Disneyland Paris - your top tips

[Goposie]

I am overwhelmed and we haven’t even got there yet...
Have joined a couple of Facebook groups to get some insights but it still seems like some kind of complex undertaking. I can’t even understand how half board works...
What are your top tips?
We are doing two nights at Sequoia Lodge half term. Driving. Staying locallish the night before with the idea of trying to check into the hotel or at least leave luggage at 8am on first day and go to the park to get Early Magic Hours. Planning on taking snacks for lunch. Planning on having big breakfast at hotel... doing emh. Should I get fast passes for the big rides or do them in emh or both? Best strategy or order to go round park to avoid worst or queues? Thinking of having dinner at hotel between parade and illuminations. Is that sensible or will we get stuck in queues getting back into park?
Help!

If you want to eat between the parade and the illuminations, book the restaurant ahead of time - one tip we got was to watch the parade at the very start where it comes out of the gates and then dash to the restaurant while everyone else is still watching it go past!

There are a lot of queues, it is very popular so be prepared. Not all rides are open in EMH, and you can check the DLP website for any planned ride closures in the period you are going. If there is a ride you want to do, head for that first if it is open - you may be able to get a pass for it but again, not all rides have them. (Unless this has changed, it's a few years since we've been).

I hear there is an app (Lineberty) for the meet and greets so look into that. The programme (which is also available on the website usually) given info about where the characters will be and at what times.

I love DLP, have fun!

Thank you!

The app was useless when I went last year. It would only work within the park, you couldn't book in advance and the ticketed events sold out immediately. My kids were gutted.

We had a lanyard with a pouch to hold our tickets, cards, or fast passes. We were lucky with lineberty - set alarms when the bookings open because they're gone in a minute. When using wi-fi in the park and sending messages, it sometimes helpful to send the time with the texts as they aren't always instantaneous. The Disneyapp with wait times was reasonably accurate and allowed for decent planning of where to be. I found the park to be especially busy (we went at new year's) around 2-5pm.

Not all of the rides are open for the extra hours , it’s generally most of fantasy land , Buzz lightyear , star tours , orbitrons and space mountain . Some of the rides you cannot get fast passes for like Autopia and the queues can be horrendous so if you want to do that go and queue early before it opens . We’ve been going since it opened and I’ve never used an app , it’s supposed to be a holiday not a well planned military operation . If anyone in your party qualifies for a disabled access pass get one .

We’re just back @Goposie. It’s fairly straightforward once you’re there.

As you’ll know, there’s the two parks. Disneyland park is the biggest. Studios can easily be done in a day. A popular ride at studios is Crush’s coaster and it doesn’t do fast pass so do that first in EMH. We arrived at 9.30am and still had almost an hours wait! The rest of the day at least a 70 min wait for it.
Rock n roller coaster, tower of terror, ratatouille are the FP rides. Ratatouille also really popular so go early or FP. Quite a lot of things closed for refurbishment at the minute. The app tells you what’s closed. It also has wait times. It’s not helpful for all the show times though, you often have to check yourself.

FP in DL park mostly for roller coaster type rides, other than Peter Pan and Buzz lightyear. We got on Buzz early with FP pretty easily. Someone above mentioned Autopia but that’s closed at the moment, as is the Disney railroad and phantom manor.
My kids weren’t interested in meet and greet.

We were half board and booked some restaurants.

Happy to answer anymore specific questions if you tag me in @JDSTER

Thanks @JDSTER. Do you mind saying where you stayed and ate? Having paid a fortune for a Disney hotel I wonder if we
Should spend time in it eg eat there? If the buffers are all you can eat that might be a good option but I have also heard the queues are awful!

Stayed at Cheyenne and had the buffet breakfast, which was fine. Bread rolls, toast, croissants, pain au chocolat, yogurt, fruit, meat, cheese, scrambled eggs.......

Also had evening buffet at our hotel the first night. Ok but not great. Buffet in Santa Fe (hotel next door) was better- tex-mex theme so nachos, fajitas etc as well as pasta, pizza, pizza, salad and loads of other stuff. Queues not too bad but it probably depends on how full the hotel is at the time.

We ate at restaurant des stars for lunch one day, again it was buffet. We had lunch a couple of times at Earl of Sandwich -hot sandwiches, wraps, pizza (after 6pm) and it’s quite reasonably priced. It’s in Disney Village, which is shopping and food, situated just next to both parks.