Main Street USA – Disneyland Paris

We’ve just returned from a short break at Disneyland Paris, and with a long stretch ahead until our next trip to Florida, we were definitely in need of a Disney fix. So, what better excuse than a few days across the Channel?

The plan was to visit during the off-season, when the parks should be quieter and the shorter November days would give us the perfect opportunity to capture some of Disney after dark. Unfortunately, our timing wasn’t quite as clever as we’d hoped.

Our biggest mistake was not checking the French public holiday calendar closely enough. For the first couple of days, the parks were absolutely packed, with large numbers of French visitors making the most of the long weekend. Thankfully, things calmed down considerably during the second half of our trip, giving us a much more relaxed experience.

One of the highlights was getting a great spot for the evening show. We managed to find a position right at the front of the castle, just slightly off-centre, with nobody directly in front of us. The crowds start building surprisingly quickly in the 45 minutes or so before the show, so we were pretty pleased with our choice of spot.

Once the show finished, rather than joining the rush for the exit, we decided to hang around the hub for a while. The plan was simple: let everyone else leave and then take advantage of an almost empty Main Street to get some photographs.

This worked particularly well because Disneyland Paris closes relatively early in November, with the park shutting at around 7:00pm after the Dreams of Christmas show. What surprised us was just how quickly the crowds disappear. Give it about half an hour and the transformation is remarkable.

Soon, we had almost the entire castle plaza and the upper end of Main Street to ourselves. For photographers, it was an absolute gift.

With hardly anyone around, we could take our time, set up the camera properly and experiment with longer exposures without people constantly walking through the shot. We ended up spending quite a while wandering around the empty park, making the most of the opportunity and capturing a whole collection of night-time images.

So, while our attempt at finding the quietest time to visit didn’t exactly go to plan, the trip still delivered exactly what we were hoping for: a much-needed Disney fix, some beautiful evening views and, best of all, a surprisingly empty Disneyland Paris after dark.