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We recently returned from a short trip to one of the most magical place on Earth – Disneyland Paris.
We travelled as a whole family of six – myself, my husband and our four children, three of them you will be familiar with, Zachary who is 9, Eli who is six and Avery who is 17 months, my step son Marley, who is 10 also accompanied us so we could experience the magic as an entire family.
If you’re not new to my blogs, Instagram or Youtube channel then you will know that two of my children have additional needs, Zachary has Autism and Avery has a range of complex medical needs, including Cerebral Palsy, Dystona and she is 100% g tube fed.
Anyone of you that has travelled with children will know that it is no small feat, you almost need a holiday to recover from the holiday, but… when some of those children have additional and complex medical needs, the process can be a whole lot more challenging.
I did a lot in the lead up to our trip to make sure we were covered for every eventuality – after all it’s not uncommon for Avery to need an impromptu hospital visit every now and then. So I wanted to make sure we were fully prepared for all scenarios.
The Logistics
Our trip was booked on a ‘budget’ – I use this term loosely because, well Disney is far from cheap! But we opted for a lot of the less expensive options.
We chose to travel from Gatwick Airport as they had the cheapest flights to Charles De Gaulle (CDG) Airport, which meant we already had a long stretch of travel before we even made it to the plane, the drive from home was around five hours! We flew with Easy Jet – again because they offered the cheapest flights.
We stayed at B&B Hotel which is a Disney partner hotel, this seemed like the smartest option as they offered a free shuttle to and from the Disneyland Parks. We would have loved to stay on site – but that just wasn’t in our budget. We booked directly through the Disneyland Paris website, it was a hotel and ticket package. We found that outsourcing our travel was the much cheaper option.
For transfers to and from our hotel we went with the Magical Shuttle, at the time it seemed like the most affordable and convenient way to travel as a family of six – but I’ll get to more about that in a minute.
The Preparations
I did a ton of research when we booked our trip, what to take, what to do, what to prepare for our special needs children, if you’re thinking of travelling to Disneyland and you or your children have additional needs, hopefully the next few paragraphs will save you some time.
Airport Assistance
The first thing I did was arrange special assistance with the airline we were flying with, which was Easy Jet. This was a pretty simple process, you just have to select the option in your account, the rest is done at the Airport itself.
Insurance
Next was travel insurance, this was a big one (obviously), everyone needs travel insurance, but we found that your standard, commercial companies wouldn’t insure Zach or Avery. The two companies we did find with decent policies and were specialised in the medical side were goodtogoinsurance.com and staysure.co.uk.
For this trip we went with goodtogo.
Now I wont lie, the insurance ate a fair chunk of our budget, but you can never be too careful, right?
To go alongside our insurance, I also ordered a UK Global Health Insurance Card for each member of our family. This card lets you get state healthcare in Europe at a reduced cost or sometimes even free. Needless to say, we needed neither the insurance or the card, but I felt much more at ease knowing we were covered.
Medical Documents
One of my biggest fears was that we would get turned away from either security or customs at the airport – Avery had a lot of specialised feed and medicines, one of which contained a controlled substance. I wanted to take proof on top of proof that it would be a catastrophe if that happened (and it would be!).
I made sure I had printed up to date prescriptions for every one of Avery’s medicines. Alongside that I also had her Paediatrician write a letter confirming Avery did indeed need her medicines, feed and equipment. Did we end up needing this? No. Am I still glad we took the? For my sanity, absolutely.
Storing The Feed
Avery’s particular feed needs to be refrigerated between uses, and since we were facing 29 degree days I knew a cooler bag just wasn’t going to cut it. We ended up taking twelve bottles of Avery’s Compleat Paediatric – one for every feed while we were away from home. This was an absolute, last case scenario – I didn’t love the idea of wastage, one bottle would usually cover three feeds. But… in the worst case then at least Avery had enough of her feed.
I contacted Disneyland Paris directly, and they kindly responded fairly quickly, letting me know they had a first aid centre in each park, where I could store Avery’s medicine. Now the feed, I will say was a grey area, they don’t normally allow you to store food or baby milk there, but if I had proof that Avery’s feed was a specialised G tube feed then it would be a problem. So I added another piece of paper to our folder – a letter from Avery’s dietician confirming that was the case.
Our hotel also agreed to storing her feed in their fridges while we were there – although I don’t think this would have been the case had it not been a g tube feed.
Priority Access Cards
This is Disneyland Paris’ Disability scheme as it were – they have two types of access cards, Easy Access Cards and Priority Access cards, in our case the priority cards were what we applied for as we would benefit the most from them.
Now Disneyland Paris is strict compared to Disneyworld’s DAS system (or so I’ve heard). At Disneyland Paris you actually need to prove you, or your child has the difficulties you’re claiming. This needs to be some form of documentation, there’s a list of acceptable forms of proof on their website.
I was able to pre-register for Zachary and Avery’s access cards thirty days before our trip on the Disneyland website (I will leave a link below). I just needed to answer a few questions, fill out a few details and provide a picture of each of them. I was then presented with a code which I needed to take to City Hall on our first park day, along with our documents.
I believe if you are staying on site you can also collect your access cards directly from your hotel.
Side note – B&B Hotel do not have kettles in the rooms. This is a non-negotiable for us as we still use sterile water for Avery’s flushes. So we purchased a very inexpensive travel kettle from eBay.
That was all the research and planning sorted, the next hurdle was packing. That’s a whole other story so I won’t go into that. But if you are interested in seeing that process I have a pack with me video on my Youtube channel.
