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[bad-pink-tink]

ok, so many of us here have been to DLP many times, during both peak and off peak seasons and many others come here to look for advice for their first time trip. To help first timers have a better experience and not have unrealistic expectations and come home disillusioned with Disney and the parks, lets list out what we wish we had known before our first DLP visit.

I wish I had known how fun it was, so I wouldn't have waited until 2012 before going for the first time.

Queuing
In the summer months, school holidays, Christmas or during any of the special event days, queues for the rides can reach almost 2 hours and for the Princess Pavilion 3 hours. Unfortunately, this is just something that needs to be accepted. You need to be aware of this and be prepared to stand in a slow moving queue surrounded by people of many nationalities. You need to prepare all members of your party and if necessary be able to entertain young children and deal with their impatience while waiting for a ride.

Walking / Standing
Going to a Disney Park means standing and walking on concrete for anything up to 12 hours a day, each day of your visit. Many people in their daily lives do not stand / walk that much on hard concrete. You need to have comfortable footwear which is suitable for the weather conditions of your trip. DLP , like many European countries gets alot of rain, make sure that you have comfortable waterproof shoes if you are visiting during a time when there may be rain.

Sore Feet
All that walking and standing means sore tired aching feet, known as Disney Feet At the end of each park day I always have fill the bath and soak my feet. Some people buy hiking socks, some people bring blister bandages. Having some over the counter pain relief tablets is also a good idea.

Take (in your hold luggage!!!) some Epsom salts. Really helps when soaking your Disney Feet at the end of the day and takes the aches away. 

Park Hours
DLP is open form early morning until late at night many times in the year. This means the park may be open for up to 15 hours in a day. Thats a very long time to be in a crowded park, standing in queues etc. Plan your day and pace yourself. Many people take an afternoon break to refresh and recharge for the evening / night time. This is especially important for families with young children who may want to stay in the park past their normal bedtime.

Planning and Research Before Your Trip

My advise would also to be to do proper research before you go.
Go to the Disneyland Paris website and look up the planning for the week you go. You'll have to do this well, the week you go, or fairly close to your departure date.
Check all the shops and rides out on this page so you have a good idea about which rides you want to do and shops you want to visit.
They also have about a gazillion of photos AND character hunting help, so that's enormously practical.

Restaurants

And last but definitely not least, check out the menus here.
Having a very clear idea of where you want to eat (always write down backups in case of closures) will save you a lot of time!

Also check here http://www.disneylandparis.co.uk/dining/ for an overview of each of the restaurants, the prices, opening times etc. It will save alot of time in the park if you know what kind of food and the price range of the restaurants.

Advance Booking of Restaurants
While advance booking of restaurants is not as necessary as in the American parks, sometimes it is necessary to book restaurants in DLP in advance. If you want a certain restaurant at a certain time on a certain day, then booking in advance is a good idea. Many first time visitors don't realise that restaurants may not accept walk up customers during crowded or peak times or certain restaurants may not be open on the day or time they want to eat. This may cause anger, especially if a restaurant has a special meaning for a first time visitor. To avoid unnecessary stress and anger, it is always best  ring the Disney Dining in advance to check opening times of restaurants and to book a table in advance. The phone number is +33 (0) 1 60 30 40 50 The reservations can be made in both English and French

School Holidays
Before you go check here http://www.schoolholidayseurope.eu/ to see if you visit falls during school holidays for a particular European country. School holidays will have an effect of crowd numbers, families, school groups etc.

Closures and Refurbishments
Disneyland Paris is open 365 days in the year. This means that ride and park maintenance are done on an ongoing rotation basis through out the year when the park is open. They try to do the ride and park maintenance during times when the park is not as crowded but you should always check the park closures list here http://holidays.disneylandparis.co.uk/eep.html and the daily calender here http://www.disneylandparis.co.uk/calendars/park-hours/ for the days of your trip. Many people don't check for ride closures before their trip and then get angry that their favourite ride or the ride they were most looking forward to is closed during their trip

My tips:
budget your money. As you can buy a lot of goods. And pay a lot on food.  So make a budget for every day and stick to it.

