Plaid Princess
Recovering CM, Pilot in Training
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2008
Good morning (or afternoon, evening, or night depending on your timezone!) fellow DIS'ers!
Thought I'd give a shot at completing a Trip Report, since everyone else's were so helpful in planning this trip!
For those that like to just read the report, and skip the comments, I'll link the report posts here:
Disneyland Paris Part 1
Disneyland Paris Part 2
Disney Studios Paris & Travel to Barcelona
Barcelona Day 1
Girona and Teatre-Museu Dalí
Embarkation Day
First 3 Sea Days
Ponta Delgada
3 More Days at Sea
The Plan: 2 Days at Disneyland Paris, 2 Days in Barcelona, 11 Nights on the Disney Magic!
The Players:
Me: Airline employee, Disneyland lover, and travel enthusiast.
DH: Disney designer, and lover of all things Salvador Dali.
We met while working at the Magic Kingdom and got married at Disney's Wedding Pavilion, before relocating back to the West Coast, where we currently live in Long Beach, CA.
I had foolishly signed up for the Disneyland Half Marathon taking place the weekend prior to our departure. It was a lot of fun, but really ate into my packing schedule. Live and learn.
Despite the marathon, we managed to get everything organized and packed. We had planned to take one checked bag and one carryon each, and we packed all our items for the cruise in the larger bags. The goal was to only open the carryon bags while we were on our pre-cruise travels, rather than having 4 bags worth of stuff all over our hotel rooms. That meant that we needed to keep the weight of the bags down to the strictest limit (For our Ryanair flight).
So after weighing and re-weighing our bags, we loaded up the car to head for the airport. We had booked a round trip flight to JFK, since the cruise was ending in New York, and we planned to connect to Paris on Air France. Our flight was at 7:30, and we left the house at 5:30, planning to arrive nice and early for our flight.
Unfortunately, we had the bad luck of getting caught right behind an accident, and ended up running too close for comfort. In order to avoid missing the checked bag cutoff, we opted to check our bags in at curbside before parking the car. We both tried not to panic as we rode the shuttle from the parking lot, and of course this was a time when we got a shuttle driver who made the loop at about 15mph.
Fortunately luck was finally on our side, and not only was there no line at security, but we both had TSA Pre-check. We breezed through the checkpoint in about 3 minutes, and hurried to our gate. There were just a couple of minutes until they closed the door, and we just made it!
We settled into our seats, congratulated each other on actually making the flight, and ordered some breakfast (since we ended up not having enough time to eat at the airport). We even managed to nap a bit on the flight!
Once we got to JFK we had just about 3 hours to make our way over to Air France, so we picked up our bags at baggage claim to head for the air train. I then discovered that one of the wheels on my suitcase had snapped completely off. The bag is a spinner, so fortunately I could still pull it on two wheels, but it was a bummer as it had stickers from all the trips I had taken with it.
Once we made our way over to Air France, and checked in our bags, we had some pizza for dinner and headed to our gate. This was my first flight on an A380 and DH's first double decker aircraft, so we were pretty excited to board. The aircraft was beautiful, but I was a bit disappointed that they seemed to have repurposed seats from older equipment into the new airbus, because everything was quite dated.
But still, we were quite comfortable with an aisle and middle seat, and a quiet window seat occupant. The only real problem was there was a family of about 7 who had booked their seats on some kind of bargain site and ended up spread out all over the cabin. They kept trying to bully people into moving so they could sit together, and at one point one of the teens demanded that I plug her phone into my seat because she was using her USB port to charge her iPad.
We slept a decent chunk of the flight, and arrived at CDG feeling mostly human, which was good because we planned to hit the ground running! We cleared Customs and Immigration without issue, and only a bit of a wait, and headed for our shuttle. I had pre-booked the Magical Shuttle, and we waited about 15 minutes for a shuttle to arrive. It was quite easy to find the shuttle stop, and I had just enough time to grab some cash so we had a few Euros.
After about an hour, we pulled up in front of the Disneyland Hotel! We were very excited, as this was our first trip to DLP we had decided to spurge on the main hotel. Since it was only about 10:30 in the morning, we were pleasantly surprised that there was a room ready for us! We were thrilled to have the opportunity to freshen up and change before hitting the parks!
We had booked a standard room, and followed the map past the lounge to our room overlooking the pool. I was pleased with the decor, and our bags were quickly delivered by bell services. I like that they screen all the bags and people at the hotel entrance, so we didn't have to queue up for a security check for the rest of our stay.
We ended up with a room with two double beds, so DH jokingly pointed out that we'd be sleeping I Love Lucy style (Some math for you: 6' 8" person + 6' 2" person = we do not fit in one double bed ).
I loved all the detail in the room!
And I would LOVE to track down those star sconce lights from the bathroom!
