If you’re planning a trip to Disneyland Paris, you’ve come to the right place! In our Disneyland Paris guide, we cover everything from flights to hotels to riding all the best rides.
Combining all our Disneyland Paris content in one place would have been a bit unwieldy. Across the site, we’ve broken it up into useful topics. We link to those posts with some supplemental content here. Let’s get planning your trip to Disneyland Paris!
The Basics of Disneyland Paris
Disneyland Paris is a theme park resort just outside Paris, France. It comprises four parts:
The castle theme park, Disneyland Park or Parc Disneyland
A second park, Walt Disney Studios Park
Disney Village, a small shopping / restaurant area akin to Downtown Disney or Disney Springs
The hotel area, home to six Disney hotels; a seventh hotel, Disney’s Davy Crockett's Ranch, is located slightly farther from property; a new eighth hotel, Villages Nature Paris, is also located farther from the parks
With the exception of the two off-site hotels, the entire resort is walkable. It is about 20 minutes from one end to the other. The parks are about three minutes walking from each other.
Adjacent to Disneyland Paris is the Marne-la-Vallée—Chessy train station. That station provides access to central Paris (about 45 minutes by train) and Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport (“CDG”) (10 minutes by train). We discuss getting to and from Disneyland Paris by train a bit more below.
Besides Davy Crockett's Ranch and Villages Nature Paris, the Disney hotels are all 5 - 15 minutes walking time from Disney Village which is in turn adjacent to the parks. Disneyland Hotel is at the gate to Disneyland Park and overlooks the park.
Overview of The Parks of Disneyland Paris
Disneyland Park is a traditional castle park. It is one of our favorite castle parks because of its quality attractions, attention to detail, and an unmatched version of Sleeping Beauty Castle: Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant.
In most situations we use “Disneyland Park” to refer to the castle park when there is any chance for confusion.
Walt Disney Studios Park is a smaller, studios-themed park (similar to Hollywood Studios and even with a few similar rides). It requires minimal planning and absolutely no time to “experience” the park outside of the attractions and shows.
In 2022, the park got a “new” Avengers coaster (a re-theme of Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster) and a Spider-Man ride (also found in Disney California Adventure), and sometime in the next couple of years, the new Frozen land should open. This will make the park much more interesting to visit.
Should You Visit disneyland Paris?
If you’ve already decided to visit Disneyland Paris click here to skip this section and jump to When to Visit Disneyland Paris. (We’re writing this section from the perspective of an American since that’s where most of our audience is. If Disneyland Paris is the closest Disney resort to you then you obviously might be more inclined to visit it before other Disney resorts.)
There are four international Disney destinations, each with their own energies. That’s in addition to the two American destinations with parks (Disneyland and Walt Disney world), three American resorts (Hilton Head, Vero Beach, and Aulani), and Disney Cruise Line. So, should you visit Disneyland Paris?
In our opinion, if you’ve visited both American park resorts (Walt Disney World and Disneyland) and taken a Disney Cruise, it’s a good time to consider Disneyland Paris.
There are a host of reasons you might visit Disneyland Paris before making it to one of the American destinations. But we think covering both American resorts (and probably a cruise) before visiting Disneyland Paris is sensible.
It should go without saying that this isn’t answering “should you visit Paris / France / Europe.” As fans of world travel, we’d of course tell you to visit Europe and Paris specifically in a heartbeat, even before any Disney destinations. And if you were in Paris then it’s easy to tack on Disneyland Paris.
But if you’re trying to decide on your next Disney vacation, we’d prioritize the American parks and a cruise.
But Really, “What is Disneyland Paris Like?”
This is sort of the question we think most Disney fans want to ask. “What’s it like?” “Is it real Disney?”
First, yes, it is real Disney. In fact, every international Disney resort is real Disney. We recommend them all, generally. Disneyland Paris is different, but it is very much Disney.
So, what is it like? As a resort, it’s sort of a hybrid of Disneyland and Walt Disney World. It’s small, having only two parks like Disneyland. But it’s in a bubble, with a decent number of hotels, like Walt Disney World. With limited exceptions (irrelevant to almost all visits), you can walk everywhere.
