Fresh from our Character breakfast early that morning, we left Plaza Gardens feeling accomplished. So many things done and not even 10am yet! You can read more about our breakfast on my blog here.

During our character breakfast a family entered the venue at the same time as us. They were distinctive because the entire family were wearing matching clothes with the same Winnie The Pooh print on. It reminded me of The Sound of Music where Julie Andrews as Maria makes all the clothing for the kids. All with slight variations yet completely matching. It was so cute! Even their baby was matching too! They even stopped to compliment me on my shoes. My shoes were epic (I bought them especially for Disneyland) but they absolutely destroyed my feet, I could barely walk! You can bet I only wore them once.

Once we were seated inside, the same family were on the table next to us. We learnt they were there celebrating their baby turning 1 at the same time our baby was turning 2! We all bonded and our kids interacted throughout, they were also from the UK. As we were leaving, the family approached us and the mum gave us a gift. We’d been pixie dusted! (A random act of kindness from a stranger on a Disney trip). She told us she makes clothing and has made some goody bags to give out to children. In the bag were some sweets, hair clips, stickers and the most adorable ribbons with very subtle Disney print on them. This was amazing and our daughter, Hilda was so happy with her new little handbag! I put her little ribbons in her hair (granted I did a terrible job). Suddenly it all made sense – This mum was a replica Maria and had made all the clothes! What an awesome talent.

I was able to find her products from the leaflet in the bag – Lo’s Handmade Parade – Please take a look at her amazing creations if you are interested!

After this little treat, we decided to see if there were any rides with short queues since we were in the park so early. It was way past Extra Magic Hours ending so we knew the park was already open to the public but at this time it should still be quieter than midday. Unfortunately in true Disney fashion the lines were already forming. Peter Pan is the most popular ride and it’s rare you see the queue for this under 40 minutes, most of the time it’s well over an hour! Luckily, right next door lies Pinocchio (excuse the pun!). It said 10 minute queue so we joined knowing it would probably take longer as they always do. Once we got close to the start of the ride one of the cast members took a liking to our daughter, Hilda. She is very cute after all! The lady was engaging with her and eventually asked us if we had been on the Dumbo ride yet. We hadn’t. So she kindly gave us 3 premier passes to skip the lines for Dumbo only. Free to use all day! For some unknown reason we then boarded the ride ahead of a number of people too – We couldn’t believe our luck today!

The ride was creepy. Not our favourite but at least not as scary as Snow White and for this one, Hilda didn’t cry – Bonus!

We headed for Dumbo straight after this since my feet were killing me and I knew I would need to head back to the hotel soon and change! Dumbo took us around 5 minutes to get on. Good job because the sun was beaming by this point and there was no way we could stand it for much longer. Hilda really enjoyed controlling the elephants on this one and there was a lovely breeze at the top! It’s the simple things…

After these few rides we set off on the long walk back to Sequoia Lodge. It is normally a short walk but with my feet in so much pain I actually had to take my shoes off by this point to try walk faster! I was desperate to get back. I stopped outside the new Marvel Hotel (Disney Hotel New York) for a feet rest and we learnt what a great sunbathing spot this was!

Now it was pool time! Sequoia Lodge is one of the few Disney hotels that has a pool and since we were experiencing a heat wave, I’ve never been so thankful for this! We were able to leave the park easily and take a couple of hours for a swimming break. This was one of the most enjoyable parts because being Disney, everyone is in the parks and not wasting time by the pool!

Sequoia Lodge had a lovely pool with a water-slide and the option to swim from inside to out too. So we took full advantage of this time to relax. My husband and daughter swam whilst I took a quick dip then sunbathed whilst continuing to plan our days for the rest of the week.

We were scheduled for an early dinner at PYM Kitchen in Studios today so with this in mind we headed back to our room for costume change number two. This time I whipped out my daughters Belle dress and we headed for the new park; We’d not yet visited Studios on this trip. Of course just as she did yesterday, Hilda was sparko as we entered the park and for the entire walk to PYM. She cuddled Mushu, our new mascot bought only yesterday, tightly as she slept.

We were excited to visit Walt Disney Studios Park as it was a change of scenery from Disneyland Park we’d spent all morning and the day before at. This time we would spend all afternoon in Studios with no real plan other than our dinner reservations. So we headed for PYM Kitchen..

PYM is a themed buffet restaurant (the only one in Studios) and found on Avengers Campus. When I came back in 2018 none of this existed as it only opened in 2022! I didn’t find there to be much here if i’m honest. PYM is using the Ant-Man movies for its theme with the idea that you’ve been shrunk down.

I’ve seen all the Marvel movies but it was never one of my favourites so the theme was a little lost on me. I could appreciate the little touches though anything from the seasoning on the tables!

All the food was supposed to appear massive like you are an ant. What an awesome idea!

Hilda was asleep at the start of our visit here so I headed to the little kids buffet and got her some junk food to wake up to. It wasn’t quite as colourful and varied as the buffet in Agrabah yesterday but the American food was tasty at least. There were tons and tons of dessert options as well as a bigger variety of drink choice too. I liked that we even got served a giant pretzel on our table which I definitely popped in to my bag for later!

