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Why we really, really hated it – Disneyland Paris review

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This is my review of our painful day at Disneyland Paris aka EuroDisney.

Are you allowed to dislike Disneyland?  I don’t hear many people giving it a hard time.  Although, in retrospect, I realised that not many of the people we know have actually been to the Paris one.  Perhaps that should have been a warning.

It was a truly painful experience that I doubt we will repeat.

For background, the weather last Saturday was perfect and we were there with a 6-year old and a 3-year old. It started OK.  We got an RER train outside InterContinental Le Grand and in 40 minutes were deposited literally outside the gates of the park.  It could not be easier. Then the trouble started.

We had got our tickets from Avios as a redemption.  They did not send us actual tickets – we got a voucher which needed to be exchanged at the Guest Relations desk (shockingly long queue) or the ticket office (shockingly long queue).  As Disney could not be bothered to open all their ticket windows, it took 45 MINUTES to get to the front of the ticket queue. I mean, 45 MINUTES?  What sort of place that charges over £200 for a family of four would make you wait for 45 minutes to buy a ticket?!

It is also hugely self defeating.  Saving €15 per hour on an extra ticket office staffer costs them hundreds of Euros in lost income from spending inside the park.  You can’t spend much money in a queue.

Buying food was even worse.  We noticed fairly quickly that most people had brought sandwiches.  Smart move.  We managed to keep the kids going until 2.30pm with some popcorn but they had to eat in the end.  We picked a quiet corner with a McDonalds-style takeaway.  It took ONE HOUR to get served.  Of course, one third of all of the counters were closed.

They were also astonishingly inefficient.  A similar sized queue in a real McDonald’s would have been dealt with in a fraction of the time.  It was also disturbingly expensive, but I was expecting that.

The length of the ride queues is also farcical.  If you want to go on the Space Mountain etc roller coasters for adults, you can use Fast Pass and walk straight on at the appropriate time.  You can’t do that with the little kids rides.  We had to queue for 50 MINUTES to go on a flying elephant ride which lasts about 5 minutes.

There was even a lengthy queue for a simple carousel ride – not helped by the fact that they force everyone to wear a seatbelt (ever worn a seatbelt on a carousel?) which the staff enforce – see photo below.  They also play a safety warning before the ride.  For a carousel.

Max Burgess

For little kids (ie 6 and 3 years old, like ours) it is a complete waste of time.  The quality of rides is genuinely no better than you get at Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park every Christmas – where there are no queues for the kids rides – or even at the funfair that occasionally pops up in Battersea Park.

We arrived (ie got off the train) at 11.30 and left at 6pm after the parade.  Of the 6.5 hours inbetween, we spent at least 4 hours in queues.  The combined time on rides was, in all seriousness, under 15 minutes.  I felt sorry for my 6-year old daughter who was so happy to be going and who got so little out of it.  (We made up for it on Sunday with a fun day in Paris.)

They even managed to screw up something as simple as a ‘Frozen Sing-A-Long’ in one of the auditoriums.  There were a couple of hundred kids there, but all Disney bothered to serve up to lead it were two drama students (English girl, French boy) aged about 18 who were wearing their standard clothes.  How hard would it have been to have someone dress up as Anna and Elsa?

There is even graffiti inside the fairy castle.  And the pavements and footpaths have more potholes and cracks than your average London street. Honestly, give it a miss.  It really isn’t worth it – even if you don’t pay for your tickets.

(PS. For the record, this is how we structured the trip:

Eurostar – booked via Eurostar Frequent Traveller, with 100% of the points required coming from Amex Membership Rewards

Hotel – 2 rooms for 2 nights at InterContinental Le Grand funded with two 2 IHG Premium Visa free night vouchers and 2 x 50,000 point redemptions, with the points coming from the last ‘Big Win’ promotion and credit card spend

Disney – redeemed 34,000 Avios via avios.com for four tickets

Transfer to/from St Pancras – Uber using referral credit

The mini Eiffel Tower my daughter wanted as a souvenir was bought for cash!)

