Just a note about the recent trip we took to DLP.
We travelled on Eurostar which was pretty cool. It took us about 40 minutes to get to Kings Cross/St Pancras on our tube system. We were quite early so had about an hours wait for the Eurostar. We were seated in Coach 18 and virtually had the who carriage to ourselves which was great. On arrival at DLP, we left our bags at the Disney Express check-in who would deliver them to the Sequoia Lodge where we were staying.
We headed straight over to the “Magic Kingdom.” The crowds were very heavy and most off the rides were averaging about an hour’s wait. We managed to do quite a few of them and then went to Casey’s Corner for a bite to eat. John and Caitlin had hot dogs and fries and I had chicken nuggets (although the order came out wrong and I was given hot dog with loads of cheese on it). All of this meal came out cold.
We carried on around the park and headed over to ride Big Thunder Mountain, which I have to say, is a much better ride then in
WDW. The only bad thing about this ride was that we queued for about 1 and a half hours and there was so much queue jumping from the younger ones which wasn’t fair.
We decided to head back to the Sequoia Lodge to check-in and we were very lucky that we were given a free upgrade to a Suite which overlooked the Disney Village. The view was pretty awesome.
The next morning, we went down for breakfast in the hotel, which was a cold buffet style breakfast and was quite nice.
We headed off to the “Magic Kingdom” again as Disney guests had early entry from 8am-10am. We got so much more of the rides done again and had fun. The crowds then started building up and the queue jumping and shoving started again. We headed for lunch (I forget the name of the restaurant) and John and Caitlin had nuggets and fries and I had a burger (again, all of which was cold)! I can only think that both lunches were so cold because everything is just kept under the lights to keep the service moving.
When we were waiting to get character autographs, this was just a joke. When we waited for Daisy's autograph Caitlin was nearly knocked over. Daisy herself was using her own hand gestures to move the crowds back. I had a few "polite" words to the so called "Cast Member" who did bring her forward but it was all very off putting. We found this was the case with alot of the characters we “waited” for!!
We then went back to the Suite and decided to go for a swim in the hotel pool. We only brought a couple of hand towels down with us as we read that towels were provided. When we had changed and checked with the man at the desk about the towels, he said that we had to buy them and that they would cost 2 Euros. We said ok, and proceeded to swim. When we decided to leave the pool, I noticed that the two towels I had brought with me had been “stolen.” John went to the desk to buy a couple and was told that they didn’t have any and that we needed to buy them in the shop back in the hotel!!! So, therefore we had no towels to dry us and had to walk back into the hotel with our clothes over our wet costumes.
On our last morning, we went to “Cafe Mickey” for the Character breakfast which was only just an ok. Mickey hardly spent any time at the tables and King John didn’t come to our table at all, in fact he walked past three times as there was no “Cast Member” directing them. Minnie, Chip and Dale and Pluto were good though! Breakfast was virtually nothing compared to Chef Mickey’s.
The other downside is that John and I both don’t smoke and at DLP you could smoke anywhere in the parks and when queuing for rides, people next to us didn’t consider the younger children around them even though there were signs up saying no-smoking.
All in all, I would not recommend it to anyone and it will be a very long time before I would think about going back. To me, it was just like a normal theme park here in the UK and disappointed that it carries the "Disney" name as it is not the Disney that we know!!!
Good points: Excellent Eurostar journey
Upgrade to a Suite at the Sequoia Lodge
Very nice hot weather
Bad Points: Queue jumping
No orderly queue for character autographs/pictures
Smoking around the parks