Besides unique attractions (covered below), it’s a little tough to put into words what makes Disneyland Paris different. You’ll just have to trust us (and not our poor photography skills) that Disneyland Paris is absolutely beautiful.
Outside of Tokyo DisneySea, this is the best physically structured park Disney has built. Very little ever seems out of place, and the resort offers amazing lines of sight. Disneyland Paris uses its space better than any other Disney castle park.
Unique Attractions at Disneyland Paris
If you’re not really into theme parks for the sake of theme, you might naturally wonder what unique attractions Disneyland Paris offers. Our Disneyland Paris rides guide covers all the rides at Disneyland Park. Our Walt Disney Studios Park rides guide covers that park.
Here’s a quick overview of what you're missing if you sit this one out:
Avengers Assemble: Flight Force - An Avengers themed coaster
Cars: Road Trip - A reimagining of the old Studio Tram ride
Crush’s Coaster - A Finding Nemo themed coaster, very fun
Alice’s Curious Labyrinth is a hedge maze with a small castle and great views at the end; it is also featured (without the castle) at Shanghai Disneyland
Indiana Jones and The Temple of Peril - A short roller coaster ride, usually with no wait times
Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant is the castle of Disneyland Park. It is our favorite Disney castle in the world. It houses a dragon underneath, one of the coolest animatronics in the world
Phantom Manor - Fine—it is “just” a version of Haunted Mansion, but it is unique even in that context
That list supports our point above. No, Disneyland Paris is not better than Walt Disney World or Disneyland. But it is different enough to warrant a visit (in addition to being 35 minutes from Paris).
Keep in mind that even some rides that aren’t completely unique are still noteworthy. The Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Paris is regarded as one of the best. Their Pirates of the Caribbean is our favorite of the three versions of that ride.
What does it cost to visit Disneyland Paris?
We have a full post breaking down the cost of Disneyland Paris. On the lower end, depending on family size and exactly how much you’re willing to compromise, it comes to $4000 to $8000, but there’s one big caveat.
As we mention elsewhere, if you’re coming from the US (like most of our audience), you probably don’t want to go all the way to Paris just for Disneyland Paris. You’ll spend some extra time in Paris and maybe some other parts of Europe. Of course we think at least one Europe trip in your lifetime is worth it, and we think Disneyland Paris is a worthy part of any such trip (we are, after all, fans of Disney parks here).
When To Visit Disneyland Paris
In choosing when to visit Disneyland Paris, you’ll likely want to balance crowds, events, prices, and weather. Let’s first talk about some upcoming changes to the resort.
2024 (and beyond) Changes at Disneyland Paris
Disney recently added an Avengers Campus to Walt Disney Studios Park. The land includes two rides. Avengers Assemble: Flight Force is a re-theme of Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster. Spider-Man W.E.B. Adventures is a target-shooting game nearly identical to the ride in Disney California Adventure.
We don’t consider this land a good to rush to Disneyland Paris, but there is one more big change on the horizon—Arendelle. Despite everything that’s happened the last few years, that land is still being built. No opening date has been announced, but we’d expect 2025.
Personally, I’d be waiting for the new Frozen land to open before making my next visit (if visiting regularly weren’t a part of my job). Disney also previously announced a version of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge would be coming to Walt Disney Studios Park. That has since been cut, meaning it’s unlikely the resort will see massive work anytime soon after the Frozen land.
Disneyland Paris Crowd Calendars & Peak Pricing
We don’t think you need to choose when to visit Disneyland Paris based on crowd levels. You’ll be able to see everything in 2 to 3 days regardless of crowd level (we provide our park itineraries below). The resort also uses a park reservation system now, which should keep crowds from getting too out of control.
One Disneyland Paris crowd calendar to consider is over at Queue Times. You can also look at ticket prices (peak pricing typically means worse crowds) as a guide. But if there was any impact crowd predictions would have on my planning, it’s that in peak times I might add a single night to my stay. Planning dates for a trip to Europe around any attempt to predict Disneyland Paris crowds seems a bit risky (things like flight prices are likely much more important).
