Planning a May 2017 trip - my head is swimming right now

[momof2n2]

Just to clarify, you can buy the one day pass in advance and upgrade to an AP at DLP. The sponsorship benefit was optional (it just happened to work for us). I completely understand, sometimes you just say the heck with it, I'll book the package deal and be done with it.

I'm a retired Air Traffic Controller, I like stress, .

My concern is the concern that the price is going to skyrocket for anniversary year.

 

[Petit_Rose]

They should be releasing all the new price grids at the beginning of October - the dining plans have actually reduced in price, so I don't think the AP's will shoot up. Did DL up their AP prices for their anniversary year?

 

[momof2n2]

Sponsorship Of Annual Passports

That's my only suggestion to the increase but enough to spur me into action.

If my French were not so rusty I'd buy them from the .fr site. But I'm scared there is something in the small print I'm missing.

 

[momof2n2]

Hrf, agreed! If the AP were to offer really huge savings I might do this, but to be quite honest this sounds much more difficult and stressful than it's worth to me.

SO- between my decades-old French and Bing translator I am comfortable buying an AP directly from the .fr website HOWEVER - it sounds like I can only do that up to 6 months before the date of my visit - and that is not until May 20. So I guess I will be stuck with whatever the new prices are?

I wish there was an undercover tourist for DLPR!

 

[Ms Poppins]

You can buy them by post. I can't add the link right now but if you search on here for annual passports by post you'll find translation and how to apply.

 

[ashley0139]

They should be releasing all the new price grids at the beginning of October - the dining plans have actually reduced in price, so I don't think the AP's will shoot up. Did DL up their AP prices for their anniversary year?

Disneyland ALWAYS ups their AP prices. I don't think the anniversary had much to do with it.

I highly recommend staying on site. It made my life so much easier when I was there. I don't think you need 5 days at all. I did 2 1/2 and did everything multiple times. I went in May as well and there were absolutely no lines anywhere. The only rides with lines were Crush's Coaster and Ratatouille, and with the single rider line they were extremely manageable. I highly recommend those rides, they were my favorites. Every other ride was a walk on.

 

[momof2n2]

Disneyland ALWAYS ups their AP prices. I don't think the anniversary had much to do with it.

I highly recommend staying on site. It made my life so much easier when I was there. I don't think you need 5 days at all. I did 2 1/2 and did everything multiple times. I went in May as well and there were absolutely no lines anywhere. The only rides with lines were Crush's Coaster and Ratatouille, and with the single rider line they were extremely manageable. I highly recommend those rides, they were my favorites. Every other ride was a walk on.

Thank you so much for sharing your experience! Since you were there in May, would you also share what the weather was like?

Now - was it easy to ride because you were there during EMH?
What I'm trying to discern is, if staying on property isn't necessary for getting on rides, shouldn't I stay off property and save the money? Even staying offsite with an AP should come out over $1000 less. Of course, I will then have to buy breakfasts, but that won't be exorbitant, will it?

 

[ashley0139]

Thank you so much for sharing your experience! Since you were there in May, would you also share what the weather was like?

Now - was it easy to ride because you were there during EMH?
What I'm trying to discern is, if staying on property isn't necessary for getting on rides, shouldn't I stay off property and save the money? Even staying offsite with an AP should come out over $1000 less. Of course, I will then have to buy breakfasts, but that won't be exorbitant, will it?

Ha! When I was there it was 55 degrees and rained every second of all 3 days I was there. It may have been what kept the crowds away, honestly.

In my experience, staying on property is not necessary for getting on rides. The day I did EMH, I am not exaggerating when I say I don't think there were 20 people at the gates at 7am. It was crazy. I loved being able to go back to the hotel on a 5 minute shuttle ride and take a break in the middle of the day to change wet shoes/clothes and dry off. I also ended up with a foot injury and going back to the hotel was vital for my enjoyment of the trip. Of course, these things might not happen to you. Since that may be the only trip I take to DLP (hopefully not!) it was worth it for me to stay on site. Another thing is, since I was traveling alone, it was worth it to me to not have to navigate trains and whatnot. I took the Disney transportation from the airport directly to my hotel. Try calling them for a room only rate as well. When I called it was something like $900 USD for a package with tickets, and $350 for room only. With $158 tickets I paid just over $500 for 3 nights and 3 days in the parks. Not sure why the package was so expensive. After my Disney portion of the trip I was meeting people at CDG for the rest of my Europe excursion so I just took Disney transport from the hotel to CDG. Easy peasy.

 

[ammeador2]

I am so glad I stumbled on this thread. We are going in June and I have been searching for the best price. So far the price on the UK website is so much cheaper than any other country. The USA prices are absolutely ridiculous. I did price off site hotels and tickets separately and they were more expensive than using the UK website. I am going to call and book our reservation paying just the deposit upfront once I figure out which hotel we will be staying in. Are we able to modify the reservation if they release a better deal?

