Rapport de Voyage: A WDW Local Goes to DLP (Also London and Efteling) UPDATED Day 1 Complete 12/22

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Got a bit obsessed with the gas lamps.

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Then, we were on our way back to the hotel! We took our time a little bit and grabbed some pictures of Disney Village all decorated.





Here is the Newport Bay Club hotel, which was next to Seqouia but had it's own walking path from the Village. The hotels were all arrayed around the little lake at the end of Disney Village, so you could walk in a circle and go from the Village to Marvel to Sequoia to Newport Bay and back to the Village.







We arrived back in our hotel and noticed, much to our delight, that Goofy was meeting in the lobby! We called him REI Goofy, because he looks like he shopped at an REI. As usual with DLP characters, Goofy was amazing and I think him and Brian chatted about fishing.

Take it in, all. Pictures of us without coats on this trip are very rare.





I took a moment to admire the hotel gift shop's window display:



We were back in the room and in bed by 8 pm. I was kind of confused that the TV only got maybe 10 stations. They did have a resort station but there was no English version offered.

Not that we were there to watch TV, but I did think there was a stunning lack of channels. We did find Bluey on the Disney Channel, which was one of their few selections and it was, oddly, in English. You can also see here the very long extension cord, which I knew to bring from the good people on this forum. If you stay at the Sequoia, there are not outlets near the bed. So if you like to sleep with your phone somewhat near you and not on the other side of the planet (huge room), bring an extension cord.



Both parks had early magic hours at 8:30 am the next morning which we were aiming for, and we were both soon passed out.

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

The parade looks great. The weather, no so much.

j

Yep. I kind of hate to keep harping on that, but when you're constantly outside in temperatures that cold, it does wear you down. I don't do well in the cold anyway. You'd also feel kind of sick because you'd be very bundled up, then you walk into a shop and suddenly you're overheated and not feeling well.

If it was going to be that cold, could have at least had the decency to snow.

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

So here comes one of my big regrets of the trip. Early magic hour was at 8:30 am. I really wanted to be awake for this, but we were dragging a bit this morning. We didn't end up getting to the park until about 8:45. There was about a 5 minute long line to scan our tickets in, and Main Street already looked pretty crowded when we entered. We had wanted to focus on characters this morning, since we had seen some really long waits the day before.

So we headed to one of our must dos: Chip and Dale in holiday gear! Except in France they are called Tic and Tac.







Their line was already looking pretty long, but we got into it anyway. Tic and Tac were having nice long interactions with everyone, which is fun when it's your turn, but it does make the wait long. In DLP, people who used their disability pass could also use it on the characters. In the US parks that only works when characters have a Genie+ pass available, like the Fairytale Hall Princesses or Mickey at MK.

I know I'll get some flak for it, but those passes were annoying. I understand there is a reason people have them, and that to have their issues is more annoying than having a longer wait for characters, but it was still annoying that every third group almost was a disability pass group. It made the waits a lot longer.

In the end, we had a really nice interaction with the Chipmunks and ended up waiting 40 minutes. Probably not the best use of our early morning hour, and the next day we'd have a much better time when we managed to get to the gates on time.



As we left Tic and Tac we noticed that poor Iliak was having a rough day. He was doing a lot of head tossing and prancing (not the good type of head tossing and prancing, either).



The man in blue was a CM.



They finally got Iliak settled, but I'd never seen a Disney horse that unsettled (besides the video with the horse Merida was riding, but he got a balloon tangled in his leg and I think that would freak out any horse). I hope Iliak is ok.

Fantasyland was our goal for the rest of the morning. So, full disclosure, I did buy the Premium access that morning on the app. I had always planned on using it to maximize the short trip, however, I didn't realize how expensive it would be for the full access. I went ahead and bought it in a moment of panic, but I will never admit to Brian how much I paid for it. Which is fine, he never reads these trip reports. I still felt pretty ashamed randomly throughout the day for how much I paid. It had always been my plan to buy the Premium Access, but somehow I never did see how much it cost. And while I do think it helped us get on a lot of attractions, some of those attractions weren't priorities anyway. Like, we probably never would have rode Buzz if we didn't have the Premium Access. I was happy to have it for other attractions, but in retrospect, I should have just done a la carte and paid for a handful of attractions.

 

[Araminta18]

Spoiler: Brian and I both decided this was our fav version of POTC. We've only been to the US parks, just for reference. But it was fantastic.

100% agree! Isn't it neat? We loved it.

Also, getting your attraction photopass pics in DLP is totally annoying. You have to go to the display screen area, find your picture, memorize your number, then go to the counter. Where you usually have to wait, then you tell the attendant your number, whereas they need to click in no less than like, 10 different spots. Then they will scan your card's barcode and you're finally done.

Also 100% agree - it's SO inefficient! I ended up taking pictures of our picture and then just showing that to the CM but still - whyyyyyyy

The DLP parks are like DL, you simple walk a very short ways across an esplanade type area and you're inside the other park. Something I did think was odd is that you had to physically show your park ticket to a CM before you scanned in at the park. I'm not sure what they were looking for or what the quick glimpse confirmed.

This stuck out to me as super odd too - I wonder why?

I know I'll get some flak for it, but those passes were annoying. I understand there is a reason people have them, and that to have their issues is more annoying than having a longer wait for characters, but it was still annoying that every third group almost was a disability pass group. It made the waits a lot longer.

Totally with you. Again, I get it, but it seems like there are a *lot* of people who have these passes and it makes the lines really long.

 

[Karin1984]

Because you just went to Efteling. It has been snowing in NL and Efteling sent a drone into fairytale forest

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Because you just went to Efteling. It has been snowing in NL and Efteling sent a drone into fairytale forest

That was absolutely beautiful. We already want to go back and that makes me want to go back even more.

I really need to get moving with the rest of my report...

 

[dachsie]

That was absolutely beautiful. We already want to go back and that makes me want to go back even more.

I really need to get moving with the rest of my report...

I hope you find time to finish your report. I loved it so far!