Tag: disney tips

New Year’s Eve Magic at Disneyland Paris

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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!

Christmastime at Disneyland Paris

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Last July, I received a text from my cousin: “So Paris. When?” Within about 3 hours, we’d booked Disneyland Paris for a few days after Christmas, including New Year’s Eve (thank goodness for book now, pay later). It was undoubtedly the most magical way to spend New Year’s Eve, full of classic Disney moments and surprises.

This will be quite a photo heavy post, as I just have so many to share. The Disney Parks at Christmastime are just the most photogenic! I’ll write about New Year’s Eve below but I’ll also be working on a post about my top tips for NYE at Disneyland Paris, so let me know in the comments if you have any specific questions!

Looking back at these pictures almost a year on makes my heart melt. I’m so grateful we got to go before the chaos that has been 2020. We stayed at the Dream Castle Hotel, just a short free shuttle ride to the parks. Our room for the 3 of us was huge, and included a great view and hearty breakfast (much-needed for those long Disney days). We also took advantage of the relaxing spa and pool to rest our feet!

The daily Disney Stars on Parade

We stayed from the 28th December until 1st January with a 3-day ticket to both parks, Disneyland Park and Walt Disney Studios Park, as well as our separate New Year’s Eve ticket. The first couple of days we used to ride as many of the rides as possible, buy all the Christmas decorations we could fit in our bags, and eat many Mickey shaped treats. The Disney Stars parade and night time spectacular, Disney Illuminations, were as joyful as ever!

We also visited the Disneyland Hotel, which you can enter even if you’re not a guest. At Christmastime they have an incredible Gingerbread House and Christmas tree display, which is perfect for photos. The smell is just so nostalgic and Christmassy, I can’t recommend taking some time in your schedule to visit the hotel enough!

There were 2 parades on New Year’s Eve. The first was the Disney New Year’s Eve Parade at 8.30pm, with some special character appearances as well as the usual daily Stars on Parade crew! The second was the Countdown to Fun Street Party at 10.30pm, with tons of characters in their special cars, including the Incredibles and Mushu (two of my highlights)! Most of the rides had really short queues (they lead all non-NYE ticket holders out around 6pm), and there are also smaller special events on throughout the park including free face painting, shows with the Princesses and Mickey and the gang, and meet and greets (the queues for these were gigantic).

Of course, the fireworks at the countdown to midnight were beautiful. They lasted for about 10 minutes, and focused on 2019 releases such as Aladdin, Star Wars and Marvel’s Avengers, as well as some old favourites, with a big finale. Afrojack came out afterwards to DJ until 2am! The rides (except for Fantasyland) were also open until this time, and with the younger kids heading home by then, the rides were practically all walk-on.

Some quick iPhone snaps of the fireworks and Afrojack DJ set – I was too excited!

I’d highly recommend Disneyland Paris for New Year’s Eve – there’s nothing quite like a bit of Disney magic at any time of the year, but especially Christmastime. Look out for my top tips for New Year’s Eve at the Disneyland Park, coming soon, and comment below if you have any questions!

My top tips for Walt Disney World

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A trip to Disney is a pretty big holiday to plan. So much goes into it – where to stay, where to eat, fast passes, restaurant bookings, using the app, and so much more. With four theme parks and two water parks, you want to make sure you plan your time well so you get the most out of your trip.

On our two week trip last year we visited all of the Disney parks as well as the two Universal parks; Universal and Islands of Adventure. Our plan made sure we visited every place we wanted to, as well as having a few rest days to enjoy the Florida sun (and fit in a skydive)! Don’t think that all this planning ruins the trip, it ensures you use your time effectively and it makes you more excited for Disney!

I’m writing this post to hopefully help other visitors, first-time or not, get the most out of their Disney experience. However, I’m no expert and there are so many in-depth guides out there, which I’ll be linking to! You can check out more of my highlights on my previous post.

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Booking your tickets
We used Attractions Tickets Direct for our Disney tickets. It’s nice to book with a trusted company, as they can help you if anything goes wrong. It also means your tickets usually have a special added extra – we had tickets to the Cirque de Soleil show at Disney Springs! Our two-week tickets got us into all of the Disney parks as well as the 3 Universal parks, and included the My Memory Maker for Disney (usually an extra 169USD).

My Disney Experience 
The app is a dream (screenshot above). With your advance tickets, you can book your fast passes, character meetings and restaurants, see live queue times, save all of your Memory Maker photos and more. All of the parks have free WiFi to use the app. Add your ticket code to it and invite the rest of your party so you can coordinate your days. There’s a great guide here with a lot more information.

Pick your top rides
If you’ve visited Disney before, you know your favourite places. The first thing each of us did was write a list of our top rides or locations so nobody missed out on their favourites.

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Get guided
Lots of guide books and online sources share the best days for each of the parks. We used the Brit Guide Orlando 2017, and we found that it was right the majority of the time. Magic Kingdom on a Monday meant we got 13 rides in one day! Which leads me onto my next point…

FastPass + time
FastPass + is when you book an hour time slot for your favourite or most popular rides on the My Disney Experience app. You can choose your FastPass+ ride selection up to 30 days before your first day, and if you’re in a Disney hotel, it’s 60 days. As soon as that date hits you want to be on the app booking them, especially newer rides such as Avatar’s Flight of Passage! You get 3 FastPasses a day and once you’ve used them up you can hop on the app and book more as you go.

Eat, love, Disney
As well as booking your FastPasses, you can also make your dining reservations for the parks on My Disney Experience up to 180 days in advance. The restaurant bookings are insane. When I tell you that I was booking some of our dinners almost 6 months in advance and evenings were fully booked, I’m not exaggerating!

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Be camera ready
For those of you with Memory Maker, take advantage of it! There are so many photographers around to get great pictures of you, and it means nobody is left out as the cameraman. From views of the castle to character meetings to rides, there are so many photo-ops. Just scan your ticket or MagicBand and the pictures save to your app where you can easily download them to your phone. There’s an in-depth guide on MickeyBlog.com.

Getting around
 We used our rental cars to get to and from the parks as we stayed very close in the Windsor Hills Resort, but there are plenty of hotels and resorts that have shuttle buses to get you to Walt Disney World. There are also plenty of shuttle buses to get around the various parks and resorts. The parking is $20 a day, even if you leave and come back.

The countdown is on!
Get an app, a little whiteboard, use your calendar – anything to get excited for visiting the happiest place in the world!