We decided to treat my daughter, Violet, to a special day at Disneyland Paris for her 9th birthday. I’d previously taken my older daughter on a similar day trip in January, and what you do for one, you have to do for all! Come with us and see our one day itinerary for Disneyland Paris.
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In January, we took the first flight out of Manchester and the last flight back. It was a wonderful experience, but since we live two hours away from Manchester Airport, we had to stay the night before in Manchester.
This time, we opted for a different approach. We took a late afternoon flight on Friday, planning to spend the night near Disneyland Paris instead.
It was working out the same cost as 1 night in a Travelodge in Manchester, so made no difference to the overall cost.
This way, we could start our day fresh and early and avoid the risk of losing time in the parks, in the eventuality of a flight delay.
We found great flights out of Manchester for just £33 each return. From landing in Paris, to arriving at the park gates, it took only 2 hours and 10 minutes! Security at Charles De Gaulle was quick, the flight lasted just over an hour, and we managed to catch the TGV train with minimal waiting.
The high-speed train took us directly from Charles de Gaulle Airport to Marne-la-Vallée station in only 9 minutes. We booked the train tickets on our way to the station using the Trainline app, paying £28.91 for one adult and one child.
I'd recommend only purchasing your ticket when you are nearly at the train station. It's quite a walk from some terminals and of course, you don't know exactly when you will land and be through security. TGV tickets can only be used on that specific train and are non-refundable.
Taxi's are around €60 and private transfers from €75- both taking around 1 hour to reach Disneyland Paris.
The TGV therefore, was both much faster and cheaper.
Marne-la-Vallée station is located right next to Disneyland Paris park gates.
Our flight left Manchester at 3 pm, and by 6:10 pm (adjusting for the 1 hour time difference), we were at the Disneyland Paris gates. If we had known we’d arrive that early, we might have bought a 2-day park pass. But since the parks closed at 8 pm that night, we decided against it as we would have been cutting it fine.
Instead, we explored Disney Village and used the time we had to visit some of the shops. We had a meal at Five Guys, which cost €23.25 for the two of us. I always recommend Five Guys as it's a very similar price point to quick service restaurants inside the parks, however, it feels much better quality.
After dinner, we took a taxi to our hotel, the Best Western, just a 12-minute ride from the parks.
Now a word of warning. You will struggle to get a taxi from outside the parks 1 hour, either side of the parks closing time. We tried numerous times to get an Uber but they kept cancelling the bookings as they couldn't meet demand.
There are taxi's outside Disney, however, they all wanted €35 for journeys which should cost around €8-€12 and would only accept cash- that tells you everything you need to know! Disneyland Paris and the train station really should be clamping down as I think 80% weren't even real taxis.
We usually stay at the Adagio in Val d’Europe or the Explorers Hotel, but these were both £150 for the night we wanted. The Best Western was only £66 and as we'd barely be there, it seemed a better option.
It turned out to be an excellent choice, with a spacious room featuring a double bed and bunk beds. The rooms were clean and hotel looked like it has recently been refurbished or was new.
We had a very comfortable nights stay and would highly recommend this option. Although, it may be better suited to those visiting with a car, as there is no shuttle bus to the parks.
For disclosure, we were gifted the park tickets by Get Your Guide, which made our Christmas day trip to Disneyland Paris truly special.
After booking we received the tickets instantly and were able to add them to our Disneyland Paris app, allowing us to easily scan in and out of the parks and monitor ride wait times all at once. Alternatively, you can keep just scan the tickets from your Get Your Guide account.
if you're considering doing Disneyland Paris in a day or even Disneyland Paris in one day at Christmas, Get Your Guide offers a wide range of ticket options, from 1-day, 1-park passes to multi-day tickets- as well as the Magic Shuttle bus tickets, private transfers, and various other activities in Paris.
The tickets for a 1 day/2 park entry for 1 adult and 1 child on the date we visited would have cost £185.08. Prices vary depending on the date booked, but start at £46pp.
The next morning, we enjoyed breakfast at the hotel for €25. We would have normally just ate at the parks, but my daughter was so excited for the day ahead, that we were up at 4am and therefore really hungry by around 7am.
The buffet had plenty to offer, including pastries, pancakes, toast, cereals, cheese, meats, and even hot options like sausage, bacon, and scrambled eggs. It was more than enough to fuel us for the day and meant we could hit the ground running once we got to parks.
We checked out and ordered an Uber from the hotel lobby, which arrived immediately, taking us back to Disneyland Paris in 12 minutes for €15.35.
We went through bag check at 8:55 am and were at the Disneyland Park entrance for 9am.
The park opening was at 9.30am, so we had a little wait, but they opened the park for normal ticket holders at 9.20am which was great.
The park opens for Disneyland hotel guests and annual pass holders at 8.30am, so whilst we were waiting I was able to check some of the ride times for the ones that were already operating.
We headed straight to Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast, which had only a 10-minute wait. This was Violet's one must-do ride, and frequently the wait for it, is around 1 hour so we wanted to get it completed whilst it was quiet.
Tip: Make sure to download the Disneyland Paris app before your visit—it’s a lifesaver for checking wait times and planning your route.
