Home

[itslizi]

So, what's the cheapest way to do Disneyland Paris, including travel, hotel, park tickets and dining.

The trip we are looking to book (on behalf of a friend) is from Sunday 7th September until Wednesday 10th September

[samuelvictor]

The cheapest Disney Hotels that include park tickets, extra magic hours and breakfast are the Santa Fe and Cheyenne. I just had a quick look for those dates, and the Santa Fe is all booked out.

For 2 adults 2 children (which I used just to get an example price) it was £834.00 at the Cheyenne. Other hotels could be significantly more expensive... unless your friends are driving. In which case the Davy Crocket Ranch is available at £534 (you must drive to stay there as its further out). (If you're very quick there is a special offer for the Newport Bay hotel on those dates, I'll mention this below...)

Those prices only include breakfast. The cheapest half board plan would be £19 per day for adults, £11 for children, or full board would be £29 & £16. (price is as stated in the brochure, however real prices will be in Euros so can fluctuate with exchange rates). Bare in mind that you can only get these meal plans when you book your package, and you have to buy them for every day of your stay (you can't just pay for 2 days, for example). This cheapeast meal plan only allows you to eat in your hotel. For slightly more (£3 per adult per day) you can get the standard plan, which gives more choice of restaurants.

In all honesty, if they are REALLY trying to get it "cheap", the breakfasts are all you can eat, and my family found that you don't necessarily NEED to get a meal plan... you can save a lot by stocking up at breakfast, then just buying food from the Tigermarket by the Santa Fe. The prices to eat in the restaurants in the park are only 10% more expensive than the meal plan anyway, so if they only want to eat out some days, its not going to break the bank.

The cheapest restaurants (and the ones you can use if you get the standard meal plan) are Plaza Gardens, Silver Spur Steakhouse, Agrabah Cafe, Restaurant des Stars, Annettes, Billy Bob's, Chuck Wagon, Cantina and Crockett's Tavern. DLPGuide.com has menus with prices for all of them.

As for travel, this can massively vary. Eurostar will be £60-£100 each, leaving from London. A flight will probably be about the same. The very cheapest way is often Megabus, or a local coach company, if you are near any of their stops, you can get there for around £25 each, but will then need bus or train travel from Paris to the parks. You can book Eurostar or certain other options when booking your package, this can sometimes save around 10% of the cost.

One important thing that can save you money: If you sign up for Quidco.com and click through to the Disneyland Paris website from their link, you will get 8.5% cash back! You MAY also get free half board meal plan, but this offer is time and hotel specific - see my note about the Newport Bay below.

In general, being more flexible on dates can save huge amounts of money, because certain offers (2 days free, kids go free, free dining, 25% off etc etc) only apply to very specific dates. Also as a rule, booking in on a Thursday is much cheaper than Friday-Monday.

Its a limited offer, so it may sell out quickly, but the Newport Bay hotel has those exact dates you specified for £1,014.00 (again I put 2 adults 2 children) but with FREE half board dining. This would usually cost you £240, so if your friends were going to pay half board, this would be slightly cheaper, and they'd upgrade to a nicer hotel slightly closer to the parks...

All these prices are just from disneylandparis.com. You'll get exactly the same prices through high street shops, they just use the same site for booking, but they keep a commission.

Of course there are some companies (usually coach companies) who bulk buy hotel stays and can therefore offer a package a little cheaper than usual, however, they are on specific dates and I doubt you'll find one on the exact dates you mentioned.

If this is all still too expensive, a way to do it even cheaper would be to try and source cheap park tickets on ebay from someone who has bought them and not used them, and book a cheaper non-Disney hotel outside of Disney. There are several with free shuttle buses to the parks, but you don't get Extra Magic Hours. Of course you'd have to book everything separately, but this could save a couple of hundred pounds if you are really on a tight budget.

[daddyof2]

Not necessarily cheapest but simple - Hotel and park tickets from DLP (consider partner hotels); driving is relatively cheap compared to flights or trains and you're masters of your own destiny; eat lots for breakfast, baguettes from TGV station, McD's, earl of sandwich and take cereal bars/crisps for snacking.
Booking so late might mean you're stuck with the prices on offer

[itslizi]

Many thanks samuelvictor, you reply was lengthy with a lot information that I will be taking into consideration. I feel that the hotel of choice could be Hotel I'Elysee, as I hadn't realised that they have a free shuttle bus to these non-Disney hotels. Do you know if the free shuttle buses still run after Disney Dreams?

Yes, we may have not helped ourselves with leaving it so late to book daddyof2, it's kind of a spontaneous thing. I will suggest the idea of them driving over, my friend has only recently drove over to Italy with her family so it wouldn't be the first time she's travelled via car in a country other than England. That's a good tip with cereal bars and crisps, I hadn't thought of that.

[MinnieMum]

How old are the children? When we went with two young children we didn't bother with a meal plan, we ate a big breakfast, took snacks into the park for lunch - brioche rolls, crisps, bananas, cereal bars etc (we drove so no worries on luggage restrictions) then only bought an evening meal. We found that a lot of the children's meals were big enough for our children to share and adult meals were big enough that we didn't need starters or desserts (we still had some we couldn't resist so we didn't need to spend as much as we thought we might. Also as others said there is Mcdonalds, earl of sandwich and counter service eateries as well.
Good luck!

[A&S&O]

If you're staying offsite, look into buying annual passes rather than day tickets. We've just bought our son's for £75 and we'll buy ours when we get there. You may be able to get discount on the adult passes if you can get someone to sponsor you when you're there.

An annual pass will give you EMH, free parking and discounts in shops and restaurants.

We usually stay in the Adagio now, as the apartments have kitchens - we don't need to but food in the park as we can have breakfast before we leave and make up sandwiches to take in with us.

[samuelvictor]

Hey no problem. Yes you should get a good deal on one of the non-Disney hotels with shuttle buses. I know a few years back the last shuttle bus back was a little earlier than we would have liked (so missed firework displays if they were happening), however I feel that since the 2012 anniversary and Disney Dreams being a daily thing, its very likely that there would be a late shuttle bus. I've not actually checked this though so best to ask around.

As has been mentioned by others, if you aren't going to stay in a Disney specific hotel, annual passes can actually be a really good buy. Rule of thumb is if you are going to buy 6 days or more then they are cheaper. I know you weren't planning on staying that long, but of course once you've got the annual passes you can always go back and have two or more holidays in a year and not have to pay for the parks

I'm glad its not just me who thinks that if you are on a budget, the meal plan is not necessary. You really can massively stock up at breakfast and survive with the occasional snack in your rucksack! (Some (many?) people staying in the Santa Fe & Cheyenne sneak out hard rolls and cheese/jam from breakfast for snacks. No-one seems to stop them, though technically this is against the rules. Whether you could do that at one of the non-Disney hotels I don't know).

Its only really with our trip this year that we are considering the meal plans, we've never been able to afford it in the past and I can't say as our kids felt particularly left out - they just wanted to run from ride to ride and show to show anyway!

[Livvipivvi]

Hiya,

I don't have anything to add to what has already been said, but thought I'd say that we stayed in HNY in May and took sealable sandwich bags with us to breakfast every morning and made a little packed lunch.  No one seemed to care and other families were doing the same.  I also refilled a bottle of water, 2 of the 4 mornings, no one cared about that either 

The breakfast there was really good, we would eat so much in the mornings and we were so busy during the days that we didn't really look for much until about 3-4 o'clock anyway.  We did have the plus half board meal plan, which also includes a tea time treat now, which was very handy for us as we did not have our evening meals until at least 8pm every day.

[itslizi]

How old are the children?

There's no children in the party, we're just young adults that are children at heart.

If you're staying offsite, look into buying annual passes rather than day tickets.

If we were staying a little longer, Annual Passes would be more appealing, as then you would be saving money, as it's doubtful we'll be going back any time within the next year as I've been told this visit will be my last for some time.

Its only really with our trip this year that we are considering the meal plans, we've never been able to afford it in the past and I can't say as our kids felt particularly left out - they just wanted to run from ride to ride and show to show anyway!

We're never considered meal plans, we only got them as they were free when we booked. I would never pay for them. I always had a big breakfast, stocked up on rolls from breakfast as I can eat plain rolls with no butter, then we had the one meal in the evening. Last year we stuck with McDonalds, Rainforest Cafe and Planet Hollywood. Whilst Rainforest Cafe and Planet Hollywood aren't budget restaurants I went into Rainforest Cafe and had a starter which filled me up completely. Therefore this year with the free half board meal plan we will have to venture out to new restaurants.

I don't have anything to add to what has already been said, but thought I'd say that we stayed in HNY in May and took sealable sandwich bags with us to breakfast every morning and made a little packed lunch.  No one seemed to care and other families were doing the same.  I also refilled a bottle of water, 2 of the 4 mornings, no one cared about that either 

The breakfast there was really good, we would eat so much in the mornings and we were so busy during the days that we didn't really look for much until about 3-4 o'clock anyway.  We did have the plus half board meal plan, which also includes a tea time treat now, which was very handy for us as we did not have our evening meals until at least 8pm every day.

Yes, when everyone is doing it you may as well join them. I can't eat a lot in the morning, so I like to take what I'm owed with me to eat a little later and a couple of rolls when waiting in queues lasts me until late afternoon and by then restaurants are a little less busy. I don't think I could have three meals a day at Disneyland there's not the spare time to be dining all the time.

[Sulley's Arms]

We always get APs (if you don't mind missing EMH then just get the cheapest).  Then we stay off-site, booked through Hotels.com or similar when an offer is on (e.g. 4 nights at Adagio for £180).  We take our own breakfast, buy baguettes for lunch (v cheap), and make tea back at the hotel - this way you're not spending any more on food than you would at home.

This method (APs) only really works because we'll do at least 2 trips on the same passes (usually going for a second or third trip at the end of the 12-months), making the average cost per trip even lower.

In summary, to answer your question, travel via Eurotunnel using Tesco vouchers (i.e. free), avoid park restaurants, stay in an aparthotel (on offer), take your own food, and buy APs.  This method is cheaper than any involving a Disney hotel, half-board dining offer, etc.

Don't tell anyone else, though!

[A&S&O]

Then we stay off-site, booked through Hotels.com or similar when an offer is on (e.g. 4 nights at Adagio for £180). 

That's a very good price for the Adagio - can we ask when that is, is it off peak? We always book through Hotels.com too, but any offers they send us always exclude the Adagio.
We usually stay there n the summer, staying 10 nights brings the nightly rate down to about £60 (for a one bedroom apartment for 4 people).

[Sulley's Arms]

Then we stay off-site, booked through Hotels.com or similar when an offer is on (e.g. 4 nights at Adagio for £180). 

That's a very good price for the Adagio - can we ask when that is, is it off peak?

We often stay in Feb, and I agree that Adagio is often excluded from the "50% sale" type offers, but it does have individual reduction offers every so often, so just keep looking