Disneyland Paris

We visited in October half term 2024. The weather was dry and mild and we had the most fantastic time. My children were four and six years old at the time and they were a great age to enjoy the experience. We stayed for three nights, and enjoyed two full days in Disneyland which was a good amount of time. 

Where we stayed

- We stayed at Relais Spa Val d-Europe in Chessy, a town right next to Disneyland. There is a train station in the town called Val D’Europe so you can get the Eurostar here changing at Paris. We drove from the UK travelling on Le Shuttle, and the hotel was a 3.5 hour drive from Calais. I would recommend staying in Chessy as it is only five mins drive from the park. Parking was under the hotel and cost 15 euros a day.

- The hotel had a free shuttle to and from Disneyland. You could get the shuttle at anytime (multiple times a day if you want to go back and forth) without prebooking. The hotel was quite tired, and the food wasn’t great so if you stay there I suggest not having breakfast there. There is a boulangerie and mini Carrefour round the corner so that was a better option for breakfast. There is a nice pool at the hotel which kids are allowed in at certain times. 

- There are Disney hotels which were more expensive, and aren’t particularly more convenient than Chessy. My sister’s family stayed at the nearby Center Parcs. She said that it was very similar to the ones in England and that the pool was not busy as a lot of people stay here and then spend the day at Disneyland. However it’s a 15 minute drive and they had to drive themselves to the park each day which meant having to walk to and from the car park. 

- My main advice is to choose somewhere to stay that has a shuttle to and from Disneyland. It means that you have more flexibility and are dropped off right next to the park. 

Main park, village and Walt Disney Studio

- Disneyland is made up of the main Park, Walt Disney Studio and the Disney Village. They are all right next to each other and it is easy and quick to walk between them (you will be on your feet a lot – we did 20,000 steps each day). You can come in and out with your tickets all day. The park is open until about 11pm each day but not all the rides are on until this time.

- The main park is where most of the rides are as well as the parades, and character meets and greets. The Walt Disney Studio has some rides and is where all the shows are. The village has big restaurants and the big Disney Store and Disney World shops. 

- You can pay for an additional hour at the start of the day. Due to the time difference with the UK though it makes it a very early start and is only worth it to get on to the big rides before the queues, and some of those rides young kids won’t be able to go on anyway.

- When you arrive at Disneyland, after you have been through security/bag check, there is an entrance to the main park through the large pink building in front of you however if you veer to the left there is another entrance which is less obvious and has smaller queues to get in.

- Avoid taking a buggy if you can as they are a bit of a pain to leave outside the rides. There are buggies there that you can hire if you realise that any young children really can’t manage. My youngest who is four managed to walk all the time with very few shoulder carries because they are distracted by everything going on.

Rides

- Disneyland is about far more than the rides. It’s an experience just being there. Therefore don’t get too focussed on trying to rush about cramming all the rides in.

- Download the Disneyland App as it allows you to see how long the queue is for each ride at that moment in time. Whatever the App says the queue length is add on 15 minutes as they were always longer.

- Lots of the rides have a minimum height of 1m 2cm. Therefore it’s a good idea to wait to go to Disneyland when the youngest child has reached this height (my four year old was about 1m 5cm when we visited). 

- You can buy a ‘Premier Access Ultimate’ pass which allows you to queue jump the big main rides once each for about £90 a day. However I would not recommend buying these with young children as several of the rides the kids won’t be able or want to go on. And it doesn’t include some rides which they will want to go on.

- Instead buy the ‘Disney Premier Access One’ passes. We bought these for 80% of the rides we went on. They range in price, from 5 euros to 18 euros per person per ride. The prices are not always the same – it’s dynamic pricing. Over the two days we spent about 350 euros on these Premier passes for the four of us. I would factor this cost into your trip.

- Most of the time you can purchase these passes there and then at the moment you want to go on the ride. You get a one hour window to use the QR code and a few times we turned up early and the code still gave us access. However some popular rides, such as the Spiderman ride, we had to purchase a few hours in advance which means you then have to plan around it. If you go in to purchase and the time slot doesn’t suit you keep checking back until there is a new time slot that does. You don’t get time slot options it’s just whatever they are offering you at that moment.

