what do you think of my DLP plan?

[Liz79]

Planning still in rudimentary stages but we're wanting to go in October half term & have 2 kids DD will be 4.10 & DS 2.5. I am super excited & just waiting for work to say I can have that week as annual leave & then I will book & pay deposit.

Sat: Drive to folkestone from northern England, stay in premier inn.
Sun: get eurotunnel approx 7.20, croissants & coffee in france. Drive to DLP, lunch just outside park.

spend afternoon getting orientated, check in (thinking Santa fe as cheapest & I think we just need somewhere to sleep?), eat in hotel (?)

spend Monday & tuesday as per 2 day itinerary for families with toddlers on DLP website:

Monday is fantasyland, frontierland & princess dinner
Tuesday character breakfast then studios park, lunch in village, discoveryland

spend wednesday doing good stuff again or bits we missed. character breakfast. leave in time to get euro tunnel 8-9pm, stay in premier inn, drive home on thursday,

is this a reasonable length of time & will we see all the good stuff? will santa fe be OK or is it worth a better hotel? Should we get standard half board meals or plus/premier? I also see there is full board available now, do you think this would be worth it?

TIA. I am going to look on trip advisor but need a bit of time as there is so much there.

I would check in first, if there is parking at the hotel. Parking at DLP is horrendously expensive (I think it was £15, but don't quote me).

We went via Le Shuttle and it wasn't a bad journey.

Hi Liz,
October school holidays are VERY busy in DLP being Halloween celebrations all month, so expect long queue lines and high crowd levels at weekends and after French schools have broken up for the holidays.

This obviously affects how much you can do in a few days. Can you go outside school holidays at all as your kids are so young, or are you tied to school hols?
Santa Fe is the cheapest of the Disney owned hotels where you get Extra Magic Hours usually, from 8am - 10am in the main park. Selected rides in Fantasyland and Discoveryland are usually open.

The Disney car park does cost around ? 15 at peak times, so best to go to your hotel first, check in and get your park tickets which should be included in a hotel/ tickets package. They are valid from arrival day to departure day inclusive so you can then go into the parks.

The cheapest non Disney resort hotel os usually the Kyriad, one of the 5 Associated resort hotels just outside the perimeter road, with free shuttle buses to/ from the parks every 15-20 mins.

There are rides & attractions in both parks for young children - some people say their young kids liked the Studios best, others prefer the main DL Park. There are also shows, parades, with extra shows for Halloween season like Malificents Villains show on Central Plaza stage and Mickeys Halloween Treat in the Street Party show on Royal Castle Stage.
The Disney Dance Express Train also stops at Royal Castle Stage usually with the Characters singing & dancing with kids.

Ideally you need one day in each park with at least one extra day for doing things you missed or favourite rides/ attractions again.

All children are different - some are braver than others - so what rides kids like depends on the individual even if they are tall enough. The Snow White ride in Fantasyland scares many children as it features the dark forest and wicked Queen.

Auberge De Cendrillon restaurant in Fantasyland for Character Dining with Princes/ Princesses is worth the cost if you have Princess mad child/ children but as it is very fine dining kids don't always like the food. You can now meet Princesses in the new Princess Pavilion near Small World ride exit, which opened in the first week of October. There are two Princesses inside at a time, but you only meet one of them as the queue splits to each one. Long queue though.

I would not leave the park to eat unless you really want to, as this wastes time - you have to go through security again to re enter the parks, and there could be queues for this.
If time is limited, buy sandwiches, snacks and drinks ( not glass bottles or alcohol ) from the shop in Chessy railway station that you pass walking to the parks, and take them with you. Many people take extra food from Disney hotels breakfast buffets to make up picnic lunches, but that is not something I agree with. Disney just put the hotel prices up to cover the cost and they may stop including breakfast altogether. ( as in Davy Crockett Ranch from next March ).

You have mentioned Trip Advisor - people on the Disneyland Paris/ Marne La Vallee forums there can help with trip planning for DLP.

www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowForum-g2079053-i21935-Disneyland_Paris_Marne_la_Vallee_Seine_et_Marne_Ile_de_France.html

DLRPMagic is also a very useful website for information, menus, prices, ride descriptions, parks maps etc. I think it is better than the Disney website.

www.dlrpmagic.com/guidebook/

Bear in mind that if you do Character Breakfast in Cafe Mickey ( in the Village by Lake Disney ), you will be missing some Extra Magic Hours time. This is currently the only place for Character Breakfast.

Only book Full Board if you need 3 meals a day. We find that after a good breakfast we don't need lunch and dinner. We usually just have some snacks with drinks during the day to keep us going until dinner.

