One of Europe’s top destinations, Disneyland Paris consists of numerous separate theme parks, Disneyland Park and Walt Disney Studios Park, Disney Village, several themed hotels and Golf Disneyland. This is all situated roughly 32 kilometres outside of the centre of Paris and the entire site combined is around one fifth the size of the city.
While Disneyland is a holiday destination that even adults can enjoy, without proper planning it can quickly become a nightmare. This guide will help you to enjoy your day and ensure you get the most out of it.
Booking Tickets
The most confusing and difficult part about Disneyland is actually getting inside. In most cases, if you are visiting the park for less than three days, it is best to book online in advance. However, should you be visiting the park for longer than three days then the best option is to buy an annual pass at the ticket gates.
Booking your tickets online also has other benefits as you can print off your tickets yourself. This means that you miss the worst queue of the day, the ticket counter queue, which will find you standing around for over an hour in peak season. Booking online in France is beneficial as you may get discounts on the prices by using the address of your hotel, although you may need delivery of the tickets rather than being able to print them yourself.
Time Savers
If you are only visiting Disneyland for one day, you will need to find ways to save as much time as possible. The best way to do this is to avoid the queues around the park. Some tickets you can buy include an “Extra Magic Hours” pass, meaning you can enter the park two hours before it is open to the public. Queues will be practically non-existent, although not everything will be open at this time.
Eating slightly earlier or later than normal will mean the queues you do end up joining during meal times will be shorter as well. You can book your France rental car at autoeurope.com for the best deals and making it easier to get around.
There are also FastPass tickets on offer when you are buying your tickets, meaning you join a different queue to everyone else which is also a great time saver, although these tickets cost €60. There are plenty of shows throughout the day that you can go and watch, and you can enter the venues before the start times meaning you should avoid the queues entirely.
If you are visiting the park with small children you can take advantage of the Baby Swap service on rides that are not designed for small children. This enables one of the parties to queue while another waits by the exit point with the small children. Once the person queuing exits, the adult by the entrance can then enter by the exit point to enjoy the ride.
Image: Entrance of Disneyland Paris by Dan Kamminga, Flickr