Whether you’re a couple, a young family, friends or a solo traveller – let’s face it, Disneyland Paris doesn’t always seem the cheapest holiday option out there. But with some nifty deal finding and sneaky hints & tips, you can indeed save money on your trip to the French theme park and give the big mouse a hug. Here’s how to plan a budget holiday to Disneyland Paris!
A trip to Disneyland isn’t complete unless you’ve got the Mickey or Minnie ears am I right. Instead of paying sky high prices when you’re in the parks why not purchase them before you go? for example, you can get these sparkly pair of mouse ears here for under £3? If you’re lucky enough to be taken on a hen do to Disneyland Paris (which I wish I was!) you can get these fun, disney inspired sashes to celebrate too! And, if you want to keep the little ones happy, that’ll keep all their bits & pieces safe, you can grab these cute backpacks which will cost a lot less than the ones in the parks! If you think smart you can save a heck of a lot of money.
When I was younger, my Mum used to work for Disney which meant we’d get incredible deals to Disney. Then I worked in travel so I could still get good discounts. But, fast forward a few years later and sadly I don’t have those luxuries of work-based discounts. Instead when we have travelled to Disneyland Paris we’ve stayed at on-site, non-Disney hotels which work out cheaper than the main Disney hotels. For 1 night at the Kyriad Hotel it has cost around 90 euros which is an absolute bargain compared to staying at say the Santa Fé or Cheyenne which would be the star rating equivalent. The beauty of them being on-site means they also have shuttle buses that run to & from the parks from early in the morning till late at night so you can still catch the fireworks and parades. By stay at a non-Disney hotel, not only do you save but you get the best of both worlds for the fraction of the price!
Disney is an expensive place, and yes you can do it on a budget, but if you want to you can easily make a day trip of it and not a full-blown weekend away. Paris has literally thousands of budget hotels, so grab some flights to Paris, book a budget hotel in the city centre and then take the train to Disneyland. Train tickets are about 10 euros, and in the grand scheme of things it’s much cheaper to do that than spend an evening eating in one of the restaurants on site and then staying in one of their expensive hotels! It also means you get to do a bit of Parisian sightseeing too. Ooh la la!
As part of our French adventure we saw a lot of different French airports. We actually flew in to Charles de Gaulle, but flew out of Paris Orly, so by mixing it up you might get better deals. Paris Orly is about an hour away from Disneyland so I recommend booking a taxi to beat the traffic or you can book a Disneyland Paris coach to the airports. As there were 4 of us, it worked out a similar price to take a taxi rather than the coach and we got a luxury Mercedes-Benz people carrier so it was really spacious, our hotel organised it for us and it cost around 70 euros.
If you are lucky enough to be able to afford the Disney Hotels then I would definitely recommend booking the Dining Plans when these are on offer. Depending on which package you choose you will get a slightly different options included, but it’s worth it’s weight in gold when you know your food and snacks are taken care of. You can choose to do half board or full board options, which can all be found here.
Ever since I worked in travel I have always been a currency card convert! It’s easier and cheaper way to carry “cash”, otherwise you get done over by the rate when using a credit card. The beauty of the currency card is you can load it with exactly how many euro’s you need and you won’t get charged for using it on PDQ machines in the shops or restaurants. There’s a small fee to withdraw from ATM’s, however this is always a set fee so I would recommend getting out more than just little bits here and there to save on that. If you use your credit card you don’t know what rate you will be charged and there’s always a small fee for converting it, plus there’s always a chance your bank can cancel your card if they feel it’s suspicious activity abroad! We got ours from FairFX and seems to be one of the better cards for rates and features.
Nothing beats a Casey’s Hot Dog on Main street USA! Eating at the fast food joints makes it much cheaper and, allows you way more time to explore the parks if you only have a short amount of time at Disneyland!
If you are looking at saving costs with your trip, why not check out what deals there are by going on a Coach Break. The beauty of choosing this method of transport is that you hardly have to lift a finger! You’re dropped off at your hotel, you don’t have to worry about security at the airport and it is usually a lot cheaper! We did one many moons ago and it was pretty much stress-free. Why not check out National Holidays for their latest deals!
You can save massively both on time and on money by purchasing your tickets online before you travel. They are cheaper than buying at the turnstiles and the queues are generally a lot quicker because tickets are printable at home and are scanned really quick at the theme park gates. I would recommend buying the 2 park hopper tickets as well, for the small price difference it means you can hop between both parks and this comes in really handy if you are only there for the day!
This is probably more applicable to those who are taking young families, but take re-usable drinks bottles and fill up at the water stations around the park – this will keep costs down on expensive drinks around the park. But remember you can’t take your own drinks / food in to the park, so be sure to eat your pack-up at the picnic tables before you go in to the park!
This might be an obvious one, but seriously, if you want the whole Disney Experience shebang, make sure you check the dates on the Disney website – these will be indicated with green, orange and red depending on if it’s low, mid or high season! This is probably easier to do when you don’t have children and don’t need to stick to school holidays.
If you don’t mind the early start, and the late arrival home, you can most definitely do Disneyland as a day trip from London. You will often find that the Eurostar website have flash sales from time to time, so that means you can save on hotel costs! Whilst it will be a very long day, it is very do-able to get there and back in a day from London.
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