Background
In May 2022, our family took a fun trip to Paris. We love Disney Parks. Carter has been to 3 of 4 Disney World Parks in Florida, Disneyland and California Adventure in California, Tokyo DisneySea, and Disneyland Paris. As part of our Summer 2022 trip, we spent a day at Disneyland Paris. Below are some general tips and our itinerary of our day at the park.
Read all of our Paris posts at the following links:
- Flight details (free using points!) Jetlag with kids, packing tips, and more.
- Hotel stays: Versailles, Hyatt Paris (free using points!) & Disney
- Itinerary and Logistics (phone, metro, language)
- Versailles Palace and Gardens & an awesome Chartres light show
- Paris Day 1: Eiffel Tower, Arch De Triomph, Boat Tour
- Paris Day 2: Sainte Chapelle, Musee D’ Orsay, Montmartre
- Paris Day 3: Louvre, Luxembourg Gardens, Macaron Class
- Disneyland Paris: Best rides, shows and activities (This post)
General Tips
Research: As early as possible, start researching your plans and have a rough idea of what your priorities for the day will be. Sites such as WDW news, Undercover Tourist, Disney Tourist, and the official park website will give you an idea of what the top rides are and the layout of the park.
There are also constantly changing procedures for how the lines work with names such as fastpass, maxpass, lightning lane, genie, etc. Even reading what other people have done 2 months ago may not apply to your visit, but it’s still good to get a general idea.
Get there early! I know it’s vacation and sleep is valuable, but the first hour of the park is a prime time to get as many rides in as possible, and then you can take a mid-morning break to re-group and figure out the rest of the day. If you’re staying off-site, you’ll need to add time for driving in, going through security, and making your way through the turnstiles. Also, often the parks will actually open 30 minutes before official. Again, read some of the blogs that are dedicated to staying up-to-date on current procedures.
Save time and money on dining: We packed some snacks and ate them while walking between rides. Take advantage of mobile ordering in the park and quick-service options. We left the park to eat lunch at the Downtown Disney Earl of Sandwich restaurant. Share a meal when possible, and save room and money for snacking (Both brought from home and purchased at stands)
Prepare yourself and kids for lines: Unless you’re going on a truly slow day such as a rainy Wednesday in the off-season, you’re going to experience lines. Activities and snacks and patience patience patience are so important. Phone apps and other games are nice to bring along. Also, many lines have theming that you as the adult can help direct attention to and ask to point out characters and colors.
Don’t minimize “small” rides and experiences: This is a tip for myself as well as others. Don’t be overly focused on big-name rides. Some of the characters will have minimal waits and some of the artistry shouldn’t be rushed through just to get on to the next item on a to-do list. This is especially true when line waits get long. Is it better to wait in a line for an hour for a 5 minute ride or spend some time in a playground or looking at fun sculptures.
Getting to Disney and where to stay
We took the RER train from Disney prior to the parks opening. It took around 45 minutes from Paris. We stored our luggage at the train station. When the train arrives, there are signs for luggage storage. It cost us 9 euros for a large locker. Later in the afternoon, we took a break from the park to collect our things from the locker, check-in to our hotel, and come back to the parks refreshed.
We booked a hotel nearby on trips.com called Aparthotel Adagio Serris. This hotel was about a 15 minute walk to the parks and near a shopping mall and some cute bakeries and restaurants. There were several options on-site and a few that were a little farther away. This hotel had a small market area and a nice outdoor pool. The hotel hallways and rooms were basic and a little run-down but this hotel’s location overweighed all other concerns and sufficiently met our needs.
Park Highlights and Itinerary
Disneyland Park
Date of visit: June 2022
Kids’s ages: 4.5-year-old Ellie and a 7-year-old Carter.
Highlights: Star Tours, Thunder Mountain, Dream Light Show
We decided on this trip to not purchase the extra add-ons for Premier Access. These options allow you to pay fees to skip lines either for a group of rides or individual rides.
