So here we are. Friday the 13th. Not the best date to take a plane across the pond to visit Mickey and his merry band of characters, but that’s exactly what we did. For months the wife has been planning the trip, days and evenings spent scouring the internet - Facebook groups, forums and basically anything she can get her mitts on. Where to eat, how do you meet characters, best rides for nervous 7 year olds - she had the lot down to a tee.
And how was I each time she asked if I was getting excited?
My usual grumpy self.
Truth be told I find it very hard to get excited about the unknown. I was the same last year on our first trip to London together and yet we’ve already booked our second London trip for May and I’m incredibly excited about it.
Disneyland though?
I wasn’t sure.
Crowds, noise, lots of walking and trying to keep a 7 year old happy… on the surface, doesn’t sound great does it?
Zac is a bit like me. Anxious about stupid things. It was only summer last year where we’d had a bit of a breakthrough and managed to get him onto a few rides at Skegness, but Disneyland is a whole new world. Ba-dum-tssh. 😏
Anyway, we kept the entire thing quiet from him until the night before our flight. Could have been a disaster but hey ho... Hayley picked him up from school, we got a McDonald’s tea… his favourite, and before it arrived we revealed the huge secret Hayley had been desperately holding onto for months.
Tomorrow morning we’re hopping the channel and going to Disneyland Paris to meet the mouse and his crew.
Initial reaction?
Classic Zac.
“What about school?!”
Well kid, forget school because for three nights we’re off to enjoy ourselves. It’ll still be there when we get back and your teacher won’t give a shit.
So we ate our McDonald’s, got Zac to bed, watched an episode of Danny Dyer’s Caravan Park, then got to bed ourselves.
Day One: Rain, Captain America and a questionable airport breakfast
5:15am arrives and Steve is here to pick us up and take us to Leeds Bradford Airport ahead of our 8am departure.
After spending £8. Yes, that’s right. Eight. Bloody. Quid. On a drop off…. We headed in, dropped our bags at Jet2 and navigated the building site that is Leeds Bradford. We were all ready for breakfast, and with limited options we headed to SALT.
I grabbed the "Bobby Dazzler" - sausage patty, hash brown, black pudding etc. Sounded good... Sadly, however... It took so long to arrive that our gate was being announced, and when I bit into it it was pink inside.
My stomach turned.
So I handed it back and asked for a refund.
Off we went to the gate, and jumped on the flight which only took 1 hour 15 minutes. I’ve genuinely had longer turds. It was a particularly windy day so the landing was intense. Bumpy as hell, rough landing - it took all my strength not to hurl all over the poor guy sat in front of me.
We got off the plane, headed into the airport where we were expecting the latest treatment from post-brexit EU - fingerprints and all that jazz. Thank YOU, Bojo the sodding clown. To our pleasant surprise the copper checked our passports and waved us through. Sweet relief.
We then grabbed our suitcase which was already on the carousel.
Five minutes from leaving the plane bus thing through to leaving the airport. Astonishingly fast. For a huge airport like Charles de Gaulle, they had their shit together.
We headed to the taxi area and found our driver who was holding up our name card, bit like something you see in movies. I felt like a celebrity for a moment.
We left the airport with the driver, headed out into windy wet Paris and jumped in our transfer. It was fancy. Sparkly ceiling lights. Big TV with Disney movies on it and just 45 minutes to the hotel at Disneyland. Hooray, soon to be at the land of the mouse.
Unfortunately, with the speed of the airport my stomach hadn’t had chance to settle from the landing ... so by the time we were approaching Disneyland I was ready to unleash hell.
Fortunately we arrived at our destination just in time for me to breathe, calm my stomach and not destroy a lovely taxi.
So... Our destination?
Hotel New York - The Art of Marvel.
Zac was buzzing for obvious reasons. Seeing the three Iron Man suits and the Captain America shield in the lobby really got him excited. When he saw the shop full of Marvel gear, he was leaping around like the web slinger himself.
The concierge service took our luggage off us and told us it would be in our room when we got there. Service at its finest.
We made our way through the hotel trying to work out what was what. First to the drawing station where Zac enjoyed colouring some pictures in and playing games and quizzes on the interactive tablets.
Shortly after he had his first superhero encounter booked and was excited to see it was Captain America / Falcon. After the encounter you can walk around some incredibly well designed photo areas where they can pretend to be superheroes.
It was a great start.
Outside however the weather was atrocious, and despite Disney’s best efforts it could NOT be described as “magical”.
We carried on regardless and went for a walk around Avengers Campus, then jumped on to the Spider-Man WEB Adventure ride (which is bloody exhausting by the way) but Zac loved it. We also walked down by Toy Story Playland so Zac could go on the Slinky Dog ride - another huge success and demanded a second spin with me. Then a third spin alone.
