure we brought them with us to France!"

Now I swear this is not normally like us. We always check and double-check EVERYTHING. The night before we departed, we must have made sure we had our passports, boarding passes, documentation for everything else, etc. at least three times. But neither of us ever checked for the park tickets - I assumed that she had them as she hadn't mentioned them, she assumed she didn't need them as it was all done online, so didn't press me on it. Partially the fault of both of us, but that wasn't important - what was, was what were we going to do now? One of the other pre-recorded messages had made it very clear that you couldn't purchase tickets at the gate as those windows were closed, so now we were a little bit stuck.

As we made our way out of the final one of the switchbacks, we flagged down a member of staff and they directed us to the Customer Service windows that were in the old Salon Mickey building (for those of you who remember the Shareholders Club of old). We told them that we had lost our tickets but still had the park reservation QR codes and after a little bit of double-checking various details with them, they were able to cancel the old tickets and print us out new ones - absolute life-savers! And despite all that panic and queueing, we still made it into the park for 9:30am with everyone else.

We decided to head straight to the back of the park and try and knock out as many rides as possible in that area, as the queues tend to build quickly and managed to ride Peter Pan, Dumbo and Pirates of the Caribbean within our first hour, which I was rather pleased with. There were a lot of large stickers on the floor showing where you were allowed to stand or not when queuing (which many people ignored, although most did try to leave some sort of social distance) and high plastic divider screens between lanes of queues, which combined with the 90% of people masking up (even outdoors), did make you feel that this was as safe as a place as they could make it, without it being at all burdensome.

We opted for a quick drink and a sit down (was still feeling after effects from the adrenaline spike of the worry about even getting in to the park earlier!) before proceeding to wrap up most of the remaining Fantasyland rides, including getting the back seat on Casey Jr. for the rest of the morning. As we had a dinner reservation for the Manhattan restaurant in the Hotel New York that evening, to make sure we had empty stomachs by the time that rolled round, we opted for an early lunch at Cowboy Cookout Barbecue in Frontierland. For anyone from the US reading this, obviously this is nowhere near the sort of quality of BBQ that you'd be used to, but for theme park food (especially given Paris' poor history of counter service meals), it's actually not bad. Chicken, ribs, sausage, potato wedges, a drink and a dessert for I think about 16 euros each.

Over lunch we had a look at the Disneyland app to work out where we wanted to go next and saw that Big Thunder Railroad had a 45 minute wait, which wasn't too bad - in fact it would give us a good chance to digest our food. When we got there, the queue did seem to be a bit longer than we had expected, but then you had to remember that there were hardly any people using the Premier Access (old Fastpass) lane as it now cost 12 Euros a go, so the standby should move quicker than normal. And boy did it! When we reached the point where the queue splits, possibly because of the plastic screens being up, so it was harder to see what was ahead through the switchbacks, it seemed as though no-one was using the left hand lane at all. Now I am actually sad enough to have done tests in past trips to the park and on this ride, the left lane is far quicker than the right (if queues are equally distributed, you'll get on 2-3 trains sooner by taking left over right), so it was a no brainer to take left here and we were on the ride in just 20 minutes. Probably not quite as much time for our stomachs to settle as originally planned!

We then wandered through the Main Street shops for a while before heading to Discoveryland. I was the only one who wanted to ride Hyperspace Mountain, so I went and did that (only a 20 minute wait listed and at least 15 of that was walking the length of the queue) and met DW at Autopia. We had been tempted to do this via the Premier Access as it was only 5 Euros each, but the queue was only 15 minutes (it had been as high as 45mins at one point, though I think they might have only had two car lanes open at that point), so we entered the normal line. Went on Buzz Lightyear afterwards, which we've always enjoyed, but we've ridden it so much (including what seemed like hundreds of times during a winter trip that was so cold that you only wanted to do indoor attractions, so we stayed on this for as long as the queues were short) meaning we know the track layout and high point targets so well, that it's a bit less of a challenge - scores of 300K are considered the bare minimum now!

