So the main draw of Disneyland Paris might be the fantastic rides and entertainment. But there’s another part of the trip that’s also very important – and that’s the food! Especially as dining in any of the Disney parks isn’t cheap, and it will be a significant part of your holiday budget.

Sadly, the food at Disneyland Paris hasn’t always had the best reputation, a lot of people thought it was lacklustre compared to other Disney parks around the world. Personally we think that’s a bit harsh! But in more recent years the resort has been trying out more snacks, diversifying menus and trying to add more magic to you Disneyland Paris trip.

In this blog we’re sharing a bit of an overview of the types of dining available, so you can get planning for what you want to eat on your next trip! We’ll be adding more detailed reviews of restaurants to the blog as time goes forward, so do sign up for updates!

Table-service dining

Essentially at Disneyland Paris you’ve got 3 different types of dining – table service, quick service and snacks. We’ll be looking at each of them in turn, starting with table service!

The table-service category essentially covers any restaurant where you sit at a table and your server brings items to you. This includes buffets – you might be grabbing the food yourself at the buffet, but your server will still be getting you drinks and making sure everything is okay with your meal.

There’s a wide variety of table-service restaurants in Disneyland Paris. They can be found in both theme-parks, at Disney Village, and there’s at least one in each of the on-site hotels. The most popular options on site tend to be the character dining. You have a few options for each – two in Disneyland parc, and two in the Disneyland Hotel. (Personally I think there should be at least one character meal in the Studios. I mean, breakfast at Pym’s test kitchen with Marvel superheroes? Who wouldn’t want that?!) In Disneyland Parc the options are Auberge de Cendrillion, which is a table service meal attended by a variety of princesses, and there’s Plaza Gardens, which is a buffet attended by a mix of Disney characters – expect folks like Mickey, Minnie, characters from Winnie the Pooh, and characters from Disney classics like Pinocchio, Peter Pan and more. The Plaza Gardens buffet is open for all 3 meals but only breakfast and dinner have characters so know what you’re booking! In the Disneyland Hotel you have the buffet Royal Banquet attended my Mickey, Minnie and Pals in suitably Royal attire. Also here is La Table de Lumiere, the ultra-fancy (and pricey!) prix fixe meal attended by princesses and princes. All the character dining is popular and tends to book up quick, so make your bookings as soon as you can!

Non-character meal wise around the parks the table service meals vary from mixed-buffets, to table services heavily themed to their area – for example in Captain Jack’s in Adventureland you get food with a strong Caribbean twist (expect a lot of seafood), while at Bistrot Chez Remy you have a French inspired prix fixe menu with the décor implying you are rat sized and in Remy’s own restaurants! Before deciding where you want to go I’d recommend checking out the menus at the Disneyland Paris website to make sure it’s suitable for you and your group.

In Disney Village you have a mix of table-service restaurants. With the works going on in the village at the moment they seem to be going down a set of restaurants themed around different European Cuisines, with Rosalie French inspired, the Royal Pub inspired by British pubs, and the forthcoming replacement for Planet Hollywood will be an Italian restaurant. There’s also a steakhouse and a couple of heavily themed table-services – Rainforest Café, and Annette’s Diner (themed to a US diner joint).

In the hotels you have restaurants themed to the hotel’s theme. All the hotels offer at least one buffet where families with picky eaters should be okay even though the buffets will have a slant towards a theme. So expect seafood at the buffet in Newport Bay Club, and Tex-Mex at La Cantina in Hotel Santa Fe. Actually one of the hottest restaurants in Disneyland Paris is the buffet Downtown Restaurant in the Hotel New York which has a Marvel twist.

Some top tips for table-service dining in Disneyland Paris:

• Make bookings as soon as possible – For Disney hotel guests bookings for restaurants open a year, yep a WHOLE YEAR, in advance. If you’re staying on site and know where you’d like to eat then book your choices as soon as possible, particularly for popular places like the character meals and Downtown.
• Look out for Prix Fixe menus – Prix Fixe menus are a bit of a French stable, so there’s no wonder they’ve made their way to Disneyland Paris too. Essentially for one price you get a starter, meal and dessert you choose from a set (normally quite small) list. Some of the restaurants in Disneyland Paris are prix fixe only (Bistrot Chez Remy and Auberge de Cendrillion), while others offer prix fixe menus alongside a la carte selections. If you like the options on the prix fixe menus then they can be a way to save a little bit of money as opposed to buying things separately.
• Share any food allergies asap – You can note allergies when booking table service restaurants, but be sure to tell your server too when you arrive. They can then make sure you choose from the selections safe for you. A chef may even come out to help!
• Tipping – While tipping isn’t as prevalent in France as it is in say the USA, a tip for your servers is certainly appreciated!

Quick-Service dining

Quick-service dining is essentially Disney-speak for fast-food – where you go up to a counter to order, pay and collect food yourself and then head to a table. Quick-service dining has some advantages over table service for sure – it’s a lot cheaper, there are a lot more choices, and as the name suggests it’s typically a lot quicker too!

Quick-service dining options can be found in both theme parks, and limited spots in Disney Village too. As with the table-service restaurants, the quick-service spots all tend to have their own theme that ties into the land they’re in. So for Hakuna Matata in Adventureland you can expect African inspired eats in a setting with touches from the Lion King, while at Stark Factory in the studios you eat among bits of Stark tech from the Avengers films. Again I recommend checking out menus in advance if you can to see what might suit your group. There’s standard theme park eats around such as burgers, pizza, hot dogs and the like, but not everywhere. This is particularly the case if you have little ones who are fussy, and even more particularly if you have someone in your group with a condition such as ARFID.