I tried to convince him to go on the Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop but he was adamant it was too scary and he wouldn’t do it…
More on this later. 😜
We also popped in to see the Hulkbuster inside Stark Factory - genuinely impressive. It's clear from looking around Disneyland that they have access to some of the best costume and prop designers in the world.
With Zac being unsure about rides and the weather not behaving, the first day was a bit hit and miss but we didn’t let it dampen our spirits. I had my fingers tightly crossed for day two.
Later on we headed to the Downtown Restaurant in our hotel. Hayley had told me about how it’s one of the most popular restaurants in Disneyland but not being a huge buffet fan I wasn’t sold.
I was glad to be proved wrong however as the food was pretty good. The desserts, all shaped in little Avengers items, were pretty damn good too.
All in all, a good way to round off our day.
Day Two: Pastries, Peter Parker and painful testicles
Day two began with breakfast in Downtown.
After a late tea I wasn’t overly hungry so I opted for two slices of toast and the EU equivalent of bacon - which let’s be honest - is diabolical. EU bacon is basically ham that’s been lightly threatened with a frying pan. It filled a hole, however.
Being in France the only other logical thing?
Pastries.
I’m not normally a big pastry fan but I went for a pain au chocolat.
Banging.
Well done the French. You know a bloody good pastry. Shit bacon. Good pastry.
Looking outside we could see blue skies and sunshine. Result.
It was time to start destroying my feet.
We first headed into the main park and made our way to Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast, where you zap aliens whizzing around an indoor track. Shortly after we headed back to Avengers Campus because, let’s be honest, Zac would live there if he could. We also had a date with Peter Parker himself after Hayley bagged us a spot on the virtual queue to meet him.
He was sound. Top guy.
Sounded a bit French though. Odd. He was American last time I checked.
Zac loved it though so oh well.
We bought some expensive photos which, as a photographer, really made my bumhole twitch - but they were quite good.
We then moved on to Animation Academy where Zac could do a little drawing class. He’s a budding artist, very good at drawing and colouring unlike me - I am a digital Picasso only. I even have a shagged ear, just like him. Not self-inflicted though.
He got to draw Winnie the Pooh.
I stood and watched from behind and saw some of the monstrosities people were creating. Zac could have taught them all a lesson.
After we’d finished we went for a wander and spotted Ant-Man doing a little character encounter. Zac jumped at the chance. We got given a time to return, came back and he was the first in line for some photos.
Another hero ticked off.
Whilst wandering about we also spotted the original Captain America floating about. Zac managed to stop him and grab another photo.
We were nailing the characters that day.
On our wanders we walked past the parachute ride and, after a bit of back and forth, convinced Zac to get on it. "I'm only going on it because dad wants to go on it, but I'm going to hate it", he said. I told him he’d love it so much he’d want to go again.
“Nope. I hate it. It’s scary.”
As we boarded our maiden jump the heavens opened.
Not rain.
Nope.
Hail. Because of course.
I also quickly remembered the pitfalls of theme park rides - the block between the legs that holds the belt on. After pinching my testicles so hard I nearly became the first man to sue Buzz Lightyear personally, I rearranged them and we were off.
Zac was unsure at first but was quickly scanning around Disneyland from the leafy heights and taking it all in.
To nobody’s surprise the moment we got off:
“Can we go again?”
During the day we also managed to get into the Premiere Theatre for Mickey and the Magician - it was great other than the fact that 20 minutes in we got kicked out because of a technical issue.
God damn it.
Just after the Lion King bit too.
For tea we had a booking at PYM Kitchen. Another favourite, or so Hayley says.
Again it was good - buffet food but a good range of tasty options, enough to keep everyone happy. Zac was particularly impressed by the science beakers they were using for drinks.
At this point we’d covered 16,000 steps and our feet were aching, so we headed back to the hotel for an hour to rest before heading back to the main park for the spectacular end-of-day fireworks, drone and water show.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Disney is a bit of a cult.
There are grown adults wandering around dressed as princesses at 9am and nobody bats a bloody eyelid. Back in Blighty they’d bang you in a mental institution, shine a light in your eyes and slap you about for this sort of behaviour. Disneyland Paris though? 100% approved. Expected, even.
To a non-Disney-mad person they all look mental.
Genuinely. Mental.
I must say though that even though I believe it to be cult-like, there’s something very endearing and charming about it all. After a visit I do now understand the whole “Disney magic” thing.
It did help that Saturday was a much better day weather-wise. Chilly but dry - other than that mad patch of hail.