Ended up leaving the park at about 5pm and went for a wander through the Village and did some window shopping in World of Disney - plenty of stuff we wanted here, but this was just a recce to see what we could get (including Christmas presents for various members of the family) and we'd actually pick it up another day when we would be going straight back to the room afterwards. Our final destination though was the Hotel New York for our Manhattan Restaurant reservation. We had stayed here before and eaten at the nearby Parkside Diner (which was a buffet at the time), but hadn't seen the hotel since the Marvel overlay had been added. First impressions were very good - very fresh, light and airy and the Marvel touches were in parts quite subtle and not too in your face.


View from our table at the restaurant

The Manhattan is set up as a full scale Italian restaurant and we had a superb meal. DW started with a Fruit de la Mare salad (full of mussels, prawns and calamari) while I had a tomato and mozzarella gnocchi dish which was delicious. We both then went for the Milanese veal cutlet as our main and they were HUGE. Neither of us had room for dessert!

Took the train back to our hotel and collapsed on the bed - you forget how much walking you do on a theme park day and our bodies were NOT used to it. Never mind - we get to do it again tomorrow!

 

[steve_rob]

Wednesday - a slightly odd birthday present

One thing I didn't mention in my intro was that it was my birthday while we were away. It wasn't intentional to book the holiday specifically for this date, but it happened to fall nicely so we thought it would make a good chance to celebrate. And what better way to celebrate than have a swab stuck up your nose by a stranger!

Because of the rules about coming back into the UK, you had to get a negative result from a PCR Covid test a maximum of 72 hours before your flight home, and knowing that it might take a while to get the results through, we decided to book it for today rather than leave it until our final day. Note that these were the rules at the time of travelling and they are constantly shifting (later this month I believe a lateral flow test will be accepted instead of a more expensive PCR), so please check what the current situation is online first.

There is a testing centre at DLP, in the old Buffalo Bill's theatre, run by a company called Loxamed and before we left for Paris, we had pre-booked our appointment for 8:40am so that even if it took some time to do, we'd still be able to get into the parks for opening. As per the previous morning, we arrived at Marne La Vallee station in plenty of time but instead of joining the normal security queues for park entry, we turned towards the Disney Village queue. Showed the staff there our Covid test confirmation and we were escorted through to the centre.

Once inside it was incredibly efficient - there were no other people queuing (one family were waiting having been tested; I presume they'd paid the extra for the immediate results option), our documents were scanned, forms were signed, we were shown to separate booths where two staff both fully dressed in PPE (head to toe, not just face coverings) swabbed our noses and we were on our way within 5 minutes. We were told that it could take up to 48 hours for results, but it was more likely to be within 12.

As we exited, we realised we were now post-security and in the Village with the other guests coming from Disney Hotels, meaning we could proceed straight to the gates. We wouldn't have been able to get into the park as we didn't have a ticket that would allow us early entry, but that didn't matter as today was the day we were going to start in the Studios park anyway which isn't doing early opening right now.

Got into line about 8:50 and while there were about 60 or so people already there, they were split between 10 or so different lines, so no matter which turnstile we picked, we'd have been essentially the second party in line. Even though the park didn't open until 9:30 officially, they let us through the gates at about 9:15 and I proceeded to head straight for Crush's Coaster (DW can't fit on this ride, so she decided to do a little browsing in the shops while waiting for me).

I'm a fairly fast walker, but chose not to run and reached the ride queue about 20th in line. We were held at the entrance to the queue until the official park opening time and as I looked back behind me, I could see the queue was at least hundreds deep with it snaking all the way back to Studio 1 (probably further), so I was glad I got here first thing. Still had to walk the entirety of the queue with all the switchbacks though and got on about the 7th or 8th ride vehicle to leave the station. This ride isn't for everybody - avoid if you don't like getting spun around in the dark - but I absolutely love it! If it wasn't for the long queues, I'd certainly have rode it more than once today.

DW was waiting for me outside and we then headed to ride Ratatouille, which is another fabulous ride. Now when I heard that they were adding this ride to Epcot in WDW, I was interested to see what changes they'd make. From a video I've seen of it, the answer is absolutely none - even the things that Remy says are both in French and English, which makes sense in a dual language park, but less so in the States. In fact, I think there might even be a short scene missing in the Epcot version during the "chase" sequence, but I'm not sure - it might be that the video I was selectively edited, so don't quote me on that.

