A dream is a wish
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2012
This is my first TR Hopefully it wont be too boring! We had such a wonderful trip and I wanted to share
As I put in my PTR I was taking my daughter Chloe on her first trip and was so excited! We have never been away just the two of us before so I was nervous but it turns out that there was nothing to be nervous about.
Here's a picture of the two us at christmas
Our trip was from July 26th to 30th and we were staying at Hotel Santa Fe.
On Wednesday night I put Chloe to bed and finished packing. She knew we were going to DLP but she didnt know when. I had told her that when it was the time, I would be waking her up in the middle of the night and telling her that we were going. I kept going over things again and again in my head and making sure we had the right things so in the end I didnt get any sleep!
I woke Chloe up just after 3am, she was so happy. At first she just kept saying are we going now? Really? Today?
When she had properly woken up and realised she was squealing!
I took her through to my room to come and see something, I had her new suitcase and a box of presents wrapped up for her. Originally I had wanted to get a Minnie Mouse dress and put it with a letter from her but my local Disney Store haven't had her size and I've been looking constantly from January, I had been trying online too but they never had her size so I gave up and got a Belle one.
She loved her new things and had such a big smile on her face!
After looking at her new things, she put on her new Belle dress and got ready to go. I had got other things ready to travel in but she wasnt going to wear anything but that dress!
Then we went outside to wait for the taxi arriving at 5am to take us to the train station. I think she was a little bit excited!
We got the train at 5:50, Chloe did some colouring in and we had a couple of games of UNO, then she fell asleep for the final 20 minutes of the journey. We arrived at London Euston around 7:10am.
We walked around to St Pancras, we were going to find somewhere inside to grab some breakfast as Chloe didnt want anything when I woke her or on the train but we saw the McDonalds opposite and went to eat there.
We went into St Pancras, it was manic! So many people and so much security! I saw where we needed to go but I couldnt get to where you check in so I asked someone working there when we could go through and was told no earlier than 30 minutes before. I thought Id read that you can start going through up to 75 minutes before but I didnt mind waiting, at least we were there in plenty of time.
As we had some time to kill, we went to Costa and had a coffee and hot chocolate. When we were in there the people who were sat next to us asked if we had seen the Olympic torch pass through, I think they said it was at 7:15am, so that explained why it was so crazy when we got there. By the time we'd finished in Costa it was about 9am so I thought we should go over to wait by the area we needed to go through. It was much quieter now and when we got to the screens it said we could check in already. We went through and sat down.
The people sat by us let us know that we could pick up a Disneyland travel pack now so we went to get one and waited to be called! Not long after this it was time to go!
We were told to check seat numbers before going up the escalators, as I went to get the tickets out of the Disneyland packet one of the members of staff took it from me and said shed help because I had two cases, my backpack and Chloe. I understand that she was doing a nice thing but I did feel a bit like a child, I wasnt struggling at all, Chloe's case was tiny and Id managed to get there with no problems so I wasn't worried about getting on the train.
She told me where to go, so I shoved the tickets in my bag and we quickly went and got on the train, put our things away and got into our seats. We were ready to go!
We had a little problem when we got to Ashford, some people got on and they had tickets for the seats we were in, when I checked our tickets I realised the woman had looked at our seats on the return journey. Just a little bit embarrassing when there are families trying to get to their seats and we were now holding them up! The staff on the train were lovely and said there were two seats by the luggage that were free so we could sit there to save moving our luggage to another carriage. After we had moved the rest of the journey was fine.
As we were in the wrong seats, when the person came down with everyones park tickets and info I called him over and explained what had happened and he sorted our tickets and the rest of our things.
When we got off, we dropped our luggage off at the Disney Express part and off we went to the magic!
As soon as we walked out of the station the heat hit us! Wow it was hot! We took off our jackets and walked over to the Disneyland Park.
The parks were really busy today, Im not sure if this was normal for summer but on Thursday and Friday there were so many people!
We had a walk around and tried to take it all in, its so overwhelming!
I said we could do one ride then we needed to go over to the hotel to make sure that we were all sorted then we could come back.
After wondering around for a while Chloe decided that she wanted to go on POTC. The wait time was supposed to be 45 minutes but we only queued for about 30 minutes. Chloe really loved it!
As we were walking down Main Street U.S.A. look what we saw coming!
We went and got the shuttle bus back to the hotel never again in summer, it was horrible! So many angry, pushing people!
