Disneyland Paris - Halloween

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Last October we travelled to Disneyland Paris, I’d always wanted to see a Disney Park with all the Halloween decorations up. I love Halloween and it’s just something I’d always wanted to do, bucket list job, so we did it. We booked direct through Disney Travel Company, it was really easy and seem to have the best deal at the time. We always drive to Disneyland Paris, it’s cheaper, there’s no baggage allowance (other than what we can fit in the car) and we worked out from door to door, it probably takes the same amount of time as flying.

We stayed at Hotel Cheyanne and the theming was EVERYTHING! It’s like being in the wild west, there’s Woody and Jesse meet and greets in the hotel reception, the bar stools are actual saddles with stirrups for your feet, and the whole site is like a movie set for a Western. All the hotel blocks are designed to look like part of the town, and you can even ride horses up and down the “street”. Our room was in the “Stirring Bull” and the rooms have Woody theming even down to the toiletries in the bathroom. The rooms are simple, two double beds, a dressing table, TV, bench seat, wardrobe, and a bathroom with a shower over the bath, clean and tidy, just what we needed as we’d be spending the most of our time in the parks.

Being a teacher, we must stick to the school holidays, so it was late October for us, expecting chilly weather we packed our winter coats only to find it was a heatwave and probably needed shorts! We expected to be drinking hot chocolates and to chow down on all the spooky Halloween treats, instead we were eating ice creams from the march hare refreshments, so I would definitely check the weather forecast before you go.

When booking we decided to take the stress out of spending money and booked a meal plan, for us this was brilliant. We booked the full board plus plan. On this plan we got a buffet breakfast in our hotel, and then two meals pretty much anywhere in the park. In all honesty, it was too much, and we didn’t need that much food and often didn’t use all the credit for each day. I would say that depending on your hotel, half board is more than enough. If you fill up at breakfast, you won’t need to eat again until dinner, there’s so much to choose from at breakfast, you won't need lunch. We were a little disappointed to be so full that we couldn’t test out all the Halloween treats. We’re travelling to Disneyland Paris again soon and we’ve booked the half board meal plan... I’ll let you know how that goes.

We stayed for 4 nights so we did a Paris day in the middle of our stay to break it up a bit. This is so easy to do especially if you’re staying onsite because the train station is literally in the Disney Village. We just bought return train tickets the day we wanted to go from a machine in the station, hopped on the train and enjoyed our day in Pairs. We used the metro to see all the main sites and stopped in a patisserie for tea and cake in the afternoon. We didn’t stay too late because we knew the kids would be exhausted and we have dinner reservations booked that evening in the Disney Village. If you’re thinking about squeezing in a view of the Eiffel tower it’s doable if you don’t have much time, we did it in half a day.

I love Disneyland Paris and the fact that the parks aren’t too huge and so close together so you can hop between the two, I also love that they decorate the parks with the seasons. I was really looking forward to seeing the parks in all it’s Halloween glory and it didn’t disappoint. The pumpkins are magnificent and the whole park is decorated not just Main St. The Halloween parade is phenomenal with all the characters dressed in their spooky costumes, Mickey the vampire was just the one! I also love that all of the Villains get their time, the nighttime villain show was great. It’s all the little details, I loved the spooky ghost noises that played down Main St. We didn’t see any spooky snacks at all whilst we were there, I think this is mainly down to us being too full to eat snacks and me not doing my research to see what the special Halloween snacks were or where to buy them from. I will do my research next time and make a list of the treats we want to try.

If you love Disney and love Halloween, then being there for the spooky season is a must! This year’s spooky season runs from 1st October until the 5th November. There’s also a Halloween party on the 31st October where you can wear Halloween fancy dress and trick or treat your way round the parks in a special ticketed event. Our girls were a little bit too little for this when we went but we will return and do the party when they are older. For now though I’ve got my sights on seeing Disney during the Christmas celebrations!