Disneyland Paris 2019

So with 2 weeks to go (yey!) I thought I would start to document our up coming trip.

We will be visiting DLP for 4 nights over the April bank holiday weekend which I know is an absolutely crazy idea but we have a lot going on this year with our Halloween/Christmas Disney trip and our house move that I'm fast running out of holidays at work and so I have had to make the most of the free days off work.

We will be travelling by train from the North East UK to London Kings Cross Station on the Thursday morning and then on to St Pancras where we will no doubt skip across the platform with our Mickey cases to the Euro Star bound for Disneyland Paris (Marne La Vallee/Chessy). We will be stopping at Lille Europe on the way. We will set off from our local station at 9am and should arrive in Disney around 6pm local time so it will be a very long trip. I'm hoping with a bag full of snacks, books, tablets and a large amount of excitement the time will go by quicker.

I have selected table seats on both the train and the Eurostar so we can spread out and get comfy and the girls will have room for their things. I am only planning on taking one case between 2 of us so I'm not loaded down with luggage as we always end up overpacking and I become a grumpy pack horse on our journey for no reason what so ever!

We will be staying at Hotel Santa Fe in a standard Cars room this trip. We've never stayed here before so it's pretty exciting as the theming looks amazing from the posts I've seen on Instagram and from lots of googling. If any of you have any tips or advice for staying here please let me know in the comments below or DM me as I could honestly take any help given to make sure our holiday is as amazing as possible.

We booked this trip direct with DLP as a package and the travel independently so it probably wasn't as cheap as it could have been if we'd have booked tickets and accommodation separately but I've only ever booked through travel agents so that world is all new to me and i'm not quite ready to brave it yet. Maybe after a few trips when I know where everything is in relation to the parks I might give it a whirl.

As part of the package (tickets and accommodation) we were offered "free" standard half board dining which I believe includes a breakfast buffet at the hotel and 1 meal (lunch or dinner) per person for each night of our stay. I've read that we will receive vouchers when we check into the hotel for our meals and so it is completely different to the magic band in WDW! I will have to remember to take them with me each day to the parks which I can't promise will happen! I'm sure there will be at least one trip back to our room to retrieve said vouchers during the time we are there haha.

DLP does offer different meal plans on their website. They offer Breakfast only, Half board and full board and so you can chose what is best for you and your family. Details of each can be found at http://www.disneyholidays.co.uk/disneyland-paris/planning-holiday/meal-plans/

There are also different types for each tier, i.e. standard, Plus and Premium which then offer different levels of restaurants you can eat in for your plan. Please read up on them before you choose if you are thinking about adding a dining plan to your reservation as the standard half board for example will likely not offer dining in the same restaurants to those on the Plus or Premium half board. As ours is the standard it appears to be the equivalent of the quick serve dining plan at WDW so no need to book anything in advance (as far as i'm aware).

We didn't upgrade our "free" plan as we also have a few character meals booked in too and so between these and the half board I'm more than sure we will be in food comas on the train home!

So this trip is a girls only holiday. When my hubby said last year that he was thinking of a trip with the lads this year I jumped at the chance to take Miss Em to "Little Disney" as she always says she can't remember going when she was younger and it's only fair that I get to go away if he's going away with his friends right?. My mum and niece are coming along with us to so it is a full on girls rule trip!

All of the food has been arranged as part of our booking and we aren't going offsite this trip (we normally go into Paris when we visit DLP) so the plan is to spend the entire trip just enjoying our happy place and making the most of everything that is included in the ticket price. I'm seriously looking forward to seeing the parades and to look upon that gorgeous castle again!

Our plan whilst we are there is to get in as many character meets as we possibly can during our meal times so we can make the most of park time by going on as many rides as possible, watching shows and taking lots and lots of photos!! This is because I know it's going to be crazy busy with the school holidays and it being a weekend and I'm HOPING cutting out those queues will give us more time to queue for other things.

We are there Easter weekend and so I have seen on the DLP site that there will be an Easter egg hunt at the Disney Village. Us taking part in this will be completely down to how busy it is. Luckily this is a "go with the flow" holiday so we can just decide when we are there.

We will also be there for Marvel Season. I love the Marvel movies and I'm really looking forward to seeing how DLP is decorated and I'm hoping there will be some super hero themed snacks for us to try but personally I would have rather have gone during the Lion King Season or Pirates and Princesses but i'm sure seeing Thor and Captain America will help make up for it haha. Hopefully they will bring those back another year and we can visit them too.

I'm not planning on buying too much merch this trip (famous last words!) as I'd like to save pennies for our WDW but I am wanting to pick up a new Tradition as that has now become my Disney park tradition (see what I did there? haha .. sorry lol)

I am really tempted to buy the Cinderella popcorn bucket as it looks amazing but I keep asking myself why I need so many popcorn buckets so i'm not too sure yet. The struggle is real!

Hopefully I will win that lottery before we go so I can buy all the merch!