So straight off the bat I'll say Eurodisney is NOT a cheap holiday, I'm not
going to pretend that it is. But if you decide to spend your hard earned cash
on a "once in a lifetime" kind of trip, there might be a few ways to
make it a little bit cheaper.
We went to Eurodisney 5 years ago, the kids were 4 and 9, pretty perfect
ages for it. And they loved it so much I promised we'd go back. So this year,
we did!
Booking the holiday
The first thing I did when we decided to book was spend a good few hours looking
at all the different options. Amazingly there can be a difference in price by
traveling a day earlier or later, or taking a different train. I entered about
a hundred (or at least it felt that many!) different combinations of length of
stay, date of travel, hotel type etc and wrote down all the prices. In the end
we paid just over £1000 for 4 days/3 nights including hotel, park tickets and
train travel for 4 people.
I chose to take the children during school time. That is not going to be
everyone's preferred option I know, but I decided that going in late September
would give them a chance to settle into new classes without really disrupting
any serious pieces of work they might do later in the year. The school,
although they couldn't authorise the holiday, were very supportive and wished
us a lovely break. It was a great time of year, the weather was mild and the
park was relatively quiet.
Looking for deals
If you're not set on booking at a certain time it is worth looking out for
deals. There are often "kids go free" or "one night free"
offers. When we booked we received free half board food vouchers. That was
incredibly useful. The vouchers gave us an all-you-can-eat meal plus an
afternoon snack each day. Had we paid for all the food we ate, it would have
been an extra £450 on top of our holiday!! And it was lovely not to have to
worry about paying for food on top of everything else.
Pack for snacks
As with all resorts the food inside the parks is eyewateringly expensive.
Having spent a small fortune on the holiday, you don't want to spend the same
again on food and drinks while you're there. The website does say you can't
take your own food or drinks into the parks but we never had any issues, and
plenty of people were making sandwiches at breakfast to take with them!
We took cereal bars, biscuits, fruit, pot noodles, cupasoups and mug shots. And
plenty of drinks. Having used our food vouchers at lunch time, the kids were
getting hungry by the time we got back to the hotel so the pot noodles went
down really well. Another thing to note is that there is a charge for mugs and
tea/coffee in the rooms. We took tea, coffee, sugar with us, and some small
milk cartons. But we didn't realise there wouldn't be mugs, so we reused pot
noodle pots for hot drinks and snacks!
The journey
I made a packed lunch to take with us on the way down, and bought some cheap
sweets as a treat. Again we packed loads of drinks and snacks so that we didn't
have to pay service station prices.
To entertain the kids on the journey we have a journey book in which I write
car game ideas and challenges, I also drew a map of the route with various
towns we would pass marked on it. It helped them to see how far we had to go
without asking "are we nearly there yet?!" every 5 minutes! We got some
audio books from our local library which are free to loan and definitely help
to pass the time.
As our train was at 7am we chose to stay over the night before in Ashford.
There is some great accommodation on Air bnb, it's not just rooms in shared
houses, there are bnbs or self catering flats too.
For parking we used a site called
justpark.com.
It allows people to rent out their drives, and we paid £18 for 5 days. The
multi-storey at Ashford International is £11 a day so it's worth looking at
alternatives.
Extras
Inevitably there are tonnes of ways to spend extra money while you're there.
And we don't like to say "no" all the time, especially when we're on
holiday. Personally, I think there is plenty to do without paying for any extra
activities. We gave the kids some spending money, and any gifts for their
friends, treats in the park or souvenirs to bring home came out of that. It's
much easier to budget that way than spending €5 here and there which quickly
adds up. And it's a good lesson for the children in making decisions and
managing their own cash. Of course that depends on the age of the children. It
might be easier to give a daily allowance than an overall budget.
One idea I had afterwards. Was that if you want to give the kids a souvenir
to remember the trip, buy it before you go and wrap it up so they can open it
on holiday. It will be a LOT cheaper than anything you buy in the shops there.
Exchange rates make a big difference, but as an example pens were €6 (about
£5).
We had a wonderful time, and now we're back the belt tightening will resume!
How else have you managed to reduce costs while you're away? What are your
best holiday bargains?
