As someone who loves Disneyland Paris and Christmas, going to Disneyland Paris at Christmas time was something that has been on my bucket list for so long. We decided to stop talking about it and actually book our holiday and spend Christmas Day at Disneyland Paris.
This was the first time I will be away from home on Christmas Day.
My life hostage and I always said that we would take our daughter when she was older, over 8-years-old, purely because if we’re spending so much money on a holiday to Disneyland Paris at Christmas, we want to make sure she will actually remember it. The whole experience was going to be magical, we wanted to make sure she remembered as much as possible. At the time of writing this blog post, she’s 9 so remembering the holiday was something we were no longer concerned with.
Many of us associate going on holiday with leaving the country and that’s likely to be on a plane. As an eco-blogger, I’m really not a fan of travelling on a plane and try, where I can, to avoid it opting for alternative methods of transport. Thankfully, here in the UK, we have the Eurostar service, which took us from the terminal at St. Pancras International train station to Lille, from there, we changed trains to Marne-la-Vallée Chessy.
It seems really surreal getting on a train in London and arriving in France in under 2 hours.
Sequoia Lodge Hotel
There are many Disneyland Paris hotels to choose from, we looked at the Disney Hotel New York (as I’m a Marvel fan and they have the Art of Marvel displayed), the Disneyland Hotel was far too expensive for us and I didn’t fancy Disney Hotel Santa Fe as it was a little further to walk. We decided against Disney Newport Bay Club, but can’t recall why? We opted for the Sequoia Lodge Hotel as it was close to the Disney Parks. It’s a nice place with a clean hotel room, service is great and not that far from the Disney Village.
Our package was half-board so we had breakfast included, which we had at the hotel everyday. It was a breakfast buffet so we could eat as much as we wanted; pastries, yoghurts, hot food, cold food, orange juice, and so much more. My daughter loved having croissants every morning with Nutella!
As an eco-blogger, I can’t help but notice what companies are doing when it comes to sustainability and I noticed a little tag on the shower.
We do try our best to have shorter showers and the shower changed colour depending on how much water we used. My life hostage and I slipped into the purple but my daughter managed to stay in the green, something she was very proud of. Although, at times, when your body is aching from all the walking, a hot shower was soothing but it felt like the shower was judging us. LOL.
I don’t tend to bother with drinking tea while I’m on holiday but my life hostage loves his green tea. We came across Palais des Thés. The thing I loved about these were that the tea leaves were in muslin bags, This is such a good idea! Definitely better for the environment than the usual tea bags that are supposedly ‘biodegradable’.
The Parks – Disneyland Paris at Christmas
Disneyland Paris Park
We headed towards the park entrance and straight away I got butterflies in my stomach. I’m 45-years-old and I felt like a child.
As we got closer to the entrance of Disneyland park, it’s so beautifully decorated with Christmas decorations, Christmas music playing, you can really feel the magic of Christmas and we hadn’t even got into the park.
The Christmas Tree, you can’t miss the huge Christmas Tree as soon as you enter the park, there’s so much to see it’s so much to take in. I knew I was smiling, going in the holiday season, it was everything I was hoping for especially at that time of year. Disneyland Paris at Christmas is just beautiful.
Using the Disneyland Paris app, we made a mental note of the most popular rides, times of the parades, and fireworks.
We soaked in all the parades; Mickey’s dazzling Christmas parade, Disney Princesses dance, Santa Claus in the parade, Mickey Mouse and Minnie were waving to everyone there in the town square. The only trouble we had was to find a great spot to see everything. As it’s the Christmas period, it gets really busy!
The app helped us navigate the waiting times for the rides but there can be long lines for the popular rides. The longest time we queued was 90 minutes for the Peter Pan’s Flight. I’m still not sure what the fuss was about. It was busy all the time. We went to all the rides we wanted to go on; Star Wars Hyperspace Mountain, Star Tours, Pirates of the Caribbean, Phantom Manor, Big Thunder mountain (which we did more than once), Buzz Lightyear Laser blast and so much more.