Which HB plan to book depends on the restaurants you are likely to eat in. HB is only worth doing if you eat in restaurants in that category, or there is no advantage.

You can't use HB vouchers for breakfast in Cafe Mickey - only lunch or dinner, covered by HB PLUS.

Which hotel to choose is again personal choice. Many people like the Santa Fe and see no point in paying more for somewhere to sleep and have breakfast. It is more like a Motel really, as cars can park by room blocks ( which I think look rather like orange office blocks - not very attractive from the outside ).

I think the Cheyenne has more exciting theming for kids but rooms have a double bed with a set of bunks, not two doubles as in most Santa Fe rooms.

For a shorter walk to the parks the Sequoia Lodge is slightly more expensive, by Lake Disney between the New York and Newport Bay hotels. This hotel also has indoor pool & jacuzzi ( & outdoor pool open in summer ).

If I didn't make it clear - all the resort hotels have free parking for guests. It would be much quicker walking to the parks from the Santa Fe / Cheyenne hotels than driving to the Disney car park, maybe queueing to enter, parking, then walking from there to the parks.
Normal walking pace from Santa Fe/ Cheyenne hotels takes 15 - 20 mins depending on where in the hotel you leave from. If you have a room near the Rio Grande canal path it is quicker walking to the parks, but further from reception/ restaurant/ shop/ bar/ bus stop for hotel shuttle bus.

If you arrive around lunchtime and want to eat after checking in, follow the canal path to Lake Disney and you will see the new Earl Of Sandwich restaurant there, as well as a large McDonalds which has a kids play area. I have not been in McD's ( in 19 years! ) but people say the prices are similar to the UK.
Earl Of Sandwich has good reports so far for food and prices.
From here you carry on walking through the Village, past Chessy railway station, through security checks, to both parks which are next to each other.

Earl Of Sandwich menu & prices.

www.dlrpmagic.com/planning/dining/restaurant-menus/earl-of-sandwich/

If you do go in October half term holidays you will definitely need to make advance dining reservations ( known as ADR ) for dinner to get the restaurants and times that you want, and avoid a long queue or refusal if fully booked.

We do have to go in school holidays unfortunately as dh is a teacher. It doesn't have to be October though. Which do you think would he the best of all the school holidays? Weather will be better at the end of may I guess. We will check in 1st. For the dates I put in the sequoia lodge was £200 more than Santa Fe, do you think its worth it? Think we'd prefer double beds rather than bunks as eldest dc too small for top bunk. Although ds could go in travel cot - will the room be squashed with it in? We could always do 4 nights/5days
Thanks for all your help

Hi,
May half term is much less busy as French and Spanish schools don't have this holiday. You can check French and Spanish school calendars online for their holidays and National Holidays - always worth avoiding those dates and weekends.

This poster on the TA forum stayed in the Santa Fe for 4 days with 3 kids aged 4, 7 and 9, and had two adjoining rooms. They were worried after reading some reviews, but had a great time and liked the hotel. They went in early October when parks were not busy.

www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowTopic-g226865-i2224-k4871659-Review_of_4_day_stay_in_Santa_Fe_early_Oct_2011_with_3_kids-Marne_la_Vallee_Seine_et_Marne_Ile_de_France.html

You can read Trip Reports from May half term on the forum - find them at the top of the Topics list, or in the Top Questions list.

Thanks figgy that's fab. Hopefully I will get may half term off. I should probably wait until may 2013 when they are (just) 3 & 5.5 but I don't know if I can wait that long

goodness, may half term (actually w/c 4th june) is much cheaper than october, you can stay in newport pay for same price as santa fe! We may take advantage & stay at the sequoia lodge for the pool & stay an extra night!

I have tried googling french & spanish holidays & as far as I can tell they are at school that week.

Is it generally more pleasent then that week, cheaper, less busy, warmer?

The main difference I find with the Santa Fe and Cheyenne hotels is breakfast - all the hotels are buffet breakfast but in these two you find your own table and it can be a bit of a scrum with queues unless you book early breakfast around 7am - 7.15am. When I stayed in the Cheyenne in January I had finished my breakfast by the time it got busy.

In the other 4 hotels you are shown to your table, so more organised, and the tables are not as close together. They also have two restaurants to choose from although the buffets are the same.

Only the New York and Disneyland Hotel have hot & cold buffet foods although you can pay extra to order hot dishes in the Newport and Sequoia.
Rooms are slightly larger in the Moderate hotels so a bit more space to move around, and for a travel cot.

