Hi Guys,

Looking for info. on family holidays in Paris and Disneyland. Will be tavelling from the UK, so want info. on cheap travel routes too. Pls. advise. ❓

Hotels at the resort cost a small fortune.

3 or 4 years back a weekend would have cost over £600 for my wife & daughter – TWO DAYS! including tickets to the place.

I thought about it differently and we drove there, stayed at a Eurocamp holiday home within striking distance of Disney. the site had all sorts on it like swimming pools, boating lake, park farm etc so there was plenty there to keep us busy for a week. I also got a few rides in in some local woods where the french resistance hid and I explored their hide out cave….

We stayed nearly a week for about the same amount of money and just went 1 day, which was plenty for us then and headed further south for another week for the rest of our holiday.

Also did it once and stopped at a French version of travel inn. That was OK, well cheaper than in resort hotels but Eurocamp version was more like a proper holiday.

EDIT – Don’t go on a weekend or French school holiday date. It WILL be rammed and you will only get on 3 or 4 rides. Go mid week and fill your boots. Don’t queue for rides that only take a small number fo people each ride. its not worth it. Dumbo ride for instance takes about 30 or so people at a time. You’ll queue for over an hour for 30 seconds ride.

Take suntan cream.

take advantage of the pre book tickets for popular rides. Sort of take a ticket and come back later and miss the queue via the fast lane.

We are going in april taking the train, about 280quid return from manchester.

Depending where you live, Disney is a fairly easy drive from Calais so you can just get the ferry/tunnel and get down there in a morning.

:-)Thanks for sharing so much of info. guys. They are really helpfull. Personal experiences are often more practical than the info. available on travel websites. That is why I’ve chosen this forum to search for information. Need further info. regarding the best options to travel to these regions.

We drove down to Paris last October and stayed in a Hotel Campanile on the edge of Paris at a place called Chelles-Gournay. I wouldn’t recommend the Campanile at all, although that area is convenient for access to Paris and Disneyland.

Roadsigns for Disney on the autoroutes are………..sporadic. Just when I thought I knew where we were, I’d realise that we were lost.

We booked day tickets for both parks in Disneyland, but only had the time to use one. (We only went to Disneyland for one day.) It was busy, despite not being a traditionally busy time of year – 45 minutes wait for just about everything through the middle of the day, even the teacups. As I pointed out to my wife, we could go on teacups at home in Wales, without waiting for almost an hour!

Food in the park is rubbish and expensive. Burgerchain type food at proper restaurant prices.

Despite that, I enjoyed the day, and the kids certainly had a good time. The next day we went and ‘did’ some culture, to counteract the mindnumbing effect of constant loud Disney music.

Oh, and the only problems we encountered anywhere during the whole trip were, yes, in the UK! Huge traffic problems due to bad weather, made us miss the ferry on the way out. (A 5 hour journey became an 11 hour epic). And similarly, on the way back, traffic in the SE caused delays everywhere. Driving in France was simplicity itself, compared to the SE of England.

This is a copy of a post I did on another forum, so it might not all be relevant!

The Ferry is the cheapest option at about £70 return, it’s about 3 1/2 hours drive from calais on the toll roads (about £20 each way in tolls). You can get the exact distance and toll costs from the Michelin Maps site:

http://www.viamichelin.co.uk/

There’s quite a bit of information about the park on these two sites:

http://www.dlp.info/

http://www.dlrpmagic.com/guidebook

and a list of rides that will be closed for refurbishment can be found here:

http://www.dlrpmagic.com/calendar/closures-refurbi…

although if only usually tells you for the next two months.

I stayed at the Hotel Cheyenne which is onsite and has a wild west theme. This is probably the most fun hotel for children and is only a very pleasant 10 minute walk from the park along a river and then through the Disney village.

As for tips, at the breakfast buffet, there are rolls, cheese, salami and ham and we along with most others people used these to make their lunch, so make sure you take some sandwich bags to put them in. The cheapest place for soft drinks and snacks is the shop at station which is between the two parks, you can even pick up beer quite cheaply for the evening. As for the cheapest places to eat, there is a McDonalds and a Starbucks in the Disney village that aren’t much more expensive than in the UK. All of the sit down restuarants are pricey and expect to pay £25 per head just for a burger and a drink.

When staying at the Disney hotels you can get into the parks early on some days (see details of the extra magic hours on the websites above) which gives you time to do some of the most popular rides before the big queues later in the day. Also take adavntage of the fast passes to beat the crowds.

Although I’ve been to the Florida parks I still enjoyed it and I think some of the rides (Big Thunder Mountain, Phantom Manor and Pirates of the Caribbean) are actually better than the Florida versions.

Oh and try and avoid weekends or school holidays as it’s busier than ever as fewer people can afford to go to America these days, so are going there instead.

Thanks for the info. guys. :-)Already planned to make a visit to the Disneyland in Paris. Restaurants are a little pricey but they are within budget. I would opt for ferries only as this will be more comfortable for a family trip as well as cheaper than all the other options I’ve looked into. But one thing I’m afraid of the most is that the trip has been planned during my children’s school holidays only. Also I need to book ferries and hotels well in advance, otherwise last minute deals will be too costly to afford.