Hi everyone! So we have just got back from the most amazing
four days at Disneyland Paris. We had a great time, but Disneyland is not for the fainthearted,
so I have made a list of all of my tips and tricks to survive Disneyland with children.
Wear trainers or sneakers or whatever you want to call them. I wore my comfiest boots
ever, but I don't think I realized how far you're going to be walking every day. You're
walking 10 kilometers a morning. It's such a lot of walking. So if you have young children,
obviously you'll need a buggy. We took a buggy board for our older child, and you can also
hire buggies there for 12 euros a day. So if you have a four or five year old that's
a bit of a lazy walker, it's definitely worth renting one of those. My feet were comfortable
for the first three days, and on the third night when I took my boots off, my feet were
just bleeding. They were covered in blood just from the amount of walking we had been
doing. So definitely take trainers. My next tip is to book a character breakfast.
You can book a character breakfast at the Mickey Cafe. Breakfast is pretty basic but
you get to actually meet Mickey and Minnie and get pictures, and it's so much easier
and quicker than queuing to meet them in the parks, especially at busy times. Although
if your child has a fear of people dressed up or mascots, which I know a lot of children
do, obviously don't do that. So there are seven Disney hotels, one on site,
the Disney Hotel, which is literally like two minutes from the park. It's basically
in the park and you can even see the fireworks from some rooms, but there are further six
that are just a really short shuttle bus away. Like five minutes away.
We stayed in the Santa Fe Disney Cars hotel. It was two star, but I thought it was really
good. And to be honest you don't spend any time in your room, so I wouldn't worry too
much about what the room is like because you're always going to be in the parks anyway. Definitely
worth staying in one of the seven Disney hotels because if you do, you get these extra magic
hours, I think they call it. So from 8:00 til 10:00 in the morning you're allowed into
the parks before the general public, so from 8:00 til 10:00 in the morning is a great time
for rides because the queues are much smaller. Get a program and a map before you go and
start thinking about what rides and shows your children would like to see. If they're
really big into Toy Story, they'll probably want to go and do all the Toy Story rides,
et cetera. Definitely worth looking at because in Disney
everything is about location. You've got to be the right location at the right time to
do what you want to do, so it's definitely worth a little bit of planning.
There is also amazing app that you can download. It is the Disneyland Paris app and it has
all kinds of information on it. It has pop hours. Max Program, even has wait times for
rides, so definitely download the app because you will use it a lot.
Tons of food. It is definitely worth taking your own snacks and drinks and also lowering
your standards with food. A lot of American food: burgers, chips, pizza, McDonald's, Planet
Hollywood. I did find it quite hard to eat that healthily and we actually went half board
and the breakfast and dinner that was included was very much like a continental, like croissants
and cereals. It wasn't that substantial. So if your kids are like mine and they eat
a lot of snacks, definitely take like crisps, [inaudible 00:00:03:24], fruit puree packets,
yogurts, things like that. Bottles of water. I know it's a little bit extra to carry, but
you will be so glad and you're also saving loads of money.
Another tip around food is to eat your meals early. We, for instance, would go to lunch
at 11:30 because by 12:00 or 12:30 the queue to get into the restaurants would be really
big. And we'd always get up and eat our breakfast really early because we wanted to get into
the parks really early anyway, by 8:00, and you can also book your restaurants as well
on the site by phone in your hotel room or prior. There is nothing worse than hungry
kids. There are two parks at Disney, the Disneyland
Park itself, which is huge, and the Universal Park as well. Because they are so big and
there is a bit of a walk between the two of them, it might be worth dedicating one day
to Universal and two days to the Disneyland Park or vice versa. So maybe if you can try
and plan a little bit of like a program for, okay, we're going to see all the shows that
day in that park and go on all of those rides and then we're going to do that way. It just,
it just saves your feet a little bit in terms of walking.
If your children love to dress up, it is definitely worth bringing their Disney fancy dress clothes.
We saw children that were dressed up that got quite a few benefits. We went to the Frozen
sing along, and any little girl that was dressed up as Elsa or Anna got sit in these prime
seats that were right in the center. Then they're all blue and like glitzy. Throughout
the sing along, they would go up to them with the microphone and let them sing and so they
got the best seating and it was awesome. Other children that have just up a storm troopers
and they got fast tracked at the Star Wars ride.
Another tip from me is to bring money for souvenirs. Maybe allocate each child 25 euros
or something like that, they can spend in the shops. Disney are really clever and they
direct you to their merchandise every opportunity they can. For instance, if you get off of
some of the rides, you go straight into a gift shop. There's no way around the gift
shop. You have to go through it. So you're children are going to be very tempted. So
if you give them a budget and an amount that they can definitely spend and then it's their
choice, then that's good. Next tip is to take appropriate clothing for
the weather. Obviously if you go in the summer, take sunscreen, hats, drinks. We went in the
winter, so we took thermals. We took extra socks, we took coats, we took hats, we took
scarves, gloves, everything like that. Just because you will be spending so much time
outside that you will want to be prepared. If your child is a little bit older and they're
really into Disney, it is definitely worth taking a little autograph book and a pen because
I saw lots of children getting signatures from the characters and they're a little bit
expensive in the gift shops there. So take one of those if your child, you think they'll
be into that. Tip is to definitely go and see the parades.
My boys loved them and they are two and five, and they absolutely loved them. When we watched
the parades, we kind of stood at the end of the parade, so we got to see everyone sort
of coming and going. Another tip is to, maybe you can stand on a corner so you have like
a really good view and you might want to get a spot for the parade about 20 minutes before
it starts, because it can be quite busy. And same goes with fireworks. Fireworks happen
every night at the close of the park, so on the weekends it's quite late. I think it's
10:00. On the weekdays at 7:00, so younger children can sort of see that one. It lasts
for 30 minutes and there's this like mass exodus at the end of it because obviously
it's the close of the park, so leave at 20 or 25 minutes into the fireworks so that you
don't get caught up in the whole craziness of the crowds.
If your children, like mine, are quite young and they haven't seen loads of Disney movies,
it's worth getting them to watch a few before you go just because it's going to help with
the excitement when you're there. My children didn't know who Lilo and Stitch were. They
haven't seen Peter Pan and Aladdin, things like that. So it's definitely worth seeing
Toy Story, Dumbo, Aladdin, Peter Pan, Snow White, some movies like that just so that
they understand some of the rides and shows a bit better.
It's one hour ahead of England. We just kept our children in our English time zone and
it helped with the evenings as well because they were an hour ahead, so it was already
like they were staying up an hour late and they could see things like the fireworks and
the Christmas lights at night. My very last tip is to just embrace your inner
child. It is such a magical place, but as parents we can't help but see the walking,
how commercial it is, how much money we're spending, the weather, all of those kinds
of things that your children, they don't even see it. They just love it. They just have
an amazing time. So just enjoy it and be prepared to hold back the tears when your children
meet their heroes because it is like, oh, tear jerking. I nearly cried about three times.
Once at the Frozen sing along, once watching the parade and once watching the Christmas
lights. It is just so lovely to see your children so happy. Oh, I feel a bit emotional now talking
about it. [inaudible 00:08:20] Thank you so much for watching. I hope these
tips will help you. Disney is amazing. It was exhausting, but brilliant. And we will
definitely be going back. If there's anything I've missed in this review, please just comment
down below. I always reply to my comments, so ask me anything.
Thank you so much for watching, and don't forget to subscribe to my channel if you haven't
already. See you very soon. Bye. We made it to Disneyland!