First day of the 2019 Christmas season in Disneyland Paris, let’s go!
When we woke up in our Hotel Santa Fe room, we had at least managed to get the room to a pleasant temperature (read all about that debacle in my part 1 of this trip post).
Showering in an ice cold bathroom wasn’t a lot of fun (understatement, it was horrid), but at least it had steamed up and warmed up to the point that Bert at least had a more pleasant shower than I did.
We packed the last things, Bert took them all to the car whilst I did my make-up (thank you Bert), which didn’t take nearly as long as you’d think (about 10 minutes because the car wasn’t right outside, we were 2 floors up and he had to make a few trips on account of the huge duvet bag and the painting he bought the day before).
We ate breakfast we had brought, because our booking.com deal did not include a meal plan, and we didn’t think the Hotel Santa Fe breakfast buffet was worth €19 per person.
And then it was time for the parks!
And Extra Magic Hours.
In the mist!
Without a queue at security, so yay. Not that security wasn’t friendly mind, they were very friendly, but let’s be fair: security is not the place you want to spend your time at Disneyland Paris!
I took a photo of the other photo set-up at Disney Village, which I had only discovered the evening before when it was dark.
Sadly it was also very wet so neither Bert nor myself felt like having photos taken in it.
Just like was the case last Halloween trip, EMH wasn’t all that.
Christmas Donald and Christmas Stitch were meeting guests, but even though it was still super early, there was already quite the queue.
As it was also a LOT colder than it was the day before, we decided to forego a photo with Santa Stitch and went to have a look at the Princess Pavillion to see if Rapunzel was meeting.
And like every other day we checked: no luck! Of course, Snow White was there, which is often the case when we are there. She’s my friend Claire’s fave, so I’m sure that if I were to with Claire and without Bert, there’d be no Snow White on the program and Rapunzel.
We wanted to ride Buzz, but that was down, so instead we went and took some more photos,
grabbed a return time for Santa (2 hours regular queue at 10am, dahell!)
Let's take a moment for the mural outside the restrooms just by Toad Hall. Theming on point!
before going on Phantom Manor.
As it was super misty and atmospheric in the area, I took some photos there, too.
No, we did not buy that hat.
This time we did manage to get a Lineberty slot for Sandy Claws, but with about an hour to spare, we decided to have a look around in stores instead to stay warm. I ended up buying a Ratatouille mug (because it holds half a liter) and a really cute Berlioz pin.
We went back to Discoveryland, but Nautilus looked like it was super crowded, and Buzz Lightyear had racked up a massive queue, so we had a look in Constellations instead. Figuring we would have enough time before the Jack Skellington meet.
Wandering through the shop I found a super cute Mike Wazowski plush, that I just had to have. I had just about paid for him when I noticed that it was no longer an hour+ time on Lineberty, but 20 minutes! WUT!?
So we went straight back to Frontierland, because it was pretty crowded and we didn’t want to get stuck in a mass of people and be late.
And guess what, we weren’t much too early, because the app is hella wonky.
I maintain Lineberty is a total shambles, because it always takes forever, it’s vague, has ZERO respect for privacy and it’s just way too stressful.
And let’s not forget the fact that Disney is in fact not legally allowed to force people to install it, but we all know that if you don’t do it yourself, there’s little to no chance of you getting a spot via a CM, and it’ll be even more stress because you won’t be able to check the line’s progress yourself.
I can deal with it about once per season. At most.
If it’s not for Jack Skellington, a Monsters character or Launchpad McQuack (like that’ll ever happen) I simply won’t bother.
That all said, we finally managed to meet Sandy Claws, he made some lame Oogie Boogie jokes at poor Bert over his oversized green coat (he had to size up to make sure the body and sleeves are long enough ok!) and that was that.
I'm not going to say the meet and greet was a waste of time, but it was definitely my least fave Jack interaction thusfar, oh well. Still glad I did it.
Because the meet and greet had taken absolute ages, we only very barely found a spot to photograph the parade on Main Street, and alas the light was not on our side at all. But hey, better than nothing! :)
The next queue we ended up in was even worse.
We had wandered around trying to find food.
We started in Frontierland, where Lucky Nugget was open. But as we have had bad experiences with this place in the past and people were queuing outside, that was a big nope.
Fuente del Oro was closed, but the sign outside said Cowboy Cookout was open. Rejoice!