Having said that, I would rather stay in a cheaper hotel for longer, than in a more expensive hotel for less nights! After all, you are mainly there for the parks. We always stayed in the Newport in summer as our boys loved the pools in that hotel, and the Sequoia before Christmas as this hotel has lovely cosy theming for winter months. Our DS2 loved swimming, so that is why we wanted a pool. I also hate waiting for the shuttle buses if there is a queue, so prefer to walk to / from the parks.

I quite enjoyed the walk to/ from the Cheyenne alongside the Rio Grande canal even when it was raining as I was quite dry with my brolly, but not so good for people with kids if very cold or raining. In that case you would need to use the shuttle bus really. The canal path comes out between the Sequoia and New York hotels by the lake. It is a wide tarmac path so fine for buggies and wheelchairs.

I am going back after Christmas but staying in Sequoia and hopefully meeting some other TA forum posters there at the same time. The lodge rooms have all been refurbished, but they havn't finished the main building rooms yet. This will continue after Christmas season ends.
Santa Fe rooms have a CARS theme. Sequoia has a new subtle Bambi theme.

See photos of the SL rooms.

www.dlrptoday.com/2011/02/03/bambi-adds-a-fresh-disney-touch-to-refurbished-rooms-at-sequoia-lodge/

Next year is the 20th Anniversary, so they are pulling the stops out for this. Celebrations begin on 1st April. They may continue it for a second year as they did for the 15th Anniversary, but can't be sure.

Just to add that I would avoid actual Halloween Night and Terrorific Nights in the parks with young children during October holidays as these can scare them. The main Halloween Parade with spooky floats goes down Main Street at midnight.
Disney do special evenings in October called Mickeys Not So Scary Halloween Party which are aimed for younger children, but you have to pay extra for these evenings as not included in park tickets.

Weather can be unpredictable - we have had very hot weeks in July & August there, and also wet and colder ones.
I was there at the beginning of October this year with my hubby and it was very hot for the first day ( shorts and vest top weather ) then the temp dropped on our next two days and we needed jeans and T shirt or jumper!

Have a look at May Trip Reports ( they are all dated ) as people usually mention the weather in them, along with queue times etc.

www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowTopic-g226865-i2224-k3535130-Trip_Reports_find_them_here-Marne_la_Vallee_Seine_et_Marne_Ile_de_France.html

May could be lovely, and quite hot, but it could also be wet, cloudy or windy. It doesn't usually stay wet for long though and most rides are indoor or under cover anyway. I would not expect May to be cold like Jan to March though. The winter months can be freezing!

If you book when a good offer is on like 40% off hotel/ tickets/ transport with kids under 7 stay,play and travel free, you could manage a trip in 2013 as well!
Can't say what offers will come out though, as it depends on how bookings are going. Check different hotels and arrival dates - just going one day either side can make a price difference.
It was £ 100 cheaper for us to fly on Sunday evening for 3 nts than on Monday morning for 2 nts staying in the New York in October. Worth playing around with arrival dates.
The resort hotels don't have the same offer at the same time and the price quoted is only valid while on screen. If you check again later it could have gone up or down.
If you book online you have to pay the full amount. If you book with Disney over the phone or with an agent you can pay a deposit.

08448 008 111

If you book with a travel agent it should be the same price as Disney would quote you, as they phone Disney for the price.
Co Op Travel also knock another off 5% for me, so always worth asking a T.Agent if they will do this if you book through them.

These are the sites I use for the school holidays and National Holidays dates.

paris.angloinfo.com/information/6/schoolhols.asp

barcelona.angloinfo.com/information/14/schoolhols.asp

Would you consider flying so you have longer in France?

Hi fluffy, the times & price of flights are prohibitive, we would actually end up with less time in the parks. Google maps estimate the fuel to be about £120 each way & euro tunnel will be free/cheap with tesco coupons, premier inn at folkestone at either end of trip is £60/night. So thats about £300, cheapest flights are about £500 and arrive late at night whereas we hope to arrive at lunch time. DLP website is giving me a price of about £1250 for 2 adults, 1 child, 1 infant for 4 nights/5 days at the santa fe, half board plus, auberge de cendrillion meal, insurance & card surcharge. Does that sound about right or could I get it cheaper elsewhere? What about spending money? I am thinking the whole thing might cost us about £2k all in?

Spanner in the works is DH says DS will be too young in June this year , he will be 2 in april & Dd will be 4.6. I will have to talk him round. I can't wait any longer. I can probably wind DD up to nag him about it & then he won't want to wait any longer either

Thanks for all your help

We went when dd1 was 4 (her birthday present) and dd2 was 22months in all honesty dd2 was too young, she got bored and fidgety and sill needed to nap etc and you cant take pushchairs everywhere (they have buggy parks) I know you are excited (I was hence booked it) but really wished I waited another year!

dammit