Here we go, day 4/31!
Not just art you guys, there's also a whole post about our first day in Disneyland Paris from our trip earlier this week!
Today is World Animal Day, so have a black cat in a witch hat.
Who reminds me a lot of my old cat Merlijn.
Who was much less graceful about wearing a witch hat, as you can see from that bonus photo :)
- Daler-Rowney, FW ink
- Kuretake, gansai tambi watercolours
- Pentel, P203 mechanical pencil in B
- A random Swimmer marker which also works as a watercolour marker
- Van Gogh, watercolours
- Winsor & Newton, Cotman watercolours
On Daler-Rowney Aquafine watercolour paper, the cold press kind I believe (the textured one, I always mix up hot press and cold press).
And a really quick coffee ghost cat for Inktober!
Ecoline in my sketchbook :) (still that white paper square Maruman Croquis).
And here start Bert and I's adventures on our first day in Disneyland Paris!
Our stay at Disneyland Paris sadly started with some glitches, because I got sick the night before (food allergy sucks) and so was up most of the night nauseous AF. Meaning that instead of leaving at 5.30AM, we decided to just leave at 10AM instead so we would both have enough sleep to be on the road for 4+ hours. On the up side, we have never seen traffic that smooth driving there!
I have definitely taken better road sign photos from the car before, but we had gale winds driving up and it's hard to get a good photo when the wind is trying to blow your phone out of your hands, oops!
We ended up getting at Hotel Santa Fe around 2.20PM. You might wonder why we were staying on site, well, because we found a deal online letting us stay there for CHEAPER than at an Ibis!
Why stay off site when you can stay on site cheaper, after all!
We checked in, and as it was so close to 3PM we were able to get into our room already, so we first made sure to dump all our bags in there. On top of that, we could park right outside the building, that was super practical!
Check-in went pretty smooth, there was a queue from hell, which I wouldn’t have been able to deal with, so I explained the situation to the greeter, he sent us to info, info made sure we could check in without me having to stand a moment longer than absolutely necessary.
Super awesome of them! I really appreciate it!
And now for some privacy pro-tips!
Please remember you are not legally obliged to ID yourself with your electronic ID or passport, if you feel uncomfortable with DLP having that information, you can also show them a disability card, a driver’s licence or press card.
If you do, they will also let you fill in a form that does NOT ask you for any ID card information.
We IDed with our press card (Bert) and EU disability card (me) which is how we found out (well, I knew of alternatives you are legally allow to ID with, just not that they had different forms for folks like us).
Frankly the CM doing our check-in asked for ID, took one good look at the government issue press pass and decided to leave it at that haha.
Another thing, they will tell you that you won’t be using your data unless you give them express permission, but the only way to make sure they don’t, is to explicitly write on the form that you do NOT give them permission, as per GDPR. The CM checking us in tried to talk me out of writing that down, right up to the point where I explained to her that I’m a trained DPO, and that I trained at a law firm. So yeah, they will try to get your data if you’re not careful, and as DLP is not GDPR compliant, it’s best to be weary at best if you care about your privacy.
Bert and I point blank refuse to use the shuttle bus, because it tends to take longer walking there. First you need to wait for it, and then it’s hella full and why be a sardine in an unpleasant situation when you can just walk!
Plus some of the drivers are just dangerous lunatics that should have their licence revoked and we refuse to support their BS by taking the bus.
So we walked there, with a detour past Hotel Cheyenne so we could stop at Starbucks for some cake. My stomach was still only so and so but I was tired of plain sandwiches and water and I wanted some lemon cake. Bert still had to eat half (he had chocolate cake), but at least my tummy did not protest!
At the building site of Marvel Plaza (rip Hotel New York and it’s dieselpunk goodness!) we stopped to look at the art on the refurb walls, which was pretty cool.
Whilst the weather was so and so at best in Belgium, it was a beautiful sunny day in France, and quite warm too. So I was cursing myself for not wearing my Monsters Inc tee like I had originally planned (the neckline didn’t match up with that of my longsleeve so I wore another Halloween tee). Hopefully next time!
Even though we had taken our time, it was still only 3.30PM when we arrived at the Studios booth 11 & 12 (the annual pass ones), which were sadly both occupied. One by a very surely lady who spoke very bad English trying to sort out passes for an entire British family. Even though there was a queue, she just closed up shop after she was done with them, in a particularly foul mood. Luckily, the lady at the other window was an absolute saint so I wasn’t mad about having to have my pass sorted by her!
I was pretty happy I had my seat with me though, because there was no way I could have stood for over half an hour (and that was just the waiting for my turn, sorting out an AP takes quite a bit of time also).
We pretty much had to go there though, because our hotel deal did not involve park tickets, and after having done the particular math for us, getting a Magic+ AP was actually cheaper than buying tickets.
