Well it was a busy Feb and we had a great trip to Disneyland Paris!  We are currently working on pictures from the trip (as well as catching up on older pictures) and more pictures should be showing up on our flickr accounts (and here) almost daily :D

Some of the character highlights of our trip:

On Valentines Day DLP had some special characters out.  The big highlights were Bernard and Bianca from the Rescuers, Gus and Jaq from Cinderella, and Quasimodo and Esmeralda from Hunchback!  Apparently Bernard and Bianca flew in from Tokyo just for the day... how awesome is that?!?!  Unfortunately, there must have been some problem because they were supposed to be out 3 times for meet and greets but only actually came out once! Luckily for us we found out about them from a new friend we made while there (Thanks Rob!) so we were of course waiting for them for their first set and were able to meet them.  In addition to the meet and greets all these characters were in a special pre-parade for the day. 

In addition to the special characters, there were several other special meet and greets.  In the morning Mickey and Minnie were at the Disneyland Hotel in prince and princess outfits.  In the late morning/early afternoon Mickey and Minnie were out in Fantasyland in Valentines Day outfits.  In the afternoon at the Disneyland Hotel Belle and the Beast were out and they were in their ball outfits.  It also looks like some of the other hotels had special meet and greets for the day.

We are really glad we were there for Valentines day and got to meet a bunch of characters we had never met before and are hoping to be there next year again if they do something similar!

Other than Valentines day things were pretty "normal" character wise for Disneyland Paris... which is FAR different than normal for the US parks... there is definitely a lot more randomness in DLP which is great; however, at this point we have met most of the characters that are out frequently.  That isn't to say we didn't meet other characters or there wasn't anything new.  We met a few characters in places we have never seen them before and also saw some out in outfits we had never seen before... and even if we have met a character lots of times it is always great meeting (and getting pictures of them) again! 

One nice (well sorta nice...) change they had made since our last trip involved the characters from Star 'n' Cars.  When we were there in Oct most days a lot of the Stars 'n' Cars characters (but not all... for example most of the face characters were never there) were out meeting people near It's a Small World in the early afternoon.  It was a bit strange as the show/parade is in WDS and some of the outfits are more "Hollywood" for the show so it isn't a perfect fit for Fantasyland... but we were very happy to get to meet them in their Stars 'n' Cars outfits so we weren't going to complain :P  Well, now it seems like they have decided to move this meet and greet over to WDS... which makes more sense and also gives people more reason to go over there.  Also, instead of just some of the characters it was almost all of the characters when we were there.  This included all of the face characters as well as Elvis Stitch (who we never saw in Fantasyland).  Personally I think this was a good change and really adds something to WDS... the only downside is since they come out in the main area of the park and spread out all through Production Courtyard and Toon Studio, it is much more obvious they are out meeting (WDS is so small you can see at least some of the characters from 90% of the park when they are out LOL)... this of course means it is MUCH more crowded and you get the usual pushing and shoving and mayhem that occurs for characters at DLP :\  When they were in Fantasyland most people didn't know they were going to be there so while it would get crowded as people stumbled upon them it wasn't like the whole park was instantly aware they were out and mobbed them.

Another thing we made a point of doing this trip was going to the different Hotels in the morning.  For those that don't know, every morning at all of the Disney Hotels they have characters out which is a very nice touch.  With the exception of the Disneyland Hotel there is normally only one character out at a time but they normally switch through the morning what character is there.  To make it even better, when it is one of the Fab 5 they are usually in special resort specific themed outfits!  So for example at the Cheyenne you might meet Cowboy Goofy or Indian Mickey!  While we had met a few characters at the Santa Fe when we were there last Feb and had been making a habit of checking the Disneyland Hotel in the mornings starting in Oct (will talk about the Disneyland Hotel in a min) we hadn't gone to the other hotels.  Dan had previously stayed at the Cheyenne and the Sequoia so he had met a couple characters at them before but he had never met characters at the Newport or New York hotels.  During the course of our trip we went to every hotel (except the Santa Fe) at least twice and got to meet characters in a bunch of new outfits... so these new locations and outfits will get added to the site before too long.  One kinda odd thing was at the New York and Newport they didn't seem to be out in their "normal" outfits for those hotels.  For example at the New York, Goofy was out but was in his regular outfit instead of the New York ones we had seen pictures of... and at the Newport, one morning Minnie was out in a really extravagant frilly dress we had never seen before and the next day Mickey was out in his Winter Wonderland outfit... we weren't complaining about either of those especially since we had never met them before either but hopefully at some point we can meet them in their actual Hotel outfits.

Now onto the Disneyland Hotel, at the Disneyland Hotel they normally have one (or a couple ie Minnie/Mickey or Chip/Dale) of main characters out in the rotunda in a roped off area with a line and a photographer (like the setup in all the other hotels); however, in addition there are normally 2 or more random characters wandering around the hallways around that area.  The characters are pretty random and can be anything from the Pooh characters to Pinocchio characters to Robin Hood characters to Launchpad and Scrooge McDuck.  Needless to say we have started checking there every morning on the way into the park ROFL.  In addition to the morning characters we found out about something new this trip... in the afternoon around 4pm on most weekends (and weekdays during busy periods) there is a little song and dance routine done by random characters in the main reception area with a meet and greet afterward.  It is a nice way to relax for a bit in the afternoon and still meet characters (not to mention a warm place in the winter).  We were there for this a few days this trip and I am sure it will become something we check out regularly!

So... all and all it was an awesome trip and we got to meet some new and very rare characters along with old characters in new outfits!  We also managed to get the French signatures of more characters some of which Dan has already added to the site!  So be on the lookout for pictures from the trip as we add them :D  but here are a couple to start with: