Today was the long awaited day that we headed off to Disney. We got up early and left our accomodation at 7am, taking the short walk to Porte de Clingnoncourt metro station before taking the metro then RER to Marne-la-Vallée-Chessy station which is situated at the Disneyland Paris park. The journey took about an hour and a half and was fairly straightforward navigating the different train lines. We would definitely recommend it as an option for being able to spend time in Paris before going to Disney.
The time we set off meant that we arrived at Disney early, within the magic hour that is set up for hotel guests. We were entitled to enjoy this time even on our first day so were glad we got there when we did. The only thing was that we were arriving to walk towards our hotel at the same time that everyone was walking away from their hotel into the park. This caused some confusion as security on this day were using both entrance gates and the exit gates to search people, making it unclear where we had to go. We eventually realised this was what was happening and made our way to our hotel, which was the Disney Hotel New York - The Art of Marvel. The hotel was impressive to view both inside and out. It was very modern and sophisticated, and made you feel you were at a 5-star hotel. All the Disney hotels provide an option to leave your luggage both on day of arrival and day of departure, so we made the most of this service. It was very stress-free and meant that our bags were then in our hotel room when we headed there in the afternoon.
Once our bags were dropped off, we made our way through the Disney Village, which is an area full of shops and restaurants, into the Disneyland Park. At Disneyland Paris, there are two parks. The Disneyland Park has the sleeping beauty castle, and five themed areas: Frontierland, Adventureland, Fantasyland and Discoveryland, as well as the Main Street. Walt Disney Studios also has five areas: Front Lot, Production Courtyard, Toon Studio, World of Pixar and Avengers Campus. Both offer rides, shows, character meets, shops and an abundance of places to eat.
If you stay on site, you get entry into the parks an hour early each day, which is something we would definitely recommend making the most of to get on some of the busiest rides without queuing as long. However, it's worth bearing in mind that not every ride will be open during this time so it's worth keeping an eye on the app. The park maps on the app are very useful for the whole time you are there to guide on queue times and allowing you to plan your time. They also give times for character meets, shows, and let you join virtual queues for certain characters (you can only be in one virtual queue at a time so make sure you choose wisely).
We won't go into full details of every part of what we did each day whilst at Disney, because it was A LOT!! But we will go through some an overview and some highlights.
We spent most of the first day prioritising the rides as we wanted to make sure we had chance to go back to any that we really enjoyed. Our favourites were Avengers Assemble: Flight Force, Spider-Man W.E.B. Adventure and Autopia. Sadly Big Thunder Mountain was closed whilst we were there, otherwise we imagine this would have been in our list too. We wanted to make sure that we saw the Disney Stars on Parade whilst we were there also, and so watched this on our first morning. A top tip for this, it is definitely worth getting there early to make sure you get a space where you can see. The parade was great fun and a fantastic opportunity to see lots of characters. Once we had been on lots of the rides, we stopped for some Nachos from Casa de Coco, which is a Tex Mex themed restaurant, and made our way to the Lion King show (which was absolutely amazing!). We also treated ourselves that afternoon to a strawberry milkshake topped with a Daisy Duck themed doughnut from the Ice Cream Company on Main Street. We then headed back the hotel to make the most of the swimming pool, before sitting down to a buffet dinner in the Downtown restaurant. The buffet offers a range of food options themed as American, Italian and Asian, plus an array of Marvel themed desserts. All the food was pretty good considering that it is a buffet, although the mickey shaped potatoes and pizza were incredible, and the desserts looked and tasted unbelievable. We would definitely recommend this as somewhere to eat. After dinner, we headed back into the park as the rides were mostly open until 9.30pm, then waited in front of the castle to watch the spectacular Disney Tales of Magic lights and firework display.
The next day we started by enjoying early entry to the park, followed by our Superhero Experience at the hotel, which is included in the perks of staying at the Marvel hotel. It offered the opportunity to meet a Marvel character (we met Black Panther Shuri) and then has different photo backgrounds from different Marvel films to enjoy. It was well worth booking. We then spent more time on rides, but also focused on seeing some characters in the afternoon. We found quite quickly that you have to be prepared to queue a lot to meet the characters, and that they go for a break every 30 minutes which lengthens the time waiting further. We therefore weren't able to meet many, but did manage to see Mickey Mouse, Max and Goofy. As we had had a huge buffet breakfast in the morning (our recommendations are to make sure you don't miss out on the captain america shield waffles), we didn't have much for lunch. Shannon had a Red Rage hot dog from the FAN-tastic food truck on the Avengers Campus, and Nicole had some coconut rice pudding from the Cool post in Adventureland. We weren't planning on seeing the light show both nights, but decided after enjoying it so much on the first night, we would watch it again. Therefore, after another swim, tea in the Downtown restaurant, we went back to the park. This time, we decided to watch the show from Main Street, which offers different views as there are lights also projected on the buildings.
On our third day, we embarked on using the virtual queue system as Shannon really wanted to meet Stitch. A word of warning, he gets booked up very quickly, therefore you have to be quick to get in the queue. Fortunately, we managed to get a slot and was able to fulfill her biggest wish for our Disney trip. We also managed to get in a virtual queue to meet Spiderman in the afternoon. When heading over to the Avengers Campus to get ready for this character meet, we were fortunate enough to come across an impomptu character meet with Captain America! We also went to several shows including Disney Philharmagic and Mickey and the Magician. We also made time to sit down in Pizzeria Bella Notte and enjoy a Mickey shaped pizza to share. The reviews on these online are a bit mixed, but we both really enjoyed it. We also treated ourselves to a Mickey shaped cookie which was, again, really tasty.
Once we were finished at the park, we returned to the hotel to collect our bags and head to our AirBnB. This was meant to be a seamless process of getting the bus to Montevrain. However, after waiting ages for the hotel shuttle, then giving up and walking to the main bus station, and again waiting ages for a bus and realising there weren't many arriving, we found out there was a taxi strike and the road into the park was being blocked. We therefore got onto a bus to Sequoia lodge and ordered an Uber to take us to our AirBnB! We selected somewhere that was close to the parks (about 15-20 minutes away) and that was within walking distance of Val d'Europe train station so we could easily head back into Paris to get on the Eurostar. It was a flat situated in a large complex and offered everything we needed for our night's stay. We picked up some tea from a local KFC where Shannon had a Colonel original burger and Nicole had some goats cheese bites and fries, then we both had an ice cream sundae.
The next morning, we headed off early to catch the train and make our way home on the Eurostar and National Express coach. We were shattered, but had an absolutely fantastic holiday and can't wait to go back to Disney sometime soon!
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