Disneyland Paris merchandise....

[kif]

Disneyland Paris.... two families 5 kids.

My friends have mentioned words to the effect of "There is a shop after every ride, with fricking ££££Minnie wearing a different outfit in every shop. And everything is ££££. And the kids are always pestering for more".

Is there anywhere I can stock up on mouse ears, mickey lollies etc etc cheaply beforehand? I can get to a Disney store or mail order - but would be nice if i bought the right stuff!

Disneyland Paris has lots of shops, some sell merchandise that is exclusive to Disneyland Paris which means that you can't buy it in Disney Store before you go.
My 2 were so excited by the rides that they didn't really ask for any toys.
If you took some stuff from Disney Store with you though I am sure they will be happy.

There are lots of shops...but they all stock from the same range of items.

We set the grouund rules.....we would visit the shops before we left on the last day and they could spend £x of their own money and we would buy them something for £x.

You don't need to spend all day every day...yes there are a few kids dressed up as cinderella or whatever...but most aren't.

yes the dresses etc that are sold in the shops are more £££ than disney shops here. but as blame the parents says take some with you and yours won't mind as they already hav their princess dress on etc etc

i found the food £££ too.

that said its not stopping me planning to go back

the best bet is to buy them a new dress before you go and make them aware that they are not getting another one and tell them how much money they get to spend while there and once it's gone, it's gone! that's what we will be doing with our daughter age 5. last year, age 4 she didn't even notice the shops!

agree with others, we are looking at disney world for sept but we have already said we will take DDs[3+4] princess dresses with us to save the money they will be charging in disney

I bought half board vouchers ( to take the hit up front ).

My friend's advice was to give my kids an astronomical amount of spending money at the begining of the holiday (£50 ish) and watch them learn a harsh lesson in capitalist economics as that turns into one fluffy Minnie and two lollipops .

Kif, I did eurodisney in October half term and REFUSED to go in the shops. I had been before and the price hike from sterling to euro is disgusting on merchandise. For example disney 'cars' cost 20 euro and over here cost £12.00. times that sort of cost by 3 kids and it will cost you a small fortune, which is ok if you can afford it and don't mind being ripped off! So I decided in October to take my money and spend it in the disney store at Bluewater, wrap up the presents and at the end of each day they had disney presents to keep them busy til bed time , plus it worked as a good bribe for the little one throughout the day .Mickey mouse ears here e.g £4.00 in eurodisney 10 euro, you decide???
Most kids don't wear the dressing up outfits but if you want them too, then buy them off ebay or borrow them. Cost cutting would include taking a flask of coffee, squash, plenty of snacks and possibly a baguette if staying in self catering. You can have a fantastic time if you spend alot or spend next to nothing, it all depends on your budget. Have fun, we did!

We're off to Florida in may and I'm already preparing. Florida is better as there are Disney discount outlets but the actual park stuff is still expensive. I'm second guessing what tat they would want - so instead of buying the expensive flashy light things for parades I've got some cheap glowsticks in a pound shop. I also found some Disney colouring books and pens in pound shops and so far we've managed to get all the princess dressing up stuff from charity shops... You can also get cheap stuffed mickeys and minnies in charity.
All of this stuff i've put away and am going to wrap in disney paper and distribute as and when.
Someone also told me with older children - if you make a note of what they want and where they sell it and then at the end of the holiday they can choose one thing from a whole list.

the dresses there are 40 euros when you can get ones that are just as nice here for £15. everything is ££££££££££££££

Try to find a Disney autograph book before you go too.

Like all theme parks there ar eplenty of gift shops. However we have been to Disneyland Paris and Disney Florida several times and we just don't go in apart from on the very last day. As with all our holidays, my DH likes to get DD a gift on the vry lst day of a holiday - that is the only time we go in.

There is so much other stuff to see and do, DD just isn;t bothered by the shops.

I agree with everyone else you can get stuff from pound shops before you go. Like scrappy I take loads of glow sticks for evening parades and firework shows. I even found glowing mickey ears to take for two for a pound. You can often get Mickey t shirts in H and M for 2.99 much cheaper than when you get there. Ebay also has loads of stuff as well. We wrap them up with a from Mickey etc and leave them under pillows etc. You can also print off mickey colouring sheets to use whilst travelling from the disney website.

