Aladdin Westend Musical London

It's been three years since Aladdin musical came to London West End. And we went to see it on the second day because we couldn't get the tickets for the premier day, however we decided to go to see the musical again after all this time

After all we have seen The lion king musical three or four times, I can't keep count anymore. And since I love Disney and we managed to find great offer for the musical we booked our tickets for last Monday. We got a front row seats in the middle of the theatre, which was great! 

We had a clear view no ones head in front of you and you actually felt like they were at your home just for the reason that the actors were so close to you and great view

Unfortunately, like all of the musicals and theater shows, it is prohibited to take any pictures or video of the show. However I really enjoyed it, it was almost like the movie, some parts has changed little bit but it wasn't disturbing, since the changes are minimal and it's been produced very well

The most beautiful parts of the musical is when Aladdin and Jasmine are flying on the magic carpet while the orchestra is playing "A whole new world" - song. The moment is magical, the way how they have made the sky full of stars and that you really cannot see how the magic carpet is flying.
But I also love the way how all of the costumes are made, they are full of rhinestones and while the actors are dancing the entire stage is dazzling

After all the musical is great and definitely if I will have a chance to see it one more time or maybe even fourth time I would definitely go. And if you have any chance to get first row seat I highly recommend to do so. You get the feeling like the actors are actually dancing to you. And like always I wanted to get some souvenirs to bring back home. First time when we went to see the musical I bought a key ring so this time we took an ornament for out Disney christmas tree and Aladdin pin

- Tiia 

In The West End Summer Pop-Up

There are two Disney musicals currently showing here in Londons West End. I have seen both Aladdin and The Lion King musical, The lion king is my favourite one, I could go to see it again so many times!

But if there are any Disney fans in London or anyone who is coming to London and wants to see the musicals,  I really do recommend both of them and still for this weekend if you are visiting London, head to Covent Garden and go to see In the West End- pop up store! 

I posted some photos of the even on Instagram but if you haven't had time to see it there, here is little but more detailed the event

When you walk in to the pop up store you are able to see few of the dancers costumes, Mufasa, Rafiki, Zazu, Zeebra and head pieces of Lioness and Simba from The lion King musical which was the biggest part of the pop up shop

From Disney's Aladdin musical there was a smaller section of the store, but the most fun part was that you were actually able to take 4 photos with Genies lamp in the treasure cave and they even printed them out for you 

There were also two costumes from Aladdin, Sultans dress and another dress from the musical, but pardon me, unfortunately I can't remember whose dress it was

When we entered to the store they had at 11am starting small tour of the costumes and dresses. The cast members explained small details of each costumes which some were actually surprising!

What I learned about the tour is that Each of the Lion king head pieces are not made of wood, they are just hand painted to seem like they are made out of oak or some similar kind of wood, but of course that would be too heavy material for the dancers to wear while dancing. But the headpieces are looking amazing with the details they have and also what I learned was that each of the headpieces are repainted after each show just a little bit to make sure it is as good as new and they are completely replaced each year since adding the paint makes them heavier

A little note from Aladdin, sultans dress is full of hand sewed crystals and there are over 1400 crystals in the costumes and if any of them falls during the show it is sewed straight back in after the scene. 

If you have any questions related to these two musicals and you decided to go to see the store, feel free to ask, they have such amazing knowledge


They are arranging different program each day and also at the end of the day there is one little bit more special event happening, and the cast members said that the last one is the most popular and it is recommended to arrive about 30mins before scheduled starting time

After you have seen everything they also have arranged Genie lamp hunt, you need to find 4 different Genie magic lamps around Covent Garden Market place and you'll bring your note of the word you find letters from those lamps and you'll receive a small gift 

Which musical, Aladdin or The lion King do you like more? 

- Tiia

Disneyland Paris 365 days a Year

Have you been dreaming of going to Disney 365 days a year? I have and I still am dreaming about it but dreaming is nearly over. I am currently saving money for infinity annual pass for Disneyland Paris

Unfortunately our holiday plans are excluding Walt Disney World trips for next year maybe even one year after but there is a solution for this problem, annual pass to Dlp. As if you have seen my very first post on this blog was my first impression of Disneyland Paris and that was the trip to go to check if it is worth of having the annual pass there and yes for me everything related to Disney is worth of money

When planning to buy the annual pass for Disneyland Paris there are few things to concider before buing it

Number one is which AP to buy, Discovery, Magic flex, Magic plus or Infinity

It all depends on you, do you want that there are no bloc out dates on your pass or necessary you don't need that many days to go to Disney and you find that Discovery pass is the most suitable pass for you.
Discovery pass is the one that has the least amount of benefits and Infinity pass has the most of the benefits. Infinity pass includes for an example priority seats on the special section for parades and illuminations firework shows, but these ones has to be preordered before hand.

