I was at Disneyland Paris on a one park one day ticket yesterday, haven’t been for three years and first time using Premier Access. The park was busy as expected for a hot Sunday in summer vacation but it wasn't overly crowded. So it felt like there were a lot of people in the park, especially after 11 am, but waits weren’t too long. There also weren‘t that many people entering at 9.30 but resort guests already had access to the parks through early entry.
Once inside the park at just after 9.30 (it had been open to resort guests for an hour) we booked Big Thunder Mountain on Premier Access, slots were still available for 9.30 - 10.30 am. We paid €18 each. We actually rope dropped it (the ride was late opening and we were on the second train, then went to do Indiana Jones and Pinocchio and then came back to use our pass at 10.30.) When we entered the Premier Access entrance we didn’t see anyone returning with a reservation, we only saw a handful of people using the system throughout the day, and where we joined the line was just before the slope down to loading so only waited a couple of minutes. When we booked our reservation, I’m pretty sure all the other rides using Premier Access in the park (there are only a handful) also had an immediate return time available.
Most waits in the park were between 15 and 45 minutes throughout the day although Thunder Mountain did get up to about 70 iirc. I was with my 16 year old who loves WDW but she commented how nice it was to just chill out and choose what to ride next as the lines weren’t prohibitive and we weren’t having to follow booked reservations. In some ways it felt like when we go to Universal with Express Pass (although we generally wait less time at Uni than we did at DLP.) It was relaxing compared to our most recent experience at WDW in December. We didn’t wait longer than 15 minutes for anything yesterday so I think wait times were slightly overstated, but we did do most of our rides before about 2.30 pm.
At about 2 pm we checked Premier Access return times again, and again most rides had a return time beginning about 30 minutes later. We were able to book BTM (again!) for 3.05 - 4.05 pm. You’re able to buy three rides on each attraction. The furthest out retun time was 4.05 - 5.05 pm for Crush’s Coaster which I was surprised about because it‘s a low capacity attraction and one that has a big rush at rope drop because of how high waits get really quickly. So maybe in Paris people still don’t want to pay to avoid that wait. I must admit we didn’t check the wait time as we didn’t have access to Studios park but I’d assume it was at least 45+.
It felt to me that because very few people were using Premier Access, standby waits were reasonable in Disneyland Parc and it also feels like a park with decent capacity. In fact the longest waits were to meet Mickey Mouse (around 70 minutes during the peak of the day) and the princesses (around 70 - 120 minutes throughout the day) although I wonder if their character casting is an issue and they weren’t running at usual capacity. It’s also a beautiful park with lots to explore (Adventure Isle caves and rope bridge, Alice’s maze etc) and the walkways are wide with multiple paths between lands so it doesn’t get too bottlenecked.
It was lovely to experience a day like this in a castle park, we did ten rides (including the two Premier Access bookings at BTM) in seven hours with several breaks for food and snacks, and we weren’t rushing around or checking our phones, we were just wandering around taking in a really beautiful and well maintained park. My daughter also met Minnie with a five or ten minute wait.
Ten years ago this park felt in pretty bad shape and in need of quite a bit of visual maintenance but it felt to me like it‘s had a complete 180. I know it received a lot of love in terms of refurbishment for the 25th five years ago and that seems to have continued. I don’t know whether to feel hopeful that things could change at WDW (although a different beast and obviously under new management) or depressed that my beloved WDW may never be as relaxing and beautiful and fun again.
We‘re visiting WDW next month (second time since introduction of Genie+) and it may be we stick with DLP (closer, we’re in the UK) and try DLR, with our Florida trips sticking to just Uni for a while if we come away feeling dissatisfied like we did in December because of the stress of Genie+, constant planning, park hopping rules and the poor upkeep of the parks and rides etc.
