Spending New Year’s Eve at Disneyland Paris was pretty special, as you can imagine. It was such a different experience for the occasion, with so many memorable things to do. I was ecstatic before I even walked into the park (photo evidence below)!

In this post I’ll share some of my top tips for making the most out of the evening. I’m sure there are many more guides out there, but this is just some of my advice from my trip in 2019. Undoubtedly there will be changes for the next few years but hopefully this helps you plan a little better! You can visit my previous blog post here for more on a trip to Disneyland Paris in December.

Getting in
The New Year’s Eve tickets don’t let you in officially until 5pm. We had a big lunch at a restaurant in nearby Montévrain so we didn’t have to worry about finding dinner later. You can book a special New Year’s Eve dinner at one of the restaurants in Disneyland Paris, but they are pretty expensive. The Christmas market in Disney Village is also worth a wander if you have some spare time!

Whilst the tickets said 5pm, we got in around 4.30pm and the queue was quite big in front of us, so you could potentially get in a while ahead of the stated time.

Quick plan stop
As you arrive, cast members give out guides to the evening with all of the timings. Check what time the smaller shows and activities are on, and plan around the two parades and midnight fireworks. Grab any fast passes you want for the big rides, and make sure they fit your schedule so you don’t miss anything! We swapped some of our fast pass tickets with another group once we realised they clashed with one of the parades. Disneyland Park was open until 2am, excluding Fantasyland, which shut earlier prepare for the fireworks.

When we went, the parades were around 8.30pm and 10.30pm. Unfortunately we didn’t have a great view of one of the parades as people start getting their spots from very early, but it was so fun all the same.

Activities
Some of the aforementioned activities you could check out include free face painting, smaller shows like The Royal Sparkling Winter Waltz with the Disney princesses, and a festive sing-along with Mickey, Minnie and Goofy. There are also many character meets with lesser-spotted Disney characters, but these queues can become huge so make sure you factor that in when deciding what to do.

Getting around
Around 5-6pm, the cast members start setting up barriers around the lands to stop non-NYE ticket holders from sticking around. They draw everyone towards Main Street U.S.A. to watch the Illuminations fireworks. It wasn’t very clear at first to us NYE first-timers, but if you showed your wrist band to the cast members monitoring these barriers, you were allowed through to continue going on the rides.

They put the wait times of the rides up to 100 minutes to dissuade non-NYE guests on queueing, but once again if you show your wristband they’ll let you know the real time, which was usually 5 minutes or less! We went on Big Thunder Mountain as Illuminations was going on, and the view was spectacular!

Have you been to Disneyland Paris at New Year’s Eve? Let me know if you have any tips or questions in the comments!