Disneyland Paris - Hints and Tips for the most magical place on earth - Anglesey Photographer

Over the summer, we were fortunate enough to be able to take our daughter on holiday to Disneyland Paris. We were supposed to be going in April 2020, but, you know, a global pandemic happened. Since then, we’ve been waiting for the perfect time to book, but what with France’s stricter travel rules, and needing to time the holiday to co-incide with annual leave and school holidays, August 2023 was the first real opportunity we had. So we seized it, and without one ounce of regret. What a holiday it was. I use ‘holiday’ in the loosest possible terms in this blog - Disneyland Paris isn’t really a holiday in the traditional sense for the adults that go! I think we averaged 20,000 steps a day, and were awake and on our feet for around 16 hours each day too.

If you know me in real life, you’ll know that I’m a planner. I have notebooks and lists and plans constantly on the go and I love to be making arrangements. But one thing I found really difficult when I was planning our trip was that I had loads of questions but not one place to find all the answers. That, coupled with the fact that I’ve had lots of questions about our trip from friends, gave me the idea to write this blog - so that hopefully you can save yourself some time when you’re making your own arrangements to visit the most magical place on earth.

So here are some questions that I had before our trip, along with either straight answers or my own personal opinion. When I talk about “the parks”, I’m referring to both the Disneyland Park and the Walt Disney Studios Park, which are both on the same site. The photos I’ve included are phone snaps because I didn’t have time to get my proper camera out, it was go, go, go! It’s also worth noting that selfie sticks aren’t allowed to be used during parades or on rides (and they will tell you off if you forget - ask me how I know…)

1.    How much does a trip to Disneyland Paris cost and is it worth the money?

So this was one question that I didn’t actually google, but, I know that lots of people do ask this, to try and get a ballpark figure on how much a holiday to Disneyland Paris will cost. The truth is that there is a massive variety on cost. As I was writing this, you could book to stay in the cheapest Disney Hotel in January 2024 for 2 nights for £1100 - this includes the hotel itself, flights, and tickets to the 2 parks for 3 days. But, if you wanted to book the most expensive Disney Hotel in August 2024 for 2 nights, this price (including the hotel itself, flights, and tickets to the 2 parks for 3 days) jumps to £2800. And there’s every combination in between! My advice would be to use this calculator to see which specific days are the cheapest to arrive on. You could save hunderds of pounds by arriving a day earlier or later than you’d initially planned, so it’s definitely worth checking out before you book - https://www.disneylandparis.com/en-gb/price-estimate-calendar-disneyland-paris/ . As far as ‘is it worth it?’. Absolutely, 100%, yes indeed.

2.    What time of year should we go to Disneyland Paris?

This sort of leads on from the cost. The time of year that you choose to go to Disneyland Paris will probably depend on your budget, but there are pros and cons to each season. The Disneyland Paris website gives lots of information about their special celebrations, for example during Christmas and Summer. If you want to travel out of peak season, don’t forget to check when France have their school holidays, as well as any French or Spanish bank holidays. The park’s opening times are longer in summer, so you get a couple of extra hours a day to fit everything in, but don’t forget that it can be a lot hotter in France than in the UK, so although you might get extra hours in the summer, if you can’t cope in 30*C+ heat, July and August might not be the time to visit. You might not get dry weather in the autumn, but the parks are likely to be less busy, meaning you’ll spend less time queuing and more time enjoying!

3.  Where should we stay at Disneyland Paris?

When we visited, we stayed at the Newport Bay Club Hotel, which is a Disney hotel. I chose it mainly because it was where I’d stayed when I was small! We liked that the Newport Bay Club was only a 10-15 minute walk from the park entrance, along a safe, flat, wide path next to a lake. All the Disney Hotels (apart from Davy Crockett Ranch) have shuttle buses that take you to and from the park entrance at no extra cost, so even if you don’t fancy the walk after a long day, you don’t have to think about how you’ll get back. There are 6 Disney Hotels, plus Davy Crockett Ranch, which is more like a self-catering Centre Parks set up, so you need a car to access the park from here. Disneyland Paris also has some partner hotels which offer free shuttle services, so even if you don’t want to make the parks the focus of your trip, you can stay close enough that you can spend the day there.