Discovery and Magic flex has much fewer days to go into the parks and these passes do not give you any discounts when shopping or going for a character dinning. But if you are happy to be able to just enter to the parks during the days it is allowing you, these two passes are great for this reason. I wouldn't spend more on the pass if you have a feeling you wouldn't be using all of the benefits each pass is offering you.

Where to buy AP

There are few different ways of buing the annual pass. You can either go on the UK website of Disneyland Paris and print out the application form and send it by mail back to Disney or you can practise your french skills and go on the french website of Disneyland Paris and fill up the online form which is in French but you can make friends with Google translate and it’s easy to do, this way you don’t need to send the application form by mail.

However there is to keep in mind if you apply the pass in advance online the pass will be dated when you send the application form and to reach UK it will take approximately 10 days, but on the website it has been stated that it is possible that it may take up to 6 weeks to arrive. But whenever you have received the annual pass you can make AP discounted reservations straight away, depending which discounts you are entitled to have with your AP.

If you are not a fan of ordering the pass online it is possible to purchase the AP from the ticket offices at Disneyland Paris. The process is quite simple and not consuming too much time. You tell the CM at the ticket office that you would like to buy annual pass and they will process it and give you a pass to enter to the park which needs to be changed to the annual pass during the same day.
When you go to annual pass office inside the park, all you need to have is an ID with you and in case you want to pay with monthly instalments they will take your direct debit details, and they will also take your photo at the annual pass office.

In case you are looking for a 10% discount for your annual pass price, look for a sponsor. This isactually very easy thing. At first I was wondering that it is not easy and difficult to find a sposors and since you may not know your sponsor it could be strange to ‘interrupt’ someones magical day. However I put more time into looking more information for annual pass sponsors and I actually learned it will be quite easy and people are actually looking forward to sponsor people since also the sponsor will gain benefits of sponsoring new passholders.

One of the easiest way is to go on facebook and join to Disneyland Paris annual pass group. And ask in case someone is there at the same time with you and you will find someone to sponsor you for sure. You can also try different groups (where it is allowed) but this is the group I’ve got so much information and I find it very helpful for any kind of questions regarding to annual pass for Disneyland Paris

These are the most important things to consider when buying Annual pass to Disneyland Paris, but if you have some more information I haven't mentioned, feel free to let me know in the comment section!

-Tiia 

Top 3 Disney Clothing

I am a girl who doesn't like shopping, expect Disney shopping. Therefore I am terrible person when it comes to clothing shopping. I literally buy clothes whenever I get a hole into my shirt or my jeans are about to brake, this is  who I am

However recently I have become more conscious of cloth shopping, okei, let's be specific, Disney clothing shopping. As you can see everything I love to do is somehow related to Disney. In this post I will present my favourite Disney clothes I am wearing all the time now, if you have seen some of my Instagram stories you might have noticed for sure these clothes on me more than once or twice, I'm sure of it.

So let's start with the Mickey Mouse Dungaree skirt from Forever 21. If you have gone through any Disney related instagram post, I'm sure you have seen at least once somewhere. The black Dungaree dress and on the chest level there is a huge Mickey's head without his ears though.
In that minute when the dress arrived I had to wear it, it is my absolute number one dress at the moment. Also the weather has been amazing in the UK, well at least in London since the weekend, it is the perfect dress to wear and you don't even need to cover your upper body and Mickey with a hoodie.
I'm really recommending you to get your hands to this dress if you have even the slightest chance, I'm positive that you won't regret your choice!

The second piece of clothing is another Dungaree, but it is with shorts not with a skirt. This I bought from Primark couple months ago. At first I wasn't in love with it, but somehow I had a feeling that I just cannot leave it to the store, if I would do that next time I would die to get it and it would be sold out. So I bought the dungaree and now I'm trying to decide which dungaree dress to wear since there is no chance to wear both of them at the same time, hard life choices. What I love about Primark is that they do so many different kind of Disney clothing and such a cheap price! If you don't mind to shop outside of Disney Store, head to Primark in case you have one in your country

The last, but not least of my favourite Disney clothing is another item from Primark. It is colourful striped Mickey shirt and it says Mickey Mouse and next to that there is a small Mickeys head printed.  One fun fact that also makes me to love shop in Primark is that whenever you buy Disney clothing most of the time on the shirt there is a disney character tag on the clothing. When I bought my Stitch shirts from there I got different Stitch tags with the shirts and the Mickey shirts has it's own Mickey tags

These are my current favourite Disney clothes but I can't promise for how long the top 3 will stay like this. From Disneyland Paris I bought a gorgeous maxi dress which has Mickeys head shilouttes all over the dress but I haven't had a time to wear it yet, so that's why it's not (yet) on my top 3 list

What is your favourite place to shop Disney clothing? And what is your favourite clothing at this moment?

