One day Monday in Sept. for Disneyland Paris - park hopper or not?

kathy884

DIS Veteran
Joined
Sep 26, 2009
Some background -- I'm a WDW vet with 30+ trips to Orlando and have been do Disneyland, CA too. DS 22 is a WDW vet also with about 15 trips to WDW and has been to Disneyland, CA also. We're doing a mini Paris stay before heading to Belfast -- originally were just doing two days in Paris, but have extended it to four to reserve one day for Disney (we are big fans) and one day for Versailles (which I hear is like a crowd level 10 every day) but still get two days in Paris. Oh and we have never been to Disneyland Paris before.

My husband isn't a Disney fan, so I'm signing him up for a Montmartre food tour for the day DS and I do our Disney day trip.

My question for our Disneyland day is should I just get a ticket to the Disneyland park, as I was originally planning or do you think we should get a park hopper for the studios too. We are only going one day and were more interested in Disneyland things vs. studios. But we do like the Tower of Terror -- sounds like the studios has that or a variation, etc. But would we even have time to get over there to the studios park?

I was very surprised how low prices are on the website?? Is that right -- $61 for the one day ticket and $84 for a hopper? (It's value season (says MINI on website) -- weekday in Sept. with kids back in school). I recently got a value one day ticket in Orlando and that was something like $105 for the Magic Kingdom?? // Everything else like food is pretty pricey in Paris plus one dollar being worth like .81 Euros. Perhaps the pricing is to try to entice folks from the US to leave Paris for a day?? Or am I reading something wrong?
 
I would say for the difference in price get park hoppers - its only a matter of minutes between parks (similar to DL California) and a lot of the unique rides to Paris are in the studios. Its worth looking at the theming around Toy Story land and around the Ratatouille ride and doing that ride - you can do it single rider and often end up in the same rat with a very short wait.
Also yes they do have Tower of Terror (which is unchanged up to now) and Crush coaster which is a unique ride

Sorry I cant comment on the price of the tickets as Ive always either had an AP or stayed on site which includes tickets
 
I would say for the difference in price get park hoppers - its only a matter of minutes between parks (similar to DL California) and a lot of the unique rides to Paris are in the studios. Its worth looking at the theming around Toy Story land and around the Ratatouille ride and doing that ride - you can do it single rider and often end up in the same rat with a very short wait.
Also yes they do have Tower of Terror (which is unchanged up to now) and Crush coaster which is a unique ride

Sorry I cant comment on the price of the tickets as Ive always either had an AP or stayed on site which includes tickets

Thanks. With the parks so close and few unique things at the studios, that sounds like a great suggestion. Thanks so much.
 
It depends which kind of touring you prefer.
If you give precedence to the rides, then a parkhopper is the way to go.
If you like to smell the roses and enjoy the theming, then just visit the main park.

In the studios, must dos for a WDW veteran are in my opinion:
- Crush and Coaster: just because it's unique, but it often has a very long queue because of low capacity. It is opened during extra magic time (equivalent to EMH) so you cannot even rope drop it, it will have a queue when park opens to regular guests. I don't think it's worth more than 30-45 minutes wait
- Ratatuille: but it's coming to Epcot too, in the near future (which with Disney time just means this century)
- a look around Toy Story Playland, but the rides aren't that special
- Mickey and the Magician show

I do not include the ToT because it's identical to the version that was in california before the GotG overlay and in Orlando it's better. RnRC is identical. The stunt show is boring (and identical to the one that was cloned in Orlando). Armageddon is the worst Disney attraction in the world. Stitch is similar to the Crush show in Epcot.
A new show will open in the Studios this summer, based on Marvel characters, but we know almost nothing on it at the moment. Probably worth watching it.

In the main park you can safely skip:
- Start tour (identical)
- Buzz lightyear (almost identical)
- Peter Pan (slightly better in Orlando)
- Pinocchio and Snow White (identical to DL)
everything else is unique, better or different enough that it's worth experiencing in Paris. Not to be missed:
- Big Thunder Mountains (rope drop it, it is not open during EMT so hotel guests have no advantage over it and it has long lines during the day. FP it otherwise)
- Night Castle Show (it's called Illuminations but it has nothing to do with the Epcot show)

Fastpasses are still the old paper ones, return time is just half an hour. The two parks are disconnected (if you have a FP for one park you can take one in the other park without waiting).

Avoid weekends and in September you should be able to do a lot in one day.
Mini tickets are the way DLP has to spread crowds a bit. Not different from the special offer for tickets for SoCal residents only at DL during low seasons, except they're available to everyone.
 
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zavandor, Thank you so much for all the great information! This helps us prioritize our day for sure. And how nice for us that we are talking a weekday in September which hopefully not too crazy crowds.
 

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