If your hotel offers breakfast eat much in the morning. Chocolate bread also make a good midday snack.

Buy in your own country some biscuits and some drink to take with you. As long as you don't bring a big cool box taking snacks  with you is allowed.

Bring a smile with you, don't let others take that of you. There are everywhere idiots and how magical disney is. They don't check on the gate for them.

If you go with children do the park at their pace. If they are sleepy go back to the hotel. That way it stays funny and enjoyable. There is not a lot of fun with a child that's over sleepy

At the entrance there are leaflets with the show times take one with you. They are in multiple languages.
.

Just got back from our second trip and my top tips would be:

*If you have a child under 6, consider hiring a stroller from the park entrance. I really wish we had done this as we had an overtired 5 year old for much of the holiday.... It is an awful lot of walking for a small child. Also you will then have somewhere to hang your bags!

*Take some tupperware from home and some snacks.  We brought some muesli bars from home and bottled water. We refilled them in the morning at the hotel buffet and I bought some of that little squeezy concentrated squash. We then packed some rolls, butter and ham from the breakfast buffet in the tupperware box for a light lunch. Food prices are high at dlp and we wanted to spend our money on the evening meal.

*Get in a queue for a big ride in the studios as soon as the park opens - they open their gates at 930am . We did this for Crush's coaster and were very glad we did as the waiting time didn't go below 70mins the whole rest of the week.

our first and second time there it was very VERY hot, there was a heatwave in 2010 and summer of 2011 was also hotter than average, we spent a fortune on drinks and bottled water before realising we could fill up at the buffet any time of the day or night as there was a big one at the bar in the cheyenne, we were kicking ourselves when we found it and wish we knew sooner im not sure if all hotels have this and we werent too sure about the bathroom taps as it seemed to taste a bit strange also a stroller/ buggy is a great idea with kids up to even 5-6 years old and we got a buggy board which is a small attachment with 2 wheels and a platform that can hold the weight of our 9 + 5 year old while the 1 year old was in the buggy, i looked like a pack mule pushing it around but it recharges them for more walking and saves on tiredness and grumpy moods

I once heard someone ask a cast member what time the parade started, the cast member replied with "It starts at 4 but get there early for a good spot". Sound piece of advice, turning up as the parade starts means you will be at the back of the crowd and only annoy people as you try and push to the front.
Also suggest to prevent sore feet take a good look at the maps provided, there are shorter routes than the signs around the park suggest.

Restaurants
Don't always eat fast food and buffets. (I did until 2014 when I got a free half board plus plan and have never looked back.)

The table service restaurants are a little more expensive but worth it. You can get a 2 course set menu for about €30 per adult and around half that per child at Blue Lagoon, Bistrot Chez Rémy, Walt's, Silver Spur, The Steakhouse, or Annette's. It's only a few euro more than the buffet but a more relaxed atmosphere and better quality food. And there's none of the queueing, pushing, or walking around for ages trying to get a table that you get at places like Toad Hall or Café Hyperion.

Parade tips
The parade takes a good 10-15 minutes to get to the park entrance so plan for extra waiting time if you view it there.

During parades, it's difficult to get between Fantasyland and Discoveryland other than by the Disneyland railroad, as it is all blocked off.

Thrill rides
Try everything once! You'll genuinely be glad you gave Rock & Roller Coaster avec Aerosmith/The Twilight Zone: Tower of Terror/Big Thunder Mountain a try.
From a few minutes before

Double Check Park Leaflet For Opening Times, Schedules Etc

That EMH on Saturday starts at 0800 not 0900 D: I was convinced that EMH on Saturdays was from 0900 and park opening was at 1000... I was genuinely heartbroken to discover EMH was 0800 and park opening was 0900. On my very last day, too!

Granted this is my fault for not reading the schedule properly due to lack of sleep but there's my advice: read your leaflets properly or risk missing out!.

Plan and have a good study of the maps before you go so you know roughly where everything is. 

Also work out what is important to you i.e. the rides, the parades or just soaking up the amazing atmosphere and do a rough plan of what you want to do when depending on how much time you have available.

my advice is not to under estimate the distance you need to walk between parks. Good planning can save a lot of time and ones feet!

