Disneyland Paris with a 4 year old?

[Aimee1983]

Apologies for a long post.
We just spent a day at Legoland (Windsor) and are starting to question whether we should cancel our tickets to Disneyland Paris this summer. It was the first time we went to LL at the weekend and we only managed to get on 5 rides in the whole day! For the last ride my son was already asleep, so he's only really been on 4 rides. The queues are crazy, even for the 1 min long Duplo Dino Coaster ride we queued for 45min, although the screen said 10min. It was a very frustrating experience for my DH and me (not so much for our son, thankfully). There also isn't that much to do apart from the rides, comparing to Paulton Park.
We have 2 tickets 2 parks booked for mid-week in mid-July at Disneyland and we feel that if it's similar to Legoland on a weekend, it will be a waste of time and money. How are the queues at DL?
Would it make more sense to change the tickets to 1 day 1 park, but with Premium Access? Is there much to do apart from the rides? As an example, Paulton Park has waterplay, sand pit, numerous playgrounds, animals and birds, lots of trees, shrubs and grass to have nice picnic in the sun or in the shade.
WWYD?

There are lots of parades and shows at DLP, it’s not all about the rides.

But in July expect it to be full to capacity. You will queue for everything, even buying a drink can take 20 minutes!

I took my children twice last year when they were 3 and 5 and we had a great time, but it was busy. My son has ASD so we have a priority pass which helps with the queues, he wouldn’t cope without it.

The queues at Disneyland can be insane, as pp said not just for the rides, but food and drink as well. There's also often a queue for meeting the characters. It's just queues galore ime.

If you're going I'd definitely get whatever queue jump option they have.

There are lots of parades and things to see, but not much to do. I haven't been for a while but there were no playgrounds/water play/sandpit or anything like that when I went. They do (or at least did) have a sealife centre there, but we didn't go in so I don't know how good it is inside.

I'd cancel and rebook for a much quieter, cooler time. Maybe April?

DLP is likely to be really really hot in July as well so you'll need to factor in to your decision whether you can deal with the queuing and the heat.

I often have to go to Paris in July and august and temp is always in the 30s

I would defo rebook for spring or autumn and also outside French school holidays if you can (you can Google for the dates - they tend to have staggered holidays per region)

Very good point about the heat, thank you, I completely missed that. I don’t like being outside when it’s that hot, let alone queue for hours!

Thank you all, for your input, having discussed with DP, we will be cancelling our trip to DLP and will revisit this in a couple of years, making sure that when/if we go it’s off-peak!

Can you rebook for February? I took DD during Feb half term, stayed at sante fe but had breakfast in the park. You'll want good weather appropriate clothing but the park is much quieter.

Was able to access the park early and walk on and off rides before it opened to the public, breakfast, then went and watche'd some shows, ate lunch in the queue for the rides, played in the park and character dinners then watched some shows and parades.

DD was also quite ill with a virus, we hired one of the pushchairs there (it was huge, I was able to comfortably sit in it as a size 14), and would highly recommend budgeting for one to reduce the walking about and to hang your bags of non valuables

With little ones go in winter!

The way to do DLP in peak time is to stay on site and get early magic hours. There is a playground but we have a fab time with a 3/5 year old staying in one of the hotels and doing parks in the morning and going back in the afternoon for a swim. We also used the premier access for my husband if he wanted to go on one of the bigger rides. I think with a 4yo it could be pretty hard going staying off site and feeling like you had to be there all day. When we went last summer the park was full to capacity every day we were there. Midweek was fine but the weekend felt busier for some reason- I think midweek probably more people on holiday and doing a mix, on a Saturday higher number of locals visiting for the day.

I also agree that Paultons is very good with all the play areas etc. I absolutely wouldn’t do legoland near a bank holiday without a fast pass. I don’t think there are many ‘off-peak’ dates anymore for DLP unless you do January which can be bitterly cold.

We just got back. I would at the very least, if you must go in school holidays, try not to overlap with Paris schools being off.

We did well with queues, longest being 40 minutes for Crush's Coaster (it got up to about 80 but I would never). Most things were 10 minutes, except around 1pm to 3pm when it was busy so we went back to the hotel.

As an aside, never ever go to a theme park in the UK on a weekend between Easter and September!