Whoop whoop thank you

[lisad123]

After much thought and loads of advice on here we have booked Disney land Paris.
We have booked for four days/three nights staying at Newport bay, which is on the lake. We have also decided to go half board as it saves a lot of worrying about food money and how much to take.
So give me your best advice tips ect.
We are going to book dinners before we go, which ones are best?
We have decided not to say anything to the girls until two weeks before and give them a count down calendar and social stories ect.

We are going via Eurostar, as I'm pretty certain flights would be too much.
We are very excited, now need to sort out insurance for dh :(

We stayed at the Newport Bay twice. Don't forget to bring your swim towels and cozzies! Breakfast is a vast buffet affair. We generally made some sandwiches from what was available as its expensive to eat in the park. Of course there is always McDonalds!! The Newport Bay have a good Buffet restaurant for dinner where they have a great variety of hot and cold food. There is also a carvery which was very good. My kids all ate well there.

Be warned though the rides nearly all come out at in a shop.
Have a fabulous time!! We always enjoy it.

That's wonderful news! You'll have a great time :)

Please PM me if you have any questions, i'm a Disney nut

Newport Bay has a lovely swimming pool. When are you going? It's lovely strolling along the lake in the evenings.

Don't forget to bring a doctor's note for the girls, take it to guest services at City Hall and they will give you a special pass so you don't have to use the normal queues and can wait in a less crowded area.

If your girls want to meet a princess you'll need to get to the Princess Pavilion at least 15 minutes before it opens (usually around 10am I think). Because you are staying onsite you get to go into the park before everyone else (like us who are staying offsite lol). This is a good time to go try the rides that usually have longer queues like Dumbo (its a slow loader as there aren't that many elephants1).

Cafe Mickey is a great character restaurant but quite busy. However if you go there for breakfast its quieter. I know you get breakfast for free at the hotel but we just decided to pay for the character breakfast to have somewhere quiet to relax, enjoy our breakfast and for our daughter to meet a few characters without kids being pushy etc.

Annette's Diner is a fun place to eat, great music, waitresses on roller skates and nice burgers.

Auberge de Cendrillon is a princess character meal, posh food in a posh restaurant with lots of princesses and their princes having a 'ball', dancing etc. It is ridiculously expensive and i'm selling like mad on ebay currently to afford for all 5 of us to go next month (over £200...its outrageous!). Because its very expensive it probably won't be full (photos i've seen of the restaurant that friends have taken always seem half empty).

If you love coffee you'll find it a bit dire at DLP however Starbucks, bless them, opened up in the Disney Village :) There is also a great toasted sandwich shop there called Earl of Sandwich, very yummy.

If either of your girls have problems with loud sounds I would bring ear defenders for them to wear during the show 'Animagique' which is a brilliant stage show but very loud, especially if you are sitting next to one of the speakers. I'd sit in the middle near the aisle. Don't worry if anyone in your party doesn't like being in the dark or the noises etc from the show, there are staff there all the time with small flashlights who help families out who want to leave during the show for whatever reason.

Oh, beware the moorish Mickey Brioche...its gorgeous and filled with Nutella!

I can't wait to go now...only 5 more weeks for us! Have a fab time xx

Cowboy cookout teaparty is fab and there were only 10 people there when we went and loads of characters!

The grange at Billy Bobs is a great buffet in Disney village.

The pizza places in Disney park are good to eat.

We checked out all the menus of places and wrote a list of all possible and suitable restaurants and took it with us!

You can use your priority pass that you get from city hall in the princess pavillion and to see the characters as well.

Have a fab time!!

Oh forgot to say Stitch Live and Playhouse Disney are must sees!! They are in the studios park and are fab! Only about 15 mins each but well worth it

I agree with everything everyone has said so far, we go to Disney every year and when we stay in the Newport we always upgrade to an Admirals floor room. It cost about 70 euros at the check in desk but for that you get a bigger room on a quieter floor and most importantly you get to have breakfast in the smaller quieter dinning room at any time you want rather than the scrum in the big dinning room at an allotted time, and you also have the choice of a hot breakfast in with the price.

Have a great time!

The lady on the phone told us we can book our restaurants online before we go. We also have one character dinner included, which one do I pick!!?
Thanks for all the help.
Will order dd1 a set of ear defenders, she is normally fine but while she doesn't kick off like dd2 to noise she has said she doesn't like it.

Which meal plan do you have? Can you use the meal vouchers for a meal like the princess one at Auberge de Cendrillon and pay the difference? Inventions (at the Disneyland Hotel) is an AMAZING buffet with characters, great if you love seafood and desserts... :)

Cafe Mickey is also a great restaurant/character meal. We've been 3 times and we've always had Mickey, Pluto, Goofy, Chip and Dale. We've also seen Mr Smee and Captain Hook there. Stitch is there often but we've been very unlucky and haven't seen him yet. Same with Minnie. But we've only done breakfast and lunches there, perhaps Stitch only comes out at night ;-)

I was also going to say that I think if you upgrade to the Admiral Floor at the Newport you also have the option (for a small fee, maybe 8 euros) of having your breakfast brought to your room. If for whatever reason you are struggling to get to the restaurant or your kids just need a quiet early morning without the hustle and bustle of the restaurant you may have that option. They used to have it, I can't say 100% if they do or not anymore so that may be something to look into.

There are two websites/forums which are about Disney and have sections on Disneyland Paris, the first one is disboards.com and the second one is thedibb.co.uk. People do trip reports and post photos and reviews of the parks, hotels and restaurants. Very friendly bunch of people and they will answer any questions you have. I learned everything about our first trip to disneyworld and disneyland paris from there.

Enjoy planning, its half the fun (well, it is if you're a Disney addict like me!)