I even got my life hostage on It’s a Small World ride. He wasn’t impressed with me but we are in Disneyland Paris at Christmas time, I managed to get him on!
Something people do miss is that there’s a dragon under the castle, I never realised until I saw people walking into an area and I wondered what was going on. I wonder how many other people miss that too?
Meeting the characters was great fun. Again, like everything else, there’s going to be a queue. When I went 12 years ago, many of the characters would walk around but it’s not like that anymore. The characters really spent time with people meeting them, you didn’t feel rushed at all and made the experience even more special. I smiled so much when I met Woody from Toy Story – my face started hurting. The app will help you locate your favourite characters and when they’re around.
It’s really difficult not to soak in all the Disney Magic.
Walt Disney Studios Park
As someone who is a Marvel fan, I was keen to check out the Avengers Campus as that’s the newer part of the Studios.
The Avengers Assemble; Flight Force was a roller coaster that was a lot of fun. When I went about 12 years ago, I have a feeling this was an Aerosmith ride and it’s been repurposed/rebranded. The Spider-man W.E.B Adventure was really cool. You’re helping Spiderman defeat these spider machine things and you’re shown how to shoot webs from your wrist. My arms started aching quite quickly.
The Avengers make an appearance every so often and it was a real treat to see them.
Crush’s Coaster is a must but I would highly suggest using the extra magic time you get at the start of the day, the queues are long.
The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror was a ride I went to 12 years ago and it hasn’t changed, the staff there create a great atmosphere and I screamed all the way down and back up.
My favourite ride in the Studios was Ratatouille. I had never watched it before so wasn’t sure what to expect. You’re put in a car and you’re trying to avoid the staff in the kitchen as if you’re Remy himself. When we got back home, I watched the film for the first time.
Parts of the Studios are under construction. I think they’re building a section for Frozen which is a little way off but I’m sure it will be amazing once all the work is completed and everything is fully open again.
Dining at Disneyland Paris at Christmas
As we had the half-board package, we were able to book restaurants on the app before we went. There is a mixture of dining experiences and difference tastes. I think it would be difficult not to find something for everyone. Most of the meals we opted for were buffet style dining. My life hostage is all about getting our money’s worth, and we certainly did. Before you go in, you just need to scan your magipass and you’re in.
We had dinner at Disney Newport Bay Club on Christmas Eve and had to pay a supplement but that was the only place we had to pay this. I think Christmas Eve is bigger than Christmas Day in France.
We had to fend for ourselves for lunches so we decided that we would go to McDonald’s for lunch…on Christmas Day! I have never done that before but it was fun. Something I noticed in McDonald’s that I’ve never seen in the UK was the plastic containers for the fries.
This is such a good idea because it must reduce so much waste from the cartons usually sold with fries. I’m assuming they’ve had issues with people stealing these plastic containers because I did notice security stickers on the base. I don’t know if it’s just in Disneyland Paris or if this is available in all McDonald’s restaurants in France. The drinks were also served in plastic containers and I didn’t notice any straws. Not only is this a great way to reduce overall waste but I’m sure it saves them money too.
Buying Stuff at Disneyland Paris at Christmas
One of the things I was really aware of was the amount of ‘stuff’ you can buy.
Consumption at Disney is completely off the charts. So much of the products are likely mass produced and charged at a premium because of that item’s association with Disney. I wonder how many Mickey Mouse ears end up sitting in drawers gathering dust long after the holiday is over? How many Mickey Mouse/Stitch Balloons end up in landfill once they are deflated? We talk ourselves into buying something because “how often do you come to Disneyland” or “You’re on holiday, treat yourself”.
So much of their products is aimed children where they MUST HAVE a plushie of their favourite character/s, toys, clothes, games, trinkets and so much more. Having all those customers inside the park are essentially Disney’s captive audience. Disney is the happiest place on Earth. I’m not going to lie, it made me happy. The profits they must be making will make the company happy too.
My Best Tips for Disneyland Paris at Christmas
As someone who went to Disneyland Paris at Christmas, I wanted to include some tips that I haven’t really seen anywhere else. Here are my tips!