I thought that the autograph book and pen was ok, extortionate for what it is, but not too expensive. The outfits are a total rip off. We told kids they could choose one soft toy thing each for the trip and we bought them 1 t-shirt to wear.
The thing I found the most was the price of food. In the park it is 5 euro for a pack of sweets etc... daylight robbery. Would second the suggestion of buying the half board vouchers before hand to soften the blow when you get there. Also, try to eat in the disney village, there is macdonalds etc for a fraction of the price of similar in the park. there isn't a lot of scope for buying your own sandwiches etc or for buying food for picnics unless you ahve a car and can drive to supermarket.
Personlly my kids never asked for costumes etc they were happy chasing autographs!

I would take a pack of fat felt pens for autographs and you can usually get disney notebooks in pound shops. Also you can get packs of disney themed snacks in the supermarket. There is a very nice sandwhich shop in the train station outside the park. Cheap and much nicer than the food in the park.

There is a hypermarket, which is easy to find, one stop on the train from the disney station.

We never bother with the autographs. Have never seen the point. We do photos where queues are not so long, as DD likes to see pictures of herself with the characters.

If not going for long I'd skip the character queuing - can be manic at DLP - and enjoy the rides and parades instead.

DD takes a princess dress with her to wear on one day. Chose what that can be squished up into a bag easily - they get fed up of wearing them IME, esp if it is a warm day. Don't bother with the princess shoes.

We never buy sparkly things for the parades, etc.

Food is dear yes, but no worse IME than any other theme park type place. Go for fast food stuff and it keeps the price down. Smuggle in some fruit and snacks of your own.

A character meal is great for photo opportunutieis. Not cheap, and your chld probably won;t eat much dueto be being giddy - but was worth it for DD's reactions.

I agree with Hula about character meals saves the hideous queueing, Cafe Mickey is nice.

My SIL thinks I am incredibly tight and miserable...we are going to Euro Disney for a day in Feb. We are staying at a small hotel about 20 mins away (I thought my Dad and I would enjoy this more than staying in Disney land and it is a lot cheaper).

And for 2 boys, aged 3 and 5, I think a day of Mickey Mouse will be great...I think several day (for me at least) would be dire.

Some interesting points above. SIL mentioned the autographs...not sure that the boys would be that excited...will keep reading!

kif, where are you staying? If its a disney hotle then dont bother with queueing for character photos, most of the hotels ahve a meet and greet in the evening (we went in august and there was never a big queue at our hotel.)

the HB vouchers are good and ours included a character meal at the lucky nugget saloon which was fab, make sure you book a table in the morning.

we stayed at davy crocketts as it was cheapest (and we drove oursleves) and so we used the baguettes from brekafast every morning with ham and cheese as the accomodation there is self catering to make a picnic lunch (in theory you arent allowed picnics in the park but no-one stopped us sitting on a abench eating it LOL).

As for the shops, yes they are there but we just looked, you dont have to spend lots and lots of money, some of the shops in different lands have different merchandise so make the kids research them all week and then choose one thing at the end of your trip.

oh and second the idea of taking costumes with you - tk maxx have them cheap.

I'm amazed at all the people buying disney merchandise to take with them for each day - crikey! DD just took her normal toys and played with them before bed.

gingernut - it sounds alot but it actually it isn't its just a few bits. As much as I love disney if I'm going to pay for cheap tat (which alot of it is really) then I'm not going to spend vast amounts of money on it. Plus most of dds 'normal' toys are disney merchandise so...

All the shops in Disneyland Paris sell identical stuff, it's very boring. Is also very very expensive and no better quality or more exciting than the Disneystore. So I would get outfits / toys in the UK and then buy a couple of smaller 'Disneyland Paris' things out there

Agree with Bonjour and other posters about buying dresses before you go.
We went to DLP in July and bought DD a sleeping beauty dress for her birthday a few months later. Think it was around 45 euros and I was gutted to get back to the UK and find the same in the Disney store for around 25 pounds (no pound sign on this computer?) and also shops like mothercare had similar ones for around 15 pound.

Spent a bloody fortune on sodding minnie ears. She already had a minnie dress she wore a few times and we bought her the ears to match. daft moo lost them a few times so we ended up buying about 4 pairs (didn't admit this to DH. He knew we'd bought one more pair but I had to keep sending DS to rush off and buy more and pretend we'd found the damm things)

Definitely buy a few dresses/t shirts before you go and maybe let your DC spend a bit of their pocket money on the last day on something they want that you can only get there

I'm getting really excited about the prestocking thing now...

I browsed the Disney store and they personalise. Personalise!

I can Brits-abroad throw my street cred out of the window and co-ordinate all my kids in Team Kif TinkerBell TShirts with their names embroidered on . Kinda, "Kif Junior - DLP 2010 " sporty vibe, I;m thinking.

Surely that just can't feel like deprivation to a 5 year old?

(goes to a dark room to re-collect my sanity)