And if the armoire had fit in my suitcase, it would no longer be in the hotel room.
Up next: Disneyland Paris!
Thought I'd give a shot at completing a Trip Report, since everyone else's were so helpful in planning this trip!
For those that like to just read the report, and skip the comments, I'll link the report posts here:
Disneyland Paris Part 1
Disneyland Paris Part 2
Disney Studios Paris & Travel to Barcelona
Barcelona Day 1
Girona and Teatre-Museu Dalí
Embarkation Day
First 3 Sea Days
Ponta Delgada
3 More Days at Sea
The Plan: 2 Days at Disneyland Paris, 2 Days in Barcelona, 11 Nights on the Disney Magic!
The Players:
Me: Airline employee, Disneyland lover, and travel enthusiast.
DH: Disney designer, and lover of all things Salvador Dali.
We met while working at the Magic Kingdom and got married at Disney's Wedding Pavilion, before relocating back to the West Coast, where we currently live in Long Beach, CA.
I had foolishly signed up for the Disneyland Half Marathon taking place the weekend prior to our departure. It was a lot of fun, but really ate into my packing schedule. Live and learn.
Despite the marathon, we managed to get everything organized and packed. We had planned to take one checked bag and one carryon each, and we packed all our items for the cruise in the larger bags. The goal was to only open the carryon bags while we were on our pre-cruise travels, rather than having 4 bags worth of stuff all over our hotel rooms. That meant that we needed to keep the weight of the bags down to the strictest limit (For our Ryanair flight).
So after weighing and re-weighing our bags, we loaded up the car to head for the airport. We had booked a round trip flight to JFK, since the cruise was ending in New York, and we planned to connect to Paris on Air France. Our flight was at 7:30, and we left the house at 5:30, planning to arrive nice and early for our flight.
Unfortunately, we had the bad luck of getting caught right behind an accident, and ended up running too close for comfort. In order to avoid missing the checked bag cutoff, we opted to check our bags in at curbside before parking the car. We both tried not to panic as we rode the shuttle from the parking lot, and of course this was a time when we got a shuttle driver who made the loop at about 15mph.
Fortunately luck was finally on our side, and not only was there no line at security, but we both had TSA Pre-check. We breezed through the checkpoint in about 3 minutes, and hurried to our gate. There were just a couple of minutes until they closed the door, and we just made it!
We settled into our seats, congratulated each other on actually making the flight, and ordered some breakfast (since we ended up not having enough time to eat at the airport). We even managed to nap a bit on the flight!
Once we got to JFK we had just about 3 hours to make our way over to Air France, so we picked up our bags at baggage claim to head for the air train. I then discovered that one of the wheels on my suitcase had snapped completely off. The bag is a spinner, so fortunately I could still pull it on two wheels, but it was a bummer as it had stickers from all the trips I had taken with it.
Once we made our way over to Air France, and checked in our bags, we had some pizza for dinner and headed to our gate. This was my first flight on an A380 and DH's first double decker aircraft, so we were pretty excited to board. The aircraft was beautiful, but I was a bit disappointed that they seemed to have repurposed seats from older equipment into the new airbus, because everything was quite dated.
But still, we were quite comfortable with an aisle and middle seat, and a quiet window seat occupant. The only real problem was there was a family of about 7 who had booked their seats on some kind of bargain site and ended up spread out all over the cabin. They kept trying to bully people into moving so they could sit together, and at one point one of the teens demanded that I plug her phone into my seat because she was using her USB port to charge her iPad.
We slept a decent chunk of the flight, and arrived at CDG feeling mostly human, which was good because we planned to hit the ground running! We cleared Customs and Immigration without issue, and only a bit of a wait, and headed for our shuttle. I had pre-booked the Magical Shuttle, and we waited about 15 minutes for a shuttle to arrive. It was quite easy to find the shuttle stop, and I had just enough time to grab some cash so we had a few Euros.
After about an hour, we pulled up in front of the Disneyland Hotel! We were very excited, as this was our first trip to DLP we had decided to spurge on the main hotel. Since it was only about 10:30 in the morning, we were pleasantly surprised that there was a room ready for us! We were thrilled to have the opportunity to freshen up and change before hitting the parks!
We had booked a standard room, and followed the map past the lounge to our room overlooking the pool. I was pleased with the decor, and our bags were quickly delivered by bell services. I like that they screen all the bags and people at the hotel entrance, so we didn't have to queue up for a security check for the rest of our stay.
We ended up with a room with two double beds, so DH jokingly pointed out that we'd be sleeping I Love Lucy style (Some math for you: 6' 8" person + 6' 2" person = we do not fit in one double bed ).
I loved all the detail in the room!
And I would LOVE to track down those star sconce lights from the bathroom!
And if the armoire had fit in my suitcase, it would no longer be in the hotel room.
Up next: Disneyland Paris!
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