Katrina
Welcome back to my monthly blog on Fuzzable, and my final one for 2018! It’s bizarre – the year has flown by yet it also feels as if it’s lasted forever as anything before the summer for me feels as if it happened a hundred years ago.
I’ve spent a while thinking about how I can finish my blog for the year, and whilst a round up of the year/hopes for 2019 seems like the most common sense approach, 2018 hasn’t been a great year for me. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve experienced some wonderful things, such as going to New York, Los Angeles, and Disneyland Paris, and interviewing some great people for CelebMix, however, on a personal level it’s been one of the most difficult years in recent memory for numerous reasons.
As I want to end this year’s blog on a high, I’m going to skip over the difficulties of 2018 (and leave my hopes for 2019 until January when I’ll hopefully feel a little more positive about the year ahead) and instead follow up on my November blog post.
Last month I shared my Disneyland Paris wish list ahead of my trip, so I thought it would be nice to recap what was on my list and whether or not I managed to tick anything off my to-do list.
Meet Marie whilst wearing my Marie ears
It’s no secret that Marie is my all time favourite Disney character so I made sure to visit her on both days during our visit to the park. My photos from the first day are gross (bad me day, which was not helped by the drizzling rain) but I love my photos from day two, complete with my Marie ears which went down a treat.
Meet a Disney Princess
We attempted the Princess Pavilion during Extra Magic Hours on day one, but with an hour waiting time to see Cinderella, I decided to give it a miss in order to try and tick a bunch of other things off my list. On the second morning, we went back to the pavilion to see which princess was there and to my delight it was Snow White, my favourite.
Armed with my Snow White inspired ears, we queued for just over an hour to meet her and it was worth every minute. Prior to this meet, I’d never met a character at DLP who you could physically talk to, but the interaction with Snow White was perfect in every way.
Meet as many characters as possible
We did our best to go all in on character meets this time round. On day one we met Marie, Scrooge McDuck and Woody (in between squeezing in as many rides as possible), whilst we met Mickey, Daisy, Scrooge McDuck, Eeyore and Tigger at the character breakfast, and Snow White, Marie, Goofy, and Minnie around the parks on day two.
Ride the family friendly rides I missed last time
We missed out on a lot of rides last time as I was so focused on going on the high adrenaline rollercoasters. With just mum in tow this time round, it was nice to see parts of the park we didn’t get round to last time and to ride some of the family friendly rides.
Having done some research before hand, I knew that Buzz Lightyear’s Laser Blast normally has quite a long wait time, so I made it our mission to go on that during Extra Magic Hours on day one. A combination of it being not so busy in the parks and our new found love for the ride meant that we managed five times on it over two days. Sadly, mum won three out of five games, but I gave it my best shot.
We managed to tick off Peter Pan’s Flight and It’s a Small World early on in day one, and they were both wonderful. We also went on the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ride, and gave Pirates of the Caribbean and Studio Tour another go. Despite a generally longer queue, we also managed to go on the Ratatouille ride on both days – it was such a fantastic ride!
Ride the Rock ‘N’ Rollercoaster on my own
I LOVE the Rock ‘N’ Rollercoaster and decided to brave it on my own before it gets its Marvel overhaul next year. I felt a bit awkward queuing by myself but it was good practice for going to Orlando in October as I’m determined not to miss out on any of the rides. The ride was just as adrenaline pumping as I remembered but thankfully my head wasn’t constantly bashing against the head rest this time.
I also gave Crush’s Coaster a go on my own and I don’t know how I feel about it. Last year the queues were enormous so we didn’t bother – this time around, at best the wait time was 40 minutes however, luckily it was only 20 for single riders so I decided to go on it. I swear it’s a family coaster but I genuinely thought it was scarier than any other rollercoaster in the park and I’m putting this down to the kind of safety restraint they used.
Watch a show
I didn’t think we were going to squeeze in a show but after a hectic morning and afternoon during day one, we needed a sit down and to warm up/dry out a little so we went to watch the new Christmas show, Merry Jolly Jingles (or Noel Ding Dang Dong, which is arguably the better name). I didn’t think much of the show as it all felt a bit random and I find Olaf irritating, but thankfully Donald Duck was the show’s saving grace. Fans of Frozen and general silliness would definitely enjoy it though.
Grab a perfect picture with Sleeping Beauty’s Castle
I took SO many pictures with the castle, because why the hell not?! Sadly our photos on the first day were a bit meh as it was raining and we looked more like drowned rats than princesses, but the second day was much better. We captured a picture before having our character breakfast whilst the park was near-on empty and also took a load of photos in the sunshine later on. I love the photos below so much – just a prinny chilling in front of her castle.
Visit the dragon under the castle
We missed this last time we went but it was definitely worth going to see. You had to wait a while for the dragon to wake up but it looked quite realistic once it came to life.
Drink a Glowtini
After a 16+ coach journey to DLP, we began our trip with a Glowtini at the bar in Hotel Cheyenne. In all honesty, I didn’t enjoy the particular cocktail that I had but it was Instagram worthy, and sometimes you just need a little glow in your life.
Despite being exhausted from the lengthy coach trip to get there, I made the most of every second during the two days I spent at DLP. I was determined to fit in as much as physically possible and I’m so happy that I managed to tick off everything I wanted to do on my wish list. Like I said at the beginning of my blog, 2018 has been a testing year but my DLP trip definitely brought some magic into my life.
Hope you have a lovely Christmas and New Year, see you in 2019 for more blogs!
