A Disneyland Paris day trip trip report

[i love jack]

So this is a little trip report out of nowhere!

Pre-Trip report

Whilst partaking in my new obsession... watching vloggers I picked up on a comment that the best Big Thunder Mountain was at Disneyland Paris. We’ve never been to Disneyland Paris and I felt I needed to test this theory so I began to hatch a little plan!

My first pricing up option was based on the four of us travelling by Eurostar and was looking like costing around £1000. I couldn’t justify that as a little overnight trip so instead looked at other options. Firstly, as Andy and I had a week off work while the boys were at school, we could go midweek, just the two of us. I priced up the Eurostar, leaving at 6am, seats were around £180 each, one way. This also presented the logistical problem of getting to London for 6am without wanting to include an overnight stay. So with the idea now in my head, rather than dismiss it, I looked at flights!

We could fly from Luton to Paris Charles de Gaulle for £110! Wow! I couldn’t believe the price so after a couple of minutes deliberation booked it! I did also pay £20 to book our seats for both legs of the journey. The outbound flight was at 06:05, arriving in Paris at 08:25 and the return flight was 21:55 and due to land at 22:25 allowing for the 1hr time difference.

I looked at the Disneyland Paris website as I knew nothing about this park. I didn’t realise there were two parks and as my main motivation was to ride Big Thunder Mountain but also fancied the Ratatouille ride, Rock n Roller coaster, Tower of Terror and Crush’s Coaster. These were all at the Studios Park so looked at 1 day, 2 park tickets. I bought these from Attraction Tickets Direct for £120 these were very slightly less than buying from the Disney website. These were emailed to me and needed to be printed. This meant we could use these to scan at the gates and didn’t need to swap them to actual tickets. Anything to save a bit of time on the day!

We needed to obviously get from the airport to the Park, I had seen mention on the Disney website of the Magical Shuttle. This is a coach that takes around an hour from the airport and drops off at all the Disney hotels. There were shuttles regularly through the day with the first being at 09:00 which should fit with our arrival time. This cost €23 per person, per trip. I also priced up the cost of an Uber, private transfer and looked at trains. The only train I could see went into Paris and then another out to Disney. I couldn’t see if there was one direct from the airport direct to the park, so on this basis and being the cheapest option I could find, I booked the Magical Shuttle.

The last thing I booked was a days parking at Luton Airport in the multi-story for £45.00. I booked all this on 2 June for 13 June. Hoping that a midweek day in June would be fairly quiet. I should also add that we told the boys our plan and they weren’t bothered about us going without them!

I checked in online and downloaded our boarding passes to my phone, printed the Disney tickets, Magical Shuttle tickets and we were good to go.

Trip Report

Wednesday 13th June 2018

So working backwards from the flight time we planned to get to Luton for 4am. We probably didn’t need to allow 2 hours as we were already checked in and had no luggage but you never know how long the security queue is going to be! We live an hour away from Luton so set the alarm for 2am and planned to leave home at 3am. Andy debated not going to bed but he did.

We had a nice easy drive on the M1 listening to sounds of the 80s on the radio. It’s a bit of a building site at Luton but we found the car park easily and parked on the ground floor. We made our way straight to security. It was quite busy, lots of people with young families I guess going on their summer holidays. I noticed a Starbucks and Costa landside but we thought we’d wait for breakfast until we were through Security.

There were quite a few shops airside, the usual duty free, Monsoon, Next, JD Sports and quite a few food places too, Frankie and Bennys, Pret, Starbucks, a Pub, one outlet selling joints of ham? It was really busy, as it was still pretty early we just opted for a couple of lattes and sat and waited for the gate to be announced at 5:20.

The plane was parked just outside the gate and I think this is the first time I’ve just walked to the plane!

It looked pretty full, we’d booked two by the window and had an extra person in our third seat, no spare chair for us! The flight time was due to be 50 minutes! Amazing . By the time we got up, it was time to come back down. They did a quick drinks service, tea was £2.50 and a gin and tonic was £7 if anyone is interested! We didn’t partake. We took off on time and landed at 6:52 (7:52 Paris time).

