I don’t know about you, but I never sleep well in a strange bed and Disney was no exception!
The boys had to share a double bed next to ours, and they gave Eliza a cot – she hasn’t slept in a cot for 9 months! She woke half a dozen times after banging her leg, arm, head etc so in the end we brought her into our bed, where she proceeded to take over. Hubby did consider moving to the bath at one point!
By the time we got the kids organised we got to breakfast at 8am and found it so packed that they had set up a conference room. We hadn’t realised that everyone gets up super early as the park opens it gates to hotel guests at 8am.
The selection of goodies on offer was better than I remembered. There was cereal, toast, cooked breakfast and lots of different pastries as well as fresh juice, tea, coffee, water and fruit, with the exception of banana’s – much to Boo’s disgust. We ate our fill and headed into the park.
As we strolled to the gates we encountered huge queues, even at 9am and alarm bells started ringing. We chose these dates as thought it would be quiet, but we were very, very wrong – it turns out that it was the French school holidays so we made a pact to get into the park even earlier for the rest of our visit. That said, we managed to by-pass the queues and still had an hour to explore before the hoards were let in.
It’s a Small World is a boat ride that sails through the countries of the world, with dancing dolls all in traditional dress. It is bright and colourful and the song gets stuck in your head!
Next door, in Discoveryland we soon discovered what was to be Isaac’s favourite ride – Buzz Lightyears Laser Blast. It is an interactive laser gun game where you join forces with Buzz in the Gamma Quadrant to defeat Emperor Zurg. Unlike other laser games, it is not scary and Isaac’s favourite part was spinning the car to help us hit more robots – only he just span it, and span it and span it some more!
I highly recommend you either get to this ride early (it opens at 8am), or you use the fast pass system as it is a very popular ride!
Once those rides had been completed, we explored the rest of the Disneyland park before realising that we hadn’t eaten since breakfast and it was gone past 2pm. The kids were desperate to eat in Pizza Planet, but unfortunately it was closed, so we went off in search of Pizza.
We found a pizza restaurant open in Adventureland and set about finding a table ……….challenge one! It was manic and took us about 20 minutes to find somewhere to sit. Hubby then queued for an hour to get our food – it was madness and the food wasn’t that great either. He bought us a pizza each, but one between two would have been plenty as they came with a salad bowl and a fruit salad.
Once we had finished we then headed into Walt Disney Studio’s to see what they had to offer. After having a brief nose around the park to see what rides there were, we headed into the Stunt Show which the boys adored!
Packed with thrills, spills and a visit from a very famous race car it is every boys (and man’s) dream show. Only Eliza wasn’t as keen, but then it was very noisy!
Once that had finished we headed for the studio tour as the queue was really small. Again the boys really enjoyed it, but Eliza hated it and for the rest of the holiday all we got when choosing a ride was “Don’t like fire” and “Don’t like water” from her. To be honest I hadn’t realised how scary it was – we were caught in an “earthquake”, “Flash flood” and had dragons breathing fire as well as the more sedate looking at movie props like RC!
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| Before it all got a bit scary! |
Your holiday sounds quite similar in many ways to our last trip to Butlins in that everything is about queuing and finding tables and sussing out the best time to do things. It can be stressful for us adults, but in all honesty, I really don’t think the children are bothered at all. Many theme parks and attractions seem to charge huge amounts of money and don’t always deliver to our expectations, but generally the kids are wowed enough for us to feel that it was worth it.
Yes it cost a pretty penny, yes there were queues, yes the food wasn’t up to much…but the memories of children’s excitement…priceless.
Very useful that you have pointed out that your daughter was not keen on some of the rides/attractions as it will give others an age guide.
xx
There are quite a few rides you can littlies on that weren’t suitable in hindsight – but then every child is different!
Ugh queuing for an hour for food must have been awful 🙁 I’ve encountered queues in both Paris and Orlando but thankfully nothing that bad, you must have the patience of a saint – especially with little ones to keep entertained. I love your photos – especially the one of RC!
Thank you for linking up with #100DaysOfDisney
Don’t leave me hanging….do they have Mickey waffles at the hotels at DLP?? They’re my must have food on every trip to WDW!
What a mare about the sleeping situation, but hope you managed to get some sleep?
A shame that Pizza Planet was closed, we ate there in 2010 and it’s better than the one at Hollywood Studios!
We didn’t go to the Studios on our visit, but I wonder if the tour is like the one in the USA – there is a big explosion and lots of water and shaking about, so it’s not surprising kids can easily get scared.
Thanks for sharing your day and for sharing this at the #100DaysOfDisney link party
xx