The resort is frequented by visitors from all over Europe, and their holiday timings will vary. It’s also a local park for Paris, which means crowds will vary with the weather.
If you’re an American, you’re probably best to visit during holiday weekends other than Christmas and New Years. Labor Day and July Fourth aren’t celebrated in Paris, so crowd levels shouldn’t be too outsized.
Events at Disneyland Paris
Disneyland Paris celebrates Halloween (approximately in October) and Christmas (approximately in November and December).
Disneyland Paris also has other events throughout the year that you may want to consider visiting. Historically, these included things like Disney FanDaze, Pride, and Season of the Force: Star Wars in Disneyland Paris.
Weather at Disneyland Paris
Paris experiences four seasons according to roughly the same pattern and schedule as most of the United States, though snow is not especially common in the winter. A few rides may close due to snow, ice, and freezing on some days in the winter. For this reason, you may wish to avoid December through February.
How Many Days to Visit Disneyland Paris
Disneyland Paris, including both parks and the hotels, can be seen in two days. We recommend two nights and three days for fans to fully experience Disneyland Paris. Three full days (i.e. three nights and a late departure or four nights) is ideal but maybe not worth the extra cost if you’re at a pricey hotel.
The basic thing to know is that Disneyland Park requires at least one full day, and Walt Disney Studios Park requires at least half a day. To do all the rides at Walt Disney Studios Park, you’ll probably need a full day (depending on park hours, you might have time left over for Disneyland Park, too, though).
Here’s a sample two-night, three-day itinerary:
Day 1 - Arrive, check-in, visit Disneyland Park
Day 2 - Visit Walt Disney Studios Park in the morning, either park in the afternoon
Day 3 - Visit Disneyland Park, depart late to Paris or CDG airport
If you only had one night and two days, we’d suggest:
Day 1 - Arrive & Disneyland Park
Day 2 - Morning at Walt Disney Studios Park, afternoon at Disneyland Park
Getting To Disneyland Paris
For outside Europe, and from many locations within Europe, your best option for getting to Disneyland Paris is to fly. The resort is conveniently located coming from CDG airport (10 min) and from central Paris (35 min). We’ll discuss those trips after we talk about flights…
Booking Your Flights to Disneyland Paris
Wherever you’re coming from, step one is to make sure you satisfy the visa requirements for visiting.
Several major airports in the United States fly non-stop overnight to Paris’s CDG airport. From Chicago O’Hare, the flight time is just over 8 hours, with a typical flight departing at 5PM and arriving at 8AM.
In the reverse direction, flights tend to leave mid-day and arrive mid-day (due to the time change). Given this, our go-to strategy for longer Europe visits is to put Disneyland Paris at the end of our trip and spend the night before our flight home at an airport hotel.
Round-trip flights to Paris can sometimes be found in the sub-$500 range, but these will often have connections. Nonstop flights tend to price between $500 and $1000. Unless you have other significant international travel planned, you might also try to fly to Disneyland Paris using points.
You’ll have plenty of business class / lie flat options, too. Most recently, I flew in JetBlue’s Mint suite from JFK. Roundtrip in this class was $2100.
Taking the Train to Disneyland Paris (from Paris or CDG Airport)
If you’re coming from CDG airport, we have a post on taking the TGV train from CDG to Disneyland Paris. That post also covers the longer (but sometimes preferable) option of taking the RER trains between CDG and Disneyland Paris.
If you’re coming from Paris, we have a post on taking the RER A train from Paris to Disneyland Paris. The 40-ish minute journey drops you right outside the parks.
Starting or Ending Your Disneyland Paris Trip With An Airport Hotel
Because Disneyland Paris is close to Paris’s CDG airport, and both are a bit far from Paris's city center, you’ll probably want to time Disneyland Paris to be the start or end of your trip to Paris (usually dependent on flight times). You’re also going to want to consider staying at an airport hotel, like we mentioned above.