With music surrounding your every move that takes you back to your childhood as the end credits rolled on your favourite Disney movies, it does feel quite special. I also feel like there’s maybe a bit more to it for adults and people of my generation. We grew up watching Disney movies on VHS. The era of Disney+ and on-demand content means some of it is probably lost on the youth of today. When movies were treats, and not just something you can watch at the click of a remote.
Being young, sitting in front of a fire watching The Lion King, Pinocchio and the rest on VHS felt magical in its own right, and the park soundtrack really takes the mind back to those carefree days.
What completely rounded it off though was the end-of-day show.
We were lucky to be able to stand in the reserved area so we got an unrestricted view right at the front and it was astonishing.
From the water fountains that were making us piss wet through, to the fireworks, drones and projections, it really left a mark and sent us all back to bed on a high.
I briefly considered becoming a Disney adult.
Then I remembered the price of the photos and the fact my testicles could not survive another round with the Parachute Drop ride.
On the way out Mickey was stood on the Disneyland Hotel balcony waving and dancing in front of everyone which really got a cheer from the crowd and rounded off our day in a lovely, Disney magic kind of way.
What a day.
Mind changed.
It’s fun.
Expensive fun.
Day Three: Sunshine, pirates, and questionable parenting
Sunday was the best day weather-wise.
Sunny, warm for a March day and just genuinely joyful. The sun on your skin is enough to put anyone in a good mood, but when you’re in Disneyland it’s ramped up by ten.
The day began with another superhero encounter - this time Black Widow. Just as with the other heroes he met she was great with him and he looked genuinely in awe.
We then headed back to Downtown for breakfast.
As with the day before… shit bacon, questionable sausages (chicken and veal - come on, what the fuck?!) but awesome pastries.
After we’d finished it was on to the main park.
Mickey was once again putting on a bit of a show but unfortunately for me…
First stop?
City Hall.
Why?
Because I’m a nob and left my favourite cap at PYM Kitchen.
After a bit of back and forth, and no cap yet as it was still at PYM, we headed out.
First stop was It’s a Small World. This seemed really familiar then I remembered it had been parodied on The Simpsons.
The little land of Duff.
I AM THE LIZARD QUEEN!
Anyway, it was fun.
We then went on another ride that was a little train and then we had the midday parade. This was pretty damn fun too. Disneyland really do the theatrical stuff incredibly well and really sell the characters.
Zac seemed to enjoy it too and handled the standing around really well, just as he had the night before waiting for fireworks.
After a little walk we headed towards the Alice in Wonderland Maze and spotted a little ice-cream stand. Hayley had wanted to try one of the themed ice creams since we arrived so we all picked one we wanted and set to demolishing it.
I wasn’t going to get one but after seeing Zac and Hayley’s I changed my mind as I felt left out.
Yep.
I’m just like a child.
Great ice cream and came with a drink for just €10. I’ve had shit ice creams in Skegness for around that, so can’t complain. I’d say for Disneyland Paris this price was practically charity.
After the ice creams and toilet stop number 312 of the holiday we headed into the little maze and wandered around.
One theme of this holiday was the return of my favourite London game…
Dodge the Dickhead.
It was back in style.
People stopping for no reason other than maybe sharting themselves.
People stopping dead in the middle of walkways like they’ve just remembered they left the oven on back home in Belgium.
People changing directions for no reason. Warming up their trainers maybe? Who knows, but my piss was considerably boiled numerous times.
People were even pushing in front of seven-year-olds to see things, even though they’re adults.
Honestly.
It was FULL of dickheads and the maze was no different.
I’ve muttered the word twat under my breath this week more times than a Greggs employee says “next please” at 8am on a Monday.
Zac is often hyper and doesn’t listen well but compared to some kids he was a diamond. Other kids would push past him to get to things, hog the photo spots and the dickhead parents would stand and watch, probably looking in awe at their ugly little crotch goblins.
Zac as usual surprised us and took it completely in his stride.
Other than the fact he’d heard me moaning a few times and suggested (as I’d said numerous times) we should just tell them they’re stupid, or fart on them.
And yes, that’s one of my super hilarious dad jokes. If Trump can get a peace award, I’m more than worthy of a parenting award for these jokes alone.
Final note on this - I know people complain about us Brits. Sure we never seem to learn the language, but I genuinely believe the majority of us are polite, well-mannered and respectful of those around us.
We also understand the concept of the queue, unlike some.
Back to Alice Maze - this was no different. Full of dickheads. It was fun, but being in tight confines with said dickheads was even more annoying.
Anyway we continued on, headed further into the park and found our way to Pirates of the Caribbean.
This one was inside, dark and quick in places. I expected Zac to not be a big fan but he absolutely loved it.