So green

Luckily I’d watched a couple of Krispy Smores vlogs of a visit to DLP and they had taken the Magical Shuttle and had given good instructions on how to find it as it is not signposted. I couldn’t find any information on the website and did not see a single sign. The only information was on the timetable which said terminal 2E/2F (we landed at 2D) so from the vlog I knew we had to go downstairs, look for Marks and Spencer and turn right. It was quite a walk and eventually we found M&S although we came from the other side so took a left!

I was a bit peckish by now so bought a couple of pastries from M&S and almond croissant and a pain au raisin.

We got to the Magical Shuttle desk at 8:40, it was closed so we sat an ate our pastries. I wasn’t sure if we had to book in but we noticed lots of people outside at the bus stop who obviously hadn’t checked in as the desk was closed so we went and joined them.

Two coaches arrived around 9.00 and took quite a while to start loading people, there were quite a few people waiting by this time. Eventually they called some of the hotels and directed people to a coach dependent on where they were staying, obviously we were not at a hotel and just wanted to park so we just got on the nearest coach. I was getting a little frustrated that time was ticking into our day and we eventually set off at around 9:20.

We stopped at Newport Bay first and we thought about getting off and walking, thinking that it’s going to take some time to drop off at hotels, but we didn’t, we stayed on, Newport Bay looked really nice, a bit Yacht and Beach ish. Next was Cheyenne which also looked nice, like a Wild West town. Then we stopped at the Disneyland Hotel, I knew this was right by the Park so we jumped off here. We didn’t know how to get into the Park though so I had to try and remember some French and ask! I could not remember the word for walk, so started by saying I could only speak a little French and piecing a couple of words together! I got the reply “walk through the hotel and turn right” in perfect English.

The Disneyland Hotel foyer

We arrived at the gate and tried to scan our tickets, I did get asked something here a couple of times and had to say “Je ne comprends pas” eventually he said in English I needed ID, I panicked as we were travelling light, I’d only taken phone, 50 Euros and a bank card just in case, I hadn’t got my driving licence...until Andy pointed out we had our passports!

I took our first photo at the park entrance at 10:26, the park only opened to general public at 10:00 so not too bad, I think the journey to the first drop off was only about 40 minutes.

We walked under the station and we were there! It did feel kind of weird just walking in, no monorail or ferry boat. I was conscious that we shouldn’t compare this to Disney World but it’s quite difficult not to.

We headed first to Big Thunder Mountain hoping to maybe get a fast pass and a ride. It’s a paper fastpass system at DLP and I hoped our tickets would work – they did! Sadly though the ride was currently down so we couldn’t join the stand-by line.

We headed to the Indiana Jones ride which had a 5 minute wait. Our plan for the day was to ride rides that weren’t at WDW and then ride some of our favourites. Indiana Jones is a rollercoaster with a 360 loop, it was ok, quite a short ride.

Next we walked over to Pirates of the Caribbean, this was a nicely themed area with skull rock and a pirate ship (which probably has a name). There was a 20 minute queue here, I enjoyed this and it felt like a long ride.

It was now time for our Big Thunder Mountain fast pass. This was really good, it felt really long and there were a few sections in the dark.

Sadly a couple of the rides we’d have liked to have done were closed for refurbishment, these included Phantom Manor and Hyperspace Mountain.

We headed for Buzz next but firstly got a fast pass for Star Tours which had a return time half an hour away, the queue for Buzz was 30 minutes so great timing. For a while I was beating Andy until he realised and got in the zone!

Star Tours was good too with a French C3PO. The CMs said everything in French and English when they were directing you to a row on a ride. I always feel bad that I can’t speak French as well as they speak English.

Closed for refurb

It was 12:30 by now and we were starting to get hungry. There was a big restaurant near here called cafe Hyperion which served burgers. The queues were huge though and we didn’t want to waste time queuing for food! We decided to head over to the Studios Park and see what was over there.

When you walk into this park you walk through Studio 1 which looks like a film set and also has a counter service restaurant again serving burgers. We decided to go and get a Ratatouille fast pass first and then head back to get food.

Fast passes secured we joined the food queue. This seemed to take ages, the system where you order and pay and then collect from the counter just seems to take an age whichever Disney restaurant you are in. People don’t seem to know what to order or how to count money! We got a chicken burger meal which came with burger, fries, drink and a brookie. We also got a portion of chicken nuggets and shared it all. It came to 17 Euros. It was ok - filled a hole.