- As well as normal rides there are ‘walk throughs’ which are not interactive in the same way but still fun to do and don’t tend to have a queue at all. Some are much better than others. We all quite liked Les Mysteres du Nautilus which is designed to feel like you are in a submarine.

A list of all the rides is here: https://www.disneylandparis.com/en-gb/attractions/ 

The rides the kids really enjoyed were:

1. Star Tours

2. It’s a small world

3. Autopia

4. Big Thunder Mountain (a proper roller coaster – my four year old found it scary)

5. Buzz Lightyear

6. Cars Road Trip

7. Mad Hatter’s Tea Cups

8. Orbitron

9. Slinky

10. Spider Man WEB adventure

We didn’t make it to all the rides, including Ratatouille which is meant to be great, but you don’t need to go on all the rides to feel like you’ve made the most of it. 

Theatre shows

- There are lots of theatre shows on throughout the day in the Walt Disney Studio section (there is also one in the main Park – when we visited they were showing The Lion King). They are really good and just as much a part of the experience as the rides. Access is included in your ticket however for some of them you can buy guaranteed entrance (as for some shows there will be more people wanting to go in than seats) which also means you are first to go in and choose your seats. 

- We bought guaranteed entrance in advance for the ‘Mickey and the Magician’ show and the ‘Frozen: A Musical Invitation’ show. Both shows were 30 minutes long. There are lots of time slots throughout the day but we went for the 6pm shows as it meant we didn’t need to factor the timings in so much to the rest of our day. 

- The Mickey and the Magician show was really great and included loads of Disney characters. There were Lion King animals that came into the audience and because we were on the front row of the raised section the kids were able to touch them. My sister’s family went to the ‘Together: A Pixar Musical Adventure’ show and said it was a similar set up and again really great, so we would highly recommend going to see these. 

Parades

- We watched two parades whilst we were there and again I definitely recommend watching at least one – they are really good and part of the whole experience. They have several throughout the day, they are all difference routines with difference characters, including the late night one with fireworks. 

- The first parade we watched was Halloween themed and we arrived early and waited about 20 minutes in the main square to get a good spot to see the parade. Whilst they use big floats so you can see a lot wherever you are standing, if you are not at the front you miss the dancing happening on the ground. The second parade we watched we brought ‘Reserved Viewing Area’ tickets. You still need to arrive early to get a really good spot but it is less crowded and easier to get to the front. 

Food

- Bring lots of snacks with you. It means you don’t spend lots of time queueing for food and drink throughout the day. As well as cereal bars etc we bought fruit with us and were grateful for the vitamins! 

- The kids food at nearly all the restaurants in the main park is chicken nuggets and chips. There was one restaurant that we found that was ‘Italian’ which did pasta Bolognese which the kids enjoyed. The pizza restaurant always had a big queue.

- The queues look long for the fast food restaurants but they actually moved fairly quickly. You are not allowed to sit down at a table until you have the food, so you can’t send some people to find a table whilst you queue. You can also do click and collect for some of the restaurants on your phone in advance which means you don’t have to queue and the food is waiting for you. But this does rely on you knowing where you are going to be and when, which is actually a bit of a pain. 

- You can also leave the main park and go to the village area for meals which gives you more choice and bigger meals. 

- There are also ‘posh’ restaurants in the main park which you need to book two months in advance. These include things like Princess teas where you meet all the princesses. We didn’t do this. I imagine that they are great and worth doing, albeit expensive, but it does mean you are tied to being in a certain place at a certain time and this is hard to plan for when you are trying to fit in rides in different locations.

Meets and greets

- As you walk around you will see character meets and greets. You can queue up to meet the character and have you photo taken. My nephew met Darth Vader and loved it. 

Shops

- The mouse ears are all 25 euros. So either accept that’s how much you will pay or buy some in advance and take them with you.

- There are certain toys you can only buy at Disneyland. You cannot buy them online afterwards. For example the Spider Bot.

- The dressing up clothes are super expensive, 60 euros for a princess dress, so if your child might want to dress up whilst they are there I suggest buying a Disney outfit on Vinted before you go!