 

[BudgieMama]

I am so glad I stumbled on this thread. We are going in June and I have been searching for the best price. So far the price on the UK website is so much cheaper than any other country. The USA prices are absolutely ridiculous. I did price off site hotels and tickets separately and they were more expensive than using the UK website. I am going to call and book our reservation paying just the deposit upfront once I figure out which hotel we will be staying in. Are we able to modify the reservation if they release a better deal?

If by "better" you mean "cheaper" and are booking using the UK website, you'll have to pay something to change it. From what I can see, that's something like 35% of the difference between the higher and lower price plus a £50 amendment fee per booking, if you've got a hotel + tickets booking. That changes when you get 7 days out from arrival.

 

[ammeador2]

If by "better" you mean "cheaper" and are booking using the UK website, you'll have to pay something to change it. From what I can see, that's something like 35% of the difference between the higher and lower price plus a £50 amendment fee per booking, if you've got a hotel + tickets booking. That changes when you get 7 days out from arrival.

Ouch. My dream is to stay at the DL hotel and yes it's technically a good deal at the current price I am not sure I want to commit to that price right now. I was hoping it would be flexible like WDW and we could make adjustments up until 45 days out if I booked at Newport or HNY.

 

[BudgieMama]

Ouch. My dream is to stay at the DL hotel and yes it's technically a good deal at the current price I am not sure I want to commit to that price right now. I was hoping it would be flexible like WDW and we could make adjustments up until 45 days out if I booked at Newport or HNY.

Guests using the UK branch of WDTC have similar conditions on their WDW bookings too. That's not a WDW/DLP thing, it's a WDTC UK thing, and is fairly standard across holiday bookings here. The idea of paying less without any penalty is totally alien in our travel industry.

 

[A Small World]

If a better offer comes along they will usually let you change it without penalty as long as you are paying the same price or more.
So for example you could change to a better hotel for the same price or slightly more and just pay the difference.
If you want to change to something that will cost less you can add something onto your booking such as a prepaid character meal or meal plan to make it more but get something extra as well

 

[ammeador2]

If a better offer comes along they will usually let you change it without penalty as long as you are paying the same price or more.
So for example you could change to a better hotel for the same price or slightly more and just pay the difference.
If you want to change to something that will cost less you can add something onto your booking such as a prepaid character meal or meal plan to make it more but get something extra as well

Thank you. I couldn't wrap my brain around booking HNY or Newport and then be penalized to upgrade to DLH. I don't have a problem paying for an upgraded room but I don't want to have to pay an additional fee on top of the upgraded price.

 

[BudgieMama]

I did say that I mean by changing to a cheaper package you would have to pay- if you're upgrading, that's not cheaper! If it brings the cost of your package under what you originally booked for, then it's cheaper and the charges apply!

 

[ammeador2]

I did say that I mean by changing to a cheaper package you would have to pay- if you're upgrading, that's not cheaper! If it brings the cost of your package under what you originally booked for, then it's cheaper and the charges apply!

Obviously!! But that's not what I am saying. I want to book for a cheaper package at my 2nd choice hotel and be able to upgrade to my 1st choice at DLH. I know that DLH is MORE expensive and I am okay paying more for that package but I didn't want to pay an additional 35% on top of the higher price just to change my resort.

 

[roscoepc1]

I bought my tickets on the UK site, but I got my room through one of the travel sites (I want to say Booking.com, but honestly not sure which one it was now...I booked so many different things through different sites, it's a blur), and got a HUGE deal. Cheyenne at $60 Cdn per night. Up until I got that deal I was staying off site too to save money. I still got EMH and breakfast, as well as the shuttle service. So don't write off staying onsite immediately...I couldn't do their version of the meal plan that way as I didn't book a package, but to be honest, their meal plan baffled me, so it was just as easy to just pay o.o.p. for meals and carry on.

 

[ilovethisplace]

I'm an American who has been to DLP twice. The first time I booked a package (NB) on the US DLP site and paid through the nose but it was part of my honeymoon and I really didn't think that much about it. The second trip I compared the UK vs US sites and couldn't believe the price difference, I really thought there had to be some sort of mistake. I did extensive research on this site as well as a bunch of other chat sites and they recommended booking through the DLP UK site which I did. A 4-night stay at SL was like $1000 cheaper on the UK site. From the day I booked until we checked in I sweated this thinking I'd get tossed out or something. There was no problem at check in, everything went as smoothly as checking into a WDW/DL resort and I was $1000 ahead of where I would've been if I booked on the US site. Do not hesitate to book on the UK site. They ask for your address but nothing is ever mailed to you. When you put in your address just use your US address and leave the county as UK. I've considered staying at one of the off-site shuttle hotels and buying an AP or hoppers but when you crunch the numbers, it really doesn't save that much and the convenience of being within walking distance of the park is definitely worth a few extra bucks for me anyway. I can tell you that you'll get massive sticker shock from the price of the DL Hotel but the others really aren't that bad considering you're getting length of stay tickets and breakfast every day. We're considering a June trip for the 25th and I priced out a 4-night package at SF (on the UK site of course) for my family of 3, and it was $956 or $239 per night. A trip to WDW for the same 4 nights at a value resort is $1745. By comparison DLP is a bargain.

