Disneyland Paris rides for kids under 6: which ones are best?

In January 2020, when we came back to France, we were lucky enough to spend a day at Disneyland Paris with the kids. Our enthusiasm was quickly dampened by the people around us, who warned us about the limited number of rides for little ones.

Oh well, we already had our tickets, so we set off in the morning expecting not to be able to do many rides. Once there, “excited as fleas”, we quickly realised that one day wouldn’t be enough to do everything. We only had 1-day passes for Disneyland Park, so we didn’t do the Studios park (now called Disney Adventure World). Disneyland Paris rides for kids under 6: which ones are best? Here’s our complete guide to planning your visit.

1- A day at Disneyland with young children: what to plan for

To have a pleasant day at Disneyland with your children, you need to plan ahead and anticipate a few little things that will make your life easier. And when you go out with kids, that’s the basis for keeping from blowing a fuse! 😜 Here’s a list, not exhaustive of course, and it can change depending on your children’s ages.

A picnic is a must

As we were going in January, we knew the weather wouldn’t necessarily be kind. We crossed all our fingers for no rain. We told ourselves it would be cold, so we wouldn’t bother with a picnic and we’d be glad to get somewhere warm to eat. EXCEPT that…

Fatal mistake! Why?

1- Everyone wanted to take shelter somewhere warm! So it was very crowded, with few seats, and you need luck to hit the right moment. Unless you sit down in a “proper” restaurant.

2- It’s very expensive! We obviously didn’t park our bottoms in one of the restaurants with a €30 menu. We opted for a fast-food-style place where we paid about €30 for 2 hot dogs, 1 bag of nuggets and 2 Cokes (we had our own water bottle). And we were lucky to get a table without too long a wait.

So if you’d rather eat on site, to avoid lugging picnic bags around, get to the restaurants early to make sure you have a warm seat. But our advice, summer or winter, is definitely to plan your picnic: your bank manager will thank you! 🤑

Download the Disneyland Paris mobile app

The Disneyland mobile app is available on Apple and Android. It gives you all the information on ride waiting times and puts everything you need to know about the park at your fingertips. As there were few people around, we barely used it, but if you come in high season, I think it’s essential for making the most of your visit.

Buy your tickets online

Buying your tickets online is compulsory. There is no sale of tickets at the entrance of the park. There are several options depending on the number of days, the number of parks you visit, whether you want a ticket with flexible dates or you choose your dates. Obviously, prices differ depending on the options.

2- Which Disneyland Paris rides are suitable for children aged 4 and 6?

Let’s get to the point. What rides can you do with little ones at Disneyland? Well, to your great surprise, plenty! We even didn’t have time to do everything in 1 day, although the queues were short. We never waited more than 10 minutes! Here’s a little list of the rides, land by land.

Which rides are there in Fantasyland?

We spent quite a lot of time in this part of the park. Almost all the rides can be done with little ones under 6. Here’s the list of what we did:

• Sleeping Beauty Castle (don’t forget to go inside!)
• Dumbo the Flying Elephant (the ride is very short though!)
• Lancelot’s Carousel (you can stay next to the children by the horses)
• Alice’s Curious Labyrinth: a maze with tree hedges
• Mad Hatter’s Tea Cups. Always fun, but again, a lot of waiting for a very short ride!
• it’s a small world: the world of dolls, just magical, this ride 🙂

The character meet-and-greets with Mickey or the princesses were out of the question: 45 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes of waiting. In my opinion, there’s no way to get the kids to hold out that long. So we gave them a miss.

Fantasyland rides we didn’t do but that are suitable for young children

• Peter Pan’s Flight
• Casey Jr. – le Petit Train du Cirque (the little circus train)
• Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
• La Bannière du Dragon
• Pinocchio’s Daring Journey

Disneyland Paris rides: Adventureland with little ones

This part of Disneyland won us over too. The sets are really beautiful and very realistic. It’s much less “girly” than Fantasyland. It really felt like setting off on an adventure. The children loved it. Here are the rides we did:

• Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse
• Adventure Isle: heading off into the night, through the caves.
• Pirates of the Caribbean: a cruise on the water. The dummies are so realistic that Suzanne was a little scared at times.

Pirate’s Beach was closed, but it’s also suitable for young children. The pirate ship is really beautiful, the children loved it.

Aladdin’s passage is very beautiful. We even bumped into Aladdin. Well, Suzanne screamed, but we saw him anyway!

In this part of the park you walk a lot, but everything is really pretty, and a change of scenery is guaranteed.

Which rides are there in Frontierland?

We spent little time here as it was already the end of the day. The children loved exploring the houses at the entrance to Frontierland.

Which rides are there in Discoveryland?

We didn’t go to this part of the park. There’s little for the youngest:

• Autopia (subject to height and weather conditions)
• Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast
• Videopolis theatre
• Les Mystères du Nautilus (The Mysteries of the Nautilus). A tour of Captain Nemo’s submarine.

Note: don’t forget to pick up a park map. It has icons showing how accessible each ride is, and whether it’s a family ride or suitable for the smallest children.

