Disneyland Paris Trip Day 2

Today we were up early as we all wanted to make use of the Extra Magic Hour perk that’s part of being a Disney Hotel guest. We had breakfast in our hotel which is included in the meal plan – a delicious buffet breakfast including hot food, continental, HUGE pastries, juice and hot drinks.

TIP: take a sandwich bag with you and take some pastries away for a snack later!

It was another foggy day which made for some cool views, and the line for security was absolutely huge. It did move pretty fast though, despite many queue jumpers, but always make sure to give yourselves plenty of time!

Extra Magic Time is a full hour in the morning and so all seven of us went straight for Hyperspace Mountain, which is Disneyland Paris’ steampunk Jules Verne version of the ride, with a Star Wars overlay.

I always like to start with rollercoaster to get my tummy ready for the day 🤣 and this was the perfect way to do it as it had only a 5 minute wait time. After one ride, 3 of us peeled off for another ride whereas the others decided to do more on Hyperspace Mountain.

So for us, next up, Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast! This is a fun shooting game ride. I never get a good score and very rarely remember where the photo is on it either!!

While we’re talking photos, let me talk to you about Photopass+. I always include this in all my bookings. (Customers are free to take it off if they want to, but they never do.) It is such good value for money. You get all your ride photos included for your entire party, as well as any character photos that have a photographer and any other photo spots and magic shots around the park. They are then available for you to have unlimited downloads for one year!!

When one photo costs 15 euros in the park, you only need 6 to make it worth your while.

Our next ride was Phantom Manor and as we were walking to the ride we spotted that Mickey in his Phantom Manor outfit was there with no queue! So of course we jumped in and got our pictures with him!

We went to the ride next, but sadly it broke down when we got on it, but it was quite cool to walk through it with the lights on! Apart from the Phantom laughing maniacally with no sound – that was a bit creepy!

We stopped into the Frontierland shops for some more browsing, of course, before we went over and had a look inside the castle. You might not realise that you can get inside and upstairs AND downstairs in Disneyland Paris Castle – if you didn’t make sure you have a look! There’s lots to see! We also got these “tiny world” magic shots while we were on the way in!

The queues were quite large today and before we knew it, it was time to make our way to Disneyland Hotel for our Royal Banquet reservation. We got there a bit earlier so we could have a little look around first. If you are not staying there you can get in!

Disneyland Hotel is the ONLY 5* hotel at any Disney resort in the world. It just finished being refurbished in 2024 and is really stunning. We didn’t really go past the huge foyer where you’ll find the beautiful fireplace, and the castle chandelier. We sat here for a while to warm up and wait for our reservation time to come around.

If you ARE a guest of this hotel, you get some great perks, such as dedicated entrance just steps from the park, rooms overlooking the park, and a special meal plan including all character meals if you want them without having to pay supplements.

On to the Royal Banquet. This is one of two restaurants (soon to be three) at the Disneyland Hotel and is a character meal that I pre-booked for us – well four of us! When you are staying at any other hotel than the Disneyland Hotel and you pre-book a character meal with a Half Board Plus or Full Board Plus meal plan, you will only pay a supplement towards that experience and the rest of it is covered by one of your meal plan vouchers. If you have the Extra Plus meal plan, you get one character meal included.

(When we got to the restaurant there was a little confusion with the cast members thinking we still had some money to pay, but we had our paperwork showing that we had pre-booked and pre-paid and it was fine. If you do pre-book with me have this handy, just in case.)

The food here is an all you can eat delicious buffet that you enjoy in the company of Mickey and Minnie, Donald and Daisy in their royal attire! (Fantastic for me as a Donald Duck fan!!)

Not only was the food scrumptious, the views great from the restaurant, and the art work was fantastic. We were in a room with lots of pictures of Disney and Pixar horses, including Maximus from Tangled, Angus from Brave and Samson from Sleeping Beauty, but also, hilariously, Abu as a horse during the change sequence in Aladdin!!

Behind the buffet there was lots of art of “chefs” from Disney including Tiana and her dad, but also the fairies from Sleeping Beauty and my favourite, Kronk looking suitably proud of his spinach puffs!

Oh and just LOOK at this fantastic array of beautiful desserts!

We delightedly filled our faces with food here and then asked for the bill at the end, only to be looked at with surprise. We were then surprised to find that everything is included at this restaurant, which was lovely!

Aside from the small bit of confusion at the start, this was a really excellent character dining experience and I would definitely recommend adding it to your booking if your family is a fan of these characters.

While four of us were eating here, the other three were enjoying their lunch at Walt’s where they had a table overlooking Main Street USA and had some of Walt’s favourite dishes that can be found on the menu.

More time for shopping in the Disneyland Hotel shop before wandering back to our own hotel for a little rest. Later on we would be going to see the new nighttime illuminations Disney Tales of Magic and we had also booked the reserved viewing area for this.

You can book this in the app before you leave for your trip and I would definitely recommend the viewing area for the nighttime show. It’s less crowded and you don’t have to hold onto your spot for ages. Just get there when it tells you to. And again, not everyone in your party has to come if they’re not interested.

There were just three of us this time for the reserved viewing. We had been on Pirates of the Caribbean and the rest of the group carried on riding rides while we made our way to the designated area! We had a great view of the castle as you can see from the pictures below! Disney Tales of Magic is a really beautiful show – it had us all in tears at one point or another. We had a slightly altered show due to the weather, no drones, but it wasn’t any less for it. Then afterwards we hung around a bit to let the crowds disperse. Best way to do that? Shopping!!

Oh and as we were leaving we were treated to Donald waving goodnight to us all!!

It was another fab day in Disneyland Paris! Come back next week for a look at Avengers Campus and some of the shows that are available!

Disneyland Paris Trip Day 2

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