A Merry Disney Christmas...mark 2, 6 years on!

Another magical Disney Christmas! 

If you’ve been following us for a while, you may remember our first trip to Disneyland Paris as a family of 4, 6 years ago! If you haven’t or would like to take a look back at this, you can read all about it here.

6 years on, now with an 11 year old Master S and an 8 year old Miss S, who incidentally now has a significant fear of big characters (!) we set off again on the 20th December to truly be immersed in to Christmas once more, Disney style! Due to Miss S's fear of big characters, we couldn't plan a trip without discussing it with her first, so we certainly couldn't surprise the kids with it this time round! Miss S was very excited at the prospect of everything ELSE at Disney and with the agreement we would keep our distance from all the big characters around the park. The only exception to this was Rapunzel, she didn't mind meeting her, as she is her favourite Disney Princess!  

Just like last time, we drove up to Folkestone the night before and stayed close to the Eurotunnel to break up the driving and get us to Disney earlier the following day. Last time we stayed in a Premier Inn and this time, in a Holiday Inn Express. Our preference was the Premier Inn. Both options were a little tired but our Premier Inn room from memory, was bigger and had far more comfortable beds! All went smoothly the following morning and following our Eurotunnel crossing and after around 4 hours of driving from Calais, we pulled up at the Newport Bay hotel. 

Newport Bay 

Newport Bay on our first evening

We had stayed at the Newport Bay years ago when Master S was 3 and when it was going through a big refurbishment. This time we decided to try out a Compass Club room which gave us the following added benefits: 

Valet parking - this was amazing! We literally pulled up outside the hotel, all our luggage was collected from us and delivered to room a bit later. When we left, our bags were collected from our room and by the time we got to the foyer, our van was ready and waiting with our bags, it couldn’t have worked better! 

Dedicated check in - we had remembered the long check-in queues we had previously stood in waiting, it was a very different story this time. We were immediately checked in at a separate check in lounge and once we had our keys and passes we were directed to the Compass Club lounge to have a drink whilst our room was checked to see if it was all ready for us. Miss S's access pass was also handed to us here too.

Our accessible room

Our accessible room - we had a large accessible Club room with double bed and bunk beds
(this worked ok this time but we may need to think about the room configuration as Miss S gets bigger) and a large wet room.  

Compass Club access - this is a dedicated club lounge to have breakfast, soft drinks, tea/coffee etc from midday until 10pm and afternoon tea from 4-5.30pm. Both the breakfast and afternoon tea offerings were amazing, plenty of choice and the kids loved the Mickey waffles and watching the pancakes being made! The club lounge was a quieter, calmer environment and generally just somewhere nice to go and chill out after time in the parks. We could also take bottles of water away with us for our days in the parks, which cut down on what we bought in the parks also. 

Compass Club Lounge 

Accessible rides 

Miss S was given an Access pass which gave us a separate entrance in to the park and a separate queue for rides she could go on. We thought she’d only be able to go on the fully wheelchair accessible rides but we were absolutely fine to transfer her on to rides. This is something that will be much more difficult as she gets bigger and we can't manage as much lifting and transferring. Miss S was in her manual chair for her visit, NOT her power chair so rides mentioned below have only been tested with her lighter, smaller manual chair. 

Fully wheelchair accessible rides in the Disneyland park - 

It's a Small World 

It’s a Small World - this ride has an accessible boat, this is amazing, the wheelchair user does have to sit in front slightly.  

Buzz Lightyear - this ride has a fully wheelchair accessible pod, so one of us could sit next to Miss S! We loved this ride, we went on it 3 or 4 times in the end and was Miss S's absolute favourite!  

Fully wheelchair accessible rides in the Walt Disney Studios - 

Our time in the Studios was pretty short lived as it was a pretty wet, rainy day!

Lightning McQueen - we didn’t end up trying this one but apparently is wheelchair accessible. 

Aladdin - this ride has an 'accessible' carpet, we tried it but it didn’t work for Miss S's chair, so I ended up transferring her on to my lap instead. On this ride, the wheelchair user sits behind, so I felt a little nervous about this one anyway.

Buzz Lightyear ride

Ratatouille - this ride has an accessible rat!!! The only trouble is, it only seats the wheelchair user plus one, so we wouldn't have all been able to go together. We decided to transfer for this one and all four of us sat in the same 'rat'. We all loved this ride once again. This time though, they accidentally missed getting our 'rat' back to it's station so we ended up going round for a second time. I have to say, second time round, I was not loving it SO much as it's a bit heavy on motion and I was starting to feel a little queasy!! 

Restaurants -

We’ve learnt the value of having a dining plan on previous visits. Definitely, definitely worth it and means you can book your restaurants in advance of your trip. Even in being able to book in advance, we still couldn’t get a time at Chez Remy that we really wanted as they only had odd times left available, so we tried somewhere else this time round but goes to show that at busy periods like Christmas, it’s really worth booking as early as possible. 

This time we ate at the Steakhouse in Disney Village on our first night as we weren’t sure if we’d venture into the park after travelling. We had a great meal, everyone was happy with the menu options. Our second day we ate at Plaza Gardens as we had previously enjoyed our visit there. Plaza Gardens offers a buffet style meal but sadly, it really wasn’t great this time. Some of the options were ok, but barely anything the kids would like so I think we’d give it a miss in future! On our last evening, we ate at the Yacht Club restaurant in our hotel which was really good. 

Changing facilities - 

Both parks have rooms to use for changing in their first aid centres. Inside the Disneyland Park, this is situated right next to Plaza Gardens and you'll find the first aid room in Disney Studios, behind Studio services. Both offer a room with a changing bed, mobile hoist and toilet. 

Overall, we had another wonderful visit to Disneyland Paris. We LOVED the Newport Bay and definitely felt the club access was worth it. Miss S managed SO well with all the noise and big characters around the park and loved watching the parades. Changing facilities seemed to be much better this time round too! We couldn’t really have asked for a better trip…maybe a little less rain but it really didn’t matter! The kids have constantly been asking to go back and I’m sure we won’t leave it quite as long as 6 years to visit again!