Disneyland Paris

[whatonearthishappenin]

I am looking for any top tips for Disneyland Paris… heading there with an 8 year old boy and 5 year old girl. Any tips at all are welcome for both before we arrive and during the trip.

Plan downtime. Take snacks .

They'll be walking, walking, walking....

Download the app a couple of weeks before you go so you can get an idea of the queue times for each ride at different times of the day, especially if there’s a ride that your children particularly want to go on. I took a pre-packed snack bag in a ziplock bag for each child for each day I was there. Then, when they’re hungry they can choose something from their own bag rather than paying a lot of money for park snacks, or they can eat something if they get bored while queueing. You can pre-book restaurants near the park if you don’t want to go back to your hotel for dinner. When you want to watch the fireworks, go early to get a good position so that you can see the front of the castle clearly. The best spots fill up fast.

resign yourself to food that s overpriced and not the best ! Get a booking in the rainforest cafe if you can.
we got fast track tickets (you can get it on the Disney app) and it s great for rides with big queues.

get your Disney clothes in primary ahead of going

the kids will have an absolute blast.

It will be busy with World of Frozen opening this weekend. I think Ratatouille reopening this weekend too. The most popular meet and greets: Mickey, Olaf, Disney Princesses, Hero training academy, Darth Vader have virtual queues and are booked on the app. The virtual queues open at 9:45 and 2pm, and it's worth setting a reminder to be ready and waiting to book exactly when they open as the queue fills instantly and it sells out. There are other characters you can just line up to meet. The app shows your local time if you look at it today and you are not in Europe. If you are going to stay until the end of the day for the night show and fireworks, to me it's worth paying for a spot in the reserved viewing area at the front. People put kids on shoulders and it can be hard to see it otherwise. There will be a night show in both parks as of this weekend, so that might help with the crowds a bit. We go to Colonel Hathi's outpost for Mickey shaped pizza, it's over near Indiana Jones and usually quieter. The food is not great, I'm sure it's better in the sit down restaurants, I've just never booked them. The Fantasyland rides shut an hour earlier than others to allow the set-up for fireworks. McDonald's in the village is a good option for cheap food.

Where are staying?

I didn't rate the rainforest cafe for food. I think the money is better spent in the buffet restaurants.

Buffet for breakfast

Snack at lunchtime from one of the fast food counters

Buffet for dinner

The food is not good and extremely overpriced, they just want to make money. Definitely buy enough snacks to last the holiday.

Take a lot of money! It’s ridiculously expensive! It just felt like a money grabbing experience for me as an adult, really took the shine off. Take ponchos and Disney ears rather than buying them there.

Thank you!! Any more tips gratefully received.

We took our dc last year at 7&5, nearly 8&6. I have lots of tips but will post the ones I can think of first and maybe come back when I’ve remembered more 😂

Make the most of magic hours, shortest times to queue. If staying onsite, it’s easy to walk or bus back to the hotel for a rest during the day if needed. Take the most comfortable shoes as it’s a LOT of walking. Take ponchos and ears as pp said. Give dc each a budget for merch. I’d recommend not doing princess pavilion queuing as dc always want to see their favourite and it usually never is and then you’ve queued up to three hours for a disappointment; if you see character queues for ones they like then do those instead, as they can literally see who it is. Take squeezy diligent juice and water bottles, these can be refilled around the park at fountains for free.

I am staying at the Disney Hotel

Take advantage of early morning opening to disneyland before it opens to the public.
Download the app so you can see the queue times and plan before you go to the park.
Order food for collection from the app.
Pay for fast track.

Ok take advantage of the magic hour. The restaurants are awful. Now exh walked out of Ratatouille to go to McDonald’s and queued an hour. Breakfast at Winter Gardens was the best meal we had. Stayed at Sequoia and the food there was better than on park.

I see you’re staying at the Disneyland Hotel so not on a tight budget. The best things I did were:
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• Book the various character dining to avoid queuing to meet characters
• Allow a budget to queue skip each day. We had the rule of buy a pass if the wait is longer than 20 minutes. We got to go on so much

Are you staying at the Disneyland hotel? The one at the entrance of the park?

If so, you can book princess meets on the Disneyland app at your hotel. As soon as you have done the first, you can book the next.

When are you visiting? If it's soon then it might be too late, but if you have time, being a Disney hotel guest you can book restaurants a year in advance of your visit. So I suggest you try and book some restaurants if you want to eat at a Disney restaurant or do character dining.

Use magic hour for that quieter hour in the park.

The shows are great. Especially the Lion king show. If you have time, try and see a show.

Currently there is a special musical parade on 3/4 times a day called Splash of colours. Try and see at least one and aim to get a good spot about 30 mins before near the castle.

Some rides are quiet in the evenings so don't bother queuing for over an hour for rides that go down to 5 min wait in the evening. These are rides such as Small world, pirates of Caribbean, star tour.

Have fun 😊

Some people are saying use the paid for fast passes, I would say only use them if you can't do the ride in magic hour. I.e. Big thunder mountain, buzz light-year can be done in magic hour for free. Crush is the only one worth fast pass for as even in magic hour the queue gets stupid. But that's going to be closing for refurbishment soon. So might not even be an option soon.

Also for rides, Hyper space mountain and Avengers flight force are quite fast. So be warned the rides are pretty intense so you might want to skip as your kids are young.

It’s been a while since I have been but I used to take cereal bars with me to have them in the room when getting ready and then head straight into the park for extra magic hours. We would do the main rides we wanted to and then try to meet some characters first thing and do any shopping. Once the park started to fill with public opening we would head back to the hotel for breakfast. The restaurant was a little quieter at this point. We would then freshen up and head back into the parks. Timings used to be extra magic hours 8-9, then open to the public at 9. We would usually leave around 10, may be 10.30 for breakfast and be back in at 11 or 11.30.

It always worked well for us and is a perk of being at the main Disney hotel as it’s literally 10 steps away from the main gates.

Thank you everyone, some great tips. Particularly going out before breakfast and then heading back to the hotel to eat. I hadn’t thought of that.