4. How much spending money do we need for Disneyland Paris?

This is one question I could not find an answer for! I know it’s a bit of a ‘how long is a piece of string?’ question, but still, I couldn’t even find a ball park figure! When we visited, we had booked a Half Board Mealplan (more on that further down the page), so we didn’t need to think about paying for breakfast or dinner once we were there. We ended up spending around €50-€70 a day between the 3 of us (two adults and one child) - this was on coffees, treaty snacks, and souvenirs. I was upfront with Els and told her before we went that she could definitely have treats from the parks, but that I wouldn’t be shelling out for endless snacks. She was allowed to choose one expensive snack a day (popcorn was €10!) and had her own spending money that was given to her by family and friends before we left, so she was more thoughtful about what she was actually spending on than if it was her parents’ money she was spending! Don’t get me wrong, we bought her gifts and small snacks too, but I feel like giving her her own money made sure she wasn’t taking anything for granted. Another way we saved money was by buying a few things before we went - Minnie / Mickey ears, rain ponchos, and princess dresses are all for sale in the parks, but I estimate we saved around 50% on the cost of these by buying them beforehand and bringing them with us.

5. How much does food cost at Disneyland Paris and is the mealplan worth it?

So as I’ve just mentioned, we booked the Half Board Mealplan for our stay. When you check into the hotel, your key card for your room is personalised with your name and also has everything you’ve paid for loaded onto it. It has on it your ticket for each day in the parks, your mealplan, and any extras like a photopass or character experience. We went for the Half Board Mealplan because we thought it would be plenty to have a big breakfast in the hotel, and a 3 course evening meal. I couldn’t imagine eating a big lunch in between those too! In my opinion, the mealplan is 100% worth it because it means that you’ve paid up front and aren’t left with a HUGE bill for food once you get there. Everything is expensive at Disneyland Paris, and food is no exception. I can’t find the information online, but from memory, I think it was around €90 for breakfast for the 3 of us without a mealplan. Evening meals were even more expensive, whereas the mealplan covered a starter, main, dessert and drink for each of us. One thing that I would definitely recommend is booking your restaurants in advance. We didn’t do this (you know I said I’m a planner? Well my husband isn’t, unfortunately) and it was really dissappointing to not be able to eat where we really wanted to. There were some places that still had availability on the day, but they wouldn’t have been my first choice for meals.

As for snacks in the park, expect to pay around €4 for a coffee, and the same for a bottle of coke, water, juice etc. Prosecco was €15 including the glass to keep, so that was my lovely treat. Ice lollies were around €5 each, popcorn and candy floss were €10 each because Els wanted the ones in the fancy buckets! There were some really nice food trucks in the Walt Disney Studios Park which had a huge variety of lunch type items from all around the world. They ranged from €5-€10 for things like samosas, pizza slices, salads, greek kebabs and crepes.

6. Can you take your own food and drinks into Disneyland Paris?

Although there are plenty of options for food and snacks at Disneyland Paris, we found that one way to keep costs down a bit was to take lots of snacks with us instead of buying it all in the park. There is (understandably) quite a bit of security at various points before you enter the park, and bags are x-rayed before you can access the hotels and Disney ‘compound’. However snacks and drinks are fine to take in with you. We took a bento style lunch box with us so that we weren’t carrying round whole bags of snacks and left the full packets in the hotel room, only decanting what we needed for the day. We found that the best types of snacks were things like dried mango, raisins, yo-yos, flapjack bars, biscuits, brioche and pain au chocolat. Having snacks also made queueing a little easier for Els and meant that we didn’t need to stop for lunch. My other tip (especially if you’re planning on visiting in the summer) is to take a metal water bottle (or a flask type one that keeps drinks cold) for each person. Every Disney Hotel has ice machines for guests to use, so what we did was fill our water bottles with ice each morning, top up with water, and add some squash of the super concentrated variety. You know the one in a tiny round packet that fits in your bag? That one. Then we took this with us so that we could add it to the water from one of the many water fountains dotted around the park, and top up our now cold bottles as and when we needed to. This trick meant we kept hydrated in the August heat without spending €4 for a bottle of water inside the parks.