One of the key tips for all Disney trips is to start your day on time. “Rope drop” is the term used for arriving 30 minutes early and being at the entrance turnstiles when the rope drops to mark opening. We arrived at the park at 9:15 for an 9:30 open, and this was actually a little later than I would have liked to arrive.
Although recommended by many websites to head to the big name rides first, we didn’t want to start our day with a 60 minute wait. Instead, we started our day in the Discoveryland area (Similar to tomorrowland) This was a rough itinerary of all the highlights we hit:
9:30-11: Discoveryland with Autotopia, Buzz lightyear and Star Tours. Autopia is a hit because the kids get to drive their own cars. Star Tours would end up being one of the favorite rides of the day and the wait hovered between 10-20 minutes which made it perfect for joy to wait ratio. Later in the evening, we were even able to say “Yes” to the question of “Can we do that again?” that is asked after every ride. After Discoverland, we watched a mini-parade called Dream and Shine Brighter in the middle area near the Castle. A really fun well-done show with fun characters, catchy songs, and great effects.
11-1: Castle and playground: One of the cool unique things about this park is that the inside of the castle has some cool sleeping beauty scenes to explore upstairs and a dragon under the castle! The lines around the park were starting to get long so we were glad there were some options for experiences that we didn’t have to wait for. After exploring the castle, we walked through a fun Aladdin exhibit, and spent some time at a playground in Frontierland
1-4: Break: We took a break from the parks, ate some sandwiches for lunch at Downtown Disney and collected our suitcases to check in. We tried to convince the kids to nap, but they were too hyped up. Still good to have some downtime before heading back to the parks.
4-6: Parade and Fantasyland. When we headed back to the park, people were starting to line up for the big daily parade. We decided to use the opportunity to do some rides and headed to Fantasyland like Snow White and Teacups.
6-8: Thunder Mountain: This was the longest wait of the day. We all loved the fun ride but I wish the wait wasn’t so long and we had arranged our day to avoid the wait (80 minutes) After the long wait, a 15 minute wait for Pirates felt easy.
8-11: Fantasyland and Star Tours: This was a great time to head towards the rides in Fantasyland as other families with young kids started to leave. The Alice in Wonderland maze was unique cool area full of fun characters, silly water features and nice views atop the mini-castle. The kids were familiar with the characters from a new Alice in Wonderland show. We also used the opportunity of low wait times to ride Star Tours several times! As I said before, this ride became the surprise hit! The planets randomize so it was never the same ride twice.
11: Fireworks It was insanely crowded on Main Street by the end of the night and trying to get a spot to see the fireworks was very difficult. The sun sets late in the summer and it was crazy that the sky wasn’t dark enough until 11pm! We prioritized rides instead of a good spot. My kids are heavy and needed to be lifted to have any kind of a view for the 30 minutes of the show. An arm work-out! the show was great with projections on the castle, a short drone show, and fireworks. Very similar to the magic kingdom show.
Downtown Disney and Val D-Europe
On our last day in Paris, we had thought about finding another nearby town to visit but ultimately decided to do our covid tests to return home, play in the pool and hang out at downtown disney and the local mall. Downtown Disney didn’t have a lot to do while we were there. The shopping center nearby had a small carousel, tons of shops and over 20 restaurants. We really enjoyed the spanish tapas spot for our last meal before our flights home.
More Paris Posts
Read all of our Paris posts at the following links:
- Flight details (free using points!) Jetlag with kids, packing tips, and more.
- Hotel stays: Versailles, Hyatt Paris (free using points!) & Disney
- Itinerary and Logistics (phone, metro, language)
- Versailles Palace and Gardens & an awesome Chartres light show
- Paris Day 1: Eiffel Tower, Arch De Triomph, Boat Tour
- Paris Day 2: Sainte Chapelle, Musee D’ Orsay, Montmartre
- Paris Day 3: Louvre, Luxembourg Gardens, Macaron Class
- Disneyland Paris: Best rides, shows and activities (This post)
