We recently had the opportunity to visit Disneyland Paris for the first time and wanted to share some of our impressions. The park itself consists of two separate theme parks (Disneyland and Walt Disney Studios) and a marketplace (Disney Village). Disneyland and Walt Disney Studios are in close proximity to one another. The two theme parks and Disneyland Village are all within an easy 10 minute walk of each other.
Disneyland reminded us of the original Disneyland park in Anaheim in terms of it’s size and layout. Some of the attractions were a blend of attractions from other Disney parks. For example, Space Mountain was a combination of Rock-N-Rollercoaster and Space Mountain in Anaheim. Others are very similar to their counterparts in California and Florida while a few are unique to Paris.
The park contains several walk through attractions which are too good to miss such as Captain Nemo’s Nautilus and dragon’s lair from Sleeping Beauty. One of the perks for staying at an on site resort was early morning entry two hours before official park opening. While not all attractions were open, there were enough to fill your time and your photos have less people in the background.
Walt Disney Studios is smaller than Disneyland and has less attractions. The layout of the park and the popularity of the attractions leads to many cases of gridlock with queues spilling out into walkways. As in Disneyland, you will find familiar attractions and settings from Disneyland California and Walt Disney World in Florida but also some unique to Paris. They have a whole area dedicated to Remy and his friends from Ratatouille including a wonderfully themed restaurant where you feel like you have been shrunk to the size of a mouse. The operating hours of this park were 10 to 6 and there was no early entry available.
There are seven Disney on site hotel options as well as options a short ride away. We stayed in a moderate level Disney Resort on property, Newport Bay Resort, and it was a short 5-10 minute walk to Disney Village and another 10-15 minute walk to the theme park entrances. The resort was quite relaxing in both atmosphere and style.
The ability to walk to the parks, early entry to Disneyland and a daily breakfast buffet were nice perks for staying at an on site resort property. There is a Magic Shuttle from the airport to the resorts but there is a separate charge for this service unlike Magical Express in Florida. There is a dining plan available but it does not have nearly the options you may be used to from Florida. You are also not able to charge back to your resort for meals, souvenirs and snacks like in Florida. On balance, we had a great time visiting Disneyland Paris and would recommend it to anyone heading to France.
