Disneyland Paris great weather busy parks

Sew109 · 18 Oct 16, 09:03 AM

We live in Kent so not as far as many so have annual passes as it was cheaper than three days tickets we bought them in May and they worked out £130 ish now with the weakness of the pound they are £165 ish.

This was my first time on the Eurotunnel we picked out daughter up form school made the 40 minute journey to Folkestone and got a train an hour earlier than we were booked on so that was great, I was amazed at the ease of this method of getting across the channel I love the ferry but think that this saved us about 2 hours for an extra £20. The drive down was terrible torrential rain all the way on busy dark motorways and of course my own lights dulled a bit by the headlight reflectors, I have driven all over the World for the last 30 years and I think this is in my worst three driving experiences!

We arrived at our apartment in Appart city (appartcity/en/appart...l-deurope.html) next to the Aqua spa and check in was very quick though the form seemed longer than most I do actually think that we were quite lucky as at other times we saw long queues for check in and there is no physical way that they can have more than two check in clerks at any one time. Reception was smart and the staff very friendly and helpful but the corridors looked worn out so we were slight worried what the room was like but we had no need to be. The apartment had a nice bedroom with super comfy bed, bather room with separate loo and bath and separate shower decent enough kitchen and the living space had a comfortble sofa bed and small table, it had a TV but we did not switch it on. The apartments as the crow flies were about 1 mile from the Disney parcs but the drive to the car park was about 15 minutes, there was a shuttle available at €3.5 per person per day but as we had a car we used this and the first shuttle was not until 9am. This hotel does allow pets we did hear a dog barking in the corridor and could smell dogs in the corridors but it was not enough of a negative to put us off.

We popped back in the day and had lunch in the apartment (Sainsbury’s Microwave meals) and also had breakfast there and took a load of snacks, water and fruit into the park, we bought one hot bog meal when we came out for our daughter at €12.99 ! We also had lunch in the station as Earl of Sandwich queue matched that for tower of terror this came to an astonishing €26.99 for two adults and our daughter only had a pan au chocolate !

Lots of rides are closed, Thunder Mountain, Star Tours, River boat, Crush, Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland and there are lots of hoardings up not only does this mean that you don’t have these rides to go on but the queues for the other rides are much longer and the park feels busy I strongly advise checking on Disney’s website wat will be open before you book. As we have annual passes we can enter one of the parks each day 2 hours before it opens to the public which is great but even then it was busy, on Sunday the Disney studios was open from 8 we were there ate 0800 we went straight to Rattatouie SP we walked straight on and went on again waiting maybe 8 minutes when we came off at say 0830 the queue was 35 minutes 10 minutes later it was an hour, before the park opened the queue for Tower of Terror was 50 minutes, 45 minutes for the parachute drop and this is before the park is open to anyone other than Disney guests or annual pass holders, though to be fair there are probably lost of locals that have annual passes and want to go on a Sunday when the weather is good. On the Saturday we got in Disneyland park at 0800 and had done 7 rides by 10am we left the park as it started to get busy at noon and went back to have lunch and have a nap we went into the Studio park around 5.30 and aside from Ratatouie and TOT it was not too bad, we switched back to Disneyland Park at about 7 and it was still fairly busy though the kiddie rides were empting and by 8pm we got on Pirates and Phantom manner with no queue at all. Of course you also throughout the day have rides closed or “technical problems” On the plus side since the Disney Corp have again started pumping money and influence in (Disney does not own Disneyland Paris) the staff’s attitude has improved 10 fold which made the experience much better though it is still very understaffed compared to the US parks.

I just don’t get the magic in Paris, the parade is small, yes the floats are good but there are not many of them and there are nowhere near as many CM’s in it, the dreams show at night is excellent and I would say that it is easier to get a good spot for this than it is to in Florida. I know that Magic Kingdom is only 25% bigger than Disneyland Paris but it has so much more in it and it does not have the huge dead spaces and unused land that DP has in the “Cowboy” are and behind Futureland I know that I should not compare the two but it is hard not to, yes I still enjoyed the weekend but I don’t feel that I got value and because of shut rides and long queues and probably worst of all hoardings that made walkways thinner and created bottlenecks we spent a lot more time doing no ride things like looking in shops, the excellent caves around Pirates but that is not what I went there for. If we had not had Annual passes and not been able to get the early entry I think that the trip would not have been very good and to be honest would have been almost as happy at Alton Towers or centre parcs.

I will not be renewing our Disney passes two days at the weekend cost £104 for the Euro Tunnel €43 tolls £50 fuel £105 two nights in apartment €150 food and general spends and we had passes so say £450 for 2 days and we took food with us so £225 per day plus admission to me this does not give as much value or almost any of the magic that Florida does though my trip to Florida last year was my first since 1996 and before that trip I was perfectly happy at Disneyland Paris.

