Paris Disneyland, know before you go...

[LBE]

Following a recent European vacation, I thought I would share what we encountered to make sure others are spared some potential disappointment in their travels. We planned a 3 day stop in Paris to visit Paris Disneyland. With the uncertainty of travel & weather, we planned to wait till we were there to buy park tickets for one of those days. When we got there & tried to buy tickets for the park, we found out that there was absolutely no local place where you could physically purchase a ticket, including at the parks. Online purchases were the only way to get a ticket. This came with the caveat that if you purchased an open access ticket, you apparently have to contact the park to get the day of use approved in advance. Our family cellular provider would not work outside North America, so we had purchased sim cards for Europe with a service provider based in France, and they worked well for the most part. That said, when we tried to use those Sim cards to buy tickets online, we were challenged by the Credit card company's multi-factor authentication process that required a response from our North American phones, which did not work in Europe. The new numbers included could not reach the credit card company North American based numbers. We then tried having family in North America purchase the tickets online for us, but they were met with "technical problems" from the Disney site. We tried for several days to find a way to buy tickets, and to contact the local Disney company to no avail. We even made calls from local numbers, & were not successful. An online inquiry to Disney was not answered till we had already run out of time, & we were leaving France. Granted, more research in advance might have saved my family substantial disappointment, but if you plan a trip that includes a visit to the parks, take heed. You may need to have your tickets purchased well in advance, and have the day of use specified so you don't run into similar disappointment. Cheers & happy travels!

 

[Rogue1677x]

That's good info for people to know. I'm a bit neurotic about my travel planning so I was prepared when I went to Disneyland Paris in April.

Something we do when we travel internationally is also use a VPN on our phones. It helped accessing certain sites that had location restrictions.

 

[starry_solo]

When we traveled to Europe in the spring, we activated the international service on our US based cell providers. We also got European SIM cards and put them in our older, unlocked phones, in case the international service wasn't great (which in Disneyland Paris, mine stopped working for a few hours!)

 

[LBE]

When we traveled to Europe in the spring, we activated the international service on our US based cell providers. We also got European SIM cards and put them in our older, unlocked phones, in case the international service wasn't great (which in Disneyland Paris, mine stopped working for a few hours!)

We had our North American SIM cards with us, but unfortunately they had no access to anything anywhere outside North America. The only problem we had with the SIM cards we purchased for Europe was their tendency to default to French language, because they were based in France with local phone numbers. When we attempted to use them to call Disney from Paris, they would not work. When we attempted calling from our hotel, we found that the Disney contact number was based in the U.K., and they had no service till after 10 am, & even then we got no answer or response. When I went looking for answers online, I found that there had been others caught unaware just as we were. After decades of visits to all the Disney properties in Florida, and Disneyland, & even out to Hawaii, I found it strange that such a pronounced & ongoing problem would not have been remedied. A simple single ticket agent could fix that issue completely. A single location where tickets could be bought & there would be no problem. ...but I also found some saying that those parks were so busy that they felt it was used as a way to reduce traffic. It was a learning experience for me for sure, but I think its a blight on the reputation of that particular location, & it has the potential to be a big problem for people during the upcoming Olympics.

 

[trishadono]

We have Verizon and we went online before we left US and added the international plan. It was a nominal fee .

We had no issues in Paris , at the Taylor Swift Concert or at Disneyland.

Dd uses her phone a lot and never complained once.

Dd also added international plan on her honeymoon in Aruba. It’s simple and works great. Not sure if other carriers offer it?