Disneyland Paris 2021

Hi all - I did search and while there are a few older threads, the only Disneyland Paris thread for all of 2020 is @sanstitre_has_left_the_building’s awesome trip report. I was hoping to get some additional advice. My boys are 2 and 5 and are WDW veterans, but I have limited exposure to DLP. I’ve received a bunch of help on chat, but it’s a less than ideal format for trip planning so I’d love to engage over here on the forum as well.

We are tentatively planning a long trip to France in August of this year. My mother in law in Germany is turning 70 and we have not seen her since 2018. She is renting a house in Macon, France for all of her children and we are going to stay there for the last week in August. I plan to fly into Paris and stay there for 5 nights, followed by 3 nights in DLP (Wed-Sat). Then we will take the train to Macon. I’m very much booking everything in a refundable manner because obviously I still have no idea if we’ll be able to get into the EU in August, but I would like to at least dream while I stare at my 2 feet of snow outside!

Right now I’m trying to decide where to stay! My kids do love Toy Story so I think we would be happy with Hotel Cheyenne, but I only recently realized there is no pool. Disneyland Hotel and Sequoia Lodge are both closed in August so not only are those off the table, but I think they are driving up the price at Newport Bay so I should probably book quickly.

I’m looking at the Villages Nature as well. The suite style rooms there seem better suited for us, but the package only includes 2 park days versus 4 park days. I know most people say I don’t need 4 days but I was thinking that 3-4 partial days would be better? Especially with the 2 hour early entry.

I’ve read every DLP article on DisneyTouristBlog but other than that there aren’t a ton of resources and he doesn’t cover the Villages Nature. Any other thoughts/suggestions/advice? The great news is that after visiting WDW the DLP prices seem downright cheap!

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I’m curious and want to follow…but I’m gonna wait for Disneyland Hotel to open because I really really want the park view room with the back entrance into the park. It’s on my bucket list. The Villages Nature area looked really neat too and I wouldn’t mind splitting a stay. Question: could you add days to the 2 day ticket that comes with Villages Nature?

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TheDibb is a great forum for DLP

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So I did take a look at the Dibb and they definitely have a ton of DLP info. It’s a little hard because DLP is currently closed so I had to go back to 2019 entries believe it or not. I think I’m now leaning against Villages Nature because evidently it isn’t a Disney hotel at all. And we will be staying in a house/apartment at other times so we don’t really need the kitchen for only 3 nights.

Side note re: the Dibb: now I know how the Brits on this board must feel because so many of the posts felt slightly irrelevant and hard to understand because everyone is taking the Eurostar or booking through MagicBreaks with half/full board, etc. And I have to remember to pronounce DM as dear Mum in my head! :rofl:

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I bought the really old Unofficial Guide to DLP and a couple of British Guides as well. The Unofficial one is out of date on a lot of things of course and the British ones aren’t very in depth. Come on Brits, I want details. ;-). I did find some online site with more up to date information last winter but now like you said that info is from 2019. But now our 2020 Paris trip got cancelled and Norwegian cancelled their long haul flights which provided cheap nonstop from Austin, TX to De Gaulle I’m now thinking of going to Tokyo first and waiting for all this Frozen land and is it a Ironman rollercoaster replacing RnR to get done? I am trying to collect the world of Disney parks on my bucket list. And I did know Villages wasn’t Disney but it does look neat. But now my kids will probably be grown, as they are both teens, by the time I get to Paris I might spend the rest of my time doing more adult Paris things including lots of wine and cheese and bread and pastries. I mean lots. Those are some of my favorite things and the food at DLP isn’t supposed to be good according to the web and guides. The restaurants look so well themed though I’ll have to try em all for that. Have you looked into that yet. The Aladdin one and I think it’s in Adventureland and sometimes has Lion King characters one look really well themed. The Remy one too in the Studios park. And they have a pirates one like DLR.

Maybe I will try and older Unofficial Guide! That’s a good idea. I really like Tom Bricker’s perspective of a WDW veteran to put the DLP parks in perspective. Now if only he had little kids.

