Disneyland Paris

[turbo]

So I just found a screaming good deal on plane tickets to Paris next April for my kids’ spring break, and I booked them. I’ve been to Paris a few time so don’t care about the regular touristy stuff and I figured it might be fun to mix in a day at Disneyland there for my kids (8, almost 6 at time of travel), plus it will be something new for me.

Has anyone been? What should I expect? Do you stay at the park or do you stay in Paris and travel to / from Disneyland for the day? Are there any good restaurants in the park? Any and all tips and tricks would be appreciated as I will be working with a travel agent for the Paris part of the trip but I have no idea if they know Disneyland well.

[buckeyegirl]

We did this last spring break. We picked a day and rode the train there first thing in the morning and made rope drop. We then stayed as long as we could and took the train home. I think if I could do it again I would want to spend the night. We missed fireworks because we were tired and wanted to get back. The food is not good. Disney Paris has some basic food but nothing as amazing as Paris or even Disney in Florida. We rode just about every ride we wanted to. They don't have the same fast pass system so there isn't anything crazy to plan. My kids were 7 and 11 last year and enjoyed it.

[dutchgirl678]

We are going this year in June. We are just staying in Paris and taking the train for the day.

[mrsslocombe]

We went last year, on our way back from Berlin. So we stayed on property, but we are giant Disney fans. If you are just going for the day I wouldn't bother switching hotels (unless you do it right before you leave and you are flying out of CDG-the fast train only takes 15 minutes).

There's two parks-Disneyland Park, which is similar to DL/Magic Kingdom, and Studios, which they are rebranding currently. They are doing a lot of work to revamp Studios, it's really not a great park. It has some good rides but the layout is horrendous and it's very small.

Disneyland Park is gorgeous! I think it's the prettiest of all the Disney parks. The layout, ride buildings, etc are all really beautiful.

Ride lines were generally not awful, I don't think we waited more than 30 minutes for anything at DLP. Studios we waited an hour for Crush's Coaster. They do have a Premiere Access Pass-either you buy individual rides, or it's over 90 euro to get all the available rides. We didn't bother and were fine.

The night time fireworks/drone show is amazing!

The two things that are terrible are:
1. The food. Truly atrocious. My god. I don't love the food at the US parks but Paris makes it look like gourmet. The main street bakery has some toasted ham/cheese sandwiches that are fairly good. The bitterballen at The Old Mill in Fantasyland are good. But other than that...yikes. We didn't eat at any of the sit down places, so can't comment on them. We at dinner out at their Downtown Disney after the park closed because the options were better. Also, there is a waffle cart RIGHT outside the exit that is a delicious nutella waffle to cap your night.

2. Character Meet and Greets are achingly slow. The ones that are just stationed outside aren't too bad, but do not bother waiting for Mickey or the Princesses. The wait is over two hours, and you only meet one Princess, you don't get to pick.

[sent]

We are going in August. I asked this on a different group and they all said to be disappointed compared to Orlando. I looked into staying at the Disney-owned hotel this is closest but we've decided to just stay in Paris and take the train. I have 2 days budgeted but I haven't really examined the parks that closely to determine what attractions we will definitely want to see. I definitely want to see the show at night. We will be skipping character meet and greets as we got plenty of that on the cruise 6 months ago. 

[calico]

I’m curious as well since we are going just one day the first week of July (both parks). Debating going Thursday or Sunday but hoping to see the night show - is it every night or just the weekends?

[calico]

May 14, 2024 15:00:31 GMT -5 dutchgirl678 said:

We are going this year in June. We are just staying in Paris and taking the train for the day.

Hi, have you visited the park yet? We are going July 4 and if you have any insights or feedback I’d love to hear them! We are doing 1 day both parks taking the train from central Paris.

[calico]

May 14, 2024 11:24:35 GMT -5 turbo said:

So I just found a screaming good deal on plane tickets to Paris next April for my kids’ spring break, and I booked them. I’ve been to Paris a few time so don’t care about the regular touristy stuff and I figured it might be fun to mix in a day at Disneyland there for my kids (8, almost 6 at time of travel), plus it will be something new for me.

