Total disaster of a visit to Disney Paris.
Did not stay onsite, so not able to take advantage of the 2 hour Early Entry --- based on what I experienced, this would be a huge benefit to have.
First mistake -- not realizing that the parks open 30 minutes earlier than their posted opening time. Given my experience in FLA, I guess I should have realized this might be the case. Since we arrived well after others, we were immediately hit with long wait times.
Disneyland had the 2 hour EE, so we went to Hollywood Studios and right to Ratatouille and a 35 minute wait (not a bad ride, but somewhat outdated compared to new virtual reality rides at Universal). After that ride, basically every ride in the park had a ridiculously long wait time so we decided to grab something to eat at Planet Hollywood and then hit the main Park.
Unfortunately, the main park was still insanely busy and by the time we got in all of the Fast Passes for the entire day were gone. Oh, and Space Mountain and Pirates were closed for refurb, which made every other ride's line even longer.
We basically gave up trying to go on any of the remaining big rides and hit It's a Small World -- which had a 40 minute wait. After doing that and waiting another 45 minutes for an absolutely horrible Pinocchio ride we gave up and went back to the resort pool.
We knew that these parks would not be even close to the level of Orlando, but we were still disappointed even with low expectations. Besides the overcrowded situation (we went on a Monday, so not even the weekend), the amount of smoking everywhere in the park was annoying beyond belief. It seems that even though there are specific smoking areas, no one honors that and there is zero enforcement.
We were also disappointed in the low number of stores and poor selections in the stores that were there -- both in the parks and in the Village area.
The only good thing is we got the tickets for relatively cheap ($50 a person for the 1 day/ 2 park ticket).
We can say we visited the park -- but I can guarantee you we will never visit it again.
For anyone planning to go -- set your expectations really low and if at all possible stay onsite so you can get the EE access.
Did not stay onsite, so not able to take advantage of the 2 hour Early Entry --- based on what I experienced, this would be a huge benefit to have.
First mistake -- not realizing that the parks open 30 minutes earlier than their posted opening time. Given my experience in FLA, I guess I should have realized this might be the case. Since we arrived well after others, we were immediately hit with long wait times.
Disneyland had the 2 hour EE, so we went to Hollywood Studios and right to Ratatouille and a 35 minute wait (not a bad ride, but somewhat outdated compared to new virtual reality rides at Universal). After that ride, basically every ride in the park had a ridiculously long wait time so we decided to grab something to eat at Planet Hollywood and then hit the main Park.
Unfortunately, the main park was still insanely busy and by the time we got in all of the Fast Passes for the entire day were gone. Oh, and Space Mountain and Pirates were closed for refurb, which made every other ride's line even longer.
We basically gave up trying to go on any of the remaining big rides and hit It's a Small World -- which had a 40 minute wait. After doing that and waiting another 45 minutes for an absolutely horrible Pinocchio ride we gave up and went back to the resort pool.
We knew that these parks would not be even close to the level of Orlando, but we were still disappointed even with low expectations. Besides the overcrowded situation (we went on a Monday, so not even the weekend), the amount of smoking everywhere in the park was annoying beyond belief. It seems that even though there are specific smoking areas, no one honors that and there is zero enforcement.
We were also disappointed in the low number of stores and poor selections in the stores that were there -- both in the parks and in the Village area.
The only good thing is we got the tickets for relatively cheap ($50 a person for the 1 day/ 2 park ticket).
We can say we visited the park -- but I can guarantee you we will never visit it again.
For anyone planning to go -- set your expectations really low and if at all possible stay onsite so you can get the EE access.