Tokyo sound amazing and I wouldn’t hesitate to go there. We will definitely go when my kids are old enough to do the real long haul flights. I am VERY much looking forward to cheese and wine and bread in France. In fact that is pretty much my entire plan for the week following our DLP adventure. Leave the kids with my MIL and bike my way around a bunch of vineyards!

Great suggestion to look at the restaurants. I have hesitated to really start trip planning since there is still a somewhat decent chance that none of this will happen, but I bet I could just start choosing restaurants!

Yeah a lot of the stuff in the old Unofficial Guide does still apply. Many of the rides are the same. It wasn’t bad to read. I think it was that book that talked about really enjoying what they did well in DLP. It has those artistic magical touches like Cali like the dragon under the castle and the Agrabah marketplace and the submarine that aren’t ride but walk thrus. Hotel wise if I wasn’t going to stay in Disneyland Hotel I would choose the Marvel one they redid since it’s newly refurbished if it’s open. You didn’t mention that one in your list of closures but I’m not sure it ever opened after the pandemic.

Hey! If you’re fairly rigid with when your trip has to be due to school holiday dates (the later you can possible push back the better, with both Covid and then European school holidays if things are more ‘normal’) then you may as well book your refundable stay at Newport now. BUT, as France begins to plan for relaxing its pandemic restrictions, I think DLP will be able to plan for bigger capacity this summer. That means more hotels will open, and you’ll get a better rate staying at the nicer DLP Hotel or maybe even the new Marvel hotel, if it opens anytime soon. I think currently DLP will be hesitant to open up too many offers, as they just won’t know what the summer holds yet. So no harm in booking your refundable package, but just keep checking back as I bet new offers and more hotel choices will become available over the next few months. Let us know if you book, as we’d love to give a few dining recommendations and general thoughts - DLP is great, but very different from WDW.

I’m going to post this for genuinely helpful reasons, even though it may come across as a doom and gloom post.

The reality is things are not going well over here and even more so in the EU. The vaccine programme in the EU right now isn’t going well, mainly because of a supply problem.

The U.K. hope to have all 50+ vaccinated (with their first shot) by early May. It’s unlikely that all adults will be vaccinated until late Summer. And this is with 15m people already vaccinated, out of something like 68m. That’s if supplies hold up.

France therefore, like much of the EU, are likely to be behind that. I don’t see travel to the EU being allowed in the summer.

That’s not to say cancel plans now. But bear it in mind when planning. DLP were really good last year with cancelled trips, so there’s no harm in booking as long as things are refundable. Be careful of flights though, not sure what US airlines were like at refunds but over here they mainly only offered vouchers and things are still being fought over now for cancelled trips in 2021. You could have a nail-biting wait and a last minute decision on flights, as in a week or two ahead, if you need the airline to cancel for insurance reasons.

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Six months on (really? six? wow) my thoughts about DLP are these.

DLP’s version of MK is — with one notable exception — outstandingly good and pretty much better than WDW’s.

The exception is DLP’s version of Space Mountain. When DLP first opened it, it was awesome: really creative and interesting as fun. Then — for no adequately explained reason — they ruined it by retheming it as some Star Wars nonsense. The new version is shaming and embarrassing to Disney. Whoever approved it should not just be fired but jailed, too.

That monstrosity aside, DLP’s BTMRR, HM, POTC and IASW are all clearly better than WDW’s. Main Street was not the disappointment (because it’s smaller) that I thought it would be. Nor was the Castle — it’s smaller, but it has a dragon inside.

The food was fine. Not awful. Not obviously worse than WDW so far as I could tell.

DLP’s version of HS was, well, pretty rubbish. But that’s because it’s undergoing a major transformation. It will be awesome when it’s finished, but right now you can do it in a morning. Crush’s Coaster is fun, though seems slightly tacky to me (it’s a rollercoaster in a warehouse) but Ratatouille was great — especially the part where you can tell WDW bores that you’ve ridden it and how sad that they haven’t.

All Disney-owned property has the advantage of being walkable from the hotel. It’s expensive (duh) but the theming is all good and the whole thing is very attractive. I would stay on property again, if only for the early entry. There’s a very good range of options (when they’re all open) for all budgets (from “rich” to “extremely rich”).

Anyone who goes to DLP and doesn’t visit actual Paris is moron and has no more right to live on God’s clean Earth than a weasel. It’s a stunningly beautiful city that will keep you busy for days.

