First of all, I know this isn’t WDW! But it also isn’t Disneyland, nor is it “non Disney parks”, so I put it here because I feel like this is where the most people are, and I’ve seen DLP reports in this forum.
So with that caveat, some questions! I’m planning a trip for next year, looking at early May (specifically the first week of May, after May 5 because that seems to be when the school vacations are over). I don’t know where to start! For one thing, it seems like I can’t even book anything yet - on the DLP website it’s only showing through March. Is it kind of a general thing that it becomes available for booking 10 months in advance? Or should I look elsewhere?
Secondly, it doesn’t seem like I can book a hotel and park tickets separately? I’m not sure I want, like, a 3 nights/four park days situation since we’ll be coming from Paris and I’m not sure we’ll want to be up and out early enough to make a park day worth it on arrival day.
And also, how many days do I want? For context, we’ll be traveling with our two boys, ages 8 and 10, and it will be on the tail end of a roughly two week trip that will likely be a week in England with family, a few days in Paris, and then DLP. I’m thinking we’ll arrive in Paris on May 3 (Friday), stay until the 7th (Tuesday), and then travel to DLP for - three nights/three park days? Is that enough/too much?
And finally, talk to me about hotels! The Marvel hotel looks fantastic but I’m not sure it looks fantastic enough to justify the cost, at least through the DLP website.
Thank you in advance for any advice/guidance/words of wisdom you can send me!
Last year they opened bookings in september 2022 for march 2023 - march 2024. I’m not sure if this is the new normal or not. I believe nothing has been announced yet for april 2024 →
Hotel reservations automatically come with tickets at the moment. We left one day unused when we were this april. I suppose they only want park visitors in the hotels… But if you were to book seperately, I doubt it would make much of a difference price wise, or could even be more expensive.
We did only arrival day (around 11am) + 1 day and that felt a bit short, though we did see most things we wanted at both parks. 3 park days would be ideal imo - one day at each park and then do whatever you have left or feel like on the 3rd.
One downside or thing to note about visiting during the summer time is that any night time shows will be on very late, 10-11pm. I was a bit bummed there was nothing at 8-9 to see.
We really liked the Marvel hotel! It’s not as themed as many WDW resorts, the general decor is more generic, but on the other hand they have a ton of displays and artwork all over the place.
The quality and level of service is better than deluxe resorts at WDW. Food is better, they have room service and their club level has proper concierge and amenities. The location is good for walking to the parks.
I don’t have personal experience of the other hotels. Location wise the main hotel is obviously right at the park and I think they will finish the refurbishment later this year? Of course that means it’ll be heavily booked and the most expensive option.
A random tip for arrival: if you arrive by train earlier than you’re checking in, I found the luggage service useful as you can leave your bags at the train station and head straight into the parks
My trip to France, which includes DLP, isn’t until this November. We are very busy planning the Paris days right now!
I used a travel agent to book the DLP portion. It didn’t cost me anything to use the travel agent. We are staying at Newport Beach Club. We are staying 3 nights and have 4 days of park ticket. Yes, the website makes you buy one more day of park ticket than hotel nights on the website. My travel agent priced it out for 3 nights and 2 park days (tickets separate from the hotel) but there wasn’t a substantial price difference. At the end, we chose the 4-day ticket to give us a late afternoon and evening on arrival day and a morning on departure day. This isn’t our normal travel style but it’s a splurge! It was very challenging to find a travel agent for DLP. But I’m thankful for her. She’s keeping tabs on price drops and sending me notices on new things (i.e. Together, a Pixar Musical Adventure, will be debuting on July 15th). Let me know if you want the name of the travel agent.
I would have loved a night at the DL Hotel but it will still be under renovations.
We haven’t done too much work on DLP because we are working on Paris portion of the trip. We did get a lunch reservation for Walt in March, shortly after we paid the deposit for the trip. For onsite guests, we supposedly can make ADRs a year in advance. But there was nothing for Captain Jack nor Remy. I stalked the app. Just this weekend, I picked up lunch ADRs for both. I’m still stalking to move them to dinner reservations.
I find the DLP website and app unfriendly. I was looking for show times so I could figure out when I should make ADRs. The website refers to the app for that information and then I had to figure out where that information is located on the app! I have stopped complaining about WDW’s website and app!
I got some very helpful information from their TRs as I was trying to set mines up. I had many questions, which they helped me with! They are also good with gripe sessions!
Nope, we stayed at Hotel Cheyenne. We wanted to stay at Newport Bay or Sequoia (not Marvel fans), but they were only available 2 of 3 nights and we didn’t want to move. We loved Cheyenne. It’s not like a WDW value being far away from the parks. We took the super convenient shuttle and it was so fast. Walking would have been fast too. I have no regrets about choosing this hotel (I thought I would because I really wanted to be on the lake).
Booking a package always takes includes tickets for both check-in and check-out day. (Even when booking a flight inclusive one that has us landing at CDG at 22:40 ).
You can book a hotel and tickets separately but you then have to book the parks too.
There are also a lot of hotels offsite, some close by and others just one stop away on the RER at Val d’Europe, including apartment hotels.
So if I book the hotel separately on hotels.com or whatever and then buy park tickets I have to book park days, WDW reservation-style, but if I book a package through DLP then I can just do what I want?
I stayed offsite and purchased tickets separately. They have open date tickets (more expensive and need to get an APR) or date based tickets (cheaper and no APR).
My boys were 3 and 6 when we went in 2020 and we stayed at Hotel Cheyenne. I would definitely recommend it as it was very well priced and so easy to walk to the parks! But if the Marvel hotel is within your budget then that is definitely a step above and has a pool if that’s something you are interested in.
We did the 3 nights and got 4 park days but also only used 3. I do not believe it is cheaper to book separately but that may have changed. I would price it out. I think that 2.5 days was really good for us. Think about the things you need/want to rope drop. Park hopping is SO easy as they are so close so you could definitely do both parks each day.
This all being said I’m not sure I would sacrifice time in Paris for more time in DLP so if you do only have a couple days in Paris then maybe I would reduce to only 2 days at DLP.
It isn’t my first visit to Paris but it will be for my kids - something to think about. But I want to do Disney!
Also very interested in Paris recommendations, which I know is straying dangerously from the Disney of this board, but still, it’s been a decade since I was there.
You are lucky that there have been a bunch of DLP trips recently! I felt like I was stumbling around in the dark before we went. My trip is old news now at 3 years ago. I think there have been 4-5 trip reports here in the last 3 months.
For Paris: Hands down Luxembourg Gardens sailboats and their Ludo Playground was our #1! My kids still talk about the Louvre.
Somehow I missed updates to this thread… any ways:
Aside from the obvious destinations (I suppose every kid needs to see the tower once), I really liked strolling the parks with kids: Jardin du Luxembourg and Parc de Buttes-Chaumont, Jardin de Tuileries. All of those have something special and different and worth a visit.
I haven’t gone, but I’d love to see the Natural History Museum and the zoo attached to Jardin de Plantes.
I have stopped complaining about WDW’s website and app!
