Overall, there was a lot that I liked…and a lot that I didn’t like in Disneyland Paris. It has a notoriously bad reputation for food (and I now understand why), and maybe the theming isn’t quite on par with the rest of the world’s Disney parks. With that said, there’s still a lot to love!

The castle. Goes without saying, but this castle is BEAUTIFUL. I’ve now seen half of the world’s Disney castles, and this one is probably my favorite. Aesthetically, it’s super pretty. I love the fact that you can walk through it (I know you can elsewhere, too!), the dragon underneath, and that the way to exit from above is to literally walk along the outside balcony!

Mickey pizza. Alright so, the food generally wasn’t the best. I was glad to see chicken nuggets on the menu at Casey’s Corner, since it’s rare that I get to eat there at home (I don’t eat red meat or pork), but as nice as that was, the nuggets were pretty…eh. The Mickey pizza was probably the best thing I ate in the park, meal-wise. We didn’t do any table service restaurants, and generally found the menus to be pretty limited and way overpriced, and since the Mickey Pizza is on the kids’ menu, it was reasonably priced enough, pretty good, and definitely enough for an adult to eat. (We also got a decent meal at Annette’s in Disney Village).

PS: I do like my food Mickey shaped, and the park had very little Mickey-shaped treats. But on the bright side, you can buy my shirt here, and save 10% with code: MAYA10.

Extra Magic Time. If you’ve ever stayed at a Disney resort before, you’ve probably participated in, or at least heard of, Extra Magic Hours. A.K.A. time before or a park opens to the rest of the world, and is only open for resort guests. We’ve taken advantage of it in Walt Disney World before, and while it’s great, it was infinitely less crowded at DLP. The parks have weird hours, in my opinion, open from 10am, closing at 8pm some days we were there, 11pm other days (Studios closed at 7pm though), so Extra Magic Time from 8:30-9:30am let us get more of a full park day in. Don and I got to the parks right at 8:30, security didn’t take long at all, and we managed to grab a quick pastry and cocoa, ride 4 rides, and get some shopping done, all in 1 hour. The rides we did were almost all walk-on, even though they displayed a 20 minute wait, we literally walked on 3 out of the 4, with the 4th being Small World, which at most, was a 10 minute wait. Plus, the park itself was pretty empty - the picture shown below was taken during Extra Magic Time on a Saturday. While you obviously can’t tell, there was also barely anyone in front of or to the side of me.

BAG CHECK. Weird thing to put on this list, BUT I mean, it’s just such a breeze there. Despite the fact that lines can get super long, bag check is so much easier, and feels a bit more secure, too. You put your bag on a belt, much like airport security, it’s scanned, you walk through a detector, and then pick up your bag on the other side. Viola. That’s it. No fishing around through every single pocket of your backpack (which I love, for security purposes, just not for “there’s a family with like 10 bags in front of me, and I’m about to miss my Flight of Passage FastPass,” purposes).

The balloons. Overall, the parks were lacking in the merch department, save for the balloons. In my opinion, there wasn’t much in the way of DLP-exclusive items, and the ones that were weren’t the greatest. Don’t get me wrong, I still bought things (be sure to keep an eye out on my Instagram for some giveaways this summer), but there wasn’t really that called out to me. The balloons (Mickey, Minnie, and Pooh Bear, in particular) were actually really cute and fun, adding that extra magical touch to our visit. They were also priced around the same as the balloons I’m used to in the American parks, though I was expecting them to be much more.