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This made me laugh! Thanks.

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Thank you for the honest response. I do appreciate it. It’s very helpful to have a European perspective. I will admit to not following the UK and EU as closely as I do the US. I feel like we’ve been trending in the right direction and usually just assume that you all are doing better than us! All of the news over here is of the UK’s new required paid quarantines. I really, really hope that vaccination pace is able to pick up for you all!

I do think one of the reasons that I’m trying to focus on DLP is that it is all refundable and changeable. We also booked our villa in Paris through the new Marriott “homes and villas” service that is basically airBnB but with the Marriott brand and cancellation policies behind it. We can get a full refund until 2-weeks prior to check-in.

We have just started to look at flights mostly to get an idea of budget and flight times, both of which are less than ideal at the moment! I agree that this is the least likely area for a refund so we’re definitely being cautious. One thing that we’ve considered is looking at the few airlines that are offering free changes and then if we aren’t able to go to France this year we would just change to Scotland for 2022. But not everyone goes BOS-EDI… lots of tabs on my spreadsheet! :slight_smile:

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Do you happen to know when these are this year? I feel like they are mentioned a lot but I haven’t had much luck in finding specific dates. Our dates are locked in because my MIL has booked the house but I just am curious to know if we will be going smack in the middle of the school holidays or if they will be over. We are going 8/25-8/28, so at least during the week.

I think that the Disneyland hotel is definitely closed for renovations for a couple of years, but it is possible for the Mavel hotel to open. Part of me just cringes to go to France and stay in a hotel themed to New York or New England, two of the places that I literally spend most of my time in real life. :crazy_face:

I will absolutely be back for dining recommendations!

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I very much appreciate your perspective as someone who has been to both quite a bit!

I am honestly curious if I do end up going in August if we will ride before it opens in Florida. I think it’s pretty likely.

Pinky swear that I have 5 nights (actually 6 because we would land in the AM) booked in Paris blocks from the Louvre. I feel like Paris has a reputation of being less than kid friendly and then I started researching and evidently there are playgrounds and parks on every corner. So my children will be in Heaven and there is a chance I will be able to see the D’Orsay Museum alone. And all 4 of us could subsist on chocolate croissants.

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We were going to stay blocks from d’orsay too last sept. :-(. We had rented an apartment. My kiddos are teens so I’d have definitely done museums without them but I wanted to check out the light museum atelier-Lumieres. I thought they might like that. And the catacombes for mine since they’re of that age where spooky is fun and at night I was going to leave them home and see some live jazz. This is making me depressed remembering all my hard work and plans down the drain. Lol. And the big one will be 17 this summer and a senior so I’m losing time to do the family stuff.

Edit: check out the www.atelier-Lumieres.com. It looks kid friendly

Summer holidays will run for most of July and all of August. Kids go back early September. Going late in August is probably better - plus more time for rules to relax.

The DLP hotel shouldn’t be closed for a couple of years - we have a reservation for December!! Unless they haven’t told us yet…

I may be optimistic, but I do think things will start to get a fair bit better in Europe from summertime. SO fingers crossed you’ll be alright.

Thank you for the optimism!

So I guess it is just a rumor that the DLP hotel will be closed for years, but this is the language on the site:

Our Hotels are reopening in phases, beginning with the Disney’s Newport Bay Club and Disney’s Hotel Santa Fe on 2 April 2021, Disney’s Hotel Cheyenne and Disney’s Davy Crockett Ranch on 1 July 2021, Disney’s Sequoia Lodge on 23 October 2021. The Disneyland Hotel will remain closed until further notice.

This is from Tom Bricker: The Disneyland Hotel will remain closed until further notice, with a rumored top to bottom refurbishment in its future that will keep it closed several years.

That looks awesome!

Can’t talk about this. Booked a killer rate for my birthday in April. Would never normally be able / willing to afford it. Cancelled, obviously.

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Please go visit and let me know how it is in person! :wink: You can get in much before I can. But yes I agree…living, breathing famous paintings blown up all around you. Even the kiddos have to like that.

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Have you been to the Salvador Dali museum in st Pete ? It’s an hour from WDW

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