Disneyland Paris hotels can be quite expensive. It won’t make sense to stay at one of them just to wake up early and head to the airport. Likewise, you don’t need to go to Disneyland Paris as soon as your flight arrives if you won’t have time for the parks. We’ve stayed at the ibis CDG, Novotel, and Sheraton and we found them all satisfactory.
Booking Your Disneyland Paris Stay
We have a full post on booking your Disneyland Paris stay, but it’s honestly too unwieldy to keep updated these days. The basics are:
Booking a package through Disney may or may not be cheaper than booking your hotel and tickets separately through Disney or through third parties
Plan to do the parks one more day than your nights at the hotel (and see the airport hotel discussion, above)
This all just gets messy. For my most recent trip, for example, I wanted to stay two nights (three days) with one night at Disneyland Hotel and one night at Hotel New York. The cheapest option was to book two separate packages, each with 2-day tickets. That’s right—it didn’t make sense to book just the hotels with a separate three-day ticket. I thank my travel advisor, Lauren Quirk of Travel with Character, for finding that solution.
Picking Your Disneyland Paris Hotel (or Airbnb!)
Two Disney hotels, Davy Crockett Ranch and Village Nature Paris, are off-site. We’re not going to cover those at all, sorry. So our options come down to:
On-site Disney hotels
Off-site hotels and Airbnb
As for onsite hotels, there are basically three categories:
Disneyland Hotel is at the entrance to Disneyland Park and is the flagship hotel of the resort
The Lac Buena Vista Hotels, Disney’s Sequoia Lodge, Disney’s Newport Bay Club, and Disney’s Hotel New York - Art of Marvel, are the mid-tier hotels, about 7 to 15 minutes walking from the parks
Disney’s Hotel Cheyenne and Hotel Santa Fe are the lowest-priced Disney options, about 15 to 20 minutes walking from the parks
We’ve reviewed the hotels we’ve stayed at:
Review of Disney’s Hotel New York - Art of Marvel (Coming Soon!)
If you don’t mind walking, I think Hotel Cheyenne is a great option to save a little money and get all the Disney perks. I also loved my stay at Hotel New York, though, and it will save you some transit time. Disneyland Hotel is probably a good “bucket list” item, but I’m not rushing back to it in general.
A few of the Disneyland Paris hotels have club level. While we’ve reviewed Club Level at Walt Disney World plenty, we’ve never had the chance to do a club stay in Paris. Here’s a review of the Empire State Club from Work Play Mommy.
Disneyland Paris is also well-positioned for an off-site hotel or Airbnb stay. In that post, we discuss how easy it is to get from the Val d’Europe train station and surrounding area to Disneyland Paris. We paired an airbnb stay with one night at Disneyland Hotel and had a fantastic trip. This is a good way to save money on your visit to Disneyland Paris.
Buying Your Tickets + Making Your Reservations
If you don’t book a package that includes tickets, you have a few options. First, you can simply acquire them at the gate. Second, you can buy in advance online at the Disneyland Paris website. The experts over at Disney Tourist Blog has a few other tips about tickets. Deeply discounted tickets are hard to come by.
One thing to note is that if you’re visiting for multiple days then you’ll want to consider getting an annual pass for Disneyland Paris. If you can fit two trips into a year, an annual pass will almost certainly pay for itself.
Finally, Disneyland Paris has added a reservation system on top of their ticketed system. There are two types of tickets—dated and undated. Dated tickets are good for specific dates and don’t require a separate reservation (and are thus the simplest way to go). Undated tickets require you to use the reservation system to book the dates of your visit after you’ve purchased the tickets.
Planning Your Park Days at Disneyland Paris
Disneyland Paris only takes a small bit of preparation. (Note: Updates to our Disneyland Paris content are in progress and some of the links here are still slightly out of date. We hope to have the updates done shortly.)
Our Disneyland Paris Rides / Attractions Guide is a list of all the rides and attractions at Disneyland Park. Use this guide to get acquainted with the rides and to figure out which ones you definitely have to try and which ones you want to skip. We also have a guide to the rides at Walt Disney Studios Park.
