Paris Trip Diary, Day IV & V-DISNEYLAND PARIS

AHHHHHH!!!

YOU GUYS, WE WENT TO DISNEYLAND PARIS. I WENT TO DISNEYLAND PARIS!

To say it was a dream come true, is literally like the realest statement I could ever make. Of course being in Paris in general was such a dream, but combining my love for Paris and my love for Disneyland into one?!? Literal dream come true, the entire 2 days that we spent there, I was on cloud 9 x100000!

DAY IV- Friday, May 22nd

We got home from dinner the night before at around 9:30 pm and then packed the entire place up, it was around 11:30 pm when we all got into bed together. It was so bittersweet packing up our little Parisian apartment, but I could not wait to get to Disney!

From our hotel to Disneyland Paris, it was about a 45 minute drive. Getting tickets to Disneyland Paris is wildly different than getting tickets here in California. There are two “parks” in Paris- Disneyland and Disney Adventure World, when you get a ticket to the park, you automatically get access to both parks. Here in California, you have to either get a park hopper to access both on the same day or buy separate tickets for separate days. ALSO, if you book a room at any of the Disneyland Paris Hotels, Disney park tickets are automatically included for each day of your stay, including your arrival and departure dates. Obviously here in California, your hotel is completely separate from park tickets.

We booked a room at the famous Disneyland Hotel in Paris. I’d seen a lot about this hotel over the years (& I mean years) and staying here was always a dream in the back of my mind.

We walked to a cafe across the street from our hotel to grab a quick breakfast and then ordered an Uber van to pick us up and take us to Disney!

It was 8:32 am (exactly) when we were officially all loaded up in the van and on our way! Both kids fell back asleep, as did my husband, on the drive over. I probably should have slept BUT the adrenaline was raging through my body to say the least lol.

It was 9:30 am when we finally walked into the lobby at the Disneyland Paris Hotel and my jaw immediately dropped to the floor. It was so beautiful and so stunning. For sure the most beautiful hotel I’ve ever seen.

Our room wasn’t ready yet, so we left our bags at the front desk, got our Magic Keys and made our way to the park! When we left our hotel, I planned on immediately hitting the parks so we were all dressed and ready to rock! The park backpack was also pre-loaded with waters and snacks! It was 9:45 am when made it through the gates and the most amazing day ever was officially underway.

We stayed two nights at the hotel and I planned our first day to be spent completely on the Disneyland side and then the following day to be spent at Disney Adventure World. I made dinner reservations for Captain Jack’s Restaurant in Disneyland for night one and then got reservations to Bistrot Chez Remy in Adventure World for night two! It literally took me 3 months of checking the app EVERYDAY to finally get a reservation to this restaurant and after having been, I can see why, more details later in this post!

Because I’m a crazy person, I planned exactly what rides we’d want to get on- i.e. anything that was new to us and not at one of our parks in the states, and then anything we knew and loved that didn’t have a height requirement so that we could all ride together. I had a list of these rides for both parks- if you’re interested I will write a follow-up post with these details!

We spent the entire day in the park, eating all the crepes possible- the snack carts in Paris are top tier! Instead of having churro carts, they have crepe carts and to say we’re missing them now is an understatement. I’m going to do a little bullet list of our favorite things we did down below!

+La Taniere du dragon (The Lair of the Dragon): is SO cool! You can walk underneath the castle and see Maleficent in her dragon form underneath! The dragon is interactive and moves from being in a sleeping position to raising it’s head and roaring and blowing steam. My daughter (age 5), was actually a little afraid at first because the lair is very dark, but it was a unique experience and pretty cool to see something different.

+after coming out from under the castle, you obviously have to do a walk around the castle. It is STUNNING and you can actually walk completely around it and through corridors, which makes it feel like a real life castle (and trust me, after walking around the Palace of Versailles, I know 😉 ) When you walk into the middle of the castle, you can actually walk upstairs into the castle and they have a stained glass window artistic retelling of Beauty in the Beast, which is so beautiful to see! I’ll be posting video on my Instagram and TikTok soon for you to see it in action!

+ Disney Stars on Parade : our parades are definitely more thematic but this one was so cute and it was so cool to see the floats and characters speaking French!!

+Pirates of the Caribbean : okay, their entire Pirate set up blows ours out of the water and if we could copy theirs, I would be so happy. They have a giant walk through Pirate ship and play area outside of the ride for little ones! Their ride is also larger than ours and has one drop that’s pretty big- they take your photo on it which is so fun.

+Phantom Manor: this is their version of our Haunted Mansion and it is COMPLETELY different. The entire story is different and seemingly much darker. I feel like we need a movie off the theming of this one because it was so cool and so different!

+stop at all the crepe carts! The amount of crepes we ate was insane but they were so good and so easy to just grab before getting in a line for a ride.

+it’s a small world : this was so fun because even though it’s similar, their section for America was huge and really did us proud!

+Le Pays des Contes de Fees : their Storybook Land canoe ride. I’m a sucker for this ride and love it at Disneyland so much. It’s just so cute to me, I LOVED the Paris version! They had more stories put inside the ride and what I thought was super cool was that they actually had miniature character figurines inside the little towns! It was so fun for my daughter and I to spot the characters inside the scenes as our boat passed by!

At around 5:45 pm, we walked back to the hotel to officially check in because we got a text that our room was ready. We checked in, dropped our bags in our room and then made our way back to the park! It was around 6:45 pm when we made our way back in (btw I’m looking at time stamps of my photos when I’m giving times, trying to be accurate here!)

I made a 7:00 pm reservation for Captain Jack’s Restaurant and after getting there and sitting at our table, we left after reading the menu. I definitely should have checked the menu before hand but was so excited about the restaurant in general and being able to check out all the theming (I live for a theme), that I didn’t expect to not like the food options. And to be honest, Joey and I could have gotten away with something, but there really wasn’t anything for our kids on the menu. So we ended up leaving and eating at the Lady and the Tramp themed walk up pizzeria instead- Pizzeria Bella Notte. It is a walk up and not a sit down service, but it was really good and my kids were happy with the pasta and meatballs!

After dinner we went on a few more rides, got some more crepes, and then found a good spot for the firework show! The show started at 10:40 pm and the park closed at 11 pm, so you basically wrap up your day with the firework show. We loved the show! It was so beautiful and the projections on the castle were stunning. I cried watching the show because I really could not believe I was there with my family. Call me an emotional girl, but I cried more times than I can count on this entire trip- just so many pinch me moments!

After the show was over, we walked back to our hotel. What’s cool about the Disneyland Hotel in Paris is that it is literally at the entrance of the park. If you’re a guest coming to the park and not staying at the hotel, you walk underneath the hotel to get through the Disneyland gates to scan your ticket. So it was an easy walk getting back to our room.

We showered and got all cozy and fell asleep watching a Disney movie in bed!

The Disneyland Hotel in Paris will go down as one of my favorite places to stay EVER. For so many reasons, the attention to detail is out of this world. Upon check in, we got a little “magic” guide book and when we came back to our room each night, they had the tea pot set up with their custom bedtime tea- a specialty tea made specifically for the hotel and not sold anywhere else! They also had little bedtime stories on the beds for our kids- the first night we got Aladdin and the second night we got The Little Mermaid!!! Ironically, those were not requested and are my husband and I’s favorite childhood Disney movies- just meant to be!