After my first Disney park experience in Shanghai I knew I wanted to visit other parks around the world – unfortunately covid hit and put a halt on those plans, but finally in 2022 I finally booked a trip, my first time in Disneyland Paris! I did plan to travel alone, but eventually persuaded my sister to come with me on my birthday trip. My birthday is at the end of November and that works out perfectly to see the park festive with Christmas decorations (Christmas is also my favourite time of year). We booked this in April of 2022 and stayed for 2-nights with 3-days in the parks. It was around £450 for the two of us for the room on site and park tickets and we were pretty happy with that – we did book before they had actually announced the festive celebration dates, so it may have increased in price after this. Disneyland Paris has 2 parks, so I felt like this was a good step for me before making the trip to Disney World with the 4 parks (trip also now booked with my sister after she really enjoyed Paris!) – so we had a lot to squeeze into our time!
Sleeping Beauty Castle – day and night
Of course the castle, Sleeping Beauty Castle, is the main attraction, and it’s beautiful both during the day and at night. For sure I have been spoiled by seeing the humungous Enchanted Storybook Castle at Shanghai first, but this one is definitely completely unique and different in many ways. The cubed trees and the hillside to the left are certainly memorable! Even though it was quite busy at the castle, there were still plenty of opportunities and different angles to get pictures from. We made use of the extra magic hour for hotel guests on our last day to get some less-crowded pictures, and also during the parade there was space at the front while the castle was lit up which was very pretty. One very special thing about this castle is that you can climb up inside where there is the story of Sleeping Beauty in tapestry and on stained glass windows, you can also go outside at the back and have a great view over Fantasyland. The turret roofs also lit up beautiful after sunset, it looked great!
Mickey’s Dazzling Christmas Parade
Seeing Mickey’s Dazzling Christmas Parade was a priority for me, so we found a spot on Main Street about 30 minutes before the parade started and held our ground – this got a little tricky within the last 5 minutes or so before the parade got to us as many large groups were bustling trying to be in the front, but cast members kept everyone in line (and really were scolding families when small kids were stepping onto the road to see, for their safety of course). The parade was super fun, the floats were beautifully decorated, I especially liked the one with the princesses on it. Pooh and friends are my favourite characters, so seeing them dressed for Christmas was lovely, definitely a highlight. We happened to catch the second showing of the parade just after sunset, and the lights on the castle were just fabulous at this time! We really loved the parade music, it was super catchy and stuck in our heads for the whole trips!
Disney Stars on Parade
The ‘regular’ parade, Disney Stars on Parade, also happened, this was much longer with more characters. We happened to catch this one twice, the first time we were just coming back into the park after being in Studios and just got there at the right time to see it come down Main Street, and the second time we planned to stand near the beginning. Both views were really good, but it was definitely busier on Main Street so easier to get a front row spot elsewhere. This was a really fun parade, the floats looked amazing and loved everything about it seeing all the favourites – the Frozen section was a highlight for sure!
Disney D-Light and Disney Dreams of Christmas!
Because we were there also during the 30th anniversary celebrations, before the fireworks show in the evening there was the special Disney D-Light drone show. This was really fantastic, super to see the development of different technologies used in entertainment and this can really go a long way for Disney – it would be great to see this implemented in other parks too. We then saw the Disney Dreams of Christmas! show, which we watched on both nights – the first we were right in the middle about half-way from Main Street to the Castle, the second we stood on Main Street and both locations were equally good. The show was very focused on Frozen, as big fans, this really worked for us and we really enjoyed it with classic Christmas songs, and the incorporation of the fountains into the show was great too.
Disneyland Park
Disneyland Park is the larger of the Paris parks, and is the main event containing the castle, parades and most iconic of rides. This is where we spent most time but we loved the convenience of Studios being just a couple of minutes walk away. The Christmas decorations everywhere were beautiful and we really felt the magic of the festive season. With it being the 30th anniversary on our trip, there were also 30th decorations up, I think we really picked a perfect time to go for our trip to combine both of these. I think we ended up riding almost all the rides – sadly Small World was closed for renovations on our trip, but otherwise I think we ticked most other things off, and multiple times too! I think Fantasyland was my favourite area, closely followed by Adventure Isle because the pirate theming was just amazing. Another thing going to Shanghai has spoiled for me is Pirates of the Caribbean – the ride there is next level amazing, for me, other Pirates attractions can’t live up to it, however Pirates here was pretty good too and we rode it 3 or 4 times! I also liked the Casey Jr. ride (although definitely try this when it’s windy and rainy, it was a wild ride and we enjoyed it much more than calm dry weather XD), the Lancelot Carousel and Big Thunder Mountain – my sister also really enjoyed Hyperspace Mountain, but that was a firm ‘no’ from me to even consider riding it! We also enjoyed the Robinson Cabin treehouse, that was really interested and very quiet, the Thunder Mesa Riverboat and the Disneyland Railroad. We didn’t meet any characters on this trip, my sister didn’t want to and I would only have met Pooh in his Christmas jumper but the line was long, but it was cute waving to Mickey up on the train station while we waited for the horse-drawn carriage ride down Main Street – this was a highlight of our trip and such a fun thing to do!
