Disneyland Paris for the first time - help!

[Wenchelda]

Hi all, just throwing around the idea of doing Disneyland Paris sometime next year - possibly February half term or May half term.

We've never been before so I am a complete novice - can anyone give any basic tips for me to start planning ?

It would be myself, DH & DCs who are 9 & 7. How many days would we need there? What sort of budget am I looking at? Any tips on best place to stay etc? We would be going by Eurostar but other than that, I am completely clueless

You need a minimum of 2 days in my opinion to do the rides/sightseeing/one night of fireworks.

Look at ticket prices for the parks, then decide what you would be willing to pay for your hotel etc.

Obviously you'll pay for convenience.

If you stay on site, it will save you travel costs to the park plus lost time travelling. If you book cleverly you can sometimes get breakfast/lunch included.

The meal tickets are done via vouchers and you can add cash to these where needed. If i'm honest the food at DLP is not good.

I can recommend the b&b hotel if you’re on a beget. It’s a Disney partner rather than official Disney, so you don’t get the extra magic time (would have been lost on my teen and tween anyway, as they never woke up until 9!). It’s about a five minute bus ride away, buses are free and run every ten minutes or so.

We booked through magic breaks and it was around £1200 for three of us, oldest dd counted as an adult, so two adults one child. That was flights and breakfast included for three nights in the October half term.

It was really busy, so glad we had three nights, though could have stayed longer! I don’t think that February and may are quite so busy, so two nights might be ok. There’s so much to do though, you could stay for longer.

*budget

DLP is a bun fight during UK school holidays. If you can only go then I'd recommend Europa Park, particularly in May half term as the weather is beautiful and there are very few British visitors. None of the local schools are on holiday so it's a very chilled experience.

If you're determined to go to DLP I'd stay on site to take advantage of the earlier opening times of the headline rides, otherwise the queues are horrendous and victim to serious line jumping.

We went in a May half term and it was really quiet. Weather was awful with flooding in Paris but my kids weren't bothered. We stayed in Adagio aparthotel because we like to have a separate bedroom to the kids. There is a free bus to Disney parks. It's close to a huge Hypermarket where we bought food for breakfast and lunch. We bought one meal a day in the parks. There were long waits for food service so we saved time and money by bringing our own, plus enjoying the lovely French supermarket food. We bought annual passes and went twice in a year. It was just under £400 for 4 but that was 4 years ago. It was worth it as we had 6 days in the park over two visits including early access with the onsite hotel people.

We went August bank holiday and May half term and didn't experience horrendous queues or any queue jumping at all. May half term longest waits were for Ratatouille which we got fast passes for and Crush's Coaster which we waited an hour for because it had broken down so lots of people had been waiting for it.

Ideally, three full days. Two days for Disneyland Park and its five themed lands, one day for Walt Disney Studios and its four zones. However, to fully enjoy the attractions, restaurants, shows and parades you could stay 4 or 5 days.

A few rides may close due to snow, ice, and freezing on some days in the winter. For this reason, you may wish to avoid December to February.

Booking a package through Disney will usually be cheaper than booking your hotel and tickets separately, except for Disneyland Hotel. Plan to do the parks one more day than your nights at the hotel.

Two Disney hotels, Davy Crockett Ranch and Village Nature Paris, are off-site. As for onsite hotels, there are basically three categories:

• Disneyland Hotel is at the entrance to Disneyland Park and is the flagship hotel of the resort
• The Lac Buena Vista Hotels, Disney’s Sequoia Lodge, Disney’s Newport Bay Club, and Disney’s Hotel New York, are the mid-tier hotels, about seven to 10-15 minutes walking from the parks
• Disney’s Hotel Cheyenne and Hotel Santa Fe are the lowest-priced Disney options, about 15 to 20 minutes walk. We’re big fans of Cheyenne and would make it our go-to for future trips. That said, Disney is attempting to get the hotel certified for an extra “star” (it’s current 2-star) which would presumably bring increased prices.

Thanks all. Lots of useful tips and info there to get me started!

There is a really active board on TripAdvisor about Disneyland Paris. I found it very helpful when planning our trip a couple of years ago.

There’s a great FB page called Disneyland Paris tips for Brits. So much useful information on there.
We went for the first time in May and are going back in 2wks we loved it so much! Which surprised us as we’ve been to Florida WDW many times and thought DLP would be a poor alternative but it really wasn’t.

I think you need 3 full days minimum to do it justice. We really enjoyed staying onsite, we stayed at Santa Fe last time and loved it, the rooms and food were lovely and the walk to the parks was really pleasant.
We’re staying in Sequoia Lodge this time as got a really good deal with 15% off and free half board meal plan.
We booked through Magic Breaks and would recommend them.

I'd agree you need 3 full days, it's a big site with both the Disneyland Park & the Walt Disney Studio Park and there is a lot of walking and queuing. We stayed at the Santa Fe (a Disney Hotel) which meant we could take advantage of the earlier open times (although not all rides were open first thing!). The Santa Fe was pretty basic and is the cheapest on site hotel, we didn't spend a great deal of time in the hotel though so it was absolutely fine! There was a bus to the resort but it's just a 15-20 minute walk along the river to get there. There's also a petrol station outside the hotel where you can buy snacks and drinks - do take these in with you as food prices are silly inside the park! We booked the meal plan option which restricts you to certain restaurants & buffet food & you need to book. The food wasn't great at all (the Cafe Agrabah was the nicest - you do need to book as far in advance as possible as it's popular).Queues at breakfast at the Santa Fe were snaking out the door so if you are staying at on site hotel, probably best to book a really early slot.

Use your fast pass to reserve time slots, it really cuts down on wait time. Lots of kids dress up (although your kids might have grown out of this) - if this is something they are likely to want to do then take costumes with you. The ones in the on-site stores are great (and were far nicer than my Asda ones!) but cost a bomb. Buy autograph books here too as well.

There is a Disneyland Paris app so download it as it gives you wait times for the rides which is really helpful. Take comfortable shoes as you'll be in your feet a lot of the time!

I don't like theme parks or rides so went expecting to be thoroughly miserable but to my complete surprise absolutely loved it!