Any tips for a novice trying to book euro Disney

[whatshalliday]

Looking to book Disney as a gift for our kids for Christmas present but I have no idea where to even start. We are thinking 3 nights, will this be enough? What hotel would people recommend? What about fast track tickets etc? Any help will be appreciated. Thanks!!

A lot depends on how old your dc are, how you'll be getting there and what time of year you're planning on going.

We went for 5 nights in 2019 and stayed in the Disneyland Hotel which is right at the park entrance, but it is the most expensive one. It was the "holiday of a lifetime" but we loved it so much we are going to go back again once Frozen land is completed.

If you book a package then tickets are included and the Disneyland hotels all include the early magic hour. It can be much cheaper to book everything separately if you are savy and want to do that. (I preferred to book direct with Disneyland Paris).

There are some great facebook groups with loads of useful info on, have a search of the group because your questions will have probably been asked and answered before. Disneyland Paris Tips for Brits, and also Disneyland Paris for Brits, are 2 good ones. There are people on there who go multiple times a year.

There is a lot of information on the Disneyland Paris website. Regarding fast track tickets, as far as I understand it, these are per person per day for one ride on specific rides, so do read the list carefully before buying them to make sure that you will make full use of them.

We've just recently come back from Disneyland Paris. In our experience booking through the app is cheapest. As previous poster says there are usually package deals to get hotel, travel and park entry. Would not recommend the food packages as there are so many places to choose from at different budget levels so it's not needed. Would recommend priority passes for at least one of the days. Queue times can be long and it prohibits the fun if you can only manage a couple of rides a day. We stayed in the B&B hotel to save costs but already planning a trip back and considering one of the more mid-range options to be closer to the park (without having to sell a kidney for the Disneyland Hotel!). 3 full days is probably the minimum, any less and you won't feel like you've experienced all there is to offer between the park and studios. There are loads of shows to see in the studios so worth factoring those in (priority passes recommended to avoid the long queue and wait times for those too, it's around €12 pp to get a priority pass for a show). Hope you get it sorted, it's so much fun!!!

I agree with PP about not getting the food package. We didn't as we didn't want to be tied to meal times. A lot of people do get the food package and love it though. Food is very expensive at DLP so can work out cheaper for some groups. If you do get the food package, then you need to book your meals or you could miss out. We took a lot of snacks with us for lunchtimes (no dairy or meat allowed into France). We bought 2 cheap coffee/pastry breakfasts, with an extra pastry, every day between 3 of us. We ate every evening, in the cheaper range, but did have a sit down table service meal. The Lucky Nugget was good.

We booked 2 character meals, we had lunch with the Princesses, and a character breakfast. Then we didn't need to queue to see those people.

We were "lucky" enough to get a priority pass due to my mum's mobility disability, as she cannot queue, so anything she went on, we could queue jump with her. The queues are horrendous, DD queued for 2 hours to meet Minnie Mouse.

The June that we were there it was horrendously hot, which made everything more effort and cost more on drinks. There are water fountains everywhere, so take little squeezy squash with you as well.

If you have young children the extra cost of the Disneyland Hotel can repay you in terms of being able to get back to the room quite easily. This can yield all sorts of benefits from naps, to access to their baby food/ snacks without carting it, nappy changes in comfort ( the park toilets are not dire but not a Disneyland high point, and queues for them can be as long as a walk back to this hotel ).

I personally think more than three nights starts to dilute the magic a bit. You really want to leave feeling you could have done “just one more ride on x” rather than feeling jaded and ready to leave.

Personally I’d go for less time but with a better hotel location and fast pass at least one day. Nb the fast pass mostly covers rides for older children so may not repay you entirely, though most little ones enjoy the Peter Pan ride. Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted house sometimes have huge queues and sometimes surprisingly short depending on time of day : I’ve never cracked the algorithm!

We did 3 nights at Sequoia. Tbh my kids were over it by the last day. They wanted to stay at the hotel and swim. We went in October half term, it was cold. And lots of rides had broken down. We questioned for an hour and a half to get told a ride had broken down and we had to leave.

They loved slinky dog, the character breakfast, meet and greet at the hotel, The food at the process lunch and ratatouille was beyond awful. We walked out of ratatouille but for three goes on the rides with no queues so swings and roundabouts.

Been 8 times since DD was 3 and never once gone back to the room during the day (4 night stays).

OP, the Disneyland Paris for Brits page on Facebook is worth joining.

Any of the Disney hotels are fine, they are all a short walk from the parks.

For some reason meeting the characters is extremely popular at DLP (much more so than in Florida) and therefore the queues are ridiculous. Unless your kids are REALLY keen to meet a particular character I wouldn't bother wasting precious park time queuing for it. We've always preferred to see the characters in parades/shows instead.