7. Should we book a princess meal And / or a character meal at Disneyland Paris?

I think this is another thing that depends on the age and personality of your children. Els is princess obsessed, so we booked a special breakfast for her with the Princesses inside the Disneyland park. We paid a supplement for this on top of the mealplan, but it was so worth it. The food itself was quite fancy (I would guess that French children are far more used to eating smoked salmon for breakfast than my child is!), so she didn’t eat much of it, but the actual experience was lovely. You’re not guaranteed which princesses will be there, but we had Cinderella, Merida, and Aurora and they were so so lovely with all the children who had come to have breakfast with them. They took their time to move around the tables and chat to the children and were happy to have lots of photos with them. For us, it was definitely worth the extra money and it really made Els’ day.

8. What’s the best way to travel to Disneyland Paris?

After a little incident involving panic at the door of a plane bound for Mauritius, I don’t really like the thought of flying. So we chose to drive and get the ferry from Dover to Calais which worked well for us. Els is at an age where she’s happy to be in the car with some colouring books and an iPad, so even though the journey was fairly long, it meant we could go at our own pace and stop when we needed to. We booked a P&O ferry and the time of the sailing we chose meant it was on their brand new ship. We booked a Premier Inn at Dover for the night before and then caught the earliest but one sailing in the morning. One thing to note if you’re driving down is that you’ll need to pay for toll roads once you get to France. I think we took around €50 in cash to cover the tolls on the way down and back. As we stayed in a Disney hotel, there was free parking at the hotel, and then we either walked or got the free shuttle bus to and from the parks every day.

If you’re flying (and then getting a transfer) or taking the train / Eurostar, you’ll arrive directly at the entrance for the parks. It’s easy to miss the Disney Village if you arrive this way so don’t forget that there are lots of shops and restaurants here to experience too.

9. What’s the best age to take children to Disneyland Paris?

This is something that a lot of parents mull over, because let’s face it - a holiday this expensive might be a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Els would have been 4 years old had we have been able to go to Disneyland Paris when we originally planned to. She was 7 years old by the time we actually went, and do you know what? I feel like either age would have been perfect. By going when she was younger, she probably would have wanted to meet more characters, watch more shows, and go on more of the gentler rides. But being a tiny bit older, she was tall enough to go on all bar one of the ‘big’ rides, she managed to stay up until midnight to watch the light shows, and she was able to be patient when we had to queue for a few of the rides. There are pros and cons to every age, and although under 9s might be more blown away by the magic of it all, older children and teens will love the atmosphere and the thrill of the fast rides. It’s worth mentioning that if you’re taking babies / toddlers, the facitlies are excellent - there are baby changing stations in all bathrooms round the park, there are family toilets, and it’s possible to hire a pushchair by the day (but I did notice that these pushchairs don’t have baskets underneath them, so it does still mean carrying all your bags).

10. Should I see any shows while I’m at Disneyland Paris?

This was one thing that was really confusing for us before we went - I couldn’t find a full explaination online and we nearly spent £100s unnecessarily! As well as the several daily parades that happen around the park (more on that below), there are also theatre type shows that take place mainly in the Walt Disney Studios Park several times a day. What wasn’t clear to me is that entry to these shows IS included in the price you’ve already paid for your park tickets. The reason it wasn’t clear is because on the Disneyland Paris website, there’s an option to ‘secure your seat’ for a particular show, at an additional cost. What you’re paying for is guaranteed entry into a particular time slot for a show. So if you’re happy to queue (I think we waited for 30 minutes) and want the flexibility of choosing your show time on the day, you don’t need to spend additional money. We chose to watch the Frozen show and went for a 1pm showing so that Els could eat her lunch in the queue! Because Els wanted to go on lots of rides, we only saw one show, but friends who also went over the summer had lots of praise for ‘Mickey and the Magician’ and ‘The Lion King’ too.

