Disney Magic
- Bec Luck-Baker
- Feb 29, 2024
- 5 min read
This trip was a very long time coming. We tried to book Disney days before Lockdown and I am so glad we didn't as Jax was far too young, he literally wouldn't have cared and we wouldn't have been able to go on any of the rides, so I am glad we swerved it then.
Instead we saved and booked to take Jax for his 6th Birthday as a surprise (we went in the Easter Half Term 2023) and it was brilliant. Instead of the ferry we got the Euro Tunnel it was more expensive than the ferry but it only took 35 minutes to get to Calais from Folkestone which was so much better than the ferry crossing. Once in Calais we got on the Toll road and headed towards Paris. I had booked us a night at a campsite called Capfun Le Village Parisien. This was a great campsite much like our one in Montpellier the year before - it had everything great swimming pools, water slides, club house etc. We wanted somewhere like this for the night so we could chill before a heavy few days in the park so we popped to Lidl to do some food shopping and then hit the pools for a couple hours.
The next morning we headed to the Disney Park. You can take your van and camp actually at Disney, it is VERY basic, literally just a carpark and nothing else. There was meant to be toilets and showers but they were no where to be seen, I think they had been knocked down so if you are taking your van you need to make sure you take a toilet tent with you otherwise its around a 1km walk to entrance of the park to go to the toilet (we didn't have a toilet tent, we will next time).
We had 2 incredible days in the park, lots of walking, lots of magic, lots of fun and lots of incredible rides. Jax hated every ride we went on pretty much, but he tried them all and we were so proud of him for trying every single one of them and he wants to go back so can't have hated them that much.
Disney Top Tips
Disney is a great place, it is busy yes, VERY busy, but I wouldn't expect it to be quiet. But you can plan your trip with our help so here are our Top Tips
Download the Disney App - do this in advance and make sure you take some time to look at the map. There are 2 parks at Disney, you can go between the 2 as often as you like, however, you won't want to spend all day doing this as you will lose so much time.
Plan your day - do this as best as you can. The app tells you how long the ride queue times are - figure out which rides have the longest time throughout the day (usually Crush's Coaster and Spider-Man WEB Adventure) so if these are 2 rides you want to go on you will either want to hit them early like first thing or late last thing. Everything else has a relatively quick queue time
Don't bother paying to secure your seats for shows - we did this for The Lion King and honestly it wasn't worth it. We were recommended to book them before we went so we did but other than allowing us to queue in a different place to everyone else we weren't better off for paying. You just have to turn up earlier to make sure you get in on that showing
Take your lunch in with you. Bags are not checked for food and drink so you are better off taking your food and drink into the park for the day and if you're hungry then either getting snacks or eating at Colonel Hathi's Outpost as you can get a Pizza (in the shape of Mickey Mouse), a side and a drink for €16 or Lasagne, a side and drink for €15. Beers are extra at €7.50 a pint, but overall that place is pretty good value for money. I would also assume that you won't be going back to the van (if you are staying your van) - we thought we would go back for dinner, but honestly by the time we would have left the park, walked the 1km back to the van, cooked dinner, walked the 1km back to the park we would have lost 2-3 hours and it really wasn't worth losing that time for us.
If you are taking little legs with you probably 7 and under we would 100% recommend taking some kind of pushchair with you. We haven't had Jax in a buggy for a long time, he is a brilliant walker and rarely complains but 2 days walking 20km a day is A LOT for the little legs. Disney do rental pushchairs which I believe is €20 a day. We were lucky enough to find one abandoned outside the park on the way back to the van park so we took it with us and saved ourselves €20. We had no issues getting it in the park the next day (despite the little tag on the buggy not having our details on, no one is checking). Jax was very grateful to have a buggy on our second day, he even slept in it which was awesome as he really needed it.
If you are coming by Camper Van, Disney have a carpark (as explained above) where you can spend the night there in your van - it isn't cheap at €40 a night for basically just a parking space - when you enter Disney you tell them you want to stay in the camper van park and they will charge your for ONE NIGHT ONLY. You are then expected to figure out where you pay for additional nights, however, this is not policed so if you are like us and live life on the edge and want to risk it, I wouldn't bother paying for a second night. €40 to park your van in a carpark is ludicrous especially as there are no toilets and no showers and no other basic facilities either. We didn't bother paying for our 2nd night and nothing came of it. No one flagged us or stopped us when we left (no one is monitoring vans leaving)
Character Meet and Greets - be ready for looooong lines for the big characters. We only managed to see Goofy, Woody and Jafar - Woody was by far the longest wait which was around 1.5 hours but Jax thought it was worth it. If you do want to meet the Characters have a look at the app as that will tell you where they will be and when and you can try and plan around this.
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