That’s of course considering the fact we want to go back at least once next year, probably twice.
It would NOT have been cheaper had it just been this trip!
Luckily, the AP lady was also able to make up my green disability card and issue a carer ticket for Bert for the full three days of our stay, which was awesome because it saved us the time of having to go to two other booths as well. Seriously she was amazing!
We finally got into the park at around 5.45PM, and not that many people were sitting down for the parade, there was also a very short queue for Max Goof, so I asked Bert if it would be ok to meet Max before the parade and he said yes.
I bumped into Caro, who I had spoken to years ago on tumblr, just as I was getting into the queue and in a state of absolute brainfus and frazzle. Which I utterly FAILED at getting across like a normal person. Which I felt super bad about, because I didn’t want to be bitchy and mean, I was just completely out of spoons a that time and suddenly faced with people I had to talk to didn’t work out for me. So if you read this Caro, I’m really sorry, it was just the entire situation. Had you caught me later that night, I swear I wouldn’t have been a complete waste of your time!
But yeah, we met Max, and it was fun. And we got trick or treat candy. Usually I give the candy to my dad, but these were basically mellow cakes so I ate one whilst waiting for the parade to start. We ended up watching the parade from the disability zone, as that was the only place we could still get a decent enough spot after I met Max. In hindsight we probably should have just gotten a parade spot.
Seeing it was 6PM at least when the parade was over, we decided to go find food. Which was, as we weren’t surprised to discover, a total disaster.
Because guess what, most places serving food were once again NOT open or had closed at 4 or 5PM.
Wandering around Adventureland and Frontierland to find some place to eat, we took some photos of the Halloween décor.
These creatures reminded me a lot of les métamorphoses from Eldorado - Lille 3000 that I saw not too long ago :).
The latest incarnation/repaint of a piece of Halloween decor that's been around for over 10 years :).
This year she's been given a purple dress, and she's right by the entrance of Cowboy Cookout BBQ. Which sadly also was closed :(.
On Main Street USA we tried Plaza Gardens, but we were barked at that there was no space. Looking into the window, the restaurant was at least 70% empty, but there you go.
Pro-tip, which we didn’t think of at the time, but a restaurant reservation becomes void if you arrive 15 minutes too late, so we should have just told the lady that we were aware of this, and we would like to wait to see if any spots opened up.
It had been a long day anyway, so we decided to take some more photos on Main Street
and Town Square
and go to Disney Village.
La Grange seemed quite busy, so instead we looked in some shops,
called it a day and walked
I just really wanted to share this photo because the trees were so beautiful in their autumn colours!
to Hotel Cheyenne to eat buffet at Chuck Wagon.
Which was really good, and the staff was friendly, so there.
A buffet is actually not much more expensive than a menu (in some situations only €5). So if you’re a fussy eater (for whatever reason) or have a big appetite, it is really worth spending that little extra and just going to a buffet.
He had three plates of proper food first before he finished with this.
It did mean I missed out on the opportunity to take night photos in Frontierland, but we figured I could just do that the next day.
We did pop into the Red Garter Saloon where they had Halloween cocktails.
I wanted to get the poison apple stein, I’m not particularly fond of the green version, but it has a lid and Loa keeps stealing my erasers, so it’s perfect to store little art supplies in it so the cat can’t get at them.
It was €9,99 on it’s own, but for a whole ONE € more it came with a non alchoholic cocktail. Which sadly was really crap.
But hey, at least it was cheap. Bert drank all of it, I think he liked it rather more than he let on haha. Oh and the stein glows in the dark, which is pretty fun.
I will say one thing about our hotel room, whilst it was definitely clean and vastly more spacious than the rooms at the Ibis we usually have, it was also very, very chilly and hard to heat up, especially the bathroom (the bathroom heater was broken and there was a fan that couldn't be turned off that only blew cold air into the room).
If you have trouble sleeping in chilly rooms, make sure to bring an extra blanket or flannel PJs or some such, you’re going to need them!
But yeah, even though we didn’t spent it in the park, we still had a really nice evening, and even though our day got cut short because of my health, we still had a good time. And that’s what matters! :)
Literally the last photo from that day :).
Continue reading! (Onward to day 2)
All my photos of the trip are here :)
Find me online:
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Disclaimer: Google is trying to fob off a lot of their GDPR responsability by pretending the responsability to safeguard privacy is with bloggers. I can assure you that I don't collect ANY data on my followers or people that read this blog what so ever, so when it comes to this blog, it's entirely on google. I will continue to post links to secondary sites, I have no stake in this other than to provide my readers with a handy link, so if you worry about your data when you enter those sites, you'll have to take it up with them. I hope that helps!
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