A long day in Disneyland Paris

Finally, I’m a Disneyland insider! The day after I turned 42, we took the kids to Disney Paris. I’d never been and figured we should do it as a family at least once.

Leading up to it, only my 8-year old daughter seemed somewhat excited. My husband and my son were a bit apprehensive because they recently visited Disneyland Tokyo, which had been a nightmare. It was so busy I’m not sure they managed to do a single ride. It had also been freezing cold.

So why is our family doing Disneyland Tokyo and Disneyland Paris and not, let’s say, a Disney park in the US? To be honest, the whole idea of going to Disneyland frightened me. I worried about the crowds, the costs, and the logistics. I always thought you’d need to do a lot of planning to see any of the shows and pay a massive amount of money to skip lines and actually get something to ride or eat. Even for Disney Paris, which I know people love, my expectations were in the basement.

The right time to go

My number one priority was picking a quiet day—relatively speaking, of course. We knew the last week of May was a school holiday in the UK so we expected to see some Brits, but otherwise the internet assured us that Wednesday would be a good day to avoid crowds. This turned out to be correct. There were plenty of people, but it never felt like too much.

The other crucial element of a successful visit is the time of arrival. We’re normally pretty casual about showing up to things and my husband in particular feels no pressure whatsoever to get in line first or be strategic about minimizing waiting times. Thankfully, the park didn’t open until 9:30 AM and I had managed to corral everyone there an hour earlier. This left us with plenty of time to get a snack and buy a few accessories like the must-have mouse ears.

Layout of the park

I’d downloaded the Disney app on my phone in advance but couldn’t really imagine how the park would look and feel. I tend to get lost and already pictured myself harried and confused. The map on the app isn’t ideal, but it does a good job of showing the routes to various attractions and ballpark waiting times.

We ended up crisscrossing our way through the park, without a real plan, but with the help of the app it worked. The park isn’t huge. Watching a YouTube video about it in advance didn’t really help. The fact that my husband went to Disney 25 years ago was more helpful because at least he knew details about the rides.

What really worked well for our family was splitting up at various times. When the park opened, my son and I raced to do the scariest rollercoasters first, like the Indiana Jones Temple of Peril and Hyperspace Mountain, while the others ambled their way to the less intense Pirates of the Caribbean—which my daughter still found scary, apparently. We reunited for the shows, and I bowed out for the more nauseating rides like the very fun but absolutely unbearable Star Tours.

What I loved about Disney Paris

Public transport. One of the biggest pluses of going to Disney Paris—I’m not kidding—is how easy it is to reach. We literally took a metro from our Airbnb and popped out by the front gate. Returning home at 11 PM was equally cheap and painless.

Rides: I was very skeptical about the rides at first, because I’ve already done every imaginable ride in my life. Why queue up for 45 minutes for a 1-minute thrill that’s not so different from any other? But my kids enjoyed them immensely, the details were gorgeous, and there was lots of variety. The fact that we could do so many of them in one day also made it special. I still don’t think any ride is worth an hour wait, but doing the rides was super fun.

Affordability. Disney Paris is BY NO MEANS cheap. We paid $100 per person for the tickets and probably the same amount for food, drinks, and souvenirs. And we opted out of additional paid experiences such as live shows. But it could have been a lot worse. The kids were so happy and grateful with whatever they got, and I didn’t feel like the park was trying to extort us. We had to look really hard for the candy store, actually, and I thought the merchandise wasn’t particularly in-your-face either.

The people. More than anything, I was surprised about my how polite people were despite the log cues, omnipresence of really young children, and the occasional need for crowd management (when the parades came through). Surely the Disney staff is trained to smile a lot, but even the visitors were patient and far more normal than I had imagined.

I always thought Disney was a cult for weirdos, with the way people obsess about it online, and that all the parents would be completely stressed out, but I found the whole experience pretty normal. I didn’t get overwhelmed or annoyed. We even stayed until the 11 PM firework show! Considering how much both of my kids loved the day and how seamless it all went, it even occurred to me that maybe… I actually really liked it myself.

What I didn’t like so much

Still, nothing is perfect and trust me: I’m not about to drop another $800 for a day in a fun park any time soon. Not even if for Disney.

One thing that stood out to me was that the shows and parades, where I imagined my daughter would be shaking Mickey Mouse’s and Cinderella’s hands, weren’t really there. The parade with some of the main Disney characters happened only once and was over in a flash. Mickey was inside somewhere, but you needed to book and pay to see him. Mary Poppins, to her credit, was available for a chat and a photo. My kids didn’t know her though (I guess my son was only six when I took him to the most recent movie). The Splash of Color parade sucked, in my opinion, though it still managed to mesmerize my daughter.

Besides that, I have no complaints. Then again, we only waited 5-20 minute per ride. If it had all been 40+ minute waits, which I heard is common, I wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much. The Disney experience is really nice, but it’s not nice if you don’t get to experience all of it. Or most of it, anyway.

It was a big day

I still can’t believe we stayed for 14 hours!! We only took a proper food break once, for dinner, but we also sat down for drinks (and played a little cards) once. We had our fastfood lunch on the go—plant based burgers, chicken nuggets, cardboard fries, and a mini salad.

We did a lot, in my opinion. The rides included the Indiana Jones Temple of Peril (twice), Hyperspace Mountain (twice), Pirates of the Caribbean, Space Tours (twice), Phantom Manor (twice), Mickey’s PhilharMagic (really funny movie), Orbitron, Mad Hatter’s Teacups, It’s a Small World (twice) and Thunder Mountain.

I don’t feel like we missed out on much, but we would have liked to see Alice’s Curious Labyrinth (it closed early, or maybe was never open) and the Buzz Lightyear ride because you get to shoot laser guns.

Even before the day was over, I knew my kids had had an amazing time. My daughter got emotional when we left. She was too tired to make a fuss but she really wanted to stay. My son said a few times: I’m definitely taking my own kids here!

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