11. Where’s the best place to watch the parades at Disneyland Paris?

As well as theatre shows, there are also several parades daily, the theme of which change with the seasons. When we visited, there was a character parade that happened in the afternoon. The route of the parade came from the castle, down Main St. USA, and then looped around the big roundabout near the main entrance. We found that in order for small children to get a good view, we needed to be in the spot we wanted around 30-45 minutes before the show started. We found that a good spot was down near City Hall, as the pavements were wide enough to sit on while we waited without blocking anyone needing access. It also meant we weren’t looking into the sun, and on a hot day we were in the shade while we were waiting. The characters and princesses are great at interacting with the children and will wave and high five if possible while they go past.

The other parade / show that we saw was the light show that happened at the end of the day. As we were these in summer, this didn’t start until 11pm! Again, to get a decent spot, suitable for children, we were where we needed to be 30-45 minutes before the start time. I waited while Dave took Els on the big rides that didn’t have a queue by that time of night. We had to think outside the box a little bit, because the whole area in front of the castle was rammed with people up to an hour before the show started! We ended up heading to the right, towards Discoveryland. There were several spots along the bridge there that you could watch from without anyone in front of you. So even though we had a side on view of the castle, it meant that Els could see without needing to sit on Dave’s shoulders for an hour.

12. What are the best rides at Disneyland Paris?

This is obviously going to depend on the ages and personalities of your children, but the good thing about the rides at Disneyland Paris is that they are varied and there is honestly something for all ages. The main park - Disneyland Park - is split into 5 ‘lands’ - Fantasyland, Discoveryland, Frontierland and Adventureland (along with Main St. USA which doesn’t have any rides, but has lots of shops and restaurants). Fantasyland is where most of the more gentle rides, suitable for younger children, can be found. The other lands each have their share of ‘big thrill’ rides. One thing we found to be a massive help was the official Disneyland Paris app. You can manage restraunt bookings, look at maps of the park, and maybe most helpfully, get real-time queue times for every ride in both parks. This meant that we could decide which ride to go on next based on whether we fancied queuing or not. To be honest, I was expecting much longer queues than we had, especially given that we were there across a sold-out weekend in August. As we were going to be in the park late each day for the lightshow, we decided to leave the rides with the longer queues until then. Els went on Hyperspace Mountain 4 times across 2 days with a total queuing time of 10 minutes! We only queued for longer than 20 minutes for a couple of rides, which were RC Racer and Big Thunder Mountain. But because the app showed the queue times, we felt like it was an informed decision to wait that long. As we stayed in a Disney Hotel, we took advantage of the ‘extra magic time’, which means that guests of the Disney hotels get to enter the parks an hour before they open to everyone else. We used the app to look at which rides had long queue times during the day, and then headed for these straight away during the ‘extra magic time’ the next morning before they got busy. In terms of our personal favourites, my daughter was a lot braver than I was! Bearing in mind that her favourite activities at home include throwing herself around a sprung floor learning new tricks at gymnastics, climbing walls 4 times her height, and hurtling round fields on the back of a pony, it comes as no surprise that her favourite rides were - RC Racer, Big Thunder Mountain and Hyperspace Mountain. Basically anything fast and scary that you needed to be fully strapped in for. My favourite rides were a little bit more sedate - Ratatouille, Casey Jr., and my all time fave - It’s a Small World. I’ll let you guess which one of us my husband sided with.

I hope I’ve answered any questions that you might have about a trip to Disneyland Paris (or even convinced you to book!), but if I’ve missed anything out, feel free to let me know! I’ll try and answer any additional questions that come to me over on Facebook or Instagram.

Clare x

About Me

Hi, I’m Clare, an award winning Anglesey baby photographer and family photographer who loves working with natural light. I cover Anglesey and North Wales for maternity, newborn, child and family photoshoots. Get in touch if you’d like to book your family’s Anglesey photoshoot.