DLP in August

[hemel07]

Thinking about booking a trip to Disneyland Paris next August. Probably to stay outside the park, visit the park 2 days, and maybe have a day or two in Paris. We have an 11yr, 9yr and 6yr old. I really fancy it, but my husband is less keen. Would welcome both positive and negative experiences. Thanks

We went this year. One tip, which I only read about after I booked is to separate the days so that you have a rest day in the middle. There is a lot of walking and standing which takes its toll on legs.

It's cheaper to book 2 lots of 1 day tickets than the 2 day ticket. If you book online, scroll down to where it says 1 day:1 park ticket at the bottom of the page. You will need to go through the process twice, for each day but that's no problem. These tickets only allow you to go into 1 park that day, so if you want to switch between parks on 1 day then look at other options.

We each took a small rucksack with a refillable water bottle (there are fountains outside the loos where you can refill), and a fair few snacking items. Food is very expensive- we only bothered with 1 day at a burger-y meal.

DH and I preferred the walt disney studios park (found some of it an education!) but the kids - similar ages to yours did love both. You can sit down a lot more at studios, we were glad that was the second park we visited! The queues are horrendous- we found rides/attractions were 75min+ from around 10-10:30am. You can get a fastpass for some but can only book 1 ride at a time and some of these also sell out by 10/10:30 for riding even at 6pm that day. You will not get on everything so plan plan plan if there are things you do want to do. I think there's a DLP advice forum somewhere out there.

I would say do not go in 2016 , 2017 is the 25 yr anniversary for DLP and from now really many of the big attractions are closing for refurbishment ,obviously they will not all be closed at once but 2016 will not be the best year to go - 2017 will !

We went at the very end of August and the worst thing was the heat. Luckily most of the ride queues were indoors/sheltered but it was still hard going. I don't think it was that busy by Disney standards as the longest queues were 45-50 minutes, some were really short. The car park looked about half full when we left for the day. Due to the heat we missed the parades but going back next year as I bought annual passes.

We spend one day in Paris but the heat was even more of an issue there. Booked a Batobus that takes you up and down the Seine stopping at the major attractions. Due to the heat we only did the Louvre (amazing, spent ages in ancient Eqypt and Greece and saw the Mona Lisa. You can go to down to the remains of the original castle underground which is lovely on a hot day) and the Eiffel Tower from ground level. Saw lots more from the boat though.

Disney was better than we expected. DH was very pleasantly surprised. He much preferred the Studios but was also impressed with the pirate caves and Swiss Family Robinson tree house in the main park. We all loved the tram tour and Ratatouille ride (had to queues for Fast Passes for that one).

We had counter service pizza one day and burgers the next. The wasn't too bad and due to the exchange rate and 10% discount with annual passes not too extortionate. Wait for 'fast food' a bit ridiculous though. Next year we're treating ourselves to a couple of proper meals so we can rest better.

The only thing that I didn't like when we tried to meet Goofy. There wasn't many people round him so we went to say hello. My kids aged 5 and 7 were totally ignored despite being at the front of the crowd. Then awful pushy photo bombers turned up. Was unpleasant. One of Goofy's minders clearly had friends in the park who spent ages having photos with him.

We stayed at a caravan park only about half an hour away (but over an hour from central Paris). Next time we plan to stay much closer in Marne la Vallee itself.

Sorry for the delayed response, and thank you for all the advice. I'm thinking maybe the last week in August, in the hope it will be slightly quieter. Is there a recommended place to buy the Disney tickets? Thanks everyone x