Disneyland Paris

[nicholab]

My wife wants to go before our son gets much older I wish there was a holiday that split the time between Disney and Paris? I just worried it cost a fortune and will not be a relaxing holiday we are talking £4.5k for a week for 3 persons? I mean for that kind of Money I could have an exciting holiday.

 

Please can someone explain how you can spend 5 days in Disneyland Paris? When Paris is on your doorstep and more exciting. I don’t understand how you can take so much time in a Theme park? I been to Thorpe Park, Chesington, Oakwood, Chesington and Legoland I only spent a day there and that was enough I tiring enough.

 

I also struggle that we might go to France and not even see Paris when it just down the road. I am not really in to the fake Disney world

[snagrat]

You can’t. I wouldn’t go for longer than 3 days to the park.

[nicholab]

You can’t. I wouldn’t go for longer than 3 days to the park.

 

Does anyone know if staying in the park is much better than a normal hotel?

[TwistedHelixis]

I have stayed in a few different hotels and also camped.

 

First, Disney is not like any other theme park, its an experience and just very different. They have done a fantastic job of creating that magical something that no other theme park has managed to create.

 

There are loads of hotels inside the park, just outside and further out. They all have that Disney theme but the closer you are the more themed it is and more expensive. My kids loved it when they had dinner with some of the Disney characters. Make sure you get a hotel or booking that also induces the early extra hour. This gives you access to the park an hour before the gates open and means you can go on a ride or two before the crowds make the queuing a pain.

 

There are actually 2 parks next to each other, the Main Disney park and Disney Studios. Now, if I was just going on the rides and rushing between them I could easily do each park in a day, but that's not how it will workout. At any given time there are themed activities going on around the park that are not park rides. You might be somewhere and then realize that you have an hour to get over to watch the parade or fireworks etc, so you will make your way over, watch that and then make your way back. The parks each have multiple zones that can take a good few hours to explore each one.

 

Expect leg ache, as we were doing 27,000 steps per day.

 

EDIT - I can manage 3 days max for me and then I'm Disney'd out.

 

EDIT 2 - I would probably do Disney for 2 or 3 days and then head to Paris.

Edited January 15, 2023 by TwistedHelixis

[Andrew_C]

I would probably poke my eyes out with hot needles rather than go back.

 

The food in the park was poor (being generous) the service EXACTLY what you would expect in Paris, the qs horrendous (in October) and nowhere to get warm.

 

YMMV...

[mthomas08]

Can't talk about Paris but Orlando for us was 10/10. Back in the day when we had money..

 

My only regret is not saving up the money and going with our daughter. She would love it.

[DalekSec]

It's one of those things years ago i would of put down as a flat no.

 

But now having a (step) daughter who loves disney, princesses, lion king etc i know she will loose her mind if went (plus theres star wars stuff now that i defo wanna see).

 

We'll go at some point as a once in a lifetime trip, when both kids are a good age.

[tangotech]

I went at Christmas, don't go any longer than 3 days, you don't need it!

 

We stayed at Dream Castle and it was create, food was good and it was really affordable.

[elsiegee40]

We went twice rather a long time ago when the gee40 offspring were primary age.

 

I too would recommend no more than three days in the park.

 

The food queues were horrendous and the best tip we had was to book, well in advance of your visit, a table for lunch each day in one of the seated restaurants in the park. It’s not cheap, but you are guaranteed to sit down in the warm and dry and food will happen at the time you want it. It was a lifesaver particularly with our son who would have made a good candidate for the Snickers advert and went from happy to the world ending in the blink of an eye when he was hungry.

 

Book anything you really want to do in advance if you can. It saves frustration!

 

We drove there both times. The first time, the children had no idea where we were actually going apart from “France” which we go to quite regularly. Daughter saw the Disney sign on the autoroute and said wistfully “I’d like to go there sometime”. The excitement 10 minutes later as we approached the gates in the car was amazing. Both children still describe it as the best surprise ever [emoji4]

[hardtailstar]

Most people I know head to Paris on Sunday, stay a couple of days in Paris then do Disney for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Then head back to Paris for a couple of days.

