It’s a Disney post today, and you know how much I love chatting all things Disney parks! I want to chat with you about our recent trip to Disneyland Paris, tell you our trip highlights and share a few tips that might help you if you’re thinking of visiting.
We combined our Disneyland trip with a trip to Paris. I shared more about our time in Paris here, it was a wonderful way to begin our holiday. We chose to fly out of Birmingham, with Air France, to Charles de Gaulle airport. We visited Paris for 3 nights, before moving to our hotel in Disneyland Paris for another 3 nights. We ensured we booked a late flight home so we could get a full last day in the parks, got to make the most of it!
In Disneyland, we chose to stay at the Hotel Cheyenne. It has a Western theme, all around Toy Story. We love Toy Story here so this was the perfect choice for us and it was a brilliantly themed hotel. I would absolutely recommend it, and if we visit again, we will be staying there.
The biggest advantage that Disneyland Paris has over Disney World is how easy it is to get everywhere. We loved that!
We walked from our hotel each day over to Disney Village, it was a 5 minute walk to there. We then went through security and bag check at this point and just strolled right through, there was never a queue. There are also hotel shuttle buses to the parks, but we were more than happy to have a short walk.
It’s then a short walk through Disney village to the entrances to the 2 parks. They are right next to each other, so we dipped in and out of them both throughout our time there.
Obviously, it’s a lot smaller than Disney World, but we still hit those parks hard, from morning ’til night!
The queue times are at the best first thing in the morning and then they start dropping around 5pm, particularly in the main Disneyland park.
For onsite hotel guests, there are extra magic hours, but just familiarise yourself with which rides are open during these times so you can make the most of the extra time in the parks.
We found the queues to be absolutely fine, and we were there during the August summer holidays on some beautifully hot and sunny days.
We are used to Disney World, and I didn’t find Paris to be anywhere near as busy. We used the app to check out which rides to go on next and made the most of the lower queues each evening.
We repeatedly walked straight onto rides like Phantom Manor, Pirates of the Caribbean and Indiana Jones. In Studios, Tower of Terror often had great queue times, possibly as people are rushing over to the new Avengers Campus and queuing there.
It’s definitely all personal preference, but we didn’t feel the long queues for Crush’s Coaster were worth it, but we did love the new Spiderman WEB Adventure ride so happier to wait a while for that one.
My 12 year old daughter’s top picks would be Hyperspace Mountain, Ratatouille and Avengers Assemble: Flight Force. My 9 year old son’s favourites were Big Thunder Mountain, Spiderman WEB Adventure, Pirates of the Caribbean and Star Tours.
We loved the parades, great music and characters. We saw the fireworks on the first night, and as always with these, people stood right in front of us and put their kids on their shoulders. Every time! So I expect this to happen now, we don’t stake out a spot ages before as we have done previously, we just pop and see them a few minutes before they begin.
We didn’t have a meal plan, but then we never do table service at Disney World either. We like to grab food when we are hungry and then get back to the fun again as soon as we can! We had no trouble getting food when we wanted it and there were plenty of places to choose from in the parks and Disney Village. We particularly enjoyed Earl of Sandwich.
Disneyland Paris’ snack game is nowhere near as strong as Disney World, which therefore meant we didn’t spend too much on them! We did enjoy a fair few cakes and ice creams, though, so we still enjoyed it!
The main Disneyland Park is beautiful, and I love the castle there. Visiting the dragon underneath the castle was fun to do and easily missed, so do look out for that.
I am used to planning WDW Fastpasses ahead of time, needing to know which park we’ll be in each day and then trying to get FastPasses all day long. I know these are no longer a thing anyway, but I did find Disneyland Paris to be more relaxing, as we just took each day as it came.
Walking around the parks was manageable, but we were still hitting ten miles a day, so do be prepared to put some miles in if you want to be in the parks all day.
I think it also helped that is was sunny and hot while we were there. I like theme parks in the sunshine! Being cold and coated isn’t quite so appealing to me, though I know plenty of people who love Paris in the colder months, wrapped up warm. Again, it’s just a personal preference.
The big question, would we go back?
Well, my son says absolutely yes as he loved how near it was to us and easy to get to. I do get that, and he isn’t a fan of travelling at all! It did feel lovely, relaxed and super easy compared to Orlando. Not to mention, less money.
My daughter loved every day we were there but would in no way ever swap it with Disney World, that’s the pinnacle for her!
And I guess she’s right. Disney World is harder work, it takes much longer to get anywhere, to get into the parks, and I find the parks to be busier in general. But, it is so very good.
I think we will go back at some point, we all really enjoyed it and it’s proximity to us makes it super tempting. It’s just that Orlando will always tempt us more, so we will have to see.
My Disneyland Paris trip highlights are all saved to my Instagram account now, so you can take a look at the whole trip over there if you’d like to see more. And do feel free to ask any questions if you’re planning a trip like us.
Have you visited Disneyland Paris?
It was really interesting to read this, having just got back from a mad Orlando Disney holiday! It’s a few years since we’ve been to Disneyland Paris but we are looking at visiting soon and I’m glad to hear that it’s a lot less stressful than the larger Florida parks, especially the crowd levels. Disney World was amazing but also very hard work what with having to book everything in advance and constantly checking the app for queue times and which rides to book next. I’m glad that you had a great time!
It felt much calmer to me! I hope you had fun in Orlando and love your next trip to DLP!
I love how you can take the train from Paris and just arrive at the park when you exit the train. So easy! The Indiana Jones ride is my favorite ride of all time. My kids and I laughed so hard, it’s a great memory!
It really is! All so manageable and easy to get around. My daughter and husband went on Indiana Jones so many times, loved it!