 

[texancoconut51]

Hi M2n2,

We stayed in Val d'Europe in June 2014 (Hotel l'Elysee) and June 2015 (VRBO apartment rental). Val d'Europe is one train stop over from DLP and is a nice neighborhood with several restaurants, bakeries and tons of shopping at the Val d'Europe mall. The mall is a block away from both places we stayed and includes the Auchan hypermarket. If you want to throw together a meal or just purchase snacks, that place has it all.

Link: http://www.disneylandparis.co.uk/shops/val-deurope-shopping-centre/

The Hotel l'Elysee was comparable to an American mid-tier hotel with a bar and restaurant. They served B,L, and dinner, non of which were included in the price of the rooms. A free neighborhood bus passed right in front of the hotel to/from DLP at roughly 30 minute intervals depending on the time of day (15 minute trip). The hotel is also 1/2 block from the RER-A train station. The RER-A line originates at DLP then travels to the Val d'Europe station (3 minutes) and on into Paris (very convenient, about 25-30 minutes to central Paris). The RER-A line at DLP also shares the station with several TGV (high speed) trains from CDG Airport (and other French cities). You can get to DLP in about 10 minutes from CDG airport non-stop via the TGV. The airport also runs regular buses to Val d'Europe and DLP which takes approximately 30-40 minutes depending on traffic (cost ~$30/per?). I am not aware of any courtesy van to DLP, the distance is approximately 25 miles.

In 2015 we rented a 2 bedroom apartment from Christophe via VRBO. He was great to deal with and speaks English.

Link: https://www.vrbo.com/978866a

We liked the apartment much better (easy decision) for our family of 4 due to the price and amenities. The apartment was on the 5th floor (top floor IIRC) and was 1/2 block from the RER-A station for Val d'Europe too. For the 2015 trip we used the RER-A train back and forth to DLP since we had the weekly Paris passes (Navigo) and didn't use the bus. I can't recall if you had to stay at the hotel in order to use the bus or if it was free for the neighborhood. There are several hotels and VRBO rentals in the area, just try to stay within walking distance of the bus route or RER-A train station.

As far as staying onsite at DLP I felt the rooms were pricey for what you received, $300-$400 for moderate type rooms, $500 plus for the DLP Hotel. Some of the reviews I had read prior to our trip did not impress me (things may have improved). We didn't see the value and chose to stay offsite. Also the euro and pound exchange rates were $1.35 and $1.58 when I originally researched the rooms back in early 2014, so that didn't help either. Most of the websites I looked at were out of the UK and were priced in British Pounds. For park tickets we ended buying AP's (they had 3 levels?) that had a few black out dates, they still ended up costing less than a 4-day pass. We were also able to squeeze in a couple days at DLP in 2015 before the AP's expired.

Visiting DLP was a mixed bag, yes we had a good time but there were some drawbacks. Their version of space mountain was closed both years in addition to a couple other ongoing ride refurbishments (bummer). Cigarette smoking tends to be a constant activity outdoors in the parks (if that bothers you). The Disney CS restaurants were mediocre at best and the higher end restaurants were pricey ($65 per person, again exchange rate) for a family of four. We ended up eating at their version of Downtown Disney (Earl of Sandwich, etc).

The language barrier wasn't a problem at the parks as everyone we encountered spoke English. Even outside the parks in Paris it usually wasn't a problem. We traveled through western and central France with very few language issues (we spoke a little French, enough to be dangerous).

Lastly, I'm not trying to tell you how to run your trip but...... for the love of all things holy, GO INTO PARIS (if you have never been), it's awesome with a capital A! It's made for anniversaries! (Sorry about that, we loved traveling to France and are in the early stages of planning a trip to Europe next summer)

Enjoy planning your trip, if you have any other questions feel free to ask.
JoeATC

I'm a student on study abroad in Rome, but I'm gonna be in Paris for Halloween with some friends, and we're trying to figure out the RER A situation. Is there somewhere we need to buy a ticket before hand, or is it more like public transit? Thanks!

 

[A Small World]

I'm a student on study abroad in Rome, but I'm gonna be in Paris for Halloween with some friends, and we're trying to figure out the RER A situation. Is there somewhere we need to buy a ticket before hand, or is it more like public transit? Thanks!

You buy the tickets from the stations as you travel