3 days in Disneyland Paris

If you're looking for tips on how to spend 3 days at Disneyland Paris then keep reading for some inspiration!

In November 2019 I visited Disneyland Paris for the third time. We booked this trip back in June, while I was in the middle of chemotherapy. I was so miserable and desperately needed something to look forward to. You can imagine how excited I was when our departure day finally arrived! This trip report shows how we spent our time in the parks, including the restaurants we ate at, the rides we went on and the characters we met.

Although we visited during the second week of November, Christmas starts early in Disneyland Paris, so we were able to experience some of the festivities. This was actually the second time I'd visited Disneyland Paris at Christmas and I'd recommend it to anyone.

This is a pretty long post so you might want to grab a cup of tea before you get stuck in...

How we booked our trip to Disneyland Paris

We booked the majority of our holiday through the company Magic Breaks. For the four of us (me, my mum and two sisters) we paid just under £200 per person. This included 2-nights at Disney's Hotel Cheyenne and 3-day park tickets. The standard half-board meal plan was also included free with our booking. This meant we would get breakfast at our hotel and either lunch or dinner at selected restaurants in the parks or Disney Village.

Our Eurostar tickets were an additional £70pp travelling from Ebbsfleet International. Parking at Ebbsfleet was less than £20 for 3 days. We also booked a hotel for the night before our trip which worked out around £15 each.

- Day One -

Travelling to Disneyland Paris

We originally considered driving down to Ebbsfleet International on the morning of the trip. However, this would have meant leaving at around 3am, as it's almost a 3-hour drive from the Midlands. None of us loved that idea, so I started researching hotels in the area where we could stay the night before. In the end, I booked a family room at the Campanile Dartford, which is less than a 15-minute drive from Ebbsfleet. The room was pretty basic, but it was clean and comfortable.

Our train was due to depart just after 7am, so we checked out of the hotel at around 5.45am. This allowed us enough time to drive to Ebbsfeelt, park the car and get through security. It was the first time I'd travelled by Eurostar and I much preferred it to flying. Although you can get direct trains to Disneyland Paris, we'd booked an indirect train which was cheaper but meant we had to change in Lille.

The whole journey went pretty quickly and we arrived at Marne-la-Vallée train station at around 11.30am local time.

Checking-in to Hotel Cheyenne

Once we'd got off the train we were all hungry. Instead of heading straight to our hotel we decided to walk through the Disney Village and grab an early lunch at Earl of Sandwich. I don't recommend doing this if you have heavy luggage! If you're staying at a Disney Hotel there are free shuttle buses to and from the train station which depart at regular intervals. Otherwise, it's a 10-15 minute walk (depending on your hotel).

We got a bit lost trying to find the reception at Hotel Cheyenne. It's huge and all the buildings look the same! But once we'd checked-in we were happy to find our room was ready early, so we could head straight there to freshen up.

Walt Disney Studios Park

For those who don't know, Disneyland Paris is made up of two separate parks; Walt Disney Studios and Disneyland Park. Our tickets included entry to both. The Studios park is much smaller, so I thought it would be ideal to start here first and save the Disneyland Park for the following day.

We grabbed a FastPass for Ratatouille (otherwise the wait time would have been an hour!) then made our way to the Tower of Terror via the Toy Story Playground. The first ride we went on was RC Racer, although my sister misheard me and thought I'd called it "arsey racer" HA! Unfortunately, Crush's Coaster (my second favourite ride in Walt Disney Studios after the Tower of Terror) was closed for refurbishment the whole time we were there.

Meeting Remy and Emile

Before our Ratatouille FastPass we noticed Remy and Emile were doing a meet-and-greet in the courtyard, so we joined the queue which took around 45-minutes. While we were waiting we also spotted Linguini out-and-about!

If there are certain characters you'd really like to meet during your trip, make sure you pick up a park guide when you arrive. For certain characters in the studios park, you need to reserve a timeslot through the Lineberty app (Beth has a handy guide on how to use this here!)

Dinner at Annette's Diner

Because we visited mid-week in the middle of November, the Walt Disney Studios Park was closing at 6pm. We left the park at around 5.30pm and headed over to Annette's Diner in the Disney Village for dinner. This wasn't included in our meal plan so we paid out of pocket. There was a long wait and the service was slow, but luckily the food was delicious. They serve typical American-style food. Think burgers, milkshakes and fries.

By the time we got back to our hotel at around 9.30pm we were exhausted and went straight to bed.

- Day two -

Making the most of Extra Magic Hours

Day two was our only full day in the park. We were awake by 7am as we wanted to get up and have breakfast at the hotel before making the most of Extra Magic Hours. EMH are available to guests staying at Disney Hotels. It basically means you're allowed to enter the parks up to an hour before they open to the public. Most people use this as an opportunity to get on a few rides before the queues start to build up. It's also a great time to take photos along Main Street and in front of the castle before the crowds swarm in.

Rides in Disneyland Park

Disneyland Park has tonnes of great rides, and it can be difficult to know where to start. If it's your first time in Disneyland Paris I'd recommend picking up a park map, as it's easy to get lost! There are five areas to explore; Main Street U.S.A., Discoveryland, Fantasyland, Adventureland and Frontierland.