Has anyone been? What should I expect? Do you stay at the park or do you stay in Paris and travel to / from Disneyland for the day? Are there any good restaurants in the park? Any and all tips and tricks would be appreciated as I will be working with a travel agent for the Paris part of the trip but I have no idea if they know Disneyland well.

We went on July 4th, one day both parks. We are in the center of Paris and took the train. If you can afford it, buy the ultimate access pass! It was outrageously expensive on that day but totally worth it to us for one day. You can ride all the best rides at any time with a super short wait (<10mins IME). The food was fine for us, we don’t care about food there, so the corn dog, fries, popcorn, Mickey bar and pastas tasted decent. Disney Studios had a lot of construction but it may be done by the time you’re there. The only ride closed we might have done was Buzz Lightyear, but no big deal. And wow some of the roller coasters were crazy fast and dark and now I understand the height restrictions- Indiana Jones, Hyperspace mountain, and Avengers- which my youngest couldn’t ride (her older sister used her pass to go twice so it wasn’t wasted). Crush’s coaster is only at DLP and was so different than other rides so definitely do that if you can. The night show (e-parade via drones) and fireworks were awesome and we watched to the end before heading back so I would recommend that even though it started at 10:50 because of the late sunset. We did rent a stroller and that was helpful to give my girls a rest, H & I sat on it while waiting for them to play/explore areas and the benches weren’t around. Overall I’m glad we made time to go despite comments implying it wasn’t an authentic French experience- my girls are prime Disney age and that is probably going to be a highlight of our trip for them.

[dutchgirl678]

We just came back from our trip. We went to Disneyland Paris for one day (both parks) and took the train. We arrived at 9:15 with Movie Studios opening up at 9:30. We walked straight to Crush's coaster and got in line because we knew that one would get long lines quickly. We ended up waiting about 20 minutes. The ride was amazing! But it did spook my 13-year old son, who refused to do other roller coaster rides the rest of the day. After that we went to Ratatouille, which was also not that long of a wait. My DH and DD then did the Tower of Terror while I waited with DS. We then went to Marvel Avengers Assemble: Flight Force. My DS was in line with us but when he learned this was a fast rollercoaster he didn't want to go. I told him he could leave the line just before we got on and he waited outside for us. Since the exit was around the corner from the entrance, we spent some time looking for him when we got off. At any rate, the roller coaster was really fun. It was fast and dark. We stopped for lunch at Stark Factory. Nothing special, but big square pizza slices and sodas did the trick for us. We saw some Marvel characters outside while we ate. There was Spiderman and Iron Man, Thor and Loki. We then went to Spiderman, which had been closed temporarily but opened up just as we got in line. People were still leaving the line as it wasn't moving but after 10 minutes we could tell it had started up again. Spiderman was a fun ride, similar to Buzz Lightyear, but you use your hands to try to shoot webs and you score points.

By this time it was close to 3pm and we moved to Disneyland. First stop was Phantom Manor and then DH and DD did Big thunder mountain while DS and I stopped for drinks. We walked over to Indiana Jones and I rode it with DD and after that DH rode it alone. The single rider line was not necessarily faster but we saw him in the ride just after it started and were able to take his photo. The ride is super cool with a looping and cork screw and the lead up to the start of the ride is really great too. We then walked over to the other side of the park, to Discoveryland and saw the 6pm parade in the main area before the castle. We went to Buzz Lightyear which didn't have too long of a wait and then to Star Tours: the adventure continues. There was no wait and we walked right on. DH and DD then did Hyperspace mountain while I did Buzz Lightyear again with DS. We were done at around the same time. We ate some dinner at the German themed Au chalet de la Marionette, which was mediocre but we were able to sit down for a bit. We walked around the Sleeping Beauty castle and saw the dragon under the castle. Then we ended with Peter Pan's flight and It's a small world. At this point we were all tired and our feet were painful and we had hit all the rides we wanted to hit. We made our way back to Main street and ended up taking the train back at around 10pm. We didn't wait for the drone show which was not until 11pm.

All in all we had a fabulous day without getting the All Access pass and we were very happy with all the rides we did and things we saw.