Proceeded into the Toy Story area to ride Slinky Dog Spin (for those unfamiliar, just a carnival ride re-skinned to Slinky, not like the rollercoaster they have at WDW, but still good fun anyway) and then continued round to Tower of Terror. With half the park being closed due to the Avengers Campus still under construction and most of the live shows not back on yet, this was the last attraction we were going to do here and we'd only been in the park about an hour at that point - so not even a half day park. Queue was listed at 45 minutes but looked longer - certainly this was the only ride this whole week where I saw numerous people choose to skip the line with Premier Access. Everywhere else the old FP line was either unused or maybe one group maximum using it.

As detailed in another thread I posted on the main DLP forum, while I had heard about the "random" changes to the drop sequence, I had not heard about the re-theming at all, so when we got the little girl warning us that "if you scream, it'll only get worse!", that really tickled me. I'm not a huge fan of drop rides anyway (unlike DW who would probably rank this amongst her all-time favourite attractions), but these changes did make it slightly more enjoyable for me. Ranks up there with the back story for the Tokyo ToT - which is VERY different to any of the other versions...


The Halloween display in our hotel lobby - went up between us leaving that morning and coming back around lunchtime

Before leaving the park, we did some Christmas present shopping for my nephews in the main Studio store then decided that as we were laden down with bags, we'd head back to the hotel to drop them off, maybe do a little bit of packing as well (only just got here and already preparing to go home!) before hitting the main park in the afternoon. Our plan to grab a Five Guys though was knocked back as they were closed due to a technical malfunction in the kitchen; however we did see something we weren't aware of, which was that there is a back entrance to the station near it which means you don't have to go back through Disney security if you only wanted to get back on the train. We ended up getting a bite to eat in the Val D'Europe mall in the end (plus a totally necessary visit to Primark to buy some socks!).

After our break back at the hotel was over, we were back in Disneyland around 3pm, giving us four hours to hit a number of our favourite rides. Can't remember the exact order, but certainly did Star Tours, Small World, Pirates and Big Thunder. Rode Phantom Manor next and while the queue itself had normal social distancing measures, I did wonder how they were going to deal with the lobby and stretching room. Turns out that they'd pre-marked the floor with group numbers and depending on the size of your party, you'd be directed to a certain numbered spot or spots to stand, away from other groups. Neat of course that the number of spots just happened to total thirteen...

We left the park pretty much as it was closing and both Mickey and Minnie made an appearance on the Railroad balcony in Halloween costume to wave us off, though Mickey seemed to be having more fun grooving to the music that was playing.



Next stop was the Village, as we'd booked a table at the Steakhouse as my birthday meal - this was a semi-regular haunt of ours; probably 90% of all our trips we'd ended up having a meal there including some really great ones, so was really looking forward to it. However it was a massive disappointment - the fillet I ordered was tough and stringy, more like a much cheaper cut of meat. It tasted okay and was cooked how I'd ordered (medium), but it the quality was poor and I ended up only finishing three quarters of it. I mentioned this to our waitress and she offered a free coffee, but frankly I wasn't interested in staying for dessert by then so asked for the equivalent to be taken off the bill. A disappointing end to what had until then been a really good birthday. To make up for it I ended up getting a Nutella crepe from one of the food stalls in the Village as we walked back through while DW got a skewer of chocolate dipped strawberries.

Got back to the hotel and just before bed, decided to check my e-mails. 14 hours after the test, the results were in and we were both "Négatif", meaning we would be able to go home tomorrow...

 

[steve_rob]

Thursday - But we've only just got here!

The final morning was spent finishing off the packing of the suitcases, disposing of the food we had clearly bought too much of and storing our bags with reception as we checked out of the hotel. While our hearts are still with the Disneyland Hotel (when it re-opens), this place is certainly a good Plan B.

All of this meant we weren't going to be in the park in time for opening, but we weren't too far behind - arrived probably not long after 10am. They'd certainly already cleared away the barriers for the snake-style queue from the Fantasia Gardens so you had a straight walk to the turnstiles. We figured that the latest we could leave the park was 5pm, which would give us enough time to get back to the hotel from where our car to the airport would pick us up, so the question was how to spend the next 7-ish hours.



