LunaMini
Believing is just the beginning...
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2013
Evening everyone! I have a sneaky suspicion this one is going to be a long one, so why not grab yourself a coffee/hot chocolate/glass of wine, put your feet up and settle down for the ups and downs of my Birthday trip to DLRP 
Are you all settled? Well, lets begin...
Day 1 - Sunday 23rd March
Our day started with a 4.30am alarm call, for once the alarm was greeted with the throwing back of covers rather than the pounding of the snooze button.
We left the house just after 5 after squeezing our cases into the back of a little car (removal of the parcel shelf was required!) We were heading for Bristol to meet our driver who would take over from me and deliver us to St Pancras. The journey ran smoothly, but we were both freezing by the time we got there as Tim kept turning the heater down. Brrrrrrr!
We arrived at St Pancras just after 8am and headed straight to Costa coffee for a hot drink and a chocolate twist! Yummmmmm!
Having never been to St Pancras before and with a little bit of time to spare we wandered and I couldn't help but notice the amazing roof and clock.
Neither of us had ever used the Eurostar before, it was like the blind leading the blind! We succeeded in checking in though and found ourselves in a busy departure lounge. This was a whole new experience for us and we sat soaking it all in. We're very good at people watching!
We waited for about an hour before we were allowed to board, we found our seats really easily and made ourselves comfortable.
After the stop at Ebbsfleet (no stop at Ashford for us on the way out) we were served our Breakfast, there was coffee, orange juice, bread roll, jam, pastries, it was all very yummy!
We were sharing the carriage with a family of 8, a mother and 7 children ranging from 19 to 6 (triplets), we got chatting and it turns out that she lost her husband this time last year to cancer, aged just 34 and the trip had been planned for all of them. She was an extremely brave lady and I really hope they had a lovely trip.
We arrived on time and just as we were pulling into the station the young man who had been serving us presented me with a bag containing 2 bottles of wine for my Birthday, this really was a lovely gesture.
We disembarked and made our way towards the 'Pink Hotel', it had been 8 years since I last stayed here and I was really looking forward to staying here again. We had a little wait to be checked in, but we weren't in any hurry. A lovely gentleman checked us in and checked that it was a double room we wanted, ummmmm, no! As much as I love my mum, I don't wish to share a bed with her! He disappeared out the back of the reception to change our room to a twin, thank goodness!
Our (new) room was ready for us, we were on the 3rd floor on the same side of the building as reception. The room had a lovely window with space to sit on the window ledge, but there wasn't much to be seen out of the window, we overlooked the drop off point in the car park and the side of the reception area.
I was a little disappointed that the bedding had changed from last time I was here. There used to be a lovely green coloured, Disney themed throws where as they now have some plain orange coloured ones, it just wasn't the same!
I'm not sure why we ended up with a cot in our room!
Gripes about the bedding aside, I do still love the detail on the beds!
Once we'd explored our room we headed straight back down stairs to book my Birthday meal. I'd already decided I wanted to have my meal at Inventions. Mum & Dad had been to Inventions for their anniversary meal last April and had raved about it, so I was super excited to be booking this for tomorrow. Of course a Birthday meal wouldn't be a Birthday meal without cake! So even though there were only 2 of us, we added cake to the booking too!
Our plan was always to watch Decent of the Stairs but we found ourselves with time to spare, so what better way to fill the time than a little visit to Cafe Fantasia. This has been on my to do list for a long time and I was ecstatic to finally be doing it. We only had a cappuccino, but this was just enough to experience the joy that is Cafe Fantasia and to kill enough time before Decent of the Stairs.
Until I joined these forums I had no idea about Decent of the Stairs and couldn't wait to see it and boy was it worth it! I was bobbing and singing along to it and got slightly hysterical when Eeyore appeared! I am a massive Eeyore fan and was very excited to think that I might get to meet him!
