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Now I’ll be honest we aren’t massive Disney nuts in our house, (Gasp!) I know, I know so why did we go? But staying a mere 20 / 25 mins away I seriously couldn’t pass up on the opportunity to visit.
I booked our tickets before we left England via Picniq each ticket should have cost £60 each for access to both parks, but I think there was an offer on as we paid £162.00 in total. The twins at the time were 2 so therefore free! (bonus) Kris is entitled to a free carers ticket with his ticket, but this would have meant he couldn’t go on the rides by himself with one of the kids, so we opted against it because although he uses a wheelchair he can walk short distances. He did gain a green card allowing us to use the accessible entrances and avoid queueing (in the other lines, you do still have to wait even in the accessible queues sometimes)
To gain access to a green card we just used Kris’ blue badge and filled out which statement best suited Kris’ needs. We collected this from the main customer services desk as you come in from the accessible parking facilities. For others without a blue badge you may need a doctors letter. You don’t need the blue badge for parking as you will be directed to a separate car park that you can only access with a key code, which is given on arrival and showing your blue badge to the attendant.
We did take our double pushchair (we use a Joie Aire) as it was going to be a long day, we arrived at 10am and knew we mostly likely would be there until closing. Having looked on all the Facebook groups and countless other blogs I knew to pack snacks and drinks, you aren’t allowed to take picnic baskets in to the parks, but you can take anything you can carry in a back pack.
I wasn’t sure what to expect to be honest, but it really did blow me away it was so magical. Both Kris and myself fell in love with the place and can’t wait to go back. The kids however were more enamoured by Paris itself! (doh!)
We started the morning with a coffee from The Coffee Grinder on Main Street USA and some crisps we’d brought in ourselves, now the customer service in here is err questionable I wasn’t sure if it was because we were English, despite using French as much as possible to the server, but she was just as rude to a dutch family in front of us so who knows! This did seem to be a running theme throughout within the eateries and shops, which does ruin the mood somewhat. As that was our first stop I did feel like we’d just blown a good chunk of our holiday budget on a place that we were gonna last an hour in due to rude staff, but it did get better the staff on the rides and walking around are wonderful and very helpful, just be patient and don’t let the rude staff put you off.
There is so much to see you really can’t do much in one day, it is a beautiful place to hang out so it really does depend on what you’re going for. Without kids especially young kids you could probably get through quite a few of the rides, but I think we managed maybe 5, we did It’s a small world located in fantasyland, Mad Hatters tea cups also in fantasyland, Star tours over in Discoveryland, welcome to starport also in discovery land, Disneyland railroad which we boarded in discovery land. And over in Walt Disney Studios park we did Studio Tram Tour.
We had a stroll through Sleeping Beauty castle, seen a little show for the 25th Anniversary, met Princess Repunzal Disney Stars on Parade and the fireworks spectacular in the evening.
We ate at Toad Hall in Fantasyland which serves English food, we stopped here for 2 reasons, 1. we didn’t reserve anywhere early enough! and 2. it was where we were when we came off the train. Food was meh basically think of service station day old chips and stale fish and that’s what it was, vegan / vegetarian options are pretty slim and hard to locate through the park (or at least they were for us on that day) I had a pre packed falafel and quinoa salad which was beyond uninteresting and cold. Again the server was rude threw boxes of food on a tray and then threw the two trays in our direction with no offer of helping us to a table given we had a double pushchair, a wheelchair and a 4 year old! You really do feel a sense of appreciation for over helpful Brits (lol)
We got our ears from Amazon, you can get absolute stunning ones in the park which retail for around 16 euros.
I’ll cover more in depth on the parade and fireworks and accessibility of getting around in part 2.
Nicci xx
