Disneyland Paris Guide

I LOVE Disney… I was a competitive cheerleader my entire young life and was lucky enough to visit Disney World in Orlando at least once a year for about 15 years, sometimes twice a year. Since retiring from cheer, I’ve still tried to go to Disney around Christmas with my family or on the way to our Florida vacation each summer.

I’ve always wanted to visit all of the Disney theme parks around the world, and we had a little break in our itinerary in Paris… just enough to fit a quick trip to Disneyland Paris. Thankfully, my travel companion, Ro, was equally excited to visit Disneyland Paris.

How to Get There

We were staying in Montmartre, right near Place de Clichy. We were able to take the metro from Clichy to the RER A. I am not good at navigating public transportation, but Paris does make it extremely easy to get to Disneyland Paris.

You want to find the train on the RER A to Marne-la-Vallee, and this is easy because Mickey’s head is right next to the name.

The metro ticket was $8 for a roundtrip ticket per person. You can take an Uber, but it was quoting us $80 one way.

The train will drop you off right in front of the entrance to Disneyland Paris. It really could not be any easier :)

Price

We got the “Dated Ticket 1 Day/2 Parks” option with Premier Access. This means we picked the day we were visiting (no flexibility on when we can visit) and we are visiting their 2 parks: Disneyland Paris and Walt Disney Studios. The dated ticket itself was $103.53.

The Premier Access allows you to skip the line on almost every ride one time. The only ride we encountered we couldn’t skip was Pirates of the Caribbean. The Premier Access cost an additional $142.81.

A total of $246.34.

Premier Access

As I said above, we did the premier access option. We were able to skip the line on the following rides:

• Indiana Jones

• Big Thunder Mountain

• Phantom Manor

• Hyperspace Mountain

• Crush’s Coaster

• Remy’s Adventure

• Tower of Terror

• Avenger’s Flight Force

The Premier Access was amazing! We were able to ride 9 rides in 5 hours, which is unheard of at the American parks. We really enjoyed this option.

HOWEVER, the wait times were not nearly as long as the wait times seen at the other parks. For example, the longest wait time we encountered was 65 minutes for Indiana Jones and Crush’s Coaster. For the most part, the wait times were less than 30 minutes, with single rider lines around the 5-15 minute wait time.

With us only being there for a half day, we really enjoyed this option. If you plan on spending more time there, I don’t think the premier access is worth it.

Food

We didn’t eat too much at this park compared to some of my other Disney posts, but we did get some food.

We got there around 11am, so we got a Croque Monsieur along Main St. and it was good! Just an elevated ham and cheese sandwich :)

Around midday, I got a nutella crepe in Fantasyland and it was delicious and the one thing I was searching for. A lot of the food carts don’t accept cards for smaller purchases, so keep that in mind!

They also were participating in their version of Food & Wine Festival over in Walt Disney Studios. In the area near Remy’s ride, they had different booths for different areas of France with wine, cider, beer, and snacks. We got a local dry cider, a crepe with goat cheese, walnuts, honey, and arugula, and some potatoes au gratin.

Once you leave the French part of Walt Disney Studios, they have booths for different countries - similar to a smaller-scale Epcot.

Rides & Park Theming

As I said above, we rode (along with our thoughts):

• Indiana Jones

  • very short ride

  • incredibly rough ride

• Pirates of the Caribbean

  • much longer than WDW version

  • a few drops, but you don’t get wet

• Phantom Manor (their version of The Haunted Mansion)

  • much slower than WDW version

• Big Thunder Mountain

  • longer than WDW version

  • not as rough as WDW version

  • very fun

• Hyperspace Mountain (their version of Space Mountain, but with Star Wars theming)

  • so much better than WDW Space Mountain!

  • 3 inversions, fast start

  • we got off and wanted to ride again immediately

• Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure

  • I don’t love 3D rides, so I was disappointed by this even though I love Ratatouille

• Crush’s Coaster

  • my favorite ride of the day!

  • The seat itself moves, as well, so you’re moving in all different directions. Such a unique ride!

• Tower of Terror

  • Classic, fun ride. One of my favorites ever.

• Avengers Flight Force (Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, but with Avengers theming, not Aerosmith)

  • If you like Rock ‘n’ Roller coaster and you like the Avengers, you’ll like this.

  • Fast start, multiple inversions, good theming. Great ride.

The park itself is gorgeous. Michael Eisner, the CEO at the time the park was being built, said he wanted Disneyland Paris to be “the most beautiful park,” and I think he succeeded. It is definitely smaller, but not to the detriment of the overall feeling. It seems more manageable and less overwhelming.

It is just familiar enough to be comforting and recognizable, but different enough in the details to be exciting and new.