So let’s get into our actual experience…
Travel Day
Travelling to the airport was a dream (apart from the lack of sleep, and by lack of I mean none). We left home at 11:30pm and made the five-hour drive to the airport. Avery slept the entire way and the boys seemed comfortable despite the fact that our seven seat Nissan was full to the brim.
We arrived at the airport at around 5am and headed straight for the special assistance desk. They presented Zachary with a sunflower lanyard and helped us drop off our one suitcase (this in itself made special assistance worth it as we skipped the very long que).
We then proceeded through a separate security which was much quieter, and we felt a lot less pressure when it took us forever to offload all of our liquids and medicines into their plastic boxes.
A couple of us needed to be patted down (including Avery), but it was no big deal. No one questioned Avery’s feed or medicine and we didn’t need to show them any documentation.
We settled into a quiet area just on the edge of the hustle and bustle of the main departure lounge until our flight – which was all very straightforward.
Like I said earlier, we booked the Magical Shuttle for our transfers to and from our hotel. What we didn’t know that we wish we did – CDG is a very large airport, and we had a lot of walking to do to get to the shuttle terminal.
By this point we had already missed the shuttle by about ten minutes, so we had almost an hour to wait in the heat before the next one was due to leave. It was very hot in Paris, we were already tired and sweaty – so this wait wasn’t welcome, but it was no one’s fault.
The Hotel
We arrived at our hotel at around 2pm, we checked in, collected our park tickets directly from the hotel and got our room code. She also gave us vouchers for free parking at Disneyland, we did not drive but that’s something to note if you do choose to travel that way.
The room was basic, very basic, but comfortable, and everything we needed (although a mini fridge and kettle would have been appreciated, but budget hunters can’t always be choosers!). The room had a double bed, a bunk bed, a twin bed and a travel cot already set up for Avery. There was a small bathroom off to the side with a bath and shower head. The power outlets were limited in my opinion for the amount of people in our family, but then again, we did have extra medical equipment and a kettle – so that could just be me being picky!
If you’re there to enjoy the parks and not the hotel, I would definitely say it’s a nice budget friendly option. The rooms were clean, a continental breakfast was included, and they had an arcade and a room with vending machines and a microwave. They also had a snack bar with pretty nice food, but this doesn’t open until the evening.
Disneyland Paris
We took the free shuttle to the parks; the timings were a bit hit and miss during the afternoon but in the morning, they seemed to run every ten minutes or so. We were grateful to find they had spaces to park strollers, so we didn’t need to fold it down.
We finally made it to Disneyland at 3pm, and of course, we were all completely awe struck by the theming, the music and the smells (yes the smells!).
Something to note – there is security at Disneyland, and every bag needs to go through their machine, we had a lot of bags clipped onto Avery’s stroller, so this was a bit of a faff.
We went to the main park first and headed straight to City Hall for Zachary and Avery’s Access Cards. There was a bit of a que, it probably took about 20 minutes to get through it, but once we were in the staff were friendly and the process was straightforward. I showed our reference numbers and documents; in our case it was the kids’ DLA letters. Zachary was awarded with a green card and Avery with a purple card, which meant we could class her pushchair as a wheelchair and take it through the lines with us.
I won’t drone on about how amazing Disneyland is and all of the things we did, I have a vlog coming on my Youtube channel that you can check out if you’re interested in what we got up to – but I do just want to mention a few key things that we experienced as I think it would be useful.
1. Not every ride is suitable for littles even if it doesn’t have a height restriction, especially if they don’t have much head control. We took Avery on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride without realising there are a few steeper drops, luckily Avery seemed more than happy – my husband and I just needed to clutch on to her so her head wouldn’t get knocked around.
2. The crowds are insane! Especially if you are going at a peak season, the days we were there the parks were at full capacity. There are lots of people walking in different ways at different paces, and no one really looks where they’re going, so be prepared for that.
3. Paris’ summer is very hot – this is subjective, I’m from the UK so were not used to very hot weather, pack your sun cream, pack a portable fan, pack flannels to cool off – especially for babies. And stay hydrated!
This portable fan was a life saver for us, it kept Avery’s stroller much cooler
4. Take full advantage of your Access Cards, they’re not just for the ride lines, you also get access to a special area for the illuminations (right in front of the castle) and the parades and there’s a separate line for security and entry into the parks. Use it all – it makes the world of difference, trust me!
5. Don’t be afraid to ask – if you’re unsure of something, the cast members always seemed happy enough to answer our questions and guide us in the right way.
Going Home
We were sad to say goodbye, we wished we could have gone for longer, especially after the experience. We tried to cram so much in just one full day and two half days that we ended up burning ourselves out very quickly.
If you are able to, I’d recommend at least three or four nights, to allow yourself the time to take a break and reset. If we ever get the opportunity to go again, we will 100% do this.
The special assistance at CDG was equally as impressive as Gatwick, if not more. We were basically escorted all the way up to the gate. I was so impressed with the way both airports catered to disabilities.
I hope some of this helps you prepare if you are planning a trip to Disneyland, or any trip for that matter a lot of the thing we did we would apply to other trips we may take in the future.
Ultimately, as exhausted as we were, I’m so grateful we got to experience Disneyland Paris as an entire family. I found Disney to be incredibly inclusive, and each member of our family got to have a magical time.
Useful Links
Apply for a UK Global Health Insurance Card – https://www.gov.uk/global-health-insurance-card
Disneyland Paris’ accessibility services – https://www.disneylandparis.com/en-gb/guest-services/accessibility-at-disneylandparis/