In Disney Village you have a few quick-service options, mostly third party. New York Style Sandwiches offers, as the name would suggest, sandwiches as well as pizza, hot dogs and a few other snacks. We’re very partial though to the sandwiches served over at Earl of Sandwich – there’s a lot of indoor seating here too! You can also grab a burger and fries at Five Guys, and there’s the obligatory McDonalds here too.

Worth noting is that none of the hotels have a quick-service restaurant! This might come as a surprise for some, particularly if you’re used to Walt Disney World where each hotel at least has a cafeteria style quick-service. So don’t expect a wide range of quick food options where you’re staying on-site. There are Starbucks coffee bars though which serve a selection of their food as well as a quick caffiene-fix.

Here’s some of our top tips for quick-service dining at Disneyland Paris:

• Stop and appreciate the theming – All of the quick-service restaurants in the parks are heavily themed, so while it may be tempting to dash in and out try and make time to stop and appreciate the detail. In Colonel Haithi’s for example there’s a tree in the middle of the dining room to carry on the jungle theme, and Pizzeria Bella Notte has both Lady and the Tramp and Luca inspired details. And if you’re a fan of Coco, Casa de Coco is chock full of details from the film!
• Use mobile order if it’s offered… – Some of the restaurants offer mobile order where you place you order and pay via the Disneyland Paris app, and then collect your food when it’s ready. You can skip a lot of big lines this way!
• … But speak to a cast member if you need to adapt menu items – Mobile order has limited options for asking for modifications for meals, and the items are pre-made. So if you have allergies or just need a menu-item modified, you’re better off speaking to a cast member.
• Avoid peak meal times – You know how a lot of people get hangry around 12 noon – 1.30pm, or 5pm – 6.30pm? Well, all those people will charge into the quick-service restaurants about those times and as a result they get VERY busy. If you can eat outside these times you’ll have an easier time.
• Don’t save tables – You see it a lot in the Disney parks, a family colonises a table (or set of tables) while one long-suffering family member goes up to the counter to get all the food. I get it, everyone wants to sit down. But please don’t do this. For starters in the time it takes your group to order and get their food, another group could have sat down, eaten and gone – and you’re depriving them of a seat. Also, the Disneyland Paris cast members take a dim view and at busy times may restrict access to dining rooms and only allow people to sit down once they have food in hand. In a couple of places we were even sat at a table by a cast member!
• Reusable tableware – To reduce waste a lot of the quick-service restaurants use reusable tableware such as cutlery, baskets and cups. Don’t think you’ve been given a free souvenir – you’re meant to put them back when you’ve finished so please do so!
• Tidy up after yourself – In the quick service restaurants you’re meant to tidy away your rubbish when you’ve finished. There are lots of stations to do so and often cast members on hand to help. Please don’t just leave your rubbish there, it’s really rude!

Snacks

In the US Disney parks, snacks are a big deal – there’s often long queues for them, and some have reached cult status by this point. But here’s a harsh truth – for a very long while snacks weren’t really that much of a thing in Disneyland Paris.

This is really down to a difference in culture. In France it is more customary to sit down for meals, and snacking between them is far less of a thing. Hence why Prix Fixe menus are a thing here – it encourages a multi-course relaxed meal to enjoy. Disneyland Paris reflected this – there were snacks for sure, but they weren’t as common as they are in other Disney parks, and didn’t enjoy the reputation international Disney snacks had.

This has started to change though and more and more snacks are appearing in the parks. Some are offered at the quick-service restaurants as desserts and sides. Others though can be found at snack carts scattered throughout the parks.

Unlike the restaurants, snacks can be more of a choose your adventure type thing when you see what’s near to you – although it’s worth scoping out where anything you really want to try is! Here are some of the more popular items (although there are lots more!):

• Mickey Beignets – These are actually donuts filled with Nutella. They can be found a few places around the parks.
• Mickey waffles with Nutella – Think mini-Mickey waffles covered in Nutella. These are particularly popular in winter months because they’re served warm! Like the Beignets they crop up in a few places.
• Alice in Wonderland ice-cream – March Hare refreshments in Fantasyland offers a range of large ice-creams themed to Alice in Wonderland – they’re really well themed and tasty too, and they get served year round! (Hands up if you’ve eaten ice-cream in freezing rain in February just because you’re on holiday… just us? Okay then.)
• Grogu cookie – Think two thin pistachio flavoured cookies with chocolate-hazelnut spread in between, but Grogu shaped! What’s not to love?
• Street pop Cheesecake – If you think everything tastes better on a stick, you’ll probably love the chocolate covered cheesecake on a stick in Avengers Campus!
• Groot cookies – Cookies shaped like Groot filled with either raspberry jam or chocolate spread can be found in the studios.

Dining plans

If you’re staying onsite at Disneyland Paris you can add a variety of dining plans to your stay. Essentially this means you pre-pay for some of your meals. The breakfast plan includes breakfast in your hotel, half-board covers breakfast and one table-service meal per day, and full-board covers all three meals. The level of plans offered and cost vary by hotel.

The dining plans can be a way to save money on food if you use them well. They can also be really convenient as you don’t need to worry so much about a food budget because some or all meals are paid for.

We’re planning on using a dining plan on our next trip, so stay tuned for information!

Did you know you can bring your own snacks?

A final word on dining at Disneyland Paris – you’re fine to bring your own snacks in! There’s some restrictions (no alcohol, nothing that has to be kept frozen etc) but otherwise it’s fine to bring in food items for your family. This can be a great way to save money, or if you have anyone with dietary restrictions (or just fussy eaters) to ensure there’s something they’ll enjoy!

As you can see, there’s a lot to say about dining at Disneyland Paris! We’ll be delving into the topics more on the blog in the future, so subscribe now to receive updates!