He didn’t like my singing though when I would join in with a round of:
YO HO YO HO A PIRATE’S LIFE FOR ME.
Spoilsport.
That was and still is my favourite ride, which makes sense as it’s my favourite Disney franchise.
Full of confidence Hayley had the fantastic idea to head to Big Thunder Mountain.
Zac, watching the riders come flying round the track, kept stating how quick it was and how he didn’t want to go but being the boss parents we are we convinced him it would be fine.
This after Zac also asked, “Has anybody died on this ride?”
Nope.
Not yet at least.
What I also didn’t realise being a Disney newbie was just how quick this ride was.
Never mind Zac - I almost shat with the speed, so I was genuinely not surprised he was a little bit in shock by the end.
He did get over it and told us how proud he was of himself for going on it.
We were too.
I was proud of him.
I was also considering writing my will before my wife comes up with her next glorious idea.
By 7 we were all ruined after more walking, so we headed back to the hotel for an hour before returning to the kids club and letting Zac do some drawing and chew the cast members’ ears off ahead of another late tea at Downtown.
By the time we got to Downtown we were all practically falling asleep. This counted double for Zac. We smashed our teas, got showered and headed to bed ahead of our final few hours in the land of the mouse.
Day Four: One last ride
Monday arrived and we were all feeling a bit glum about the prospect of leaving.
We got up and headed once again to Downtown for our final breakfast. As we’d eaten what felt like about 3am the night before, none of us were particularly hungry. I stuck to what the French do best - a pastry.
Afterwards we headed back to the Studios Park for a final blast on the parachute ride, the Cars ride and our third go on the web-slinger ride. We also managed to get Zac to meet Black Panther, stand at the front and watch Thor and Loki then finally saw the majority of the Avengers assemble for one last hoorah before we had to leave the park.
By this point it was approaching 12 and our transfer was booked for 2, so we headed back to the hotel and sat in Bleecker Street for an hour for a nice cold drink and a snack before Lewis Hamilton himself tore-arsed us through the backstreets of Paris on our way back to Charles de Gaulle.
Sad times. Back to the real world. Back to real bacon.
So what did I think?
Overall I really enjoyed myself. Zac seemed to absolutely love it too.
Truth be told I wasn’t sure about the trip beforehand, not because of anything other than my anxiety and fear of the unknown.
Whilst the first day had its rocky moments - and dia-bloody-bolical weather - it gave a small glimpse into what we could expect from the rest of the break.
The rest of the break did not disappoint.
As with all touristy places, there are definitely a few things that need improvement and / or just plain boil my nuts.
- The app. The app feels cumbersome at times and things seem to switch places at random, leaving you struggling to find things. The map on the app is also pants and doesn’t label things particularly well.
- Places to sit. If you’re letting your little one run around in a park there’s literally nowhere to sit. Benches are few and far between. It’s quite a big park (yes, okay Orlando heads, I know it’s tiny 😒) and often you need a break every now and then to rest your feet. This sometimes feels impossible.
- People. Some people are just dicks, but this isn’t unique to Disneyland Paris. London was full of them too.
Positives
- The staff. The vast majority have a smile almost welded to their face. In a job that’s clearly demanding, tiring and likely full of long days, that’s impressive. I also did my research and found that the majority are only earning just above France’s national minimum wage. That, combined with living near France’s capital, must be tough. Absolute credit to them.
- The characters. The attention to detail is incredible and it’s enough to convince the young die-hards. They’re fantastic with kids and really leave a lasting impression.
- The surroundings. Sure, as some reviews will state, some areas are showing their age. However the grounds are immaculately kept. Cast members are always walking around with litter pickers ensuring the experience is positive and incredibly clean. They’re also renovating a lot of the park, and we’re just a couple of weeks away from the new Frozen expansion opening. Money is clearly flowing and they’re not afraid to spend it.
So, will we return?
Yes.
I’m quite confident it’s a trip we’ll make again. How soon, I’m not so sure.
It isn’t a cheap break. I know nothing in this world is cheap, but three nights with flights and accommodation in the home of the Avengers ran us a good few grand - and that’s not an amount to be sniffed at.
Was it value for money?
The hotel, the rides and the staff made it feel like good value. It does, however, take a good while to save up that amount of money in this economy.
What is for certain is that Disneyland Paris isn’t yet a complete product. Whilst we were there some lucky folk were getting previews of the brand new Frozen World, which opens at the end of this month and marks a significant expansion to the park.
Not only that, but everywhere you look there are cranes and workmen building new rides, attractions, shops and restaurants.
With rumours of a new Lion King land following the arrival of Frozen World, Disneyland could prove to be much better value for money in the coming years.
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