Disney Dream Girls 073 - An American in Paris

Welcome to the show notes for the Disney Dream Girls podcast, show number 073.

Coming up on todays show, listener John Kretzu talks about his trip to Disneyland Paris and enthuses about its beauty, the attractions and the many Christmas offerings. 
 

Sleeping Beauty Castle Photo Credit Disneyland Paris Website

John firstly, gave an overview of his Disney history and how from being a small child his family made frequent trips to the original Disneyland. To this day, he is an annual passholder. However, he wanted to explore Disneyland in Paris...

Nightime Photo Credit Disneyland Paris Website

Some of the top things he recommeds:

• Sleeping Beauty Castle  
• Mickey's Winter Wonderland stage show 
• The tree lighting show 

Photo Credits - Disneyland Paris Website

Thank you for listening. We will be releasing our next show on 6th December 2015.

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Show 57 - Symphonies, Weddings and Listener Assistance

Welcome to the show notes to accompany our podcast, number 57, for 9^th August 2015. Coming up in this episode:

• We share news of the silly symphony release
• Open our listener mailbag to discuss WDW favourites
• Plan a virtual Disney wedding
• Talk about how we see the podcast growing and how you can help 

As always, you can find our podcast via iTunes, Stitcher Radio and all the other podcast catching places or your could simply listen by clicking on the icon below.

Silly Symphony Collection

We were approached by the team behind the exciting project to share the news about this projects pre-order date. Boy were we excited to do so! So we recommend you watch this eight minute youtube clip (Silly Symphony Clip) that will tell you everything you need to know about the project. 

So you will now know, it is a 16-record set containing the audio from the Silly Symphonies. It will become available for pre-order at D23 and then on their website from 17th August 2015. Exciting stuff! So our competition. We asked for your to email us the names of the very first and the last Silly Symphonies to info@disneydreamgirls.com and we will put all the correct names in a hat and draw the lucky winners name out. The prize is one of the limited edition publicity postcards, which are only selectively being given out at D23. Also we will pop in some other swag that we collect during the expo. 

Favourites

A listener, Christa from Germany, emailed us to ask about our own personal Disney favourites as well as to help with a date night. Well we love giving out our advice! So to hear what we advise, listen to the show!

Disney Weddings

It has been reported in the San Francisco magazine that a couple recently (and secretly) married on Disney property. Whilst we don't officially agree with any rule breaking, wouldn't it be fun to dream up your own imaginary Disney wedding? We discuss what we would do and invite you to email us your ideas for sharing on a future show. 

Changes to the Podcast

Over the past few months we have been trialling being a weekly show by adding a news show. So firstly, we wondered what you thought about this? Secondly, the show is growing! We have added the wonderful Sarah Woloski, from Skywalking Through Neverland, and Jeanie Gallo, of the Princess Papers, to the show. Both these wonderful ladies enable us to have a presence in both theme parks: Sarah being a Disneylander and Jeanie now resident near to Walt Disney World. This means more content direct from the parks and also we are wanting to have more give aways and create more DDG products, other than buttons. 

There are lots of ways we can achieve this. On the show we discuss these options in more detail. However, we want to stress, the podcast will be available free of charge via the same methods regardless of what we do. Here are the options:

1. Attract sponsorship
2. Continue to self fund 
3. Investigate using Patreon

So firstly, sponsorship. Lets be honest who watches adverts on TV? I personally forward wind them and its the same when I listen to a podcast - I speed that section up. Also with us being UK based and the majority of our listeners being in the USA, it gets complicated. Also we pride ourselves in being able to freely express our views so we can reflect on Disney services without fear of alienating a sponsor. So we do not think this is the right route. 

Second option, we could stay as we are and fund the show on our own. Sure, we can continue doing this. So far we pay for our own fees to have the show available, artwork, buttons and giveaways but the costs are rising and there comes a point it isn't realistic to do so.

Third option, Patreon. Many other podcasters are turning to these services. Listeners visit a secure website and set up a monthly payment, which in turn goes to our account. It is not a lifetime commitment and can be cancelled as and when. We view it as a way of our listeners giving us a financial 'tip' if they have enjoyed the show - like you would for good barista service at a coffee house. We do not see it as compulsory, a massive financial commitment or permanent. So if you subscribe to our show and want to throw in a dollar or so a month, you will have our eternal thanks. If every listener paid a $1 it would make a massive difference  and we would then use this to improve the show as outlined above but also buy additional recording and editing equipment.

We do not, and again we want to stress this, want to make anyone feel compelled to donate via Patreon, we haven't as yet even set it up. We would, at this stage, value your input. So please, send us your thoughts to info@disneydreamgirls.com or comment on this blog post. 

We will be back on August 9th with another set of notes to support the podcast. 

Show 41 - A Disney Gem?

Disney Dreams night-time show

So do you want to make a trip to Disneyland Paris? Or are you just curious? Then our podcast, show 41, is a must listen for you. This show will be released Sunday 19th April 2015, so make sure you subscribe via iTunes to ensure you do not miss it!

On the show, land by land, we discuss some of the most loved items in the parks in Paris, as well as discussing whether it is possible to visit without staying in a Disney hotel! But read on and enjoy some of the stunning scenes but for more pictures and video, please remember to visit our Facebook page by simply searching for Disney Dream Girls.

Meet and greet adjacent to Casey's Corner, Main Street USA

My Method of Visiting

• Flying from the UK to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport 
• Used TGV train to travel from the airport to Disneyland (arrives by bag check for the park!)
• Stayed off site hotel in Bussy St Georges
• Travelled from Disneyland to hotel via RER train system
• Bought Fantasy Annual Pass (mid level) for approx £121 (including 10% discount from buying via an existing pass holder)
• Total cost including hotel, flight and annual pass £370

Disneyland Hotel

Disneyland Park

Entrance to the park is via the stunning Disneyland hotel, which has fountains and the traditional Mickey floral in front. Then it is through the turnstiles for park entry.

View towards the station

Then you enter a large plaza area, with the train station ahead of you, as you can see in the picture, the train is not as visible as it is in the USA parks. Once through this area, you will recognise buildings such as City Hall but the main focal point is the castle. 

 

By the way, a down point was that I never rode any of the Main Street vehicles - so I have to go back!

View from train station

The castle surely must be judged as the most fantasy based castle and it is truly stunning. Another plus about the castle, is that you can go inside the dungeon and visit the dragon or climb up to the first floor, where there's stained glass windows depicting the sleeping beauty story. However, the cherry on the cake is the ability to walk outside on the balcony! We have put a short video on our Facebook page, so make sure you take a look! 

Main Street Selfie

Due to the castles size, you have to be quite a long way down Main Street to grab a selfie with it in the background but I don't think I have done too bad here - what do you think? Even from this point, the night-time show, Dreams, can be viewed. However, I recommend being nearer.

To give you an idea of time required to tour the park, I spent one and a half days in this park but I did not get to do everything, so perhaps two days would be the ideal if you visit opening till closing or maybe creep into a third day.

Walt Disney Studios

Standing proudly, Walt and Mickey greets visitors to the park. I spent around two half days here and ideally I needed another half day to make sure I hit everything. What I really loved about this park, were the two unique attractions that were both based in Toon Studios. Queues for these got very long, so I would suggest visiting first.

The theming was amazing, as the photo shows. I felt very lucky to have ridden Ratatouille attraction five times and even better the attraction had a power failure so I got to take some fabulous behind the scenes pictures, which I will share at a later point!

Like all good things, my trip had to come to an end... to find out the lowlights and highlights, subscribe to our podcast by clicking here for our iTunes page.

All photos property of M Young.