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Holidays

Use our Travel forum for recommendations on everything from day trips to the best family-friendly holiday destinations.

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Original poster

Disneyland Paris

23 replies

iloveithere · 27/07/2014 18:10

Would love to take my kids there, but I have no idea if its affordable or not.

Does anyone have any idea of rough costs for 2 adults, 2 children, 3 nights, Easter or summer? Including travel, accommodation and parks?

I've looked on their website, but it seems really expensive, and didn't include travel, so if anyone has been and stayed close by, or has any suggestions how to do it on the cheap(ish), I'd be grateful.

thanks

OP posts:

pickles184 · 27/07/2014 18:38

The Davy Crocket ranch, flying to paris and hiring a car or driving your own and taking the ferry are the cheapest ways. The accommodation is self-catering so you can do breakfast and dinner and either take pack-ups or lunch in the park (v.expensive, but saves hoofing sandwiches around)

It is of course more expensive during the holidays, but if you plan in advance there are offers that include SH times.

Original poster

iloveithere · 27/07/2014 19:30

Thanks, I really hadn't thought of the ferry, ill look into that.

OP posts:

Crutchlow35 · 28/07/2014 13:43

We are going in February. So far flights for 3 of us (2 adults and one child) on easyjet cost £189. I have also booked a one bedroom apartment at the adagio aparthotel, Val D'Europe (on the shuttle bus run) for £207. All booked for 4 nights.

Park tickets are not booked yet. The best available at the moment is buy 5 days pay for 4 but they have done 3:2 in the past so I am waiting to see what happens over the coming months.

Check your arrival and departure times carefully if you stay onsite Reason being is they give you park tickets for your arrival and departute days. We don't arrive until 5 pm on day one and need to be at the airport at 10 am on our last day so no need for 5 days tickets at the park. This is why we are staying off-site. We therefore won't be paying for extra days tickets which we don't need.

At the moment, tickets are £380 but I hope to get these cheaper.

Original poster

iloveithere · 28/07/2014 20:29

So all for less than £1000, that sounds good, crutchlow35. I would love to try to do it for that sort of cost, but have one extra person. I could always leave dh at home.

OP posts:

Memphisbelly · 28/07/2014 20:35

We are going in December, because we booked a year in advance we got 4 nights for the price of 2. So for 2 adults and 1 child in Davy crocketts ranch (lodge holds 6) driving there but includes ferry crossing, breakfast, lodge for 4 nights, Disney passes for 5 days £607. Would have been the same with an extra child, it wasn't much more for start of summer but I live where our hols start earlier than most of uk and we really wanted the Christmas Wonderland.

Original poster

iloveithere · 28/07/2014 20:50

Wow, that sounds like a bargin. We can only do school holidays as dh works in a school, and dd going into secondary, so I wouldn't like to make her miss any schooling.

OP posts:

PrincessOfChina · 28/07/2014 20:52

We have paid around £1k for three nights in a luxury Paris hotel, return travel on Eurostar and one day park passes for us all. I expect to spend another £750 while we're there though.

That's the first week of September.

Memphisbelly · 28/07/2014 20:55

Look for this time next year (so it is over 365 days away) this is what they suggested on the phone, Or if you go to Thomas cook and book that far in advance you could pay as little as £10 a week if you wanted to spread the cost

Needadvice5 · 28/07/2014 21:02

I went last year, 2 adults and 2 kids.
we paid £490, that included coach travel, ferry crossings, 3 nights at Sante fe hotel (bed and breakfast)
and passes.

I didn't think eating in the park was too expensive, we ate at the Rainforest Cafe and that was reasonable too.

trikken · 28/07/2014 21:02

We booked 9 months early and are getting 5 nights for the price of 3. Saving £700 by driving. I don't know how horrible the journey may be though so I might be cursing myself for this in feb!

Ladyhaha · 28/07/2014 21:05

We booked a year in advance for next Easter hols. Got 4 nights for the price of 2 in Sequoia Lodge - £630 in total. We also have some deal with the park tickets included in this (I think!) We'll be going via eurotunnel and booking that as early as possible in the hope of getting a good rate. We've been before and found food expensive so we'll be taking lots of snacks and doing packed lunches in the day.

trikken · 28/07/2014 21:06

Went to Santa Fe last year. It was ok, very basic though. Didn't help our lamp was broken (see completely smashed! ) so that coloured my view. Trying the 4 star hotel this time as we've decided to upgrade this way and make it our once in a lifetime holiday.