Category

Club Eurostar, IHG One Rewards

Comments (149)

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  • Rich says:
    16 Sep16 September 07:29

    Raffles, I’m sorry that your trip was such a dissapontment for your family. For what it’s worth, I went earlier this year with my wife, stepson and his girlfriend, and we had a brilliant time. Flight, hotel and tickets paid for with miles and points.

    What day did you go? From my experience, visiting on a weekday over a weekend helps minimise queueing considerably. The same can be said for going out of season, although this is probably more difficult if your children are in school.

    • Rob says:
      16 Sep16 September 08:28

      Saturday. However, I purposely chose a Saturday when kids were back in school (I took my kid out at lunchtime) in an attempt to minimise numbers. Otherwise we would have gone in August.

  • SingingDwarf says:
    16 Sep16 September 07:34

    I have a friend who went around a month ago. She said it was just as bad. She did mention that you can book at the restaurants however.

    Peppa Pig World is just as bad. Hour long queues for a ride that you can pay £1 for at your local fair or Saturday market.

    And don’t get me started on the so-called “timed” entry to see Santa at Thomasland…2 hours. Really….

    • Rob says:
      16 Sep16 September 08:29

      Thomasland was fantastic. However, we went on a Friday when kids at state schools would still have been in school.

  • Tony says:
    16 Sep16 September 07:41

    Sounds like a living hell Raffles.

    As a family, we’ve yet to have a great family experience at any of these places. We visited Legoland in 2012 for example. Paid in advance as a family of four. Many rides were down for the day, and everything was worn out – faded paint, damaged rides. Food dreadfully overpriced and dreadful in itself and my god the queues. Sadly these things seem to be geared up to remove your money from your pocket, without too much thought given to the experience. I genuinely felt that I’d been mugged at the end of the day. I won’t even mention The Needles on the Isle of Wight.

    I suspect the Florida parks do it a lot better, but I still don’t get the attraction of standing in a queue for an hour to receive a 2 minute thrill at the end of it.

    Or maybe I’m just getting old and cynical in my late 40s.

    • Tony says:
      16 Sep16 September 07:43

      Oh and I forgot to say that the appeal of spending a hot day at one of these places with OTHER PEOPLE’S KIDS wears off pretty quickly too.

      I jest of course. Maybe.

  • luckyjim says:
    16 Sep16 September 07:43

    If you had stayed a Disney hotel you would have collected your tickets when checking in and walked into the park an hour before day visitors. After enjoying plenty of rides before the queues built up you could have left the park by midday and had lunch in the riverforrest cafe, which kids love, or McDonalds which is cheap. After spending the afternoon in the hotel pool you could return to the park for the fireworks or watch them from the hotel.

    Sometimes, Robert, you have to put your hand in your pocket and spend some cash.

    • Rob says:
      16 Sep16 September 08:30

      My wife refuses point blank to stay in any of these places! And the £1,000 per night price for a junior suite was not appealing.

      I may also not have been able to get my daughter out of school if we were actually staying in Disney ….

  • Oliver Bennett says:
    16 Sep16 September 07:44

    The queues are hell alright

  • Boi says:
    16 Sep16 September 07:47

    perfect timing as I was just about to book it for october half term. we went to florida one last year. kids liked it and we thought we should try the paris one this year….I guess I have to think of somewhere else to go. oh dear!!!

  • Dominic says:
    16 Sep16 September 07:48

    I have only ever been to California Disney but share your pain at taking young kids. As you say, they have fast passes for the Space Mountains and so on, but when you wait nearly an hour to meet a princess you want to chew your ears off.

    Ironically we ended up with one of my wife or I waiting in the queue with my daughter, whilst the other used a fast pass to go on an adult ride alone!

    • Rob says:
      16 Sep16 September 08:30

      There were people in a queue which must have been 30 minutes long just to shake hands with a guy in a (poor) Winnie The Pooh costume ….

  • mike sanders says:
    16 Sep16 September 07:51

    I took my granddaughter there over ten years ago and the experience was equally dismal interesting to note that nothing has changed. My single biggest disappointment at the time was the appalling food on offer and this is Paris! We stayed in one of the hotels which was also crap, if you really want a good Disney experience come to ours here in Hong Kong you and the kids will love it and I am sure you have the miles for it!!
    Keep up the good work.

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