When we got there we got our room key, breakfast time cards and picked up our luggage. Our room was great, Id read poor reviews about the hotel but I found it to perfectly fine. One thing that Id read about the rooms was that they were awful because it had no air conditioning but the fan in the room was fantastic. It was so hot this day, the room was already cool but within a few minutes of the fan being on it was lovely and chilled! I took some photos of the room after Id unpacked that night so Ill add those after Cafe Mickey.
Seeing how excited Chloe was about being in the park, I decided that wed miss the parade tonight so that she could have a look at the parts that we hadn't seen yet and also go on a couple of rides if we had time.
I made my first mistake next.
When we were on the bus I couldnt really see where we were going but I kind of got it. As we went to leave what I didnt realise was that there was a bridge to cross over so that you walk along to the village at the block further down, I thought we had to walk back to the front of the hotel to get to the village. As we were walking it was very clear that this was not near the Disney Village and that we were going a different way. I just followed the signposts and hoped for the best as I really didn't want to have to walk back and start again. Id ended up dragging Chloe along the bus route back! 35 minutes later in the heat we dragged ourselves into the bus station, oops!! Chloe was not impressed with me at all!
We went back into the Disneyland Park and I took Chloe for her first go on BTM. We waited for about an hour. As I mentioned in my highs and lows Chloe was brilliant in queues! She never moaned, just waited nicely for her turn. She made me a very happy Mom! She didnt stop giggling on BTM, wed found another ride that she loved
After this we went over to Phantom Manor as there was a very small queue. She wasnt as fussed with this one but she still liked it.
As the park was still really busy, I was worried that wed be cutting it fine to get to our reservation at Café Mickey if we were in a long queue so I thought it would be best to go and have a look in the shops in the village and then head over to Café Mickey a little early. As we were leaving we saw some of the parade. We stood and waved for a few minutes and went off to the village.
We had a look around the World of Disney store, Chloe bought her presents for that day, she had some lollypops and the cuddly toy of Angel. Id got her Stitch to put in her present box and the first thing she said was could she also have Angel if they have her. Angel doesnt seem to be very big here, all Ive seen of her is the key ring. In DLP there are Angel things everywhere! We had a look round the other shops and walked down to Café Mickey.
As I put in my PTR I was taking my daughter Chloe on her first trip and was so excited! We have never been away just the two of us before so I was nervous but it turns out that there was nothing to be nervous about.
Here's a picture of the two us at christmas
Our trip was from July 26th to 30th and we were staying at Hotel Santa Fe.
On Wednesday night I put Chloe to bed and finished packing. She knew we were going to DLP but she didnt know when. I had told her that when it was the time, I would be waking her up in the middle of the night and telling her that we were going. I kept going over things again and again in my head and making sure we had the right things so in the end I didnt get any sleep!
I woke Chloe up just after 3am, she was so happy. At first she just kept saying are we going now? Really? Today?
When she had properly woken up and realised she was squealing!
I took her through to my room to come and see something, I had her new suitcase and a box of presents wrapped up for her. Originally I had wanted to get a Minnie Mouse dress and put it with a letter from her but my local Disney Store haven't had her size and I've been looking constantly from January, I had been trying online too but they never had her size so I gave up and got a Belle one.
She loved her new things and had such a big smile on her face!
After looking at her new things, she put on her new Belle dress and got ready to go. I had got other things ready to travel in but she wasnt going to wear anything but that dress!
Then we went outside to wait for the taxi arriving at 5am to take us to the train station. I think she was a little bit excited!
We got the train at 5:50, Chloe did some colouring in and we had a couple of games of UNO, then she fell asleep for the final 20 minutes of the journey. We arrived at London Euston around 7:10am.
We walked around to St Pancras, we were going to find somewhere inside to grab some breakfast as Chloe didnt want anything when I woke her or on the train but we saw the McDonalds opposite and went to eat there.
We went into St Pancras, it was manic! So many people and so much security! I saw where we needed to go but I couldnt get to where you check in so I asked someone working there when we could go through and was told no earlier than 30 minutes before. I thought Id read that you can start going through up to 75 minutes before but I didnt mind waiting, at least we were there in plenty of time.
