Puy de Fou - is it worth it??

[Porthia]

Hello! Off to France in the summer and was planning to go to Put de Fou but it’s mega expensive so I was wondering if it’s worth it!? And if so is it worth doing the “emotion pass” to get quick access to shows and seats etc?

kids are 5,7,11 years old

thanks!!

@Dancerr that's then we go was it busy? Did you get emtion passes on the day?

I spoke to them (spent ages on hold!!) in around June/July when there were no emotion passes left for August and they advised to keep checking as occasionally extra ones do pop up. I did so and eventually saw some for one of the dates we wanted so booked asap then. Now they are gone again for all of August.

I don’t know if you can add emotion passes later if you already have entrance tickets. The lady I spoke to said the entrance tickets never run out (I guess this explains why it gets so crowded!) so we waited to book till emotion passes showed themselves.

I really doubt you’d be able to get them on the day tbh.

@minipie

So I have to call up? When they say keep checking they mean by phone?

No no, keep checking on the website. But if you do see some passes appear, I guess you’d then have to call up to try to add them to your booking. I didn’t have to do that as I hadn’t booked yet when the passes popped up.

Thank you minni pie.
I must say I'm finding the boiling process extremely difficult..

I, can't see a way to just check for passes

For the person asking about the school holidays - we took advantage of uk school inset days and went on the 2nd (or 3rd can't quite remember) Sept last year with our 8 and 10yr olds. All the timings fell in to place and in one day we did every one of the major shows and a few of the smaller ones too. We stayed in an Air BnB in a village a few miles away so we could get there when the doors opened. It wasn't busy, there were no French kids at all which made everything very easy with v little to no waiting in queues. We had pre booked a dinner but in the end it wasn't necessary.

It was the best family day out we ever had and running from one show to the next didn't matter because we knew how worth it it would be. Our favourite was the Viking show, the bird show (just incredible) and the evening show around the lake which is worth staying for. We gave the kids the choice to stay or leave for the lake show and it was a unanimous yes to stay! They're all fantastic though.

If we're ever having a bad day at home now we say to each other 'we'll always have Puy du Fou'.

I don't think you can check for just passes online. It comes up as an option when you are booking your tickets.

You can’t I don’t think. You check for tickets for each date and then it will tell you if there are emotion passes for that date. You can check up to 4 days at a time if you put in that you want a 4 day visit. (Quicker than doing 1 day at a time) it will say if there are emotion passes for any of those 4 days.

Really excited to be going this July! Emotion passes are more expensive than the entrance tickets though- so do I get them for 1 day or 2?? We will be with a toddler so can’t rush around too quickly. We are going Monday though so I don’t think it will be as busy as the weekend?

We went for two days and had the emotion pass just for the first day - this was ideal, we covered 70% of the shows on the first day and spent the second seeing the rest and repeating a couple of favourites and just generally exploring.

The pass doesn’t just mean you can fit more in, it also means you spend less time standing in a queue (as can turn up 10 min before a show rather than 30 min) which was a major benefit with kids especially in the heat.

PS we went Sun and Mon and I’d say the Monday was just as busy. It was August though.

I wish we had had an Emotion Pass. We went in the school holidays when it was very hot and very crowded. Many of the shows required us to stand waiting in full sun for an hour or longer to get in. The Emotion pass holders just rocked up at the last minute and got really good seats.

The bird show is very good as everyone says. Vikings also excellent. And the Three Musketeers indoor show. The jousting thing was OK - odd to see the English as the villains for a change but that is a bit of a theme throughout PdF.

We stayed at a PdF hotel (the Field of the Cloth of Gold one) for one night, and a little hotel called the Omnubo in Saint Mars la Reorthe a few miles away for one night, which was much better.

The main problem with PdF is the food. I was genuinely shocked how bad the food was, given this is in France. I would strongly recommend eating as much as possible offsite (the Omnubo had a nice brasserie) and taking baguettes and apples for lunch.

Just resuscitating this thread as we're planning on going to PdF in August. We're staying about 25 mins away. We can't get emotion passes (as they're all sold out, as is the evening show, sadly). Trying to decide whether to book 1 or 2 day tickets. Any advice? Can we see all the main shows in 1 day in August, or will that be too much/ queues too long??

Any other tips, other than lots of water/ take food/ hats, etc?

Thanks!

Take earphone splitters so you can listen to the English audio on your phone

You will have a much easier and more relaxed time if you book 2 days. Especially without an Emotion pass. It’s impossible to fit in all the big shows on one day, even with the emotion pass, so without I reckon you’d only see half the big shows in a day (if lucky).

There’s plenty to do to fill 2 days - we had a pass for our first day and managed to cover perhaps 3/4 of the park (moving at top speed!) but were still glad of the second day to see the rest and repeat a couple of favourite bits.