Walt Disney Studios Park
Before going we weren’t sure how much time we would spend in the Studios Park, we thought maybe just a morning, but actually ended up being there on all 3 days of our trip. Without a doubt, it’s a smaller park and there are fewer rides here – but there are big changes coming to this park in the next few years so it’s definitely on our radar to visit again, especially when World of Frozen opens! We went on the evening of our first day and rode both Ratatouille: The Adventure and Avengers Assemble: Flight Force – now we both get motion sickness and didn’t enjoy Ratatouille which I’m really sad about because I wanted to love the ride, I think it’s such a cute idea^ I’m not a Marvel/Avengers person, so we used the time in the queue for Flight Force to discuss who all the characters were, but it was a little wasted because I spent the whole ride with my eyes shut XD My sister really liked it, but it wasn’t so much my thing, I think this confirmed that rides that go upside-down are not for me! We used early magic hour here on our second morning and went on Spider Man W.E.B. Adventure – I think we both agreed that this was our favourite ride of the whole trip, and we ended up going on a few more times (via the single rider queue) – and also Tower of Terror, which was my own idea and I hated it! Again, my sister enjoyed it, but I just didn’t like it at all, I did manage to open my eyes when we were at the top and the doors opened, and I agree the view is great, but not worth it for the falling feeling. But at least I’ve done it now and know not to go on ever again. We didn’t go on any other rides in this park but did enjoy all the food stalls over in the Worlds of Pixar area by Ratatouille, these are a great addition to the park and look super cute in the festive season. I really think the expansion plans for this park look amazing, and I’m so excited to see Frozen brought to this park.
What we ate
All the Mickey shaped foods were on the agenda! We knew we wanted the pizza and the beignet/donut, so our first stop on day 1 was pizza for lunch at Pizzeria Bella Notte and it was pretty good. We were hungry (flight was at 6AM, so it had been a long day by lunchtime) so got one each plus a drink, but could definitely be shared by two adults and could then try something else too. We then somehow didn’t eat anything else until leaving after the fireworks, and ended up for a classic birthday McDonalds (queue was long to order and get food, I think I will plan better if I want a McDonalds next time!). On day 2 we had a couple of snacks we’d brought from home while walking to the park, we started at Studios and crepes from the food stands were necessary after the Tower of Terror! These were delicious and pretty affordable. Then we had and early lunch in the Stark Factory (there were maybe only 2 or 3 other groups eating at this time), we had a cheese pasta and a tofu salad, but weren’t hugely impressed, it was over €30 for these, a drink (shared) and a chocolate mousse dessert and we thought it was just a bit average. For dinner we had booked the hotel buffet which we really liked and definitely ate too much at! The Mickey-shaped carrots and potatoes were particularly cute, but I was definitely more there for the desserts – great selection to choose from and everything tasted great. For our final day it was finally time for the beignet/donut, we shared this which I think was a good move, I couldn’t have managed it alone. In Studios park we got some Belgian frites from the food stalls, then a tartiflette from the Disneyland Park stalls to eat while watching the parade. We finished off our themed eating at Victoria’s Restaurant and shared the plate of five Christmas themed treats which were cute and tasty, but nothing special (although at €9 this was pretty good value for money).
Where we stayed
We booked the hotel and ticket package directly through Disney and chose Hotel Cheyenne – the walk is very easy, it’s really only 15 minutes to the park via Disney Village and extra magic hour in the morning is included. It was a basic hotel, but really had everything we needed especially as we were only really in the room to sleep. The theming at the hotel is great, especially the themed Christmas tree in the lobby! There is the buffet restaurant on site which does breakfast and dinner, a bar, a Starbucks and a shop. We also utilised the Disney express service – when we arrived off the train from the airport we left our bags at the counter in the train station, picked up our tickets and could go straight to the park. Then at the end of the day, we collected our bags from the luggage collection at the hotel, it was very convenient. And the same at the end of the trip, we left the luggage at the hotel and collected it at the train station. For us, it was completely worth the money.