 

I went for my 18th Birthday years ago (dont judge it was free to me) and an ex girlfriends family as a present for me and a load of her nephews and nieces as we all had significant birthdays in July. We went for the weekend and that was very busy.

 

Personally I'd of liked to stay bit longer as we didn't get all the rides done due to how busy it was.

 

There are loads of websites/forums with Disney hacks to save you money.

[nicholab]

This was a package from a travel agent so I think building my own might be worth it.

[hallb15]

I've been to Disneyland Paris and I hated it, but I didn't go for me. My three girls all loved it because of the 'Disney magic', and the fact they were a lot younger at the time.

We went in July school holidays so it was about as busy as it could have been. We split the journey up by staying in a cheap hotel Ibis in Calais, both on the way there and the return journey.

 

We stayed in one of the hotels on the park - Hotel Cheyenne. It has a western theme and the rooms are adequate. Breakfast was basic continental buffet style but the restaurant was always packed because Hotel guests get to go in the park 1 hour earlier than the normal gates open and EVERYONE wants to get there as soon as possible. The majority of people were making sandwiches with the croissants to take into the park for lunch as the food outlets there are dreadful and expensive. Staff didn't seem to care, they just kept piling up the food.

 

We spent 3 days (2 nights) there and that was enough to go on all the rides the girls wanted to at least once. I think we averaged about 3 major rides a day due to the size of the queues. We resorted to splitting up and leaving an adult in the queue whilst the other adult took the girls on one of the quieter rides or to look round the castle.

 

They queued for 90 minutes to get Donald Duck's autograph. After that they didn't bother getting any others as the queues were too much for them. Don't expect to see random Disney characters walking around the park that you can just run up to like they show in the TV adverts. The worst queue was for the Disney Princess experience. Despite having an allotted time slot, we still had to queue nearly 2 hours to get a 30 second chat with Cinderella and a photo (which cost extra.)

 

The parades are worth watching. The fireworks at night are great. Space Mountain (Or Star Wars Hyperspace Mountain as it is now) was the best rollercoaster. The Disney Frozen show was brilliant - Frozen had just come out when we went so it was all new.

 

I wouldn't go again. The girls wanted to go again but we decided to keep it as a one off, special holiday, mainly because we couldn't face it again-the girls don't need to know that though!

 

 

 

This has turned into quite a long post so in summary I would say, it is everything you fear it is and worse, but your son will probably love it. A week is too long for anyone though.

[Scan099]

My wife wants to go before our son gets much older I wish there was a holiday that split the time between Disney and Paris? I just worried it cost a fortune and will not be a relaxing holiday we are talking £4.5k for a week for 3 persons? I mean for that kind of Money I could have an exciting holiday.

 

Please can someone explain how you can spend 5 days in Disneyland Paris? When Paris is on your doorstep and more exciting. I don’t understand how you can take so much time in a Theme park? I been to Thorpe Park, Chesington, Oakwood, Chesington and Legoland I only spent a day there and that was enough I tiring enough.

 

I also struggle that we might go to France and not even see Paris when it just down the road. I am not really in to the fake Disney world

Hi,

 

We have just returned from Disney Paris going just after Christmas for a week.

 

We had previously been in Aug and stayed in one of the Disney Partner hotels which worked out very expensive for food and drinks with the food not the greatest. We Flew to Paris and had transfers to the hotel.

This time we drove ourselves and used the eurotunnel had an apartment a 5min drive from Disney which was about a 20-30 min walk away or a bus every 30 mins for 2 euros each way. The queues in the part were crazy long, my wife is disabled so we could get a priority pass which enabled us to skip the queues, but there is an app called MagiPark which will show you the waiting time - this is useful for finding the short queues you can also purchase a disney premier access pass for certain rides that give you a time to attend so you can again skip the queue but these can work out expensive for every ride.

 

From outside Disney is the train station you can get the RER(underground) to Paris for 5euro per adult each way and it takes about 45min - 1 hour, we did this and it was very straight forward. The parks themselves are not very big to get around but with the queues that makes it much longer.

 

in my opinion I would rather wait save a little more and do Orlando Florida as we much preferred that plus the weather is better