Disneyland Paris 2016 // What I Bought

Looking back to my 2014 DLP blog posts, it seems that I left my 'What I Bought' post to the very end of my series of posts. That is not being replicated this time around. Obviously. I have so many photos to go through and posts to write as well as them being more spaced out than my 2014/15 ones were, and this was quite an easy way to ease into the editing process. Not only that but I wanted to get some of it put away/ put into use so this post has been completed since the end of December :)

So during my Countdown to Disney mini-series of posts before our trip, I wrote a little shopping list and I am very lucky, happy and everything in between to say I managed to get 99% of the stuff I had hoped for. 

A couple of points I have to note, though: Prices have vastly increased since 2014. Like, a lot. Things I'd bought last time for one price were on average €5 more! It was craziness. Secondly, the clothing lines were very disappointing. I guess it's just fashion in general right now but I usually love everything in the Disney Fashion store, but this time it was either weirdly cut, impractical stuff or really inappropriate (non-Disney!!!) stuff like Mickey grabbing his bits and Minnie flashing her pants on the front of crews. :O Lastly, Christmas merch takes over. There is a huge decrease in choice of normal merch lines which is a bit meh. Long story short those are the reasons I only got one item of clothing (well 2 with the hat) and no homeware really.

Phew, that was a long-winded ramble eh?

As you can see I got four pins, despite not being a pin collector haha. I always get a 'year' one and a hotel one for each visit but as it was in December all the year pins were gone for 2016 with 2017 replacing them already which is just weird to me, so I settled for the Eiffel tower spinner and obviously a Sequoia Lodge one for our hotel! The other two are the Walt Disney Studios park pin as we did the tour and I wanted something to remember it by and the famous Tomorrowland pin that I have wanted since like May 2015 ;)

The rest of it speaks for itself I think and I love it all.

Oh, the last image is of Baker's gifts by the way - a new blanket, baby Dory soft toy and a new Chip and Dale mat for his bowls that he got in 2014.

That's it, for now, guys! Feel free to have a peek at my Disneyland Paris 2014 // What I Bought post and catch up with the rest of my DLP 2016 posts so far by clicking here!

Disneyland Paris 2016 // Day 1, Part 2

Following on from part 1 (give it a read before you carry on, here), after we left Frontierland, we had a dawdle over to Fantasyland to grab some lunch. This was the only day we planned to do this as, like always, we had our half board meal plan and would fill up at breakfast to last us until dinner in the evening. Obviously today we were running on very little sleep and had not eaten since the dreadful McDonalds escapade the night before - literally only chips and ice cream too - so splashed some of the spending money cash on food. I hate spending money on food.
Like everything else, where we went to eat wasn't just randomly chosen by chance but had been picked beforehand to make sure there were options for us. Mam and I had pizza. Oh, it was at Pizzeria Bella Notte by the way and I will have a separate, more in-depth review post of it at some point this year.
From there we hit up It's A Small World, for my first ride since 2010(!!) as it was closed for refurb on our previous visit. That refurb evidentially made a big difference and it was absolutely stunning!! There was no wait whatsoever and we got to walk right on, which is always awesome! I took a lot of photos too, enough probably to do a whole post just on them, so had to narrow it down significantly to share here.

I'm sure as we came out of It's a Small World, a parade had just started so we popped over to dance and cry at that (well maybe that was just me), before heading over to queue for the ever-awesome Peter Pan's Flight. Again, this has recently been refurbished and looked fantastic!! 5 days really isn't long enough for a DLP holiday as both of these we'd hoped to do again later in our trip but didn't get the chance to - hence having no photos or footage from them, boo.
Anyway, because it was winter and the sun goes to bed early, it ended up being pretty much dark when we got out of our last ride. We'd planned to head up Main Street, watch the lighting of the Christmas Tree and then get to Cape Cod restaurant at Newport Bay for our dinner reservation...which is exactly what we did. It was okay but overall I don't find the Christmas additions at Disneyland anything to write home about. The best bit was probably that my favourite song of all time was played!
Cape Cod wasn't our first choice either, however, the place we had hoped to eat ended up having earlier closing hours and as Kerri and Kris had been upgraded to NBC hotel we thought we'd give it a go. You'd think by its name it would be primarily fish but luckily there was plenty to eat and after we'd had our fill, we headed around the lake back to our hotel to retire for the night.

And that was day 1! Remember to check out the first part of this day by clicking here, feel free to follow so you don't miss the rest of my DLP 2016 posts by clicking here and tell me your go-to ride that you must do when you first get to Disneyland Paris, in the comments!