What’s the point in taking a baby to Disneyland, they won’t remember it and won’t be able to understand it. Fact, but I don’t care. It was so much fun, the three of us being silly and spending time together and Little Vi loved all the colours and all the hustle and bustle. Plus, it was our Wedding Anniversary, which is a good excuse as any! 
I would definitely recommend it for a short, fun break, regardless of your little ones age, there’s always photographs to look back on and the smiles you’ll get are just priceless!
Gorgeous castle!
If you’re not particularly interested in Disney, or babies for that matter, this may be a bit of a bore as this is basically going to be a bit of a what we did and how we did it! Just saying!
Cost
We took advantage of the free Disney ticket offer from SKY, which gave us access to both parks for one day, brilliant! This is a fab deal in essence if you literally want to go for one day as the cost of a park ticket for two days is pretty much the same as a ticket for one, so if you need to buy tickets for additional days it no longer becomes so attractive. We, however, got our second day ticket with Avios points (BA air miles scheme). Avios points are really good, you can use them for hotels, travel and experiences. We converted our Tesco Clubcard vouchers into Avios and this covered our flights, airport car parking and additional Disney tickets. We just paid for 3 nights hotel accommodation which came to £240 at the 4 star Magic Circus.
Travel
BA fly to Paris hourly, so we managed to get some really decent flight times. We left home when Vida was due her nap so she slept on the drive up to the airport. It was quick and easy to park up and get the shuttle to Terminal 5. I am in love with Terminal 5, I love airports anyway, but this one is full of fab shops, Jack Wills, French Connection, Ted Baker, Kurt Keiger and even a Gordon Ramsay restaurant! Check-in was painless and we were allowed to take our buggy right up to the plane (we bought a travel buggy, the Zia Petite Star, on our first holiday with bubba which is light, easy to collapse down and fits in overhead lockers). In no time at all, it was time to board the plane.
We even had a bit of a celeb spot, I was bent down getting everything together and saw a pair of very tanned feet squeezed into some inappropriately high strappy sandals. I couldn’t help myself, I had to follow the shoes up to the owner, wondering who on earth would wear such things on a) a freezing cold day and b) a flight, my question, was soon answered, it was only bloody Pammy Anderson! On our flight! I made Vida wave hello and she waved back, very sweet!
Anyhow, back to the flight. Luckily it was pretty empty so we had a spare seat between us for Vida to sit and play during the flight. I made sure Vida had her bottle for take-off and landing to avoid any ear popping problems, she was happy as ever, and not phased at all. She loved all the attention she got from the stewards and passengers and after a swift glass of wine and some snacks, an hour later, we had landed in Paris. The return flight was equally as painless as Little Vi slept the whole hour.
Chill time
The train station is pretty much in the airport, so we planned to get the TGV (ultra fast train that gets you to Disney in 9 minutes), however, when we got to the ticket station the assistant advised us there were no tickets left and we would need to take the subway which would take well over an hour. This didn’t sound quite right to me, so after a bit of a play with the ticket machine, found there was a train leaving in 5 minutes, we managed to get tickets – 60 euros for the 3 of us, a bit steep, but literally 9 minutes later we were surrounded by the sounds and fun of Disney! After speaking to a few people, it’s not unusual for ticket assistants to try and make weary British travellers lives a little difficult, if you’re in doubt, double check, we’re glad we did. If we went again, I think we’d book our tickets in advance to avoid any problems.
Parks
We spent the first morning at Disney Studios. There’s no point spending too much time here, but there are two good adult rides here, Aerosmith Rockin’ Rollercoaster and Tower of Terror. We took advantage of the baby switch scheme, where one of you queues whilst the other stays with the little one, you can then swap over without having to wait in line again, as long as you’re happy to ride on your own. This can work really well especially if you use it in conjunction with the Fast Pass scheme, where you can get a pass to go back to the ride later in day and only have to wait a short period. You can get one Fast Pass per ride per person, so in theory can go on each ride twice if using alongside baby switch. You really don’t want to spend much time waiting around with a baby in tow, so get your Fast Passes as soon as you get to either park – although the Fast Passes state a time slot of an hour, you can go back anytime after the time slot finishes, just not before. The best adult ride at the Disneyland park, in our opinion, is Space Mountain and definitely worth going on a few times.
Just horsing around!
In terms of rides for babies, there’s quite a lot they can go in both parks, totally depends on your baby, but Vida loved It’s a Small World, Peter Pans Flight and the Carousel. We spent a day and a half in the Disneyland Park, which was about right for us. It’s totally worth seeing the parade, I didn’t think Vida was old enough to appreciate it, but she was giggling and waving and smiling the whole time.
Watching the parade
Dining
We had some very good meals whilst we were in Disney. On our first day we ate at Walts and on the second we ate in the Blue Lagoon, both in Disneyland. Both were a la carte style and a bit pricey, but so much more comfortable than the the counter service places, which were crazy expensive for junk and the food was fantastic.
Best high chair ever!
Hats off to the French, it may be Disney, but the food and service was as good as in any restaurant you’d find outside of the park. Walts was my favourite because whilst being refined and elegant, they still made Vida feel super comfortable, with fun high chairs and making a real fuss of her. We spent a long lunch here, which was a welcome break from the party atmosphere of the park. We had 3 courses each and a bottle of wine, which came to about £70, we told ourselves it was our Anniversary treat. We both had a trio of seafood starters, which were lovely. I followed with a huge burger with foie gras and waffle chips, whilst Hubby had a gorgeous fillet steak. Hubby’s desert was great fun, a brownie milkshake, with lots of yummy bits hidden inside!
Hmmmmmm
Also, worth noting was Rainforest Cafe in the Disney Village (an area just outside filled with shops and restaurants). We went over the evening we arrived, stupidly thinking Vida would sleep in the pushchair as it was past her bed time, but no, she was up and loving the Rainforest sounds and moving animals! I’m glad she woke up really as it’s a real feast for the senses and great fun. Hubby took the liberty of ordering half the menu, the Cobb salad was particularly worth a mention!
Rainforest Cafe inhabitants
All in all, we had a great time, 3 nights was just about right. There was so much for Vida to take in we had to make sure to keep on top of nap times and not try to cram too much in, it’s nice to just wander round and spend time together. I think the melt-downs happen (we witnessed a few, but not as many as Florida, I owe this to the fact Euro Disney isn’t dry, so there’s calm, relaxed, slightly wined up parentals floating about) when people try and do too much and get hung up on not missing anything, it would have been nice to have a picture with Mickey, but were we going to spend our day living to a time-table to make that happen, no.
It’s no Florida, but there’s something so much prettier and more refined about it’s Parisian counterpart (and not just because of the wine!), it’s so much more, well, French and it turned out to be quite the lovely Anniversary break.
heels, squeals and mushed-up meals! 