Disneyland Paris, or DLP as I will refer to it from here on out, may not be a bargain as an add on for a day or two to a European vacation, but longer trips, especially with an annual pass can be a great deal for those of us living more locally. The top tier, Dream, annual pass costs 223€ for a full year of park admission with no black out dates, free parking (nothing to sneeze at, given that it is normally 15€ per day), 10% off at on all on site dining (sit down, buffets and counter service), 20% off in the shops, hotel deals, etc.
For a week's stay that brings the park entrance down to 31€ a day, plus all of those other benefits--so if you are someone who can happily play in 2 Disney Parks for days on end (or if we lived really local and just wanted to go on the weekend once a month or so) it is a fabulous deal.
Being the Disney fiends we are, and having so much vacation time to use (yay Germany!) we are not limiting ourselves to just the one trip either. Rio, David and I will be back for a second full week next week, ending on Easter---and we have a long weekend booked in May as well. We are going to squeeze a lot of value out of the passes!
Better yet, DLP has a "pass sponsorship" program in which current passholders can "sponsor" others when they get their first passes. The new passholders get a 10% discount, and the current passholder gets an extra 6 months added to their pass if they sponsor 3 people in 6 months. We found someone via a DLP forum who was going to be at the parks the day we arrived and wanted to sponsor people, which saved us an additional 100€ for our family of four and got the man who met us an extra 6 months on his pass, and his son 1/3 of the way to an extra 6 months as well. The savings was absolutely worth the "hassle" of communicating online and planning when to meet at the annual pass center during the day (you buy a one day park ticket in the morning, go into the parks and then have to go to the AP center to exchange it for a pass--and pay the difference, so you can still tour until time to meet up).
The whole process was very smooth and easy, even on a very crowded day--which the days leading up to Christmas, predictably, were. We arrived on the 20th to relatively heavy crowds and wait times of about 45 minutes to an hour for most rides, most of the day, the crowds ramped up more on the 21st and 22nd (though that day we went at "rope drop" and could loop through virtually every thrill ride in both parks in the first 2 hours before lines began to build----not counting Crush's Coaster, which always seems to have a huge line--more on that in a later post though). The morning of the 23rd was also insanely busy.
We got these photos on the morning of the 23rd, when crowd levels were the highest we had seen; we waited 90 minutes for it---but EVERYTHING had a wait that long or more, so we figured we might as well go for a photo op we cannot normally get:
We headed off site for lunch after that photo was taken, and went back a few hours later to a rapidly emptying park--by dinner time we could walk on to virtually anything with no wait at all. Christmas Eve proved to be one of the quietest park days we have ever had at any Disney park--we had the places practically to ourselves--heavenly. We rode lots of rides:
Christmas Day was slightly more crowded but still very low level crowds overall and after that the crowds remained just medium through the end of our week long trip.
We only decided we wanted to eat in the parks for Christmas Day about 5 days before and had no problems at all getting a reservation for a Christmas Day buffet that late in the game---amazing when compared to dining at Walt Disney World in Florida! We even saw walk ups accommodated with a 30 minute wait. Overall the food situation was vastly improved from our past trips---more places were open and serving through the day and the quality has gone up a bit (it is still crazy given the prices, but not nearly so bad as before, and you can actually GET food at more normal times and without insane waits to do so--we hope this trend continues.
One thing I was surprised by was that only Main Street, the Castle Area and the main entry area at The Studios was decorated for the holidays---the other lands had no indication at all that it was any particular season.
I did take several photos of the decor, and of the holiday parade (a short parade which ran four times per day), but am currently having trouble accessing them---I hope to make a second post soon--which will be nearly all photos of the holiday theming. Otherwise, this being some of the minimal time I had with Marika now that she is off attending school in the US, I did not spend a lot of time taking photos--we will be back next week and I plan to take many more general park photos then and write more specifically about the parks, ride, shows, etc., after. We will also be staying onsite next time, at the Hotel Santa Fe---where the AP discount resulted in a room for three with breakfast for 80€ a night--really a great price for anything near Paris or DLP Easter week. So, there will be a post on the hotel as well.
In the mean time, the summary from this post could be:
1. If you plan to spend 4 or more days at DLP in a full year then an AP is a great deal. Here is a link to more information:
http://www.dlpguide.com/planning/booking/annual-passports/
2. The AP is an even better deal if you have a sponsor. This can be found on online forums (or message me, if we will be there when you will we would love to sponsor you--it is a win-win situation)
3. Unlike in the US parks, while the days leading up to Christmas are PEAK crowds, Christmas Eve and Day are very quiet and nice in the parks and the days following that are moderate crowd levels.
4. The dining situation is improving.
--Hadley
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