(1) Variables throughout the year for Disneyland Paris
CHECK THE FOLLOWING PLEASE
- Daylight hours (how many hours of sunlight are you going to enjoy)
- Weather
- Any train strikes
- Any closures of rides and places (we kena plenty on our day there. My Buzz Lightyear sobs)
(2) Water dispensers
They are available throughout the park, but not exactly everywhere also. So when you see one do refill your bottle first. But it also means you need not lug a huge canister of water over to Disneyland, or constantly pay for overpriced and expensive bottled water
They are available throughout the park, but not exactly everywhere also. So when you see one do refill your bottle first. But it also means you need not lug a huge canister of water over to Disneyland, or constantly pay for overpriced and expensive bottled water
(3) Tourist Information
While we were looking around the place and taking photos, Mom found a tourist information center with people queuing up. It's a standalone, sheltered space in the middle of all the gate entrances and the train station exit.
We actually went to ask if we can buy Musee D'Orsay tickets here and we could. So we got the hardcopy ticket straight away. Other tickets for other museums can be bought also, which I think is very convenient to help you skip the lines since the line at this Tourist Information Centre was so much shorter than any of the lines at the museums. The lady recommended the museum pass which again, wasn't worthwhile for us.
(4) Grab a map, but note the places to eat
One thing I wish the map contained was information about places to eat. We had to decide on where to eat by wandering around and this was quite a tough feat.
The maps were in different languages and the English one was good enough to explain briefly the rides and whether it was unsuitable for say.. pregnant women, people with back and shoulder ache etc.
(5) About the Parks
There are 3 different names you will hear. One is Disneyland Park, another is Disney Studios and the last is Disney Village.
Check out the map over here to see the areas in which they are located.
Disney Village can be entered into without any cost. You just need to do a bag check, and you can enter Disney Village. At this place, you can eat expensive Disneyland food.... buy Disneyland candy apples and candy floss, and access FIVE different shops with Disneyland merch. And whatever you can buy at Disney Village is more or less repeated in the main park.
Which means that you do not have to even have a park ticket (for either Disney Studios or Disneyland Park) in order to get all the merch and eat stuff.
So. I'm gonna do that next time. Spend my day at Disney Village and go home woohoo.
The bag check for entering Disney Village also has the shortest queue. Your welcome.
We did not buy tickets for Disney Studios because I did research and thought it was too much of a bore. And sure enough....
THE LINES WERE SO LONG in DISNEYLAND PARK BY THE LATE AFTERNOON.
Like if I queued for everything there is no way I could finish everything by the end of the day. And why would I queue 60 minutes just for a ride. Aiyo.
We could only go for like.... 4 rides, before we concluded that everything was a worthless endeavour due to the waiting time.
(6) Make the most of the rides there
So. In the early early morning, a lot of rides are not crowded, once we entered it was just a five minute wait. But as the clock started to get closer to noon, the queues started getting longer and longer, up to 20 minutes. And then even later in the afternoon like 5pm it became an hour wait.
So according to the website, you can go directly to the ride you want, press a fast pass ticket from one of the little boxes and it will allow you to come back at a later time to enter the fast pass queue rather than the main queue. These do run out though.
This is also the main reason why the queues get longer later in the day, because the fast pass riders are the ones actually making the queue longer and longer.
Each park ticket only allows you to grab one fast pass. So if you go to one and you get a timing of like... 5pm which is the time of the main parade, wah then you too bad already. Really.
I didn't bother with this because I wanted to stick to my family throughout.
But we were a bit suay, the Pirates of the Carribean ride closed the moment we got there for unknown time of maintenance. Like. We really walked to the entrance of the ride then they go and put barriers up. Sianz.
At the main street though there is this very useful sign that you can have a look at how long the rides are... but I didn't take a picture of it so sorry.
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Hope you find these tips useful for your Disneyland Paris trip! :D There are a lot of blogposts out there talking about how people spend multiple days at Disneyland Paris but to be honest... 1 day for the adults is good enough :>