Disneyland Paris - to stay on site or not?

[Canttakeanymore88]

I don’t think the on site hotels are all that, they look quite dated and expensive for what they are, but they come with the extra hour of park time in the morning which I’m being told is essential.

Otherwise I was considering the dream hotel nearby with shuttle service, though I’m told these are heaving each morning and you often have to wait for several until one is free.

Thoughts? Will be with a 4 year old and 1 year old.

Depends on what other plans you have and transport. We stayed offsite at a Sheraton Villa and hired a car. Saved money by having breakfast, lunch and dinner at the villa (take away) plus less luggage as we had a washing machine.

crowds were low so extra hour wasn’t beneficial.

We stayed offsite in an air b&b one tube stop away. The tram stops directly outside disney. No need for shuttle buses. Tram was waiting for us as the park closed to go home. Was excellent. The extra hour of park time isn’t really of any benefit since none of the rides are open then anyway so all it allows you is to get to the front of a queue and wait for an hour.

I don’t think the extra hour in the morning is either here nor there with very young children. If you had older DCs who wanted to go on the big rides it might be worth it. The types of rides your DCs will be going on tend to have very short/no queues anyway.

I should caveat this by saying that I don’t understand how people spend so much time (3 days+) at Disney. We go for the day every year, and always cover both parks in a single day.

If you are going at peak period and can afford it, stay on site. We went with similar aged children, and the hotel was a little dated and expensive but the pluses outweighed the negatives. The golden hour is invaluable and the rides are open at that time, as are queues for more popular characters, depending on which hotel you stay at you can walk back to your room without having to wait for the shuttles, which by all accounts can get really hectic, especially with prams. We would go for magic hour, come back to the hotel for breakfast and then back out to the park fuelled by snacks until dinner time.

What time of year did you go that the crowds were very low?

Which on site hotel? We loved onsite x

What's the cost difference? We have stayed on and off site. I think onsite is much easier with young ones as it's easier to pop back for a nap whenever you want or if you're finding it a bit much drop out for an hour or 2 to chill. Obviously you can do this staying off site it's just easier staying onsite.

Disney food is pretty awful and expensive though so off site gives you better options for self catering.

We have always used the magic hour as we have early risers and some rides that are popular with very small people had big queues such as Buzz Light-year and Ratatouille.

There's several FB groups that you can lose hours on reading about different options. Whatever you choose it won't be perfect, once you accept that you'll have a fab time

Thanks all!

Cost overall is similar between the off site hotel we like and the cheaper Disney ones (Cheyenne, Santa Fe.) Around £200 more to stay on site, more if we go half board.

I've stayed on site but the hotels were b&b then so we could stuff ourselves each morning. Walking is useful as shuttles get full.

With such young kids stay onsite, the 1 year old gets cranky and over stimulated you pop back to the room for an hour. It was amazing for us.

We went out in the morning came back for a rest or if it was raining after lunch. Back out in the afternoon and meant the oldest could go watch the fireworks while we stayed in the room one night. Just gives you more flex with little ones.

I would do breakfast only rather than half
board and go for the highest hotel possible for the difference….means your closer and walkable.

We always stay onsite but at the Disneyland hotel , purely for its convenience for the park . When the kids were young it was part of the holiday staying in a Disney hotel and I know the breakfast is good , particularly for gluten free .

It’s over £2k for 2 nights 😵

We stayed at Santa Fe and ate breakfast in the park almost every morning. During magic hour we were able to walk on and off rides and then had breakfast when the main gates opened.

If I went now, now that I earn more I'd stay in the Marvel or New York one so that you can nip back and forth during the day particularly if you went during a time of year when the park opening hours were long.

We never queued for photos with the characters as we had all our meals with them instead which saved loads of time.

The shuttles at the end of the day, and the one day we ate breakfast at Sante Fe were chocka and we had to wait quite a while for one with space to get on. We would have walked but DD was under the weather for most of the trip and not up to the 20 mins walk, fortunately we were able to hire the giant pushchairs in the park which I'd recommend doing anyway, they are huge and comfortably fit a size 14 adult in so good for under 5s or older who might get tired during a whole day walking around.

We went May half term 2024

look at the crowd calendar on the queue times website - it was reasonably accurate.

https://queue-times.com/

We stayed Santa Fe and thought it was fine I liked the look of Cheyenne walking past it so if we did again I’d choose that one :). I think you can pull apart everything you do food ect but at the end of the day your there for a short period of time in the grand scheme of things. It’s an amazing holiday the bus is outside the hotel takes like 5 mins to get there or you can walk which takes 20mins. X

Have only ever stayed onsite - at Cheyenne the first time and Disneyland Hotel the second time. As far as I'm concerned you can't get close enough. Even the Cheyenne was too far away for me.
Disneyland Hotel won hands down. Lovely breakfast, relatively civilized, no queues, a nice place to spend the evening character watching, zero walking to the park and not having to get up at dawn to beat the rush.

I would either stay onsite (we're staying in Sequoia this year) or properly off-site in an Airbnb or similar. We stayed in one of the partner hotels last year and the shuttle buses were horrific at all times of the day.

I know but my daughter has very bad chronic fatigue so it’s perfectly placed for us added to which I like it better than the rest . When my children were small we always stayed at the New York but I’m not keen now they’ve changed it to Marvel . I like the Sequoia Lodge but it’s too far to walk and the shuttle bus drop off is quite far as well . I dislike the Newport Bay . We usually only do 2 nights 3 days as we go often and that is time to have a leisurely wander with plenty of stops for resting / coffee .

We stayed off-site. The area 1 train stop away is all very modern, there's a massive hypermarket and a shopping centre there, plus various restaurants (nothing special but the food we had was good and I reckon better than the average on-site restaurant). Airbnb was pretty reasonable (I think around £700 for 5 nights) and I'd do it again. Train was very quick and easy. Much more convenient doing it that way with kids in my opinion. My youngest was 3. She was fine all day but we took the buggy for her so she could nap if needed.

We stayed in sequoia with DTs when they were 4. I couldn't be doing with faffing about with shuttles and trains. When they lost the plot with tiredness we could nip back for some down time and then go back in.

Some of the off site hotels are a 10/15/20 min walk away, which appears to be the case for most of the Disney hotels too. Am I missing something?

Thanks very much! V helpful

@Canttakeanymore88 you are correct that the walking distance is quoted as the same for some offsite hotels , for people like me it’s too far , if you don’t mind a walk and don’t feel you need the whole Disney experience then it will probably suit you .

If they are doing a meal plan with the on site hotel then that plus the extra magic hour is worth doing. But if you go term time hopefully the queues will be shorter and the extra magic hour won't be so key.

We got up for the extra magic hour every day then went back to the hotel for a late breakfast. That would have been much harder off site.

@Tarantella6 since covid they do far fewer offers and rarely include a meal package . The refurbed hotels have more different levels of rooms and the more expensive ones have breakfast included and afternoon snacks .