Food!
Staying on site means breakfast is included' croissants, toast, cereals, cheese and ham, there is a wide selection for all the family. We wanted an extra special treat for 1 day on the week, so on Tuesday Morning,we will be having breakfast at Café Mickey. Café Mickey's Breakfast upgrade price (as we have breakfast included in the hotel) is £16 per adult, which for a hot breakfast and a 1-to-1 with the characters on our first morning is totally worth it. (What's better than breakfast with Mickey!).
With Kids Under 3 eating free, the meal plan is a great option for us, but which one to chose was the hard part. After a lot of thinking, we decided on the Half Board Plus plan. We chose Half Board and not Full Board for a few reasons; Firstly, we would never eat 3 full meals in a day! (and honestly wouldn't get the time either!) Secondly, All meal plans come with a 'Pause Gaurmende' (Snack) Voucher which if used wisely/at the right time can really make up another meal! and Finally Full Board us just so much more money!!
Now we knew we wanted half board, we had to choose whether to go premium, plus, standard or hotel. Hotel was straight out of the window, for me eating the same place every night seamed totally boring! Premium was great but when working out money it would only save us money if we ate in princess dining EVERY night (which of course we didn't want too!) So that left us Plus or Standard. Standard is all buffet restaurants, great for Ryan and the girls (however not my favorite!) and Plus has the option of 20 different buffets and table service restaurants.
The next step was to decide where we wanted to eat. With 60 days to go, we could book our restaurants. We decided on Auberge de Celerion (ADC Dining with the Princesses), Blue Lagoon (Sitting by the Pirates of the Caribbean Ride),Plaza Gardens and Chez Remi. (with Waltz, Restaurant des Stars, Silver Spur Steakhouse, Inventions, Café Mickey and Earl of Sandwich all came close second!). We then used these choices to price up the Menus and work out which plan (if any) would suit us best. Finally we choose the Half Board Plus plan (which also comes with the Pause Gaurmende Vouchers) and decided to top up at ADC (princess Dining- because our vouchers wont quote cover the cost).
Pause Gaurmende snack vouchers I believe can be claimed between 3-5 daily (1 per person per day) and offer a hot or cold drink and a snack such as a ice cream or donuts.
Checkout DLPGuide for lots of fantastic Information on meal plans and access to menus for meal planning too.
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| Starter at Blue Lagoon March 2015 |
Photopass vs Photopass +
The photopass is a free card given to you which you can add all your photos on during your trip, you can then go to a counter at any time and purchase any of your character and ride photos. Photopass+ works the same, except all your photos are also store onto an online account (which you can access via site or app) and you can download them and print/use as you wish.
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| Photopass+ Pirates of the Caribbean March 2015 |
When we visited in March last year, the first thing we did was went and purchased the photopass+ at £35 it was totally worth it and we got plenty of ride and character photos. This year however a large portion of the photopass rides are closed for refurbishment so at the moment it doesn't seam like a good idea for us to purchase it. I will grab a regular photopass instead and upgrade towards the end of our holiday if we have plenty of photos that we love.
The Disney site has lots of great information.
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| Photopass+ Meeting Merida March 2015 |
A Gift from Minnie
Last year we decided as an extra special treat, we would leave Kairi and Naminé a present on the end of their bed every night from Minnie Mouse. One night Kairi got a Minnie Mouse that came with clothes to dress up her, another they both got a beautiful Princess tutu and another Kairi got a Minnie Mouse buggy that she found at 3am and decided to play with for half an hour (it was so cute to see even though we were totally knackered!).
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| Minnie Left a Minnie Buggy, Complete with a Minnie Teddy! |
This year I'm hoping to do this for both the girls. I'd love for Minnie to leave Kairi a pin and a real Belle Disney dress up dress, for Naminé I'd love her to get a Minnie Buggy of her own and a real dressing up outfit too.
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| 3am Kairi found the buggy and continued to walk around the room! |
These gifts don't have to be from the parks. Planning in advance means you can grab bits from everywhere. We brought the Tutu's from a WAHM back home and took them with us, you could also get Mickey Pez, Frozen hair glitter, Princess outfits from the supermarket etc for cheap!
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| Kairi and Naminé's Princess Tutu's left by Minnie Mouse |
What are you top planning tips? Have you check our planning vlog out yet?