PYM wasn’t very enjoyable for us but I think this is partly because Hilda had just woken up from her nap and so decided she wasn’t a happy bunny. Lots of tears and refusing to eat but eventually we managed to bribe her with ice cream.

After filling our bellies we set out to explore Avengers Campus. This place is cool and whilst I do love the Marvel movies, it still doesn’t scream Disney to me. I think Marvel will always sit with Universal even if that is no longer the case technically. We popped in to Stark’s purely because Iron Man is my favourite. The decor is any Marvel fan’s dream.

Heading on to World’s of Pixar, my favourite part of Studios, we passed Mrs Incredible. There was such a small queue we figured we’d jump in.. Why not?

Another character Hilda wasn’t so sure about just like the rest!

We skipped Crush’s Coaster ride. This is one of the newest so it always has a super long queue. Hopefully one day we get to go on this one when Hilda is tall enough as I remember from a previous visit how much fun this ride is!

So, we headed for Toy Story Playland where Hilda was in awe of the giant Buzz Lightyear that towers over you as you enter.

It was adorable seeing how excited she got as she pointed to the giant toy and shouted Buzz! As we wandered around this part of Studios she was transfixed on everything going on around her. The decor is great in this part and there is always so much to look at.

We headed for Slinky Dog, our first ride in this park. The queue took longer than we expected but Hilda was excited because she loves dogs. She enjoyed the ride but not quite as much as Dumbo. I don’t think I could have taken much more of the dizziness!

After this we wandered over to the giant Rex. There were toddlers playing on Rex’s feet and Hilda joined in. It was nice to see the kids together having somewhere to play. I got chatting to some of the parents and we were all saying how difficult Disneyland is for toddlers. There is nowhere to take them where they can just play! Why Disney doesn’t have a soft play is beyond me! With the closure of Frontierland Playground and the pirate ship play areas whilst we visited, it left nowhere to go to take toddlers to just burn off some energy. So as a result, here we all were blocking passersby from their photo opportunity with Rex. Anything to give our little ones a chance to play for a bit!

After lots of playing we decided to head back to the Avengers Campus and try out some of the rides. On the way there we spotted the Tower of Terror queue had dropped. Of course it wasn’t quite as quick as it said it was going to be and after standing in the queue alone for over 30 minutes I was reminded how much I hate queueing! The ride was worth it though because it is one of my favourites. It never gets old and I don’t think you ever get used to it either!

After I’d queued for the ride we took the opportunity to try out Parent Switch. My husband was able to walk straight in using a card they had given me upon exit. I was able to wait in the gift shop whilst he rode but it still took a good 20 minutes. Luckily we kept ourselves occupied!

I was excited for my husband to try Tower of Terror because he’d never been on it before. I was lucky to ride this multiple times in a row back in Florida when I went to an exclusive cast member ride preview for its new launch once. They were trying out new sequences for the ride and I was the first to try it out! He loved it of course.

Later we got chance to ride Avengers Assemble before close. It was funny because we spent all day wondering where the awesome Aerosmith rollercoaster had gone and it wasn’t until I was physically riding the Avengers ride that I realised it was actually a rebranded Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster. We were glad they didn’t get rid of it completely at least! I must admit, I prefer the original but hey at least I still look happy!

Finally we had chance to jump on one last ride before the park closed. Spider-Man! This time we could ride with Hilda and we had no idea what to expect. We grabbed our 3D goggles and prepared to fight some spider-bots.

Even though Hilda had no idea what was going on and couldn’t even see through the glasses she kept taking off… She actually kept joining in with us by shooting her arm out to try shoot webs. It was the cutest thing and we had such a laugh together!

A really fun time at Avengers Campus and now it was time to head on to Disneyland Park to see what else we could squeeze in.

When you have a multi park pass like we had, it’s really handy to park hop and make the most of your time at Disneyland! We headed for Disneyland Park after 9pm and this time to Frontierland. During our short time here in the evening we were able to do so much more. The rides were so quiet thanks to everyone congregating around the castle getting ready to watch the fireworks. Overall it was so nice to be away from crowds and enjoy a break from the midday heat.

We popped to Indiana Jones which had no queue at all and if we didn’t have a toddler with us I don’t doubt we would have ridden this multiple times!

Ending the evening with Phantom Manor we had a lot of fun running around this area with no people. The ride wasn’t as fun as the Florida version but Hilda enjoyed sitting in the cart and pointing at all the ghosts at least.

It was such a perfectly chilled evening. We had no set plans and no rush to be anywhere in particular. To make it even better we caught the fireworks from Frontierland on our way out. There was nobody near us at all so it felt like our own private firework display!

We had such an eventful day that I started wondering if we would actually have enough to do in our 4 nights there. We’d already crammed so much in to 2 days what more could there possibly left? Turns out Disneyland Paris has a lot to offer…

Stay tuned for more about our family trip coming soon!

~ Visited Disneyland Paris in June 2025 ~