If you need to move from one end of the park to the other quickly there is a covered walkway from Liberty arcade all the way to Pirates of the Caribbean!

[bad-pink-tink]

place holder for more tips.

[HildeKitten]

My advise would also to be to do proper research before you go.
I full well understand that not everyone has the time to do this, and a lot of people just want to book and be off, BUT these three handy links will help you make a simple planning that will help you get by so much easier and it doesn't take much time at all. Heck, it could be a fun family planning event too!
Or if you are strapped for time and have an internet savvy kid (or several) joining you on the trip, let them make up the planning for you

Go to the Disneyland Paris website and look up the planning for the week you go. You'll have to do this well, the week you go, or fairly close to your departure date.
Check all the shops and rides out on this page so you have a good idea about which rides you want to do and shops you want to visit.
They also have about a gazillion of photos AND character hunting help, so that's enormously practical.
And last but definitely not least, check out the menus here.
Having a very clear idea of where you want to eat (always write down backups in case of closures) will save you a lot of time!

[bad-pink-tink]

thanks HildeKitten, I have added that to the first post

[HildeKitten]

You're welcome, glad I could help
I know doing a little research takes time, but it all works out for the better in the end so I can not recommend it enough

[MotherKnowsBest!]

We are off to DLP this Wednesday and realising its gonna be super busy I've been trying to be organised and planned. I've been monitoring the Disneyland Paris wait times app but have to say I'm a bit dubious about its accuracy. Has anyone any experience of how accurate this app is? At the moment it's stating that the longest queue is 60 mins for Crushers coaster with most other rides being 20-40 mins - I find that really hard to believe at 3pm in the afternoon on a Sunday in the summer hols?

[bad-pink-tink]

hi  MotherKnowsBest

I havent used those online touring plans but that would seem about right to me.

The busiest part of the day is between 1pm and 6pm

Sunday is one of the more crowded days

School holidays are the most crowded times

The times being shown are in my opinion realistic times for this time of year. I would expect wait times of approx 60 minutes as an average for any ride.

I was in DLP on Christmas Eve 2013. At 7pm the wait time for Buzz was almost 2 hours.

[MotherKnowsBest!]

Thanks, yeah I would expect the queue times to be a lot longer like you say up to 2 hours, so surprised that they are only saying 20-40mins. Ah well, if I expect at least an hours wait on each ride anything less will be a bonus 

[mdw]

Leaving Saturday, 4days. Plan is arrive lunch time sat get photopass plus, autograph books and go to studios. Get ratatouille fast pass. Eat at rely restaurant. Try and do animagique, carpets, cars, studio tour, anything else a bonus. Sunday emh do as many rides as poss. Then join meet merida queue, snacks, see frozen show, casey jnr. Anything else before parade and then eat at Newport bay. Mon emh meet and greets then rides. Get to studios rope drop, ratatouille fp, do what we haven't done. Rest at hotel, cafe mickey 6:15pm then dreams. Tuesday lay in and do whatever we have left or want to do again. We need to get the 2:05 shuttle to orly. We have two girls 6 & 8, not a fan of big rides, they love buzz lightyear ride and are frozen mad.

How does that sound, anymore tips? We have half board plus

[HildeKitten]

It sounds like you've got a good solid plan mdw!
I'm sure you don't really need it, but good luck
I'm positive you guys will have a wonderful time

[mdw]

A lot of research as you say. Visited two years ago in May, expect it to be double the amount of people!

[Discovery_Mountain]

Fantastic post that everyone should read!

I went at the end of June in 2013 without realising that it was in the Spanish school holidays and it was very busy (not July/August busy) but still busy.  My own fault for not researching before hand I still had a fantastic time and I didn't blame DLP for it being too busy...

[bad-pink-tink]

thanks Discovery_Mountain. I have added that to the first post

[chicks99]

Restaurants!

I wish i'd spent a bit more time researching restaurants before I left. I wasted a lot of time walking around, looking at menus, changing my mind etc...

[bad-pink-tink]

thanks chicks99 I have added that to the first post