Alas!
The sign was a lie!
At Cowboy Cookout there was another sign up stating Fuente del Oro was open. So basically, DLP staff was just advertising stuff willy nilly without any sense of accuracy.
In the end, we just gave up (because every place on Main Street had people queuing out into the cold, cold streets) and went to Hyperion.
Architecture wise, Café Hyperion is my favourite building in the park.
I also love the movie it’s based on The Island at the Top of the World.
The service and food there, however, is SHITE.
End of story.
Were it not for the fact that Hyperion is so enormous, people would be queuing outside. We queued for nearly an hour in the priority/disability queue. Nearly an hour, and were then mega rushed to place our order.
As there were three registers closed (that’s right, massive queues that lasted over an hour and the last three registers were CLOSED) we had been able to have a proper look at the menu, because of course, there are no menus in line, and if you’re in a long queue you can’t really see them either.
Meaning a lot of people had to decide at the cash register, meaning everything went even slower.
Surely making menus available at the entrance would make things more efficient? Tokyo Disney can do it, so why not DLP? (Mind you, actually OPENING restaurants would be a huge step ahead too).
Eventually we had food, and by some miracle we even found a table to sit and eat said, very mediocre and totally overpriced, Christmas menu. Which was definitely not worth the €16,99.
The burger bun was coming apart, the burger itself was of McDonalds quality (hopefully with less glyphosate in it than a McDo burger), the fries were the worst I have eaten in about a decade. The cheesecake for dessert was nice though, I will give them that, but its not making up for the fail of the rest of the menu.
When we got out of Hyperion after our crappy lunch, we just about managed to catch the end of the Christmas parade (well we saw all of it, but it was on it’s final stretch). Sadly, it also meant we got hella STUCK trying to get to the Santa meet and greet and only JUST made it in time.
After the Santa meet and greet, I suggested to Bert we could either go wait for the next show of Sing Christmas in Videopolis, even though it would probably involve us trying to find a good spot an hour in advance (it was seriously so busy) or try to see a show in the Studios or ride Ratatouille.
At that point he was pretty fed up with the denseness of the crowd, so we opted to just go. We did try to get our hand on a Christmas button at Hotel Santa Fe, but alas, no luck as there weren’t any. Oh well :).
Bert had agreed that we could stop by Val Europe mall on the way home, which is very close to Disney.
We figured that even though it was a Saturday, with the advertised 7000 spaces in the car park, it couldn’t go wrong.
Let me put it this way: I’m glad I hadn’t placed a click and collect order with the Sephora in the mall, because literally DOZENS of people were trying to get a place to park.
It was bedlam, sheer and utter bedlam.
So Bert said: let’s do a small detour and go to V2 instead.
So we did.
V2 was NOT bedlam.
Sure, the parking was a little busy, but there were plenty available places left (definitely more spaces than cars seeking a spot), the mall itself wasn’t overly crowded at all and I found the serum I wanted.
I didn’t find the Christmas kit from Too Faced I wanted, which is probably for the best, because I have enough makeup. Having enough makeup is also what kept me from getting the Gingerbread extra spice palette. Which I regret, but damn it I really do NOT need it so I’m not going to spend nearly €50 on it!
I did get a massage bar tin at Lush, because I actually needed that (their massage bar for stiff and sore muscles is so good!).
Sostrene Grene (sp?) had some really neat Christmas things, and all super cheap, so we got some decorations at hardly any cost at all.
What a relief after Disney prices!
Our final stop was Auchan, to buy some food to take home (apple pastries, yum) and cherry coke.
We also found a giant bottle of wine (6 liters!) which obviously we didn’t buy, but I did take a photo to entertain my BFF Charlotte.
And some wine with entertaining labels which I photographed to entertain Charlotte and Aurélie :).
And that was our trip to France!
If we make it back for the Christmas season I hope to see the Big Band show in the Studios and Sing Christmas in the Disneyland Park.
I am quite happily to skip the parade, because as you know by now, I’m not the biggest fan, and I would quite like to see the rest of the season also.
I won’t be going back on a weekend day though, that’s just far too busy to my liking.
But we had fun, and that’s what counts!
Just as a final side-note: can we take a moment to admire how beautiful the fall is just outside the Disneyland Park?
All my photos of this trip are here.
And the first day of the trip is here.
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