Beating the Queues at Disneyland Paris

Disneyland Paris sees more than twelve million people through its gates annually, making it the most visited place in Europe. And, yes, on some days, it can feel like the whole of Europe has decided to turn up simultaneously, especially if you choose the wrong moment to get into a queue. And I mean a queue for anything. The people traffic flow around Disneyland Paris is bizarre. Sometimes the line for Star Tours is five minutes. Sometimes it’s two hours. But you can spend almost as long queuing at the cake shop at the end of Main Street. After more than half a dozen visits, we wouldn’t say we have worked out how to avoid this completely. But we have found solutions for these and other issues which might risk taking the magic off the experience of first time visitors. Read on for what we do when Queuemageddon occurs.

Redefining ‘queue jumping’

We Brits pride ourself on being queuing experts. The French… not so much. Of course, these are stereotypes, but there is more than a grain of truth to them. We have seen lots of British visitors get aggravated when Parisian patrons redefine ‘queuing’ by slipping their persons into a small patch of vacant space rather than waiting demurely for the nearby Brits to fill it. Let’s call it a cultural difference. And it’s easily remedied by holding hands with another member of your party – partner, child, whoever – and creating a human cordon across the queue-space. This might sound ridiculous, but if you’re the sort of person who gets worked up when others ‘queue jump’ (in the Alton Towers definition), this will save you some stress.

Less easily remedied is what happens when the attraction you want you go on has a huge queue. It’s pretty unpredictable. We’ve been often enough to spot some patterns however.

Here is our plan for a day at Disneyland Paris which should help you maintain the magic and not lead to you having a meltdown.

Two parks. One plan.

A note before we begin: Disneyland Paris is actually two parks: the iconic Disneyland Park itself and Walt Disney Studios right next door. The same approach to avoiding Queuemageddon applies for both. If anything, the crowds are more intense at the Studios, especially since they closed down some of the high capacity attractions, including my favourite: ‘Cinemagique’. And there are not as many rides for small children. Aim to spend at least a day in each park.

Mission: Disneyfun

1. To avoid misery, get there early. Check the park opening time (it changes) online or in your hotel if staying on Disney property. Lots of people leave entering the park until lunchtime. This is understandable as a Disney day can be intense and tiring. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. However, anyone would be a fool to take part in a marathon and set off an hour or more after everyone else. Trust us – get there for park opening time. If this means getting clothes, etc ready the night before do it. Otherwise you will regret it.

2. As soon as you’re through the gates, head to a big draw attraction with Fastpasses. In Disneyland Park, these are Big Thunder Mountain, Indiana Jones, Peter Pan’s Flight, Star Wars Hyperspace Mountain, Star Tours, and (the inexplicably popular, IMHO) Buzz Lightyear’s Laser Blast. In Walt Disney Studios next door they are Ratatouille and Tower of Terror. BUT WAIT. Don’t go on this attraction. Get a Fast Pass by scanning your park ticket in the Fast Pass machine nearby (they are usually easy to find and displayed on the park map). You will get a return time – usually an hour or so in the future, but it can be more. When you return, you won’t have to queue!

3. In the meantime, go on another of the star attractions conventionally: by joining a queue. At this time, you shouldn’t be looking at more than a few minutes’ wait. If you’re in the Studios, go to Crush’s Coaster. It doesn’t have Fast Pass and often breaks down later in the day. It’s a great ride but the queue area is soul-crushingly boring/irritating.

4. Once you get off, try to sneak in another big draw ride before your Fast Pass. But don’t panic if queues are already large. Go to something without a Fast Pass which has a big capacity. Maybe Pirates of the Caribbean, which does tend to get a bit busier by early afternoon.

5. Now it should be around the time for you to use that Fast Pass. Enjoy the VIP-like feeling of walking straight on through.

6. It’s difficult to suggest a order in which to visit each ‘land’ of the park. We tend to criss-cross a lot to get the big rides ticked off. But if that doesn’t sound like you’re idea of fun, I would recommend Discoveryland, Frontierland, Adventureland and then Fantasyland. Fantasyland is the weird one. It’s deserted first thing but packed by late-morning. If you’re with small ones, do these early or, if you’re with bigger ones, save these until late in the day when the smaller children have had tantrums and have had to be taken back to the hotel.

7. Don’t feel like you have to rush around the entire day. We tend to have a mad morning where we’re on a mission then take it slowly for the rest of the day. For instance, we eschew the queue at a fast food restaurant and have a leisurely multi-course lunch at one of the four table service options. Or go to a bar Yes, they serve booze in Disneyland Paris. Not doing do was one of the reasons why the Park flopped originally. However, if you have children with itchy feet, spend some time in Main Street. Take some castle selfies. Characters (of the human in a suit variety) are usually around.

8. By the evening, some rides are still packing them in, whereas others are walk-ons. This part is a bit random and hard to predict but one of our traditions is waiting until around an hour before park closing and riding Big Thunder Mountain repeatedly with next to no queue.

Have a backup plan

There are times when, even if you have a plan like ours, you will end up stuck in a queue. Every so often, a ride breaks down and you have the choice of leaving or waiting for it to start up again soon. With a few irksome exceptions, most of the queue areas are attractions in themselves. But even their appeal runs out after ten minutes of the same looped dialogue/pre-show. That’s why I always take a book with me. On one especially busy visit to Disneyland Paris I read the whole of Jules Verne’s From The Earth To The Moon on my phone in queues (I chose it because Discoveryland’s theming is based on this). Antony packs earphones for the same reason – so he can escape queues by listening to some podcasts. If you’ve got little ones, you probably can’t go wrong with an iPad. Or you could make conversation. On second thoughts, stick with the iPad.

Kids and queuing

Delaying gratification is key to avoiding queue misery and this is surely more challenging with children. However, explaining to them that NOT riding this attraction now but coming back later will actually mean less waiting around in total, will hopefully result in family harmony being maintained. We once witnessed a parent and child getting off an attraction with a two hour queue and overheard the child insisting that they go on it again. The parent groaningly conceded defeat and they rejoined the queue. We would never do this. We have taken our niece to places where we have had to steer a course between doing everything she wants and getting what we want out of an experience and we have always found a bit of tough love goes a long way. The whole point of Disneyland is that the whole family gets something out of it. It’s what Walt intended.