Mum was excited to see Pluto, so we headed over to meet him and mum looked so happy with her Pluto hat on with him.
I couldn't wait to see if I could get my photo with Eeyore, it turns out this was one of my best meets of the holiday. Eeyore loved my hat and started to jump up and down and dance with me in the hotel.
He also blew me lots of kisses and hugged me lots!
I was like the cat that got the cream
Full of the all the excitement of meeting our 2 favourite characters, mum and I left the hotel and headed for the Studio Park. We only opted for this first as it closed at 7. We headed straight for some Rock and Rollercoaster action and used our hotel fastpass to skip the queue, we thought we'd made a mistake doing that as it broke down while we were queuing. All the lights came on and a lot of people opted to leave, as we'd used our pass we stayed put. We must have waited about half an hour before it was up and running again, the wait was worth it though, this ride is just super!
We managed to get on Tower of Terror, RC car and one more go on Rock and Rollercoaster before the park closed for the evening. We got plenty of comments on our hats, these proved to be a talking point for most of the days we were there!
At this point I had got a bit chilly, it was definitely chillier than I had thought, we popped back to our room to put on some more layers before going into the main park.
There is something about walking down main street and seeing that beautiful castle at the end. This was my first view of the castle this trip
First stop here was Space Mountain, both mum and I love this ride, but this was to be our only ride on it this trip, we just found it so uncomfortable and both come off with a stinking headache. They really need to work on how to make this more comfortable for guests, I'm sure it would be far more popular if it was less brutal on you.
From Discovery Land we cut back across in front of the castle and headed to the Wild West of Frontier Land to ride Big Thunder. The queue was only 10 minutes long and we were soon on the mine train, however while we were queuing it had begun to hail! All there is to say about that is OUCH! We spent the ride laughing so much and bracing ourselves from the pelting hail. It may have hurt and we may have got off wet, but it was very, very funny!
We were beginning to feel rather tired by this point, so opted to give Disney Dreams! a miss and head back to our room and make ourselves a hot chocolate and eat some snacks for tea (we'd packed food to save us having to buy too much)
Up tomorrow Birthday shenanigans!
Are you all settled? Well, lets begin...
Day 1 - Sunday 23rd March
Our day started with a 4.30am alarm call, for once the alarm was greeted with the throwing back of covers rather than the pounding of the snooze button.
We left the house just after 5 after squeezing our cases into the back of a little car (removal of the parcel shelf was required!) We were heading for Bristol to meet our driver who would take over from me and deliver us to St Pancras. The journey ran smoothly, but we were both freezing by the time we got there as Tim kept turning the heater down. Brrrrrrr!
We arrived at St Pancras just after 8am and headed straight to Costa coffee for a hot drink and a chocolate twist! Yummmmmm!
Having never been to St Pancras before and with a little bit of time to spare we wandered and I couldn't help but notice the amazing roof and clock.
Neither of us had ever used the Eurostar before, it was like the blind leading the blind! We succeeded in checking in though and found ourselves in a busy departure lounge. This was a whole new experience for us and we sat soaking it all in. We're very good at people watching!
We waited for about an hour before we were allowed to board, we found our seats really easily and made ourselves comfortable.
After the stop at Ebbsfleet (no stop at Ashford for us on the way out) we were served our Breakfast, there was coffee, orange juice, bread roll, jam, pastries, it was all very yummy!
We were sharing the carriage with a family of 8, a mother and 7 children ranging from 19 to 6 (triplets), we got chatting and it turns out that she lost her husband this time last year to cancer, aged just 34 and the trip had been planned for all of them. She was an extremely brave lady and I really hope they had a lovely trip.
We arrived on time and just as we were pulling into the station the young man who had been serving us presented me with a bag containing 2 bottles of wine for my Birthday, this really was a lovely gesture.