Next we went to try Crush’s Coaster. There is no fast pass option for this and the queue was 60 minutes. I’d been looking on the app during the week prior to us going and never saw the queue less than 70 minutes. It was a long old queue, Andy commented it was longer than the flight over here! We didn’t know what to expect from this ride and before too long we were loaded into our turtle shell. I really enjoyed this, it was so fast with big drops and turns, it was really good. Kind of a cross between Mummy and Space Mountain with turtles.

Next we went to use our Ratatouille fast pass. This was a really clever ride, it is a trackless, 3D ride where you become the size of a rat. It was also really good.

Great theming in this area

Next we went to Tower of Terror, a ride that I used to be terrified of but after trying it again in 2016 I absolutely love it. It’s so good & only had a 10 minute wait.

Then to Rock ‘n’ Rollercoaster another one of our favourites, again not really much of a wait, in fact the doors opened before the pre-show had finished. We were in the last but one row, I just love the start of this ride.

We had decided, again wanting to allow plenty of time to get back to the airport and through security to catch the 17:30 magical shuttle. We were worried about traffic and the Disneyland hotel was the first pick up point. This was due to arrive at the airport by 19:00 which would give us 3 hours but better to be safe than sorry! This being the case, we decided to have a quick look round the Disney Village. So we left the Studios at 3pm and headed into World of Disney. I’m currently on a mission to get those matching t-shirts for our upcoming Florida trip so had a quick look to see if any took my fancy. The boys are not currently sold on this idea I have to say!

Then to Starbucks for an Iced tea and to see if they had the ‘Paris’ you are here mug...they didn’t, only ‘France’. We also wanted to get a present for the boys, there was nothing grabbing us here so thought we’d pop back into Disneyland and maybe get a rice krispy Mickey head or something. There was a cable car bakeshop but they didn’t sell things like krispy treats so we just got some sweets for them.

As we were heading back out of the park the Disneyland Railroad train pulled into the station, we had time for one last ride so ran up the steps and made it onto the train. We did a loop of the park which was a nice bonus ride.

I was getting a little worried about my phone battery by now. I had only taken my phone to use for photos and had the boarding cards on there so couldn’t risk it running out. Of course, I hadn’t taken a charger! So I turned it off for a while

It was time to leave now and we made our way back through the Disneyland hotel to wait for the Shuttle. We were first on and then obviously had to pick up from every other hotel, I may have had a little snooze at this point. I woke up and asked Andy if we were still doing hotel pick ups, he said not but we seem to have driven through Meaux three times... On the drive in the morning we had driven on Motorways, it seemed very easy, but now we were driving though little towns and villages with barely enough room for cars let alone a huge coach!

Behind us we had snoring, in front of us someone was whistling the same tune over and over and at the back it sounded like someone choking or vomiting I’m not sure which... it was a fun journey. I turned my phone back on at some point too and had a message from Easyjet to say our flight was delayed. Apparently some issue with bags on an earlier flight had meant all other flights were affected. We were now due to take off at 23:42 so instead of 3 hours at the airport we had nearly 5. We arrived back at the airport, amazingly at the time we should have done, it felt much longer.

We made our way back over to Terminal 2D, according to the departure boards our flight was showing on time. We hoped that this was the case. We thought we would have time to have a meal once we were at the airport but there didn’t seem to be any sit down places landside so we thought we’d go through security and see what was on the other side. There was no queue at security so we were quickly through and looking for food. We walked through the gates and there only seemed to be sandwich places so we got a ham baguette and a drink from Brioche Doree.

The screens were still saying our flight was on time so we were really hoping it was. However at 21.25 when we were due to board they announced that the flight was delayed. It was quite frustrating that they hadn’t announced this earlier just so we would have known for sure. So we had another 2 hours to wait, we had another little snooze while we were waiting. They called for boarding at 23:10 and we took off at midnight. The advertised flight time is 1hr 20mins and we were really hoping it wasn’t going to be, luckily it wasn’t - it was 50 minutes again.

