Does anyone else feel like there is a new app every other day relating to Disneyland Paris?
The park is notorious for not being as technologically advanced as the other Disney parks, particularly Walt Disney World. This has led to hundreds (probably thousands!) of apps popping up that promise the world and often fail to deliver. Since we first started going to Disneyland Paris, we have spent hours on different mobile phone apps. The majority have failed us in one way or another; some as soon as we’ve opened them and they’ve done nothing but crash!
There are though some apps which we have used time and time again that have made our time in the parks much easier.
1. The Official Disneyland Paris App
This sounds pretty obvious as a choice of app, but you’ll be surprised how many people don’t know this exists!
Containing all the information that you get on the paper maps and guides within the parks, this app pretty much does it all! You can check on wait times for individual rides, create a wishlist of ‘must do’ items, and use the map to navigate around all the different areas. This is a great app if you want to maximise your time in the park and try to minimise how much time you spend in a queue.
A couple of limitations of the app are that you can’t book any dining reservations through the app and you can’t book Fast Pass tickets for individual rides. This is one of the ways Disneyland Paris lags behind Walt Disney World, but this is still a fabulous app.
2. MagiPark App
This is very similar to the Disneyland Paris app, but with a couple of extra additions that when combined with the official app really help to make your day run much smoother!
MagiPark contains maps and ride information along with wait times, but also shows you a graph showing you the wait times of rides over different days. Using this information, you can work out what time of day is the quiest for a ride and when you should avoid the ride.
Another bonus of MagiPark is you can setup notifications for individual rides. So if the ride you want as a high wait time, but you’d be willing to wait 30 minutes to get on, you can tag the ride and have the app notify you when the wait time is 30 minutes.
Our favourite thing about the MagiPark app though is that as well as using the information from the park computers, the app uses information from guests in the park. If you get to a ride and the wait time is wrong, or the ride has gone down, you can enter this information into the app and let your fellow park guests know. For this reason, the wait times are often slightly more reliable than the official app.
3. Lineberty
If you want to meet characters, you’ll probably need the Lineberty app!
Disneyland Paris issue tickets for certain character meets via this app. You just select how many tickets you want for a particular character meet and then you’re issued with a ticket number and a time to return to meet that character; basically it’s a virtual queue system.
Unfortunately, tickets on Lineberty go extremely quickly. You have to be on the app and ready to pounce on tickets as soon as they become available (usually about 9am and 12:15pm).
The app is also used for sales of limited edition pins, though for some reason this never seems to work for getting a ticket unless you’re already in France. Not sure if we’ve just been unlucky or that’s how the app is designed to work, but we’ll keep trying to get those limited pin releases!
4. PhotoPass
The official PhotoPass app is a must have if you have a PhotoPass!
Whenever you leave a ride that has on-ride photos, there is a QR code and a number associated with the photo. You simply enter the details into the PhotoPass app, and your photos will appear. From there you can even download the photo onto your phone (though they aren’t the highest quality).
As you only have 12 hours to claim a photo, and the queues at the photo booths at the end of rides can be quite long, this is a great way to speed up collecting photographs!
An additional “hack” with this app is if you see what number the photo’s are currently on you can go through each photograph on the app checking until you find yours to claim. Some rides have ridiculously chaotic areas for checking photos (Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast is always packed!) so if you move away to a quieter area, you can claim your photo a bit easier than the scrum that forms around the screens.
5. G7
The G7 app is an app for booking taxis. This works very much like Uber in that you select the pickup location and the drop off location, and the payment is done via a card you have saved (the driver processes the payment rather than the app). One major difference between this app and Uber though is that the taxi has a meter and the price you pay is whatever the meter says. If you get a taxi late at night, this can actually mean it’s quite a bit more than Uber.
This app has saved us hours of waiting, particularly after Annual Pass parties. When everyone is attempting to get an Uber, and there’s no drivers around, G7 will usually come through. At the last Annual Pass party, we know there were people who waiting nearly 2 hours to get an Uber, but after trying for an Uber and not finding one we ordered a G7 and had one within 15 minutes – can’t argue with that!
If you want to see any of these apps in action, check out the video on our YouTube channel:
