Disneyland Paris for teenagers?
19 February 2008
This half term we all set off for Disneyland in Paris. Our boys are now 13 and 11 and I did wonder if the park might be a little young for them. The answer in short was no. They had no interest in the various characters that are scattered around the park and in the hotels. Nor were they interested in the Disney parades, which for the littlies are truly magical. However, they enjoyed the more grown up rides, such as Thunder Mountain and especially the Aerosmith ride! The stunt car show was also a fabulous experience that we all enjoyed. Jim and I tried two rides; the more sedate Buzz Lightyear ride where you shoot various targets and the Space Odyssey ride, which we foolishly thought wouldn’t be too ‘thrilling’ as this was Disney after-all! We were wrong and both sat frozen with our eyes tightly shut until the ‘experience’ was over. The boys loved it, but roller-coasters are not for me anymore! Don’t be fooled in to thinking that every ride is tame. I saw lots of very little children going on these rides. I can’t imagine how they coped, but maybe that’s because at my age I can’t enjoy the feeling of being thrown around and racing down steep declines on such rides.
There’s more than enough for everyone though. Having taken the boys when they were 2 and 4 I can say that the enjoyed the park just as much then. Of course on that first visit the Walt Disney Studio park was not open and I had heard that this park wasn’t worth visiting in comparison to the main Disney park. I have to disagree. The Aerosmith ride was located here, the car stunt show too; our favourite bits. I can see that for tiny children there is less to do, but mostly because the park is smaller. However, characters were still around with smaller queues.
We stayed at the new York Hotel and chose the half board option. This gave us vouchers for evening meals, which we could use in some restaurants. In fact we ate in the hotel each night. The food wasn’t anything special, but was filling and tasty and in the form of a buffet where you really could eat as much as you liked. Breakfast was the same. We had enormous breakfasts and didn’t eat for the rest of the day! The hotel had an ice rink outside, which was just over 10 Euro to hire the skates. I quickly learned that skating was not my thing, but the boys enjoyed it!
The downside was that everything we had to pay for was expensive; 7.50 Euro for a beer in the bar for example! It was cheaper to buy a beer at the Eiffel Tower! Don’t plan to visit Disney on any kind of budget. Although we ate at the hotel we still had to buy drinks and even water was almost 3 Euro. Having said that the hotel and parks are spotlessly clean, the staff are all smiling and accommodating and everyone we came across was having a fabulous time.
As part of our deal we had 3 nights at the hotel, which gave us 4 day’s passes for the parks. We actually spent one whole day there and part of our last day. We took the train to Paris; the RER station is at the entrance to Disneyland, which is a few minutes walk from the New York Hotel. Paris was certainly beautiful on the spring day that we visited giving us fantastic views from the top of the Eiffel Tower.
All in all we enjoyed the few days away. The flights (we booked our own) were on time, the car we hired was up graded to a new Alfa 159, which made Jim’s day as he loves his Alfa’s. The boys were able to go on rides, go skating and fall in to bed exhausted each night. However, I think that’s the last opportunity for taking the boys ; I think it would be pushing it to return in a couple of years with a 15 year old and 13 year old.
Save your pennies and be prepared to spend and enjoy!
For more information on Disneyland click here to visit their website to book your package.
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