Memphisbelly · 28/07/2014 21:43

Trikken it is only 2 hours drive from the ferry and pretty well signposted to find, we are staying at Dover the night before so no stress about missing the ferry!

trikken · 28/07/2014 21:51

Ah brilliant. Thanks. Sets my mind at ease. How do you find driving there in general?

BerniceBroadside · 28/07/2014 21:52

Generally the cheapest way to do it is to stay off site and buy annual passes (they are often cheaper on the French sites). Annual passes also entitle you to magic hours (early entry to the parks) and discounts on food and drink.

Sometimes, if you book far enough in advance you can get good deals with free nights or free meals plans through Disney.

The bests forums for tips on doing it on a budget are trip advisor and the disboards.

Memphisbelly · 28/07/2014 22:08

Trikken dh does majority but it isn't too bad though when I have driven, well signposted which is great as when signs just stop that stresses me out, I will be 8 months pg in December though so I may let dh drive that time.

zipzap · 28/07/2014 22:38

Sign up for the DLP mailing list on their main site and you'll get notification of flash sales - we went last august and booked on their buy 2 get 2 days free, staying at Sequoia Lodge, combined with under 7s go free.

We actually booked through Expedia as they had the same deal on (if it's a big Disney promotion, all their approved sellers seem to have them) but they didn't charge for my 8 yr old, plus we used a cash back site that had 12% back on expedia so we paid about £800 in total. We drove down, booked cheap ferry crossings (depending when you go and when you book you can also get cheap eurotunnel crossings, and you can use tesco points towards them too if you have them).

We also decided to stay in france on the way there and back - which meant we could maximise the time we spent at dlp - so we spent a night beforehand in Reims - at the novotel, and on the way back in Arras - in the Holiday Inn Express. The latter had the bigger room although the former had an easier drive into DLP and you get to miss lots of Paris traffic. In both cases, sign up for their club and get their newsletters - and you can often book rooms more cheaply - we got them at half price.

We didn't rate the food at dlp at all - about the best of the catering was in the McDOnalds, which is saying something as I really don't like the place! Everything else was either very expensive or pretty inedible.

We had the car so popped down to the local shopping centre, just over a mile away, and either ate there (loads of restaurants) or bought picnic stuff (massive hypermarket) and ate it back at dlp.

zipzap · 28/07/2014 22:39

Oh and I forgot to say - because of the deal we did, it was cheaper for us to go for 4 nights than it was to go for 3 nights as they were only giving 2 nights free to those that booked 2 or more nights holiday iyswim!

AnnDaloozier · 28/07/2014 22:44

I've been twice now. My tips are three days is more than enough. Don't stay on site. The food is so so bad. You can't even get coffee in a cup. Drive. Tesco clubcard for crossing.

zipzap · 28/07/2014 22:45

oh and I also forgot to say that the £800 we paid included all the entrance tickets - for 5 days. Which was the reason that we wanted to stay in France the day before and after - meant we could maximise our time at the park without having to rush off to get the ferry or having spent a long day driving to the port, getting the ferry and then driving there - just seemed much easier to stay in france about an hour's drive away.

My sis did it by staying in Dover the night before their tickets - but they had a really bad night's sleep (fire alarm in the hotel at 2am), had to get up early as they had booked an early eurotunnel so they missed the breakfast included in their booking price, and by the time they all got there, it was late lunch and they were all tired and grumpy. Whereas we were able to take it at a much more leisurely pace and enjoy the whole thing rather than it turning into an endurance test!

AnnDaloozier · 29/07/2014 05:02

I can't imagine 5 days there.

Memphisbelly · 29/07/2014 08:42

We won't be going in more that 3 days I reckon, we plan on grtting train into Paris for the day one day and spending our last day somewhere between Paris and the ferry.

watchtower · 29/07/2014 08:44

We went in February - I think Jan-March is kids go free season.

We got our tickets online before we left on the FNAC website and each adult ticket had a free child's ticket.

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