-Tiia

Disneyland Paris - My First Impression

I will start my Blog with this post about Disneyland Paris. It's been exactly one week when we came back from our short trip to Disneyland Paris for my birthday.
Everything what I write on  this post is my own and honest opinion about the park and it will only be about Disneyland Paris park, not Walt Disney studios, since we didn't have time to there too

Like Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney world in Florida, I get shivers and I'm nearly tearing up when we are about to pass that tiny corner of Main street USA before seeing the castle in the middle of the park, and this is the most exiting part for me when I'm entering to the parks. The castle is the centre piece of the parks and both Paris and Orlando has stunning castles, I love both of them.

I was stunned to see the castle and it's surroundings, and yes this is the time we spent a lots of time. Since we entered to the park straight when it opened we had good time to have pictures with the castle with less crowds. Who doesn't love to have these pictures to post on facebook and Instagram?
And one good tip is to have beautiful pictures with the castle is to stay little after the Illuminations fire work show and wait that most of the people has rushed away, the cast members are not kicking you out of the park straight away!

I will go for the cons and pros what I found in the park, I do not have experience from anywhere else than in Walt Disney world, so I am comparing these two parks and how I find them myself.

Let's start with the positive aspect of the park,
What I loved more than anything in Disneyland Paris, that it is way more relaxing to have a trip there than in Magic Kingdom. Of course you could do dining reservations in the parks in Paris too and it is encouraged in case you want to try their character meals and other sit down restaurant. But we only ate on the go since we were in the park only for one day because we couldn't get more time off from work and we had to travel back to UK on the next day.

The fastness system is for everyone, you don't need to be planning the fast passes 60 or 30 days before and worry that you might not get the fastpass you were hoping for. In Paris you go to the ride that offers fastpass service and you just need to scan the ticket in order to get this fastpass ticket and it is telling you your fastpass entrance time. Just to keep in mind that fastpasses are more likely to run out on the most popular rides and there are way less options for the rides that offer this service than Magic Kingdom.

Another good side of DPL is that there are more characters that are 'rare' in WDW. For an example we had a great time with Jafar and had pictures taken with him and I know Jafar and Genie are characters that you are able to find in WDW only on a certain occasion. And on a normal day you are able to find Pinocchio, the mice of Cinderella, Suzy, Mary and Perla

And now let's move for the cons of Disneyland Paris

First that was quite a bit of disappointment in the park was the lack of Mickey shaped food and disney style foods. What I found strange is that the park sold Magnum ice cream bars instead of Mickey ice cream bars, which probably they would sell even more, since all we know that mickey ice cream bars makes great pictures ! And I love Disney for its food, I love to have everything Mickey shaped, it just makes the food taste better.

Another thing is that Dlp is missing a bit of Magic in the park, when we went to the park we realised that we felt like going to a regular amusement park where is Disney around. The cast member are way more polite and more magical in WDW. For an example Peter Pan's flight is not the same in case you don't get your pixie dust spread on your flying boat before the departure. And we actually encountered with cast members that didn't even say hi, when you wanted to purchase something, this is something what hasn't happened to us before in Disney. But not to forget those amazing cast members that were so helpful and kind to us.

And my last con is not really a con, it is the way it is in every Disney Park that is not located in English speaking country. So the songs of Disney were sung in French, like I said I can understand it, since it is in France, but I am so used to the songs in English and for me it sounds way too weird to hear the little mermaid songs in french. But that is something that I just need to get used to it when keep going in Disneyland Paris

Overall we had a blast in Dlp and yes we are going again there and after our next trip to Orlando we are about to buy the annual passes to Disneyland Paris. Yet to remember we had only one day in the Park and one morning in Disney Village and it was definitely not time enough. There is a chance that we just had some bad luck with the cast members and next time when we go we're gonna have better encounter with them

How do you find Disneyland Paris?

- Tiia