3- Visiting Disneyland in one day: is it enough to enjoy the rides with young children?

It’s clearly a tiring day for children: the emotions, the waiting, the walking. We left around 5pm, before the kids “melted down”. It would have been a shame to end the day in tears and stress.

Honestly, 2 days is much better (I know because I did it when they were younger) for visiting Disneyland with children under 6. It means you’re not stressed by the time and can take it slowly.

Back then, I stayed at Disney’s Davy Crockett Ranch. It was very good. They are bungalows of different sizes, and you also get a free shuttle to the park.

4- Is Disneyland worth it if your children haven’t seen any Disney films?

Honestly, our children had only seen Frozen 1 and Cars. They quite like Mickey, but no more than that. So they have very few “references” and favourite characters, unlike us.

That didn’t stop us having a magical, enchanting day. The whole park is beautiful and the children were amazed by everything they saw and heard. So there’s no problem visiting the park without any film-buff knowledge on the subject!

5- What budget should you plan for Disneyland with kids?

Our budget for one day

I admit it’s a real budget for an outing like this! It costs us less to go away for a weekend than to spend a day at Disneyland Park.

Full-price tickets (without promotions):

• Adults: from about €52 to €150 depending on the date, as prices now change from day to day. A 1-day ticket for both parks (Disneyland Park and Disney Adventure World) starts at around €88. Buy online, there are often offers. More info here.
• Children (ages 3 to 11): from about €48 to €140 depending on the date. More info here.

Our budget for our day at Eurodisney (January 2020):

• 2 adult tickets (promo at the child price): 51 x 2 = €102
• 2 children’s tickets free, otherwise the cost would also have been €102
• Parking: €30
• Food: about €30
• Sweets for the road: €5
• Transport Lille to Paris: €30 in tolls + petrol.

Total budget for 1 day at Disney: €299, excluding petrol.

If you stay 2 days, you need to add the supplement for the 2-park entry ticket for each person, the hotel and meals. But it’s an interesting option for enjoying all the rides at Disneyland at a slightly less frantic pace! 😉

A selection of the cheapest hotels near Disneyland

I did a little research on the cheapest hotels around Disneyland Park. Here’s what’s on offer.

Budget of €50 to €100 a night (outside peak season):

• Appartement Disneyland Paris: a whole family flat for 4 to 5 people, 43 m². 5 km from the park, in Magny-le-Hongre. From €96 a night.
• Les toits de Magny: a very cosy 28 m² studio for 4 people, with a bus line that takes you to the front of Disneyland Park. From €101.
• B&B Hôtel de Meaux: completely renovated. Family room from €80.

See all the accommodation near Disneyland Park in this budget.

Hotels inside the Disney resort

• Disneyland® Hotel: chic and luxury, 5 minutes’ walk from the park. From €700 a night.
• Disney’s Newport Bay Club®: lakeside, 15 minutes’ walk from the park or by free shuttle. From €400.
• Disney’s Sequoia Lodge: this hotel has a Bambi theme 🙂 It’s 15 minutes’ walk from the park and from the RER station. From €300.

6- Visiting Disneyland with kids: what you need to know

Here’s some information about the park:

Disneyland Park

• On Main Street, don’t hesitate to stroll through the arcades, it’s really very pretty. It’s easy to rush off towards the rides, but the magic starts right at the entrance with the reconstructed 1920s American village.
• To have your photo taken with your favourite characters, you need to book an appointment. They’ve got a bit big for their boots now. They have professional photographers! So it’s a paid service. In my day #oldladytalking, they wandered around the park and you could photograph them. Apparently that’s over!
• The parade of the moment, which for us was Frozen, runs fairly regularly: we saw it about 3 times during the day.

Family services

• There are toilets absolutely everywhere, sometimes with complete children’s areas (small toilets, changing tables, sinks at little ones’ height).
• You can rent a stroller: one day’s rental is €30, plus a deposit if you want to take it out of the park where you rented it. There are 2 rental points in the parks (at Town Square Terrace, just after the Disneyland Park entrance, and at Studio Services at the entrance to Disney Adventure World). From what we saw, the strollers are very basic umbrella-type strollers with no recline. So if you come with younger ones who need to sleep, definitely bring your own. You can easily leave them at the foot of the rides.
• There are children’s menus, bottle warmers or microwaves, and high chairs in every restaurant.

Parking

• Parking is €30 for the day. You pay on arrival as you enter.
• It’s quite a walk to get to the entrance of Disneyland Park, especially if you’re parked at the back of the car park.
• Remember to pick up a park map at the entrance so you can find your way around during the visit, in addition to the app.

So that’s our feedback on our visit to Disneyland Park with our 2 children aged 4 and 6. We did quite a lot of rides during the day, and we walked 7 kilometres. We didn’t have a stroller and the children walked well.

It was a really nice day. The children still talk about it even though they have seen very few Walt Disney cartoons. It wasn’t a destination on our to-do list, but the opportunity came up and so we went. No regrets: it was magical, like when we were 10, even for the grown-ups!

♥♥♥ Emilie & co ♥♥♥

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