Our one-day Disneyland Paris itinerary covers most of the major attractions in that park. Our Walt Disney Studios Park plan covers the visiting that park in well less than a day.
If you’re staying at a Disney hotel (or have certain annual passes), you have access to Extra Magic Hour / Extra Magic Time—a bonus hour in the parks at the beginning of the day.
If you’re willing to spend a little money to skip the line, read our Guide to Disney Premier Access at Disneyland Paris. This skip-the-line system covers over a dozen rides and can greatly simplify your touring strategy, allowing you to get the most out of your time at the resort.
Food & Drink at Disneyland Paris
Disneyland Paris's food is mostly known for one thing: not being very good. While there are a few notable dining experiences, there aren’t world class restaurants like you find in Walt Disney World.
Disneyland Paris has around 75 dining options, ranging from snack stands to table service restaurants. There are around 31 options at Disneyland Park and 12 at Walt Disney Studios Park, with the rest outside the parks at Disney Village and the hotels.
Most of those are quick service or snack stands, but around 30 are table service and around 20 take reservations. You can view the full dining lineup on the official website here.
Before we get to some notable restaurants, here are some things to know about dining at Disneyland Paris. First, quick service lines get very long around lunch (12PM to 2PM) and dinner (6PM to 8PM).
This is a notorious problem at Disneyland Paris. We have waited 30+ minutes sometimes. We now always eat lunch at Disneyland Paris before noon. Some of the quick service restaurants have mobile order (called “Click & Collect”), which you’ll want to consider if you have to eat during peak times.
Second, you’re expected to order a combo (called a “menu”), but a la carte is usually available. To order a la carte, just say “no menu” or “a la carte [item].”
Third, tip is usually not included at Disneyland Paris. We haven't eaten at every restaurant, so we can't be sure whether any of them include tip.
Tipping is not customary in France, but a 10-15% service charge is often included. We typically tip to 10-15% when service is not included. Note that you typically cannot tip on a credit card.
Now, here are some notable Disneyland Paris restaurants, along with links to reviews:
Walt’s - An American Restaurant - This is the premier restaurant at Disneyland Paris. The review we linked to is by Tom Bricker, brilliant Disney and food mind. Tom says Walt's is even better than Club 33. We haven't dined there, but it's high on our list. Reservations recommended.
Agrabah Cafe - We were happy to get to try Agrabah Cafe on our most recent visit and really enjoyed it. The design inside is quite good and very similar to Epcot's Morocco Pavilion. The food likely here won't blow you away, but it is a different style of cuisine than you'll find in most of the resort. Reservations recommended.
Captain Jack’s - Fine restaurant, but you're really there for the fun of sitting next to Pirates of the Caribbean. Ride-side restaurants are a novelty we never get bored of. We ate here and very much enjoyed it. We will probably return. Reservations recommended.
Bistrot Chez Remy - Bistrot Chez Remy is easily the best restaurant over at Walt Disney Studios park. As one of the newest restaurants in Disneyland Paris, it also has some of the best design and theming.
As for bars, Disneyland Paris has plenty of those, too. They’re even pretty decent. We’re mostly fans of the hotel bars, and we've written a guide to the hotel bars of Disneyland Paris, included how to crawl them.
Language, Money, and Culture
Every international Disney destination has its quirks. Don’t fall victim to culture shock! Read our guide to Language, Money, and Culture at Disneyland Paris.
Visiting Paris as Part of Your Disneyland Paris Trip
We won’t tell you how long to visit Paris, because no matter what we say many people will say it’s too long and many will say it’s too short. Even the two of us are split on the issue. Our sister site has a Guide to Visiting Paris with Kids.
What you should know is that combining Paris with Disneyland Paris is very easy because of Disneyland Paris’s proximity to Marne-la-Vallée—Chessy train station. It's only a 45-minute ride into Paris. We have a post on visiting the Eiffel Tower (and central Paris) from Disneyland Paris.
Disneyland Paris requires two days to experience, and we think the hotels are worth experiencing. So we suggest at least one night on Disney property, but we also recommend visiting Paris as well.
