Disneyland Park, Paris Review

Overall Rating

It's Disney and generally an enjoyable experience.

Disney Express. Book into a Disney hotel and when you arrive in France you can pass your bags in at the Express desk. They will take your bags direct to your hotel whilst you go around Disney.

My daughter loved the Disney character breakfasts at Cafe Mickey, where we ate most mornings (albeit due to the problems of getting a table for breakfast at our hotel: the Sequoia Lodge). Not the cheapest place for breakfast but it was fun and, unlike the Sequoia Lodge we could at least get a table.

We ate in the Disney parks or Disney village quite a few times. The food was pretty good and generally quite a bit better than you'd find in USA.

We were booked for bed & breakfast at the Sequoia Lodge. However getting breakfast there was an ordeal.

When we arrived at the Sequoia Lodge we were told we had to book our slot for breakfast and, as all the good half hour slots had already gone we had a choice of 7:30 or 10am. We had never experienced such a practice let alone at a Disney Hotel but, somewhat perplexed, we duly turned up for breakfast the next day at 10am to see an enormous queue. We walked straight up to a waitress to be asked to join the back of the queue of people who had also got a booking for the same time slot! The queue was like that every day and as a result we didn't eat there for breakfast (except the day of our departure when, because of all the packing we were able to pop in for breakfast by chance at 11am). I can confirm the food is fine; it's just getting it that's nigh on impossible.

In retrospect we saw the same strengths and weaknesses throughout all the restaurants/ eateries in the Disney Parks and Village. The food was good but the queue management to be served the food was particularly poor. Getting a cup of coffee at the wrong time could require 20 minutes queuing at a fast food service station.

My wife and I have been to Disney World Florida a few times. This was our first visit to Disneyland Paris and our two-year old daughter's first Disney experience anywhere. We stayed at the Sequoia Lodge and had a good room with a balcony. The hotel was fine, not great but certainly pretty good with the exception of breakfast. The food was fine, the hard bit was getting in.

I love Disney and am naturally biased. Disneyland Paris is quite a bit smaller than the equivalent parks in Florida but it looks very similar and in many ways feels similar. The food is generally better but the one down side is the customer service which is generally worse (the prices aren't great either).

Overall we had a good holiday. We would be prepared to stay again at Disneyland Paris but just for one night. Next time we want to stay for longer than a single night at a Disney resort we'll be going to the USA.