We did most of Discoveryland (Star Wars Hyperspace Mountain and Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast) during EMH. We then walked through to Fantasyland to grab a FastPass for Peter Pan's Flight. This was one of my favourite rides when I was a kid. I love it so much, but the queue is always ridiculously long (and I don't love it enough to wait an hour for it!)

It's A Small World is another of my favourite rides because it reminds me of my childhood. This trip was also the first time I got to ride Big Thunder Mountain! When I last went to Disneyland Paris in 2015 it was closed for refurbishment. They have a version in Walt Disney World Florida but that was also closed when I went in 2016.

How does Disney's FastPass work?

FastPass can be difficult to understand if you've never used it before. Basically, you scan your park ticket (or Magic Pass) at the FastPass machines near the entrance to the ride. You'll then receive a ticket with a timeslot when you can return and board through the FastPass entrance. In the meantime, you can go off and enjoy yourself elsewhere. FastPass is only available on certain rides, and you can only have one FastPass ticket open at a time.

Lunch at Agrabah's Cafe

Our standard half-board meal plan included lunch or dinner at selected restaurants inside the park. I checked out our options online and really liked the look of Agrabah cafe. This Aladdin-themed restaurant serves a Middle-Eastern and Moroccan buffet. It's pretty popular and I noticed a few people being turned away at the door. Luckily I'd booked us a table online a couple of months ago, so we were able to head straight in.

If you have fussy eaters in your party then this might not be the place for you. However, we LOVED it. The hummus was incredible and it felt like a refreshing change from the usual junk food you find in theme parks. My sisters and I are all vegetarian and there were plenty of options for us.

Disney's Christmas Parade and fireworks

We finished lunch just in time to get a spot on Main Street ready for the Christmas Parade. I'm not ashamed to say I cried! It was so magical and I've had the song stuck in my head ever since.

We went on a few more rides that afternoon, but by this point my feet were in a lot of pain. We decided to pop into the Disneyland Hotel for a break until it was time for the Disney Illuminations show. This starts at park closing, which on this particular day was at 7pm. This was just as magical as I remember it. I put my youngest sister in charge of taking photos on my camera and I think she did a cracking job!

After the show, we made our way out of the park with the rest of the crowds. It had been a long time since our buffet lunch, so we popped into Earl of Sandwich again for a quick dinner of macaroni cheese and potato wedges before walking back to the hotel.

A lot of the food in Disneyland Paris is expensive, but Earl of Sandwich is pretty reasonable. It's one of the few places you can get a decent meal for under €10. If you're looking for somewhere cheap to eat then I highly recommend it. Look out for vouchers where you can get 15% off (we had one included with our booking).

- Day 3 -

We had a bit of a lie-in this morning. It was definitely needed after two very early starts in a row! We checked out of our room just before 10am and dropped our luggage off at the hotel's storage facility before breakfast. Our train home wasn't until 6.45pm, so we wanted to spend our final few hours back in the parks.

One of the benefits to spending 3 days in Disneyland Paris is you can allocate a day in each park and then use your 3rd day to do anything you didn't manage to fit into the previous 2 days.

Meeting Thumper and Miss Bunny

We started off back in the Walt Disney Studios Park to ride the Tower of Terror one last time. We then made our way into Disneyland Park, where we spent the remainder of the day.

The first thing I saw was Thumper and Miss Bunny doing a meet-and-greet. We joined the back of the line, not realising we would have to wait almost 90 minutes! My mum actually left us at one point to go and get a cup of tea! Luckily they were worth the wait. Both bunnies were so cute and had the whole queue laughing with their antics. We didn't meet many characters this trip, but they were definitely my favourites.

Meeting Mickey Mouse

One thing I definitely wanted to do on our last day was meet Mickey Mouse. The sign outside the theatre said the wait time was 60 minutes, but it was actually nearer to 35. It was a fun meet, but annoyingly we only got one good photo as the rest turned out blurry.

We also spent a bit of time in Adventureland as this was the only area of the Disneyland Park we didn't explore yesterday. Mainly because I forgot it was there! The Indiana Jones ride was closed for refurb, so we went straight to the Pirates of the Caribbean which only had a 15-minute wait.

Dinner at Plaza Gardens

Our final meal of the trip was at the Plaza Gardens buffet. This is inside a beautiful building which reminded me a little of Crystal Palace in Walt Disney World. There was a mixture of different food available. Lots of meat, vegetables, salad and pizza. There was also a huge range of desserts, from carrot cake cupcakes to cheesecake and jelly sweets.

The journey home

When we arrived at the station we found our train from Marne-la-Vallée to Lille was delayed by almost 30-minutes. Luckily we had an hour stopover in Lille before our train to Ebbsfleet, so this didn't affect us too much.

It was around 9.30pm by the time we arrived in Ebbsfleet and we still had a long drive back to Worcestershire. It took us nearly 3 hours to get back, and I went straight to bed. Exhausted, but happy!

Thank you so much if you've made it to the end of this post. Hope you've enjoyed reading about how we spend our 3 days in Disneyland Paris! Have you ever been to Disneyland Paris?

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