Disneyland Paris at Christmas is a great time to go. From the amazing decorations, piped in festive music, themed Christmas shows and parade it really is a magical experience. Disney know how to pull together the Christmas theme. Here are some of our highlights from our last trip to inspire anyone thinking of going next Christmas, grab the winter woolies and book up!
Top 5 things to see and do in Disneyland Paris at Christmas.
With so many things happening around Disneyland Paris, where do you start?
The Christmas Tree on Main Street USA
Wow! This Christmas tree actually blew me away. The tree is located right in the middle of Main Street in line with the castle and it sets off the theme so well. It’s huge and decorated in a Victorian Christmas toy theme with Russian dolls, trumpets, presents and retro Mickey Mouse. The lights change colour and the effect is just amazing in the dark.
See if you can see the Mickey Mouse Gingerbread men, Goofy and Mickey Tobogganing and the Hidden Mickey Candy Cane spirals.
Even underneath the tree is chocked full of trinkets and ornaments.
As Main Street USA at Disneyland Paris is set upon a time period of the turn of the century. Everywhere you look you can see Victoriana. The Band Stand in the town square at the beginning of this area looks like a winter wonderland.
The garland over the railway station is pretty special too – I want one for my house…though think the voltage in my house might not be enough! And no doubt Alan would cry over the electricity bill!
Disney Dreams of Christmas
Disney Dreams is the Disneyland finale show, which operates at the close of the park each day. We were lucky enough to see the original back in September (Disneyland Half Marathon) and loved it. The Show is a combination of fireworks, fountains and projections.
I’ll insert my excuses here and say it is quite hard to photograph a light show that is as fast moving as Disney Dreams.
Around 15 minutes before the main show is a small pre show with a festive flavour.
As Frozen has been Disney’s massive success story in recent years we expected to see Olaf and it didn’t disappoint. The famous songs were in French and English..altogether now ‘Let it go!’ The Cast of Toy Story perform “Toy Story Nutcracker” and the It’s a small World dolls create a tribute to Christmas around the world.
If you are going to be there at this time of year Disney Dreams is definitely one not to miss.
Christmas Parade
Disney’s Christmas parade has the characters you love and a finishing touch of magic with Father Christmas.
I’ll admit that we didn’t get the best location for viewing the parade. Or was the weather ideal, in fact our parade day was so foggy you could barely see Sleeping beauty’s castle!
Goofy Leads up the parade.
Pluto is trying to keep warm in the snow covered Kennel, while Max and Clarabelle Cow play outside in the snow.
A Christmas basket of toys contains Buzz Lightyear and Woody.
Huey, Dewey, and Louie keep and eye on the toy factory.
Chip, Dale and Clarice are joined with Daisy Duck on the Sugar and Spice Float.
And the Parade ends with Father Christmas in his sleigh being pulled by his reindeer. If you look closely you’ll spot the Disney “Money making bear” in the back, Duffy.
Ice Skating at Disneyland Paris
Every time we walked from our hotel we passed this skating rink at Disney’s Hotel New York and managed to put the girls off. On the last night, we couldn’t put it off any longer and parted with the money for the rink. I was chief photographer while Alan took the girls on.
The rink is synthetic, which the guy on the counter said was more difficult than real ice. Alan likened it to skating on a wet glass chopping board and they couldn’t seem to get a push off. After about half an hour of shuffling around, they gave up.
One of the best things about Ice Skating at Disneyland Paris at Christmas is the lack of a queue! Strange as it may seem, but there was never many people partaking in the activity. Possibly because everyone has focused the holiday on getting to the parks. While at local pop-up ice skating rinks at Christmas people are visiting the area for that one draw.
The Gingerbread house at The Disneyland Hotel
Finally the easiest one to miss out spotting is in the Disneyland Hotel. Even though it is the most visual hotel at the Disneyland park, the entrance is tucked away. As you head towards the park look to the right hand side to spot a small rotating doorway.
The house isn’t totally edible, but does contain a lot of Gingerbread and Icing Sugar. The roof is made from 120KG of Icing Sugar, 20KG of egg whites, 5 litres of Lemon Juice and 1KG of Gelatin. The Walls are made out of 150KG of Gingerbread. The windows are 150KG of sugar! But underneath it all is 2,500KG of plywood
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