We found it hugely useful.

We’ve been going since it opened , personally I prefer the Disneyland hotel and for us the convenience is worth the price . We always book direct with Disney and then book our travel with eurotunnel as we drive ( it’s simple) . We have only ever had a meal plan when it’s been part of the offer but they tend not to do that as much now . I would have breakfast at the hotel as there are no other places for a good breakfast and although it’s quite expensive it is good . If you do want to have a sit down meal book early as the park restaurants do get booked up . We always have an access pass now so the priority passes aren’t relevant to us .

The close location of that hotel that is. The fb page I don’t know.

Meant to say kids are 5 and 6 and thinking of going January time.

This might surprise you, but after quite a few trips over the years, I would say 5 or 6 is possibly a couple of years too soon. Given yours are so close in age, you can avoid the need to take some when a bit too young.

Would you consider waiting until they are say 7 and 8? We definitely took ours at those younger ages ( and in my family growing up we did too) BUT IME the Dc who got most out of it were in the 7-11/12 bracket. It just opens up more rides and is I think, a bit easier for them to absorb things. Quite a few of us don’t really remember the visits from earlier . One of our Dc thought the characters were completely frightful! 🤣

I always book a Eurostar package with Magic Breaks and stay in the Newport Bay hotel. It is significantly cheaper than Disneyland Hotel and a manageable 10-15 mins walk.

Very good breakfast in the hotel. We are always down first for breakfast, go to the park for when it opens to Disney customers, then come back to the hotel in the afternoon to relax and use the pool. Then back into the park in the evening.

January is short park days so don’t do too short a trip.

Sequoia is my fave onsite hotel. Newport Bay is like a conference centre and if your room is at the far end of either wing it can be another 1000 steps from the hotel entrance to it - a killer on a 25k step park day. Sequoia feels closer and smaller somehow.

Following as we’ve been lucky enough to secure a place on a package through my husbands works social club. Kids are 14 & 10 so possible too old (definitely won’t bother meeting the characters!) but oldest is autistic and has epilepsy so will be looking into disabled priority access. I think the hotel is the Cheyenne.

Never too old. My 14 year old has planned all of her trips up to 18 (so far!).

3 nights is fine, it does your head in any longer, the music and crowds that is!. I haven't been since pre pandemic and the hotels were b&b then which was convenient but I think that's not the case then, I've been twice and stayed at Newport bay and sequoia lodge which were a close walk. Huge McDonald's was used a bit for evening meals and we went to the Disney village restaurants, the buffalo bill show first time or just grabbed fast food in the park, yes rubbish food mostly but we didn't want to waste time sitting down except we went to the proper restaurant in pirates of the Caribbean ride. Buy some merchandise before going if money is tight eg primark have Disney.

Fast track has changed alas, when we went it was free, like a virtual queue, but only one ride at a time. Now it's pricey and means rich can queue jump, unfair in my book.

I would only go back in winter myself because it was so hot and crowded last time I went. My DD's want to go, they are adults so school not an issue, we are think about late January with raincoats, Disney ones of course!

I’ve booked through attraction tickets. Same price but I get 50€ voucher and I don’t have to pay much as deposit. Only £25

IMO 10 is about the perfect age!

I think 5/6 is a little on the young side unless you are planning multiple trips and can afford to just focus on a few aspects of the park. You’d miss out on lots of the rides and i have only blurry memories of going young, as do our Dc . There’s a lot to take in and that scale can be quite overwhelming for young children. By ten my sibling had memorised the map and ranked all the rides and just got so much more out of it ! Also our 4 year old was a bit nervous about the characters, and I honestly think would have got more out if a petting zoo or similar. 10 is old enough to hit space mountain, young enough to get excited over a Mickey popcorn tub and able to appreciate fully the immersive experience of rides like haunted house and pirates without feeling scared.

We did 5 nights due to the mobility issues, as we needed to go at a much slower pace and also cover one area at a time as we couldn't keep running around all over the place just to catch characters etc.

We didn't make the early magic hour once, but the park was open til 11pm when we were there so it was long days. It closes earlier during winter so you get shorter days. So time of year is important.

You also want to avoid all French holidays, which are different to UK ones.

DD was 11 when we went. She loved meeting the characters and the rides, but the magic was not quite the same as when she was 10. We had planned to go for her 10th birthday, but I injured my leg a few days before we were due to go - thank god for insurance as we got 100% of our money back - we then had to wait until after the SATS, so she was gone 11. She didn't want to dress up the same as she had a year earlier.