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Showing posts from April, 2012

Disneyland Paris trip: April 2012 - Day 1: Arrival

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With the 20th Anniversary upon us it only seemed right to hop over for a quick trip to Disney and see some old workmates. I booked a hotel room at the explorers for £90 a night for 2 nights and used a Hotels.com reward credit bringing the price down to £96 for 2 nights for 2 people. I used 7300 avios points from tesco clubcard to get a free 2-park 1 day ticket and finally I got a Eurostar return ticket for £66 minus a £20 Eurostar reward, so it was £46. So essentially my trip ended up costing me about £100 plus spending money - cheapest trip ever, eh? The day eventually came round and I made my way to St. Pancras. Before going through check in I went into M&S and get some crisps, a sandwich and a pasta dish. Then I went through check in, security and past the French border police. This all took maybe 3 minutes altogether. I had not booked a direct Eurostar as the prices for that were closer to £150 and I'd love to not pay that much. So I booked an indirect Eurostar via Lil

New Kings Cross Station: Review

Today I walked into the new concourse of Kings Cross Station, one month after its opening expecting shops, a wider ticket hall and a more pleasant experience. Did it live up to my expectations? Read to find out. Stepping off the Circle line platform at Kings Cross St Pancras and ready to make my way to Kings Cross station, one thing became immediately apparent: there was no new step-free access. The TfL website says that Kings Cross is used by more passengers per year than Heathrow Airport, considering that it is a major interchange with national and international trains people are lugging huge suitcases up and down stairs. This is unacceptable. There are places where a couple of escalators really are needed. Or lifts. Simply having stairs is unacceptable and some of the staircases are so wide than an escalator could easily be added. Once I'd finally walked what felt like half a mile to the new entrance of St. Pancras I encountered those slow-moving escalators that give you a f

Questions and Answers about Working for Disneyland Paris [Part 2]

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NEW : I've written a book about my 16 months spent living and working at Disneyland Paris. Download it on  Amazon . Part 2 of your questions about working at Disneyland Paris. Click here for part 1 . Part 3 is here . 20. Do you ever get to go out at night time or is there ever any parties in the apartments or anything? You do whatever you want, it's 45 minutes into the train to Paris where there are loads of clubs or if not...when you 500-600 people living in one place there are always parties going on in the residences. Especially when the big occasions come around like Christmas or New year. Apparently, during the summer there are parties every day too. 21. What language do the employees at Disney commonly speak? And where are most employees from?  Everyone speaks French backstage. Italian is very prevalent as well amongst the Italian cast members but everyone mainly speaks French. Some English too is spoken by all but it's never used as a primary form of comm

East Coast First Class Review

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Standard Class travel on East Coast trains is definitely one of the nicest forms of standard class I have experienced on long distance journeys with 15 minutes of free wifi included, a cafe-bar on board and power sockets at most seats. When you are ready to upgrade to First Class though, the level of service changes and you can expect a lot more. The first difference you will notice when stepping into first class is the different layout and generally how much quieter is it. This is perhaps due to the fact that there is usually only a few people in first class at any one time and that generally people there are more respectful than those who simply pile onto a carriage in standard class (I think this ia a fair enough comment considering I am in standard class 95% of the time). The rows are 2 by 1 seats, instead of 2 by 2 seats, meaning there are only 3 seats per row and each seat is substantially wider. The seats also slide downwards to give the effect of leaning back slightly b