For our last Christmas in the UK we decided to head back to Paris, where we spent our very first Christmas away from home four years ago! After spending the last 3 Christmases flying out of London on Christmas Eve to various European locations, we decided we'd had enough of airports at Christmas and thought how much nicer it would be to hop on a train and be there in much less time!
We'd wanted to visit Disneyland Paris for a while, having fallen in love with Disneyland after visiting the original Disneyland in Anaheim, but had been putting off a visit in case we were disappointed. Disneyland Paris is quite different to Disneyland in Anaheim, it's a lot smaller, the European's don't seem to understand the concept of queuing, and smoking is allowed in the park. However it does have the most beautiful Castle of all the Disneyland's so we figured it was worth a visit for that reason alone!
Christmas is Peak Time for Disneyland Paris, with some of the highest crowd levels of the year, but Christmas Day itself is a little less busy than the days before and after since French locals usually spend the morning with their family, leaving the park full of mostly tourists from Paris and guests of the nearby hotels.
We woke up super early, and hopped on the Metro from Nation Metro station, getting off at Marne la Vallee station about 45 minutes later. The station is right outside the Disneyland Gates, so it's super easy to get to and from Paris. The gates opened at 9.00 a.m. and we had hoped to be there for opening, but we got caught in the long lines for tickets and didn't get in to the actual park until about 9.30 a.m.
The ticketing process was frustrating, we purchased a ticket voucher online before we left the UK and had to exchange the voucher for actual tickets on the day. We expected there would be a separate line for this, but we had to line up with everyone else purchasing tickets on the day, so we lost a good half hour waiting in line. It would have been better to buy from a site that sends you the actual tickets, then we could have just walked through the gates.