- Layers! You really need to layer up on clothes, it gets cold standing in queues. You’ll need hats, warm coats, scarves, ear muffs, anything that will keep you warm. Double up on socks too! At times, my feet felt like ice blocks! One of the days I wore a t-shirt, hoodie, a jumper and my jacket and I was still cold.
- It’s a good idea for everyone with a phone to download the Disneyland Paris App to keep an eye on waiting times, meet beloved Disney characters and navigate the parks. The Wi-Fi in the park is great, we didn’t have any issues with connection. Plus, you’re not just relying on one person.
- The fireworks and light show will be at the end of the evening before the park closes, find your spot about an hour before it starts as it gets really busy.
- If you watch the fireworks and light show the first night you’re there, you can take advantage of quieter queues where everyone else is gathering to watch the fireworks on the other nights.
- After the light show/fireworks, everyone needs to exit the park, if it’s cold, you can exit the park down the arcades, it won’t be as busy as Main Street and you will be undercover for a bit and provides a little respite from the elements.
- Use your Disney hour. This is where you have early access to the theme park an hour before others. We used it to queue for a picture with Stitch, which is incredibly popular. The park opened at 8am, we joined the queue about 8:20am and we got our photos taken at around 9am, we were about 4th in the queue. I can’t recommend using the magic hour enough. Really helpful with rides that are usually really busy.
- If the queues are busy to get in main park, go down the very far left (down the side), the queues at the main entrance are people buying tickets on the day, you don’t wan to get stuck behind them and waste any time!
- If you have the option for the Disneyland Paris PhotoPass, I would highly recommend it. At the time of writing this post, the pass is €85 and any photos taken on rides and meeting the characters will be added to the pass. Whereas, if you go on a ride and want to purchase your picture, it’s €25. When we went to be meet Darth Vader, the photographer kept snapping our picture, we ended up with about 15 pictures on our pass. It’s certainly worth the money.
- When booking meals ahead of your holiday to Disneyland Paris at Christmas, check out the app for shows you don’t want to miss. Because I booked the evening meals around the same time every day, we missed the Dr. Strange show. A little gutted but I know this for next time.
- Purchases can be made with either cash or card but I wanted to find a way to avoid getting stung with transactions fees. I already had an account with Starling and my life hostage had an account with Monzo, neither charged us transaction fees for being abroad. We also got an instant notifications once a transaction went through. This is my TOP TIP!
- None of the drinking fountains we came across worked, but most of the toilets had a tap specifically for drinking water so we were able to refill our water bottles.
- When washing your hands after you’ve been to the bathroom, be wary that some toilets will have cold water to wash your hands, last thing you need but dry them in the hand dryers and that should warm up your hands.
- After the fireworks are over, everyone will head toward the exit. Hang back a little for the crowd to disperse a bit so you can get pictures/selfies of the castle without so many people also in the picture.
- We needed a UK to France plug socket to be able to charge our electrical devices and we bought this adapter. It was a real lifesaver. I would highly recommend purchasing one of these. You can buy one here (affiliate link)
Conclusion
For me, going to Disneyland Paris at Christmas was the best time for me, it had always been a dream and now I’ve ticked something off my bucket list. It really is a winter wonderland with Christmas spirit in every direction.
It’s not cheap. You are certainly paying for the experience of going during a high season and experiencing the magic of Disney during the Christmas holidays. Even if you go during a quieter period (if such a time exists), it’s still quite expensive especially when you take into account any purchases you end up making.
Would I go to Disneyland Paris at Christmas again? Yes, I would. I’m 45-years-old and it brought me so much joy. For me, the attraction of Disney is that it’s the opposite of reality. We are surrounded by 24-hours of back to back of bad news, the daily grind of going to a job many of us hate (I don’t, I love my job), arguing with family/friends/neighbours etc. When you’re at Disney, all that bad stuff goes away, your only job is to have a great time. I guess, for me, it’s a respite from real life. Sometimes reality can be too much, it’s the only place I know where your inner child comes out.
If you’re looking for a Guide to Disneyland Paris for Families, I would HIGHLY recommend this post!
