Disney Paris advice

[Appletreefarm544disney]

Hi

I've just booked a holiday to take what will be at the time nearly 4 and nearly 1 year old. We've booked the dream castle hotel and flights into Charles de Gaulle. Our flight home isn't until 7.30 at night so hoping to go into Paris that day but has anyone done this before and left their luggage anywhere in the centre safely? Any other general advice for us novices. I am absolutely not a disney adult you couldn't pay me to go to America but I'm doing it for the kids! What are the must do's and general tips when there? We've got 2 days 2 parks tickets.

Thank you all

Borrow a buggy at the park, for both kids. You'll be walking miles.
Have stuff for them to do in the long queues.
Take food in with you, like packed lunch or something.
Don't expect to do all of it in two days with two little ones.

(They're a bit young for it tbh)

Personally for those ages I would take two cheap buggies with you as the ones in the park are very uncomfortable and expensive to hire.
Make sure you take calpol and adult paracetamol as these are only sold in pharmacies in France with is a train ride away from Disney.
Watch the shows and parades as they are great.
Download the Disneyland Paris app as it has all the show times on and ride wait times.
I am a complete Disney adult so if you have any questions feel free to ask.

Fair point about the buggies comfort.
Either way you'll definitely need one for the 3 year old, even if you don't use one for them day to day.

I wouldn't have even thought about a buggy for the elder one! Thank you all. He is completely lightning mcqueen obsessed so I want to take him to that bit before he grows out of it. I have a feeling we'll go back when they're older anyway. When you say don't expect to do it all what you mean @fanaticalfairy?? Is it a really big park or just because it will be busy queue wait times etc? Great tip about calpol, @Daisypod again wouldn't have thought of that! With the shows and parades is this something you book or just rock up to?

They won't remember much at those ages. In five years time would make more sense.

Mine were 17, 14, 9 and 7 so got lots of memories out of it.

I'll remember it though. And remember their little faces at seeing it all 🥰. Well, the eldest anyway, the youngest won't have a clue what's going on but he's coming along for the ride anyway haha

When are you roughly going? 2 days probably isn't enough to get it all done unless you're going super off peak!

End of September, I don't think he'll be into any big rides or anything it'll be more the shows and family rides etc. Which park do you think I should prioritise then?

You need a full day for the main Disneyland Park then maybe most of day 2 in studios with time to revisit the other

We went for one day. I bought a book and joined the face book group. I planned a route round so we didn't waste time walking to rides that we didn't like and ones that weren't age appropriate. We really made the most of our time. We did get lost on the way out and didn't find our car for an hour. I wish we had taken more snacks and things to do in the queues. We also ate at the counter food outlets rather than a restaurant.

Ime the It’s a Small World ride is a favourite at that age.
its a good one to do when the dc are getting a bit tired too.

It's big and busy.

The main on. The studios park wouldn't have that much the kids would be interested in really.

No tips for Disney I'm afraid other than try to stick around for the light show if little ones can stay awake but as you have little ones my tip would be if you go into Paris, make sure you check the stations beforehand as we found a lot of them are step access only so may be a bit difficult with a pram. 🙂

When mine were 4/5 they liked the fairytale boats and Casey junior train best , both in the main park

The OP says he DS loves Lightening McQueen so that would be Studios for the Cars ride.

She asked which one to prioritise 🤷‍♀️

We’ve just been before Xmas with my 5yo & 10m old. Two days was perfect as my 5 year old is only tall enough for about 7/8 rides and my baby could only go on maybe 3 or 4.

we took a buggy with a buggy Board. Studios was a bit rubbish IMO, the cars rides are great for kids but lots of building works we spent maybe 2/3 hours there across the two days

have a great trip! X

Assuming you will be with another adult, you can make good use of "single rider" lanes to sneak in a few quick blasts on the more adult rides.

@Christmascrazyalways there are 19 rides with no height restrictions so there's lots more you would have been able to go on to.

That's can't be right the following rides/art actinhave no restrictions at all;

It's a small world
Peter pans flight
Dumbo flyers
Slinky dog
Flying Carpets
Lancelot's carousel
The cars ride
Adventure Isle
Alice's labyrinth
Bizz laser blaster ride
The little train
The tree house Robinson Crusoe
Tea cups
Orbitron.

I'm surprised he couldn't go on autopia, that's like...80cm?

Definitely double pushchair or one each. If they will want merchandise, buy before you go if you want to save money. McDonald's in the Disneyland village is busy buy so much cheaper that the other eateries. In September it hopefully will be less crowded, I personally prefer the studios park and lots is inside, useful if raining. The ratatouille ride, buzz lightyear, cars and there's a couple more for little ones (if the adults want coasters I recommend the rock n rollercoaster which blasts you with Aerosmith and is inside).

Main park I think you might all be able to go on the pirates of the Caribbean and check the height of the mine train one which was shorter too. Peter Pan is good and I love dumbo for some reason (first movie I ever saw) plus the carousel is lovely

The vast majority of the rides have no height restrictions. Unless you mean in the studios park only as there aren’t many rides there.

If you are looking for the roller coaster ride it's in the avengers campus and is now marvel themed and called avengers assemble: flight force. I don't recall any aerosmith music playing with the new theming but not entirely sure.

We took 3yo at end of September last year and had a blast! Definitely not too young!

You'll need to decide a bit what to prioritise. Unlike a standard theme park it’s not just rides. There are:

Rides
Shows and Parades
Character Meet n Greets

If you think your wee one would like to see Disney characters by far the quickest way to meet a few is to book character dining, depending on who you want to see this would be at Plaza Gardens, Auberge de Cendrillon or Royal Banquet. At plaza can book breakfast or dinner (no characters at lunch) and see usually some Winnie the Pooh characters, maybe hook or pinnochio, maybe some Mickey and friends. At auberge every meal is with princesses. As an off site guest you could only book the 9.45 sitting not the 8.15.

You can also queue to meet characters but queues can be long. The benefit can be that you are often allowed buggies in character queues (these are never allowed in ride queues) and a tip to meet Mickey is look next to Haunted Mansion, he is often there and we met him after a 20 minute wait (vs 1 hour in his meet and greet building in fantasy land).

DD was surprisingly really into characters. Also if your son likes marvel you can book avengers and spider man meets at the studios on the app- you need to be in the park to book it though, I think bookings go live at 10 and 2 on the day.

If you’re not interested in characters at all that’s simpler, just focus on rides and parades/ shows. There are 3 big shows at the studios, frozen (which is ok) Mickey and the magician (which is fab) and Pixar Together (I haven’t seen but heard good things). I would suggest trying to see one of the latter two. Definitely catch the main parade in the main park, DD was spellbound.

Finally rides, check the app for queue times, bring a good carrier for the little one and something to entertain the older one in queues. Rides like dumbo and Peter Pan get excessively long queues whereas we found the carousel, tea cups and story book boat queues were usually under 30 mins. If you really want to go on a ride and queue is very long you can pay for premiere access and baby will be free, we did this for autopia and orbitron (one adult only with DD) as it wasn’t too expensive.

Finally, not sure if you’re going with another adult but if so you make use of parent swap, this means you can queue as normal, ride a height restricted ride, then ask at the exit for a ticket and your partner can go on without queuing. You could also each take it in turns to take the 3yo on rides the baby can’t go on, but unless 3yo is quite tall this will probably be limited to a couple of rides as the vast majority have no height restrictions and those that do are mostly over 1m. Autopia and parachute drop being the exceptions I can think of.

Embrace it and have a great trip!