Infinity Red · 21 Oct 16, 07:59 PM

Glad you had good weather ! I didn't know Disney don't own DLP. You still managed a fair few rides, I hope some of the boards are down for our visit soon and crowds gone ! Lol Glad you enjoyed it overall 😀

18 Oct 16, 09:03 AM	#1
	18 Oct 16, 09:03 AM Sew109 Imagineer
Sew109 Imagineer Join Date: Mar 15	Disneyland Paris great weather busy parks We live in Kent so not as far as many so have annual passes as it was cheaper than three days tickets we bought them in May and they worked out £130 ish now with the weakness of the pound they are £165 ish. This was my first time on the Eurotunnel we picked out daughter up form school made the 40 minute journey to Folkestone and got a train an hour earlier than we were booked on so that was great, I was amazed at the ease of this method of getting across the channel I love the ferry but think that this saved us about 2 hours for an extra £20. The drive down was terrible torrential rain all the way on busy dark motorways and of course my own lights dulled a bit by the headlight reflectors, I have driven all over the World for the last 30 years and I think this is in my worst three driving experiences! We arrived at our apartment in Appart city (appartcity/en/appart...l-deurope.html) next to the Aqua spa and check in was very quick though the form seemed longer than most I do actually think that we were quite lucky as at other times we saw long queues for check in and there is no physical way that they can have more than two check in clerks at any one time. Reception was smart and the staff very friendly and helpful but the corridors looked worn out so we were slight worried what the room was like but we had no need to be. The apartment had a nice bedroom with super comfy bed, bather room with separate loo and bath and separate shower decent enough kitchen and the living space had a comfortble sofa bed and small table, it had a TV but we did not switch it on. The apartments as the crow flies were about 1 mile from the Disney parcs but the drive to the car park was about 15 minutes, there was a shuttle available at €3.5 per person per day but as we had a car we used this and the first shuttle was not until 9am. This hotel does allow pets we did hear a dog barking in the corridor and could smell dogs in the corridors but it was not enough of a negative to put us off. We popped back in the day and had lunch in the apartment (Sainsbury’s Microwave meals) and also had breakfast there and took a load of snacks, water and fruit into the park, we bought one hot bog meal when we came out for our daughter at €12.99 ! We also had lunch in the station as Earl of Sandwich queue matched that for tower of terror this came to an astonishing €26.99 for two adults and our daughter only had a pan au chocolate ! Lots of rides are closed, Thunder Mountain, Star Tours, River boat, Crush, Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland and there are lots of hoardings up not only does this mean that you don’t have these rides to go on but the queues for the other rides are much longer and the park feels busy I strongly advise checking on Disney’s website wat will be open before you book. As we have annual passes we can enter one of the parks each day 2 hours before it opens to the public which is great but even then it was busy, on Sunday the Disney studios was open from 8 we were there ate 0800 we went straight to Rattatouie SP we walked straight on and went on again waiting maybe 8 minutes when we came off at say 0830 the queue was 35 minutes 10 minutes later it was an hour, before the park opened the queue for Tower of Terror was 50 minutes, 45 minutes for the parachute drop and this is before the park is open to anyone other than Disney guests or annual pass holders, though to be fair there are probably lost of locals that have annual passes and want to go on a Sunday when the weather is good. On the Saturday we got in Disneyland park at 0800 and had done 7 rides by 10am we left the park as it started to get busy at noon and went back to have lunch and have a nap we went into the Studio park around 5.30 and aside from Ratatouie and TOT it was not too bad, we switched back to Disneyland Park at about 7 and it was still fairly busy though the kiddie rides were empting and by 8pm we got on Pirates and Phantom manner with no queue at all. Of course you also throughout the day have rides closed or “technical problems” On the plus side since the Disney Corp have again started pumping money and influence in (Disney does not own Disneyland Paris) the staff’s attitude has improved 10 fold which made the experience much better though it is still very understaffed compared to the US parks. I just don’t get the magic in Paris, the parade is small, yes the floats are good but there are not many of them and there are nowhere near as many CM’s in it, the dreams show at night is excellent and I would say that it is easier to get a good spot for this than it is to in Florida. I know that Magic Kingdom is only 25% bigger than Disneyland Paris but it has so much more in it and it does not have the huge dead spaces and unused land that DP has in the “Cowboy” are and behind Futureland I know that I should not compare the two but it is hard not to, yes I still enjoyed the weekend but I don’t feel that I got value and because of shut rides and long queues and probably worst of all hoardings that made walkways thinner and created bottlenecks we spent a lot more time doing no ride things like looking in shops, the excellent caves around Pirates but that is not what I went there for. If we had not had Annual passes and not been able to get the early entry I think that the trip would not have been very good and to be honest would have been almost as happy at Alton Towers or centre parcs. I will not be renewing our Disney passes two days at the weekend cost £104 for the Euro Tunnel €43 tolls £50 fuel £105 two nights in apartment €150 food and general spends and we had passes so say £450 for 2 days and we took food with us so £225 per day plus admission to me this does not give as much value or almost any of the magic that Florida does though my trip to Florida last year was my first since 1996 and before that trip I was perfectly happy at Disneyland Paris.