Visiting Disneyland Paris with kids on a budget.
We booked Disneyland Paris quite last minute when we had 2 nights spare at the end of our European road trip thanks to all of our plans shifting due to our caravan breakdown! We convinced my parents to fly out to join us & surprise the kids and it made for *the* most magical, fun couple of days we’ll remember forever!! I’ve never seen Freya more sad to leave a place. We’re not actually huge Disney mega fans but despite that it’s a childhood must. The castle, the parades, the characters, the fun of the rides, the shows! I’d go again just for the shows. And it’s that atmosphere of when you enter the gates of ‘leave all your troubles behind, this place is solely for fun and making memories’.
My top tips for visiting Disneyland Paris.
Book your stay in euros, it saved us 10% compared to pounds! On the website under the language/country selector bit, click international EUR instead and pay in euros. We use a Revolut card to avoid fees and get a good exchange rate.
Buy your ears/t shirts in advance either from Vinted or I bought our ears online here on Amazon, so much cheaper than when you’re there.
Get the Disneyland Paris app! It’s so helpful for the live queue times, an interactive map to follow & show times etc.
Stay at a Disney hotel to get the magic hour {an extra hour at 830am before the park opens so you can get loads of rides in with no queues and enjoy the park without crowds}. We booked the Santa Fe cars hotel as it was cheapest and available - last minute. It was fairly basic, didn’t have a mini fridge, but quiet, close enough to walk to the park {you can get the magic shuttle bus but it’s quicker and nicer just to walk along the river through the Disney village}, had free parking and crucially included the magic hour.
Bring a cool bag/as many snacks as you can. Food is expensive there! And saves time constantly going to find food.
Bring comfy shoes & a buggy, even big big kids were sat in buggies as the parks are tiring!
Turn up half an hour before shows and for the parade to secure spots. Look up where the parade routes go in advance on the app so you can choose a good spot.
If you’re short on time you can pay to reserve priority spots for rides/shows/the parade/fireworks, we didn’t feel the need to. August was surprisingly quiet just before the Olympics began, we didn’t end up queuing for more than 20 minutes.
If you want to meet Mickey or the princesses then start queuing even before the queue opens!
We took a couple of small kids drawing games/cards for queuing at the shows/before the parades
Don’t miss the shows, they were a real highlight! We all loved the Pixar musical, Mickey & the Magician and the Lion King.
Book a free spot in the virtual queue to meet Spider-Man once you’re in the studios park & the app will tell you when it’s your turn. Such a good character meet experience!
People start queuing 2 hours before the fireworks! It was too late for our children in the summer :( but me & my parents were completely wowed by the drone show & fireworks display.
Search in Facebook groups if you have any specific questions, I planned loads from there!
Don’t try to do every single thing unless you have days and days. Be selective, make a game plan. The age that our children were automatically narrowed it down for us in that not everything was suitable for them.
It’s so easy to park hop as they’re right next door to each other.
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