We saw on the app that Big Thunder's queue hadn't grown quite as quickly as it usually does straight after opening, so went to get this out of the way early - didn't get quite as lucky with the left/right line as we did last time, but I think it was still only 30 minutes. Certainly a ride worth a wait much longer than that.

Went on the Paddle Steamer Riverboat and did Phantom Manor again before grabbing a bite to eat at Casey's Corner. I'm not a huge fan of hotdogs, but DW swears the ones here are better than those at the equivalent place in WDW. She had one covered in cheddar cheese sauce and crispy onions, while I ate her fries. We tried mobile ordering - it is only just being rolled out at DLP and this is one of only two places so far that accepts it (the other is Hyperion Cafe in Discoveryland, which always has ridiculously long queues anyway even outside popular eating times) - and while it wasn't quite as easy and smooth as the version in the MDE app, it got the job done eventually and given time I'm sure they'll work out all the kinks and be able to roll it out further.

I grabbed a cookie and a drink from the Main Street Bakery and as we came out, we heard the parade music in the distance. There wasn't actually a parade as such during this period, but four times a day there would be one float with a handful of dancers going from Fantasyland to Main Street (or vice versa) that you could see. It wasn't at a fixed time and wasn't advertised on the park hours - I'm guessing to stop people from expecting it and staking out spots which would prevent social distancing - you just had to be lucky to catch it. There were two possibilities - one was a float that I can only describe as Harvest Festival themed which had Minnie and one other character on (we'd seen that pass by twice in previous days) while the other was a giant steampunk style Malificent Dragon that moved and breathed smoke and fire. On our first day DW had just missed that one, seeing it in the distance only (I think I was riding Hyperspace Mountain at the time) and really wanted to catch it again to see it up close.

Luckily enough on this occasion it turned out to be the Dragon and we could already see it was going around the Hub, so we stayed on Main Street and waited for it to come past us. It was a spectacular sight!



Then went on Buzz Lightyear one more time and we got stuck briefly in the first room with Zurg where if you know where to shoot, you can rack up some pretty amazing points - DW got over 700,000 in that room alone and ended up with a total in the mid 900Ks (she has maxed out at 999,999 once before). However I was only able to get just over half a million, so she claimed the victory this time! Went on Autopia next before spending most of the afternoon in Fantasyland re-riding all of the classics. We were even greeted outside of Pirates by Hook and Smee on the balcony above the exit shop.



By that time it was about 3:30pm, but we felt that we'd done everything we wanted to, so left the park and headed to the Village. Browsed the shops for a bit before hitting Earl of Sandwich, eating half of what we'd bought there and then in the restaurant, saving the rest for when we got to the airport later. I do miss this place - they used to have a branch in London only 15 minutes walk from where I work, but it closed a few years back (pre-pandemic) so Disney is the only place I can get one now.

And with that, the holiday was essentially over - train back to the hotel to pick up our bags and catch our lift to CDG, followed by the usual airport routine: check-in, bag drop, security queues, duty-free shopping, then board the plane home. Flight was equally as full going back as it was coming out, though we did get a soft drink and a cookie this time. A shame to have to come back so quickly, but at the same time when you haven't been away for a long time, any break abroad (especially to Disney) is massively welcome!

 

[zinderella]

Thank you for your trip report! Not read one in ages and it's really lovely to have written ones rather than a vlog which I can find a bit overwhelming. I am going to try to write one of our trip in Feb (if it ever happens), so it's been helpful to hear how the restrictions / testing was working at the time of your visit.

 

[Torchy]

Thanks for a really good TR, I miss them as much as I miss DLP these days.

 

[pawstat]

Thanks for a very detailed report, we’re going for our first DLP visit in June. Only going for one day, debating on doing one or both parks. Don’t want to overdo it, but also don’t know when we’ll be back (from US)

 

[steve_rob]

Right now I would say it's not worth doing the Studios if you're only there for one day - concentrate your efforts solely on the main park. We were there three days and spent less than half a day in the Studios yet still rode everything we wanted to (and two of those rides are ones that are also at WDW - I'm assuming you live closer to there than you do to Paris, so it'd be easier for you skip those!)

 

[Araminta18]

Bookmarking to come back later! We're tentatively planning a few days in DLP in September, and I'm just starting to do all my research -- a first-hand trip report post-Covid will be so helpful!