Disneyland Paris 2018

Where do I even begin?!  If you read my last blog post you will know that I recently visited Disneyland Paris  The reason for my visit was to complete the 10K Disney run, but everyone knows, you're not just going to go for the run.  You may as well experience the magic of Disney on offer while you're there and that is exactly what we did.

We stayed in total for 3 nights, but having booked an early Eurostar on the Thursday morning and a late one coming back on Sunday late afternoon, it meant we had pretty much 4 days to explore and make the most the parks.  

I hadn't visited Disneyland Paris since 2004 and I knew that a lot would have changed in the 14 years since I'd last been.  And although I was excited to visit Disneyland I don't think anything could really have prepared me for the excitement that overcame me when we arrived.    

We booked to stay in the hotel Santa Fe, only a 2 star hotel (much lower than my usual standard by a long shot) but we knew we wouldn't be spending much time at the hotel and it hasn't long ago been refurbished to the Pixar Cars theme so we didn't think we would have much to loose.  The only thing we were slightly concerned about when booking was the distance to the parks, but we really needn't have worried.  There is a free shuttle bus service, which we didn't use even once, we walked to and from the parks each day, it literally took us about 10 to 15 minutes each way and it was a lovely walk along the river into Disney Village.  I would definitely recommend staying and would stay there again myself.

Disney Village had grown quite a bit since I last stayed and there is a large selection of eateries and shops for all your Disney souvenirs, although these can all be bought inside the parks too.  The good thing with staying in a Disney hotel too is that you can get all of you shopping shipped back to your hotel (providing you purchase before 2pm), this was a great service which we used a couple of times during our stay.  

I didn't think I would be at all fussed by the character meet and greets.  Now I wished we had of researched them better to have known who would be where and when, I lived for them while we were there.  We ended up missing out on so many opportunities, coming across the characters when their lines were at a close, it was pretty gutting to say the least especially as some of them were some good ones but it wasn't meant to be and I have learnt my lesson for the next time.  Plus we did still get some good ones so it isn't all bad. 

The rides were really good and thankfully the queue times during our first two days were amazing.  Not so much the case on Saturday or Sunday though and by that time we were knackered after having done a long morning of travelling, followed by pretty much 2 full days in the parks and then a 10k run thrown into the mix so we weren't really up for queues.  Instead we wandered around the parks, took some photos, went in search of character meet and greets and did some shopping.

  

In comparison to Walt Disney World I would still say there is no comparison but for a more local Disney experience it is still very good and well worth a visit, I'm pretty sure it wasn't my last.  

~ Gem x