Now, we’re not great fliers, I think it’s an age thing (which is why Andy’s worse than me!) but this plane made some strange noises. Rather than the comforting hum of the engines you usually hear, on this trip they seemed to scream all the way home. May be the pilot was trying to make up time as we were delayed but there did seem to be all sorts of unfamiliar creeks & groans. After take off & pre landing it sounded like the wheels going up/down were being hand cranked which seemed to create some sort is sawing noise. Anyway, we landed safely and once I’d wiped the sweat off my shorts from Andy’s nervous palms we were ready (and in Andy’s case, thankful) to leave the Easyjet EZY2442.

We were worried about the pre-paid car parking at Luton as I’d put our time of arrival as 23:30, by the time we landed, taxied and were off the plane it was midnight UK time. We thought at that time of night we’d be out of the airport in no time, but the passport control queue was huge. Andy was rejected from the automated passport reader and had to wait to see a person (he thinks it’s because he now has a full beard and he’s clean shaven in his passport photo – I think he’s inept at working the machine!). We made our way back to the car and the car park was so busy, it reminded me of trying to get out of a car park after a concert when everyone is leaving at the same time. We joined the queue and decided to risk our ticket, hoping that it actually covered 24 hours rather than just until 23:30. Luckily it let us out!

We were soon back on the M1, feeling pretty tired. Our ETA was 2am, 24 hours after we got up! The journey was ok until we were about 20 mins from home and the traffic slowed down to 20 miles per hour, we could see traffic officer vehicles at the front and there didn’t seem to be anything happening. We were really hoping we didn’t come to a standstill, we were both in danger of falling asleep if that were to happen. After a while the traffic officers turned off and the traffic started moving again. We have no idea why we were slowed down, there was no evidence of an accident.

We were soon home after this and ready to fall straight into bed. It was Andy’s Birthday (a big one!) the next day or actually that day! I’d promised to cook a family breakfast before the boys went to school so I set the alarm for 7am and put the oven on timer so it would come on and I could get up and start cooking!

So that was our DLP daytrip! It was very tiring doing it in a day but that was mainly because of the delay coming home, if our flight was on time it would have been fine. It was really fun going for the day, we enjoyed it. We enjoyed having a fix of our favourite rides and trying a couple of new ones. Obviously we didn’t have time to do everything or see any shows but we didn’t mind this, we did everything we wanted to.

I’ve done this report in case anyone finds it useful to plan their own trip.

Thanks for reading

[DisneyKim416]

Really enjoyed reading this! 1 day at Disney is better than no days at Disney

[mick]

What a long day but sounds like you had a great time and managed to do lots of rides
Glad you had a go at your French but very funny that they answered in English

Joan

[mick]

Pity you didn't buy a joint of ham at Luton then you wouldn't lose ride time queueing for food in the park.

Mick

[i love jack]

Originally Posted by DisneyKim416

Really enjoyed reading this! 1 day at Disney is better than no days at Disney

See more...

Haha so true! Thank you

Originally Posted by mick

What a long day but sounds like you had a great time and managed to do lots of rides
Glad you had a go at your French but very funny that they answered in English

Joan

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Puts me to shame

Originally Posted by mick

Pity you didn't buy a joint of ham at Luton then you wouldn't lose ride time queueing for food in the park.

Mick

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Now why didn’t we think of that!

[Palm trees]

What a fantastic day! We are staying near DLP for our summer hols this year and are planning a day trip. I'm so used to pre planning to the nth degree at Disneyworld that a vaguely impromptu day at DLP seemed a bit alien. Having read your report I'm now feeling super enthusiastic about heading there for the day from 6 miles away!

[i love jack]

Originally Posted by Palm trees

What a fantastic day! We are staying near DLP for our summer hols this year and are planning a day trip. I'm so used to pre planning to the nth degree at Disneyworld that a vaguely impromptu day at DLP seemed a bit alien. Having read your report I'm now feeling super enthusiastic about heading there for the day from 6 miles away!

See more...

It definitely felt like we got a decent amount done in a day, go for it

[Niki T]

I love this! A sneaky day in Disney sounds fab x

[i love jack]

Originally Posted by Niki T

I love this! A sneaky day in Disney sounds fab x

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Thank you for reading, it was fab

[Animagus]

Thanks for sharing. A full on day but you got a lot of good rides in. I've heard the QS places are neither quick nor particularly nice but, as you said, filling a hole is all that was needed. Not sure I could cope with such a crazy day but it bodes well for others travelling at a similar time of year and you clearly had fun