Disneyland Paris trip in July

[prm]

We are going to visit Disneyland Paris for 4 nights/ 5 days this July with a 6 and a 4 year old, we are driving and staying in one of the hotels on site.

Does anyone have any general advice/ tips to share? What were your favourite restaurants, rides and shows not to be missed?

In particular does anyone know what time the evening parade takes place in July? They only publish schedules one week in advance and from what I have read the time has been known to change. I need to book restaurants for dinner soon but obviously need to make sure it's not at parade time! Did anyone go last summer / can advise on this?

Many thanks!

[louise.flynn]

Hi,

We have just come back from Disneyland Paris (we just went for a day as part of a trip). I would take a cool bag and stock up on drinks and snacks as it is so expensive to buy them in the grounds. It is also worth noting that the food is pretty poor quality with 99% of the menu consisting of some beige fried food (about ?15 for chicken nuggets and fries)! We took a picnic and just ate on the tables outside a restaurant.

If you want to wear minnie mouse ears / fancy dress etc i would recommend buying them beforehand. I got my daughter a minnie mouse head band here for ?5 but i saw them for 20 euro inside the park..

It was incredible fun and the look on my little one's face was worth it all :)

[Sonners]

I went to DLP a few weeks ago with my four year old and my top tips are:-

1. Take an empty water bottle to fill up as there are lots of drinking fountains around the park.

2. Plan your days in advance, or have a loose idea of what you want to do/see and then think each night about how your list has changed. My friend and I had a hit list of things we wanted to do and got through it all despite only being there 2 nights, although queues weren't too bad as it was May.

3. There is an app which tells you the approx. queue times which is worth downloading.

4. Take loads of snacks to distract the kids in the queues (and helps to not have to have lunch!) Our mini-Samsung was useful at points for a bit of cartoon watching in the longer queues.

5. As you're staying in a Disney Hotel you get the "magic hours" between 8am and 10am where hotel guests get access to certain rides earlier than the general public so make use of that in your planning.

6. My friend and I each bought a Photo Pass in advance which was a bit of a waste of money in the end for me as most of the rides with photos are the ones my 4 year old was too short for and she didn't want to queue up to meet any of the characters (as she preferred the rides!). Some of the queues were an hour long for the character meets (especially the princesses). My friend used hers more and it turns out we could have shared one as you get three fobs with it.

7. We ate at the steak restaurant and the international buffet as part of our half board plan plus (I think it was called!). Both were really nice. There is a Subway type sandwich shop in Disney Village too.

8. My friend kept her son up for the light/fireworks show the first night which meant he was super-grumpy the next day as we had to get up early for the character breakfast we'd booked so he had the equivalent of 10.30pm bedtime and a 6.30am start. I took my daughter to bed the first night around 10pm French time and she was much better the following morning! We then had a 2 hour nap at lunchtime and kept them both up that night for the light show which worked really well.

9. The rides are way quieter from 8pm to 10pm so I'd do the most popular rides after dinner. We had dinner at 7pm each night. Our favourite was Thunder Mountain which my daughter just squeaked the height requirement on and we went on it 3 times. My friend's son hated it and went a bit green (it is really fast!). He loved Ratatouille which my daughter didn't like. SO it really depends on the kids... We all loved the Small World (which I remembered from being a child) and did that twice and my daughter's still talking about it.

Sorry for the essay! We had a great time and I'm sure you will too. Any questions please feel free to PM me... I benefitted massively from the research my friend did pre-trip (and which we passed on to some people we met on the Euro Star on the way over!) If I'd had 4 nights I probably would have done one of the offsite trips like the aquarium.

[prm]

Thanks so much for all the feedback, very useful points!

[pilsbury]

Sonners tips are great so not got much to add - we went with our nearly 3.5 and 5.5 over NY for 4 days and loved it (tho it was *bitterly* cold!!):

- Make sure you do book the restos in advance as the last thing you want to do after queuing for rides is queue for lunch. Our faves were Cafe Mickey as characs are always there (we saw micky, goofy, winnie the pooh, piglet, eeyore and the mice from cinderella); Blue Lagoon (would be love and cool away from the summer sun, its kinda of an indoor fake island thing, decent food); breakfast with Princesses at auberge de cendrillon (the food was pretty good, but obvs the princesses are the big sell and my two loved it, nearly broke the bank tho!). Try and avoid "standard" kids lunchtimes - see if you can go at 2pm for lunch for example and it is far less frantic!

- Yes take your own snacks and drinks in, almost everything in the park is pricey and unhealthy! also buy autograph books in advance (amazon) as the ones in the park are extortionate - for the shops, we made it v clear from the beginning that we would visit one shop at the end of the holiday and they could each choose one gift - was good to sort that out from the get-go...

- Because we all wanted to see the fireworks, we kept our kids up late - bed around 10pm, awake around 9am, but do whatever works for you - beware, you will work miles (my phone said we'd done ~15km everyday!), so everyone does get very tired and need a good sleep! amazingly my 5.5 yr old managed all the walking, 3.5 yr old needed a fair few shoulder rides though, so think about whether you need a pram/carrier/strong shoulders

- we stayed at sequoia lodge and found the rooms to be average, didn't bother with breakfast, but the proximity to the park and advantage of magic hours was ace. its 5mins walk to park entrance, but be prepared to queue as they do bag checks/x-rays...

- there's a TON of info on https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowForum-g2079053-i21935-Disneyland_Paris_Seine_et_Marne_Ile_de_France.html - but be prepared to spend several hours sifting through stuff!

have an amazing time, i am sure you will!

[Sonners]

I rented a pre-schooler Connecta sling to take with me for post-fireworks carrying which would work well for a 3.5 year old. It was ?20 for a two week hire. Or you can hire buggies there but I'm not sure how extortionate it is!

[prm]

Thanks so much for all the great tips! I have booked a few restaurants and now need to dive into planning which rides, shows etc we will do each day. I think 5 days is going to be a lot so planning to take long breaks after lunch, go back to tge hotel for a nap and pool sessions before dinner...but we'll see how it goes!