We are big Disney fans in this family and I am lucky enough to have visited three different Disney parks – Disneyland Paris, Disneyland California and Disneyworld in Florida. While all of the parks have their merits, there was one location we preferred over the others.
Comparing the Magic – Disneyland Paris, Disneyland CA and Disneyworld
As you will likely know, visiting any Disney park can be pretty costly. So, you want to make you’re spending your money wisely and getting the best deal and making the best choices for your family.
Here I am going to take a quick look at each of the three parks we have visited and cover what out absolute favourite bits were and a few things that we weren’t so keen on too. I’ll also talk about which park I think is best suited to the type of holiday you plan to take.
For reference, we stayed on site at both Disneyland Paris and Disney World. At Disneyland CA we stayed in a nearby motel as Disney wasn’t the main focus of our trip and we wanted to save money.
Disneyland Paris
Located in France, Disneyland Paris (previously known as Euro Disney) has two parks: Disneyland Park and Walt Disney Studios Park as well as a shopping area called Disney Village.
We visited in early October and got very lucky with the weather – lovely sunshine for our whole trip. Visiting at this time of year also meant we got to see all the amazing Halloween Decorations and meet Jack and Sally. Here’s me living the dream.
What We Loved about Disneyland Paris
Here are some of the things we loved about Disneyland Paris.
Short Travel Time – We live in Somerset and the flight to Paris took around 40 minutes. Door to door I think total travel was around five hours.
Extra Magic Hours – These are times when only Disney Hotel Guests can enter the parks. This means the parks are quieter and the queues are short. We’d often do more rides during this time than we’d manage during the rest of the day. It also meant our first glimpse of Mainstreet USA it was pretty much empty and although slightly foggy it was an incredible experience.
It Has The Best Castle – DLP has the best castle by far. All of the others pale in comparison. Oh, and there’s a dragon underneath too!
Main Street Arcades – Along either side of Main Street USA there are two arcades, which are basically tunnels that allow you to walk up the sides of the street quickly. These are brilliant if you’re trying to leave the park during a parade or just want to get somewhere more quickly.
Character Meets – We bumped into characters all around the park, often with very little or no queue. Great for photo ops!
What We Didn’t Love about Disneyland Paris
Food – The food at Disneyland Paris is Average at best. The buffets felt like cattle markets. We had a dining plan but often ended up buying more food from places like Mcdonalds and Earl of Sandwich and places we could get a snack from with our dining passes often weren’t open.
Smoking – There were people smoking everywhere, not just in the designated areas, it was gross.
Rude Staff – While some staff were lovely, there were quite a few rude members of staff too.
Fast Pass System – When we visited there was a ticketed fast pass system which was okay but not nearly as good as the one at Disneyworld.
Overall, this was the second favourite Disney we have visited. We’d definitely go again and I think it does offer a great option if you have very young children or don’t want to spend two weeks in the USA or tackle an eight-hour flight.
Prices can vary – as ever school holidays are most expensive and the reason we ended up going to Disney World in Florida was it was only slightly more expensive than DLP in May half term.
Disneyland California
Located in Anaheim, Disneyland CA is the original Disney park build by Walt Disney himself. In fact, you can still see the window of the flat he lived in while it was being built from the park.
Disney CA has two parks: Disneyland and Disney California Adventure Park.
What We Loved about Disneyland California
Classic Feel – There’s no denying there’s something special about visiting the original Disneyland park.
Easy Acess To Other Eateries – As the park is in an urban area there are loads of cheap places to eat nearby including Denny’s, IHOP and Cheesecake factory all within in 10/15 minute walk of the parks. As we were on a budget for this trip we really made the most of this.
Cheap Motels In Walking Distance – We also stayed at a very cheap motel as this trip was part of our Honeymoon to Las Vegas and Sandiego.
Nemo – I loved the Nemo ride which isn’t in any of the other parks we’ve been to.
What We Didn’t Love about Disneyland California
Not A Holiday – This park is perfect for a day or two however there just isn’t enough to do it to make it a holiday destination in the way some of the other Disney locations.
Didn’t Feel Safe – While being able to walk from our cheap motel to the parks was a huge bonus, at the same time it didn’t always feel safe, especially at night. It’s not an area I would want to walk around alone.
While this park was our least favourite of the three we have visited, that doesn’t mean it’s not worth visiting at all. For us, it was easy to make it a part of a bigger trip, so if you’re planning on visiting California anyway, you can’t go wrong for a Disney Magic fix.
Disney World, Florida
So, this big one. Florida. Six parks including two water parks. The stuff of dreams. We loved it by my golly it was hot!
What We Loved About Disney World
Here are a few of the things we loved about Disney World in Florida.
Fast Passes – Fast passes at Disneyworld were so easy to use, plan, cancel and add via the app and magic bands. I’ve seen rumours this could be changing as fast passes were stopped during Covid. I think this would be a huge shame.
Dining Plan – Coming from the U.K we booked the dining plan and felt it offered fantastic value for money. I loved planning where we’re going to eat each and how easily we could mix and match dining credits throughout our stay. It also meant not need to take much spending money and know we’d be catered for even if we lost our money or credit cards.
Flight of Passage – This is the best ride I have ever ridden in my entire life. Utterly breathtaking. We visited not long after the Pandora area opened and were lucky enough to bag passes to avoid the three-hour-long queues. I’d go back again literally just to ride this.
There’s just SO much to do – We stayed in Disney World for just over a week (before transferring to Universal Studios for a few days) and didn’t even see half of what we could have. Having water parks is a great way to break things up too.
The Polite Pig – Located in Disney Springs this was our favourite food from our trip and the only place we ate twice.
What We Didn’t Love About Disney World
The Crowds – I don’t think there was a single time during our trip it didn’t feel extremely crowded – I know this is normal for Disney World but it just felt mad after visiting DLP which was much quieter overall.
Transportation – One of the biggest reasons people choose to stay onsite is to make use of Disney Transportation. Overall we found it to be a bit hit miss and sometimes having to wait over an hour at the end of the night, when the parks closed, for a bus was really frustrating.
Travel Time – As we live around four hours away from London we drove up the night before stayed in a hotel and then took our flight in the morning.
Our flight was delayed by a couple of hours so it felt like such a long journey and that’s as grown-ups. I can’t even imagine attempting it with very little ones although I know plenty of people do, it’s just not for me until our daughter is a bit older.
The Weather – Gah! The humidity. We were just not prepared for it. I coped okay, my husband really struggled with it and if we go again it’ll definitely be at a different time of year.
We were also super unlucky with the amount of rain we had – I often see in Disney holiday groups the year we went being mentioned as the exception for the weather during that time of year – early June is usually pretty dry or with short sharp showers.
We had several days where it rained non-stop to the point we stayed in our room when we’d have rather been in the parks.
Disney World is our favourite of the parks because honestly, you can’t beat it. Yes, it costs a lot of money, but we felt it was worth every penny we spent and would 100% go back there once our daughter is old enough to really enjoy it (and tall enough for some of the coasters!)
Whichever Disney Park you choose to visit you’ll be sure to have a magical time!