After Buzz, we then headed up to Fantasyland where all the ride times were currently showing as 5-10 minutes.
We managed to do Dumbo The Flying Elephant, It's a Small World, Mad Hatter's Tea Cups and Le Carrousel de Lancelot all by 10.40am. After a quick stop at the toilets and to refill our water bottles, we hopped on Casey Junior, the last ride we wanted to do in Fantasyland, which opened at 11am.
We then spent some time at the castle, visiting the dragon beneath it (a hidden gem!) and snapping photos. Violet wanted to shop for Star Wars merchandise, so we made our way to Discoveryland to the Star Traders shop to find her some Grogu goodies using her birthday money.
By 11:40 am, we decided to switch over to Walt Disney Studios Park. The food stalls outside the Ratatouille ride looked tempting and we were peckish by then, so we grabbed two Nutella crepes for €10. The Ratatouille ride had a long wait time, so we chose to do the single rider option, getting on in just 10 minutes.
The Studios Park felt much more crowded than the main park, probably due to construction work going on and many areas being unavailable.
We still managed to enjoy several rides with short wait times. We went on Cars Road Trip, Cars Quatre Roues Rallye, Slinky Dog Zigzag Spin, and the Parachute Drop, which we lucky to walk straight onto just as it reopened after a technical issue.
After ticking off everything we wanted to do in the Studios Park, we decided to head back to Disneyland Park around 2 pm. We skipped the shows this time in the Studios, as we’ve seen them before and they’re better suited for younger kids or Marvel fans (which Violet isn’t).
With the sun shining, we took more photo of all the beautiful Christmas decorations lining Main Street and the incredible huge Christmas tree.
We treated ourselves to ice cream and a Mickey beignet for €9- we weren't hungry but who can resist the snacks at Disneyland Paris though?!
We then decided we needed actually eat something savoury, so we stopped at Casa de Coco in Frontierland- a Mexican style restaurant based on the 'Coco' movie. Violet just wanted some of the zig zag fries, while I enjoyed a delicious beef burrito, one of the best things I’ve ever eaten at Disneyland Paris. The total bill with a large soft drink came to €16.89.
We decided to try the Premier Access service for Big Thunder Mountain (basically the new fast pass system at Disneyland Paris). It cost €16 each, but it was totally worth it-especially as it was Violet’s first roller coaster! We were on the ride in under 5 minutes.
By 4:30 pm, we made our way back to Main Street to secure a spot for the parade. Even 40 minutes early, Main Street was packed with guests. The parade started at 5:20 pm and reached where we stood by 5:40 pm.
Watching the magical floats with snow falling was a truly enchanting experience and one I'll never forget- just so magical.
After a bit of last-minute shopping on Main Street, we slowly made our way to the train station around 6:20 pm. We had pre-booked our TGV tickets back to the airport for 6:50 pm. The flight departed on time and we were tucked up in bed at 12.30am.
The whole day was filled with magical moments, and it was the perfect way to celebrate Violet’s birthday. With a bit of careful planning, we made the most out of our short but sweet trip to Disneyland Paris.
Our aim with the day trips is never to do it all. There was a couple of Christmas shows we would have liked to have seen, but with it being a Saturday, crowd numbers were high and seats for shows were gone 1 hour before. We didn't feel the wait was worth it, with only having a day in the parks. We chose to include our favourite rides, see the parade and eat some Disney snacks and we completed everything we set out to do.
Of course, we also didn't get to see the fireworks but in all our trips, we seen them around 20 times at least, so it wasn't a great forfeit.
If you're thinking of planning a Disneyland Paris day trip from the UK and wondering, “Is it worth going to Disneyland Paris for one day?”, the answer is definitely yes!
You won't get everything done in a day and to be honest this is our 16th visit and each time we tick off a new ride or attraction that we haven't done before. Pick out your favourite rides and make a plan to visit those first before the park gets busy. After 5pm ride wait times also decrease. We managed to include both Disneyland Park and Disney Studio's, but you could choose to just focus on the one. Make full use of the Disneyland Paris app to see ride times before making your next move and be flexible.
For those curious, we spent £33pp for the flights, £34pp for the hotel, then £30pp for the TGV high-speed train to/from CDG airport. Tickets for the date we visited would have been £92 each so a total of £189pp- this would have been cheaper if we'd opted for just a 1 park ticket instead of 2 and not visited on a weekend.
Disneyland Paris tickets are usually cheapest between January to March and you'll often find fewer visitors in the parks then too.
If you live near an airport, you can also eliminate the cost of the hotel too and go there and back in a day like we did in January.
Despite it being a weekend and Christmas season we were really pleased in what we managed to do in just one day at Disneyland Paris.
We rode 12 rides- Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast, Small World, Mad Hatters Tea Cups, Dumbo the Flying Elephant, Casey Junior, The Carousel, Ratoutille, Parachute Drop, Slinky Dog, Cars Road Trip, Cars Quatre Rallye and Thunder Mountain.
We also did a few walk through attractions, stopped for food three times, visited a few shops and took time out to enjoy the decorations then the main parade. If we'd have skipped the parade, we probably could have managed at least another 5 rides.
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