We disembarked and made our way towards the 'Pink Hotel', it had been 8 years since I last stayed here and I was really looking forward to staying here again. We had a little wait to be checked in, but we weren't in any hurry. A lovely gentleman checked us in and checked that it was a double room we wanted, ummmmm, no! As much as I love my mum, I don't wish to share a bed with her! He disappeared out the back of the reception to change our room to a twin, thank goodness!
Our (new) room was ready for us, we were on the 3rd floor on the same side of the building as reception. The room had a lovely window with space to sit on the window ledge, but there wasn't much to be seen out of the window, we overlooked the drop off point in the car park and the side of the reception area.
I was a little disappointed that the bedding had changed from last time I was here. There used to be a lovely green coloured, Disney themed throws where as they now have some plain orange coloured ones, it just wasn't the same!
I'm not sure why we ended up with a cot in our room!
Gripes about the bedding aside, I do still love the detail on the beds!
Once we'd explored our room we headed straight back down stairs to book my Birthday meal. I'd already decided I wanted to have my meal at Inventions. Mum & Dad had been to Inventions for their anniversary meal last April and had raved about it, so I was super excited to be booking this for tomorrow. Of course a Birthday meal wouldn't be a Birthday meal without cake! So even though there were only 2 of us, we added cake to the booking too!
Our plan was always to watch Decent of the Stairs but we found ourselves with time to spare, so what better way to fill the time than a little visit to Cafe Fantasia. This has been on my to do list for a long time and I was ecstatic to finally be doing it. We only had a cappuccino, but this was just enough to experience the joy that is Cafe Fantasia and to kill enough time before Decent of the Stairs.
Until I joined these forums I had no idea about Decent of the Stairs and couldn't wait to see it and boy was it worth it! I was bobbing and singing along to it and got slightly hysterical when Eeyore appeared! I am a massive Eeyore fan and was very excited to think that I might get to meet him!
Mum was excited to see Pluto, so we headed over to meet him and mum looked so happy with her Pluto hat on with him.
I couldn't wait to see if I could get my photo with Eeyore, it turns out this was one of my best meets of the holiday. Eeyore loved my hat and started to jump up and down and dance with me in the hotel.
He also blew me lots of kisses and hugged me lots!
I was like the cat that got the cream
Full of the all the excitement of meeting our 2 favourite characters, mum and I left the hotel and headed for the Studio Park. We only opted for this first as it closed at 7. We headed straight for some Rock and Rollercoaster action and used our hotel fastpass to skip the queue, we thought we'd made a mistake doing that as it broke down while we were queuing. All the lights came on and a lot of people opted to leave, as we'd used our pass we stayed put. We must have waited about half an hour before it was up and running again, the wait was worth it though, this ride is just super!
We managed to get on Tower of Terror, RC car and one more go on Rock and Rollercoaster before the park closed for the evening. We got plenty of comments on our hats, these proved to be a talking point for most of the days we were there!
At this point I had got a bit chilly, it was definitely chillier than I had thought, we popped back to our room to put on some more layers before going into the main park.
There is something about walking down main street and seeing that beautiful castle at the end. This was my first view of the castle this trip
First stop here was Space Mountain, both mum and I love this ride, but this was to be our only ride on it this trip, we just found it so uncomfortable and both come off with a stinking headache. They really need to work on how to make this more comfortable for guests, I'm sure it would be far more popular if it was less brutal on you.
From Discovery Land we cut back across in front of the castle and headed to the Wild West of Frontier Land to ride Big Thunder. The queue was only 10 minutes long and we were soon on the mine train, however while we were queuing it had begun to hail! All there is to say about that is OUCH! We spent the ride laughing so much and bracing ourselves from the pelting hail. It may have hurt and we may have got off wet, but it was very, very funny!
We were beginning to feel rather tired by this point, so opted to give Disney Dreams! a miss and head back to our room and make ourselves a hot chocolate and eat some snacks for tea (we'd packed food to save us having to buy too much)
Up tomorrow Birthday shenanigans!
I was crying with laughter!
.