As we had some time to kill, we went to Costa and had a coffee and hot chocolate. When we were in there the people who were sat next to us asked if we had seen the Olympic torch pass through, I think they said it was at 7:15am, so that explained why it was so crazy when we got there. By the time we'd finished in Costa it was about 9am so I thought we should go over to wait by the area we needed to go through. It was much quieter now and when we got to the screens it said we could check in already. We went through and sat down.
The people sat by us let us know that we could pick up a Disneyland travel pack now so we went to get one and waited to be called! Not long after this it was time to go!
We were told to check seat numbers before going up the escalators, as I went to get the tickets out of the Disneyland packet one of the members of staff took it from me and said shed help because I had two cases, my backpack and Chloe. I understand that she was doing a nice thing but I did feel a bit like a child, I wasnt struggling at all, Chloe's case was tiny and Id managed to get there with no problems so I wasn't worried about getting on the train.
She told me where to go, so I shoved the tickets in my bag and we quickly went and got on the train, put our things away and got into our seats. We were ready to go!
We had a little problem when we got to Ashford, some people got on and they had tickets for the seats we were in, when I checked our tickets I realised the woman had looked at our seats on the return journey. Just a little bit embarrassing when there are families trying to get to their seats and we were now holding them up! The staff on the train were lovely and said there were two seats by the luggage that were free so we could sit there to save moving our luggage to another carriage. After we had moved the rest of the journey was fine.
As we were in the wrong seats, when the person came down with everyones park tickets and info I called him over and explained what had happened and he sorted our tickets and the rest of our things.
When we got off, we dropped our luggage off at the Disney Express part and off we went to the magic!
As soon as we walked out of the station the heat hit us! Wow it was hot! We took off our jackets and walked over to the Disneyland Park.
The parks were really busy today, Im not sure if this was normal for summer but on Thursday and Friday there were so many people!
We had a walk around and tried to take it all in, its so overwhelming!
I said we could do one ride then we needed to go over to the hotel to make sure that we were all sorted then we could come back.
After wondering around for a while Chloe decided that she wanted to go on POTC. The wait time was supposed to be 45 minutes but we only queued for about 30 minutes. Chloe really loved it!
As we were walking down Main Street U.S.A. look what we saw coming!
We went and got the shuttle bus back to the hotel never again in summer, it was horrible! So many angry, pushing people!
When we got there we got our room key, breakfast time cards and picked up our luggage. Our room was great, Id read poor reviews about the hotel but I found it to perfectly fine. One thing that Id read about the rooms was that they were awful because it had no air conditioning but the fan in the room was fantastic. It was so hot this day, the room was already cool but within a few minutes of the fan being on it was lovely and chilled! I took some photos of the room after Id unpacked that night so Ill add those after Cafe Mickey.
Seeing how excited Chloe was about being in the park, I decided that wed miss the parade tonight so that she could have a look at the parts that we hadn't seen yet and also go on a couple of rides if we had time.
I made my first mistake next.
When we were on the bus I couldnt really see where we were going but I kind of got it. As we went to leave what I didnt realise was that there was a bridge to cross over so that you walk along to the village at the block further down, I thought we had to walk back to the front of the hotel to get to the village. As we were walking it was very clear that this was not near the Disney Village and that we were going a different way. I just followed the signposts and hoped for the best as I really didn't want to have to walk back and start again. Id ended up dragging Chloe along the bus route back! 35 minutes later in the heat we dragged ourselves into the bus station, oops!! Chloe was not impressed with me at all!
We went back into the Disneyland Park and I took Chloe for her first go on BTM. We waited for about an hour. As I mentioned in my highs and lows Chloe was brilliant in queues! She never moaned, just waited nicely for her turn. She made me a very happy Mom! She didnt stop giggling on BTM, wed found another ride that she loved
After this we went over to Phantom Manor as there was a very small queue. She wasnt as fussed with this one but she still liked it.
As the park was still really busy, I was worried that wed be cutting it fine to get to our reservation at Café Mickey if we were in a long queue so I thought it would be best to go and have a look in the shops in the village and then head over to Café Mickey a little early. As we were leaving we saw some of the parade. We stood and waved for a few minutes and went off to the village.
We had a look around the World of Disney store, Chloe bought her presents for that day, she had some lollypops and the cuddly toy of Angel. Id got her Stitch to put in her present box and the first thing she said was could she also have Angel if they have her. Angel doesnt seem to be very big here, all Ive seen of her is the key ring. In DLP there are Angel things everywhere! We had a look round the other shops and walked down to Café Mickey.