Disneyland Paris vs. Tokyo Disney in September/October 2019

[runjanerun]

Hi Everyone!

At the last minute, DH gave me the go ahead to start planning our fall break. It will be the last fall break for us as a family, as my oldest will be moving to a traditional school calendar next year when she goes to high school. So we decided, that we would go big for our Fall Break.

About us: Southern California family of 5, with a 13 year old girl, 11 year old girl, and 6 year old boy. We LOVE Disney.

Our family has been to both Disneyland and WDW many times. My husband has been to both DLP and to TDR. Loved TDR.

Fall Break for us is September 21 - October 13. We're thinking about an 11 day trip, probably 4 days in the parks, rest of the time travelling around the area. We are flexible about when we can leave or return during that 3 week period.

So should we go to Disneyland Paris or Tokyo Disney?

If it was just a choice between the 2 parks themselves, we would want to go to Tokyo because of how amazing my husband said it was.

But I am concerned about the weather and the crowds in Japan at that time. Plus it sounds like a lot of construction/renovation will be going on around that time.

I haven't had a chance to start looking at Europe. My husband's big concern was finding reasonably-priced accommodations for 5 people. We would probably just do a London-Paris trip.

So far some of the notes I've collected:

Japan
Weather - Middle of Typhoon Season
Crowd Calendar - Weekdays for the most part is in the "yellow" category-Normal Crowds. (32-38k people)http://www15.plala.or.jp/gcap/disney/
Sept 10 - Halloween Event Begins
Sept 23 - Japanese Holiday
Closed - Journey to the Center of the Earth, Jungle Cruise, After Oct 1 Cinderella's Fairy Tale Hall, Jasmine's Flying Carpets
Views of DisneySea’s volcano, Mount Prometheus, may be affected by construction work from March 31, 2019, until late October 2020

France
DTB - September/October weather-wise is good time to go
Crowd Calendar - Green except for Saturdays https://queue-times.com/parks/4/calendar/2019/10
Closed - Steam Train, Peter Pan's Flight, Armageddon, Rock'n'Roller Coaster, Indiana Jones, Disney Jr., Art of Animation, After Oct 1 - Alice's Curious Maze, Storybook Cana



What do you think? Japan or Europe? Any thoughts or suggestions or things I should consider? Thanks!

 

[Karin1984]

Very hard question, they are basically incomparable. I'm an AP holder at DLP and I've had a very so-so vacation to Tokyo, so take everything I say with a grain of salt

I would forget about crowd calendars, I used the same one for Tokyo and we were there at the beginning September which was supposed to be light (light blue) crowds... If that was light, I don't want to be there when it's busy ;-) queues for shows/parades, the big rides and the food were no joke. The stories you hear about people waiting hours to see a show are true. We saw it happening it Disney Sea, people came in and immediately sat down around the lake and waited for the first Halloween show at 1.

To be honest, I cannot remember any ride from Tokyo, except Journey to the Center of the Earth, to have that closed is a shame. But on the other hand, it's only one ride on a completely new park. I also have a vague memory of the pre-show of their Tower of Terror, and all the queues.

My best memory of Tokyo is that because we went during Halloween season, was to look at the different guests, all dressed up and how involved they are. They were a show on it's own.

I can almost guarantee you, that if you go during the week in September or October to DLP, the crowds will be 'light'. There are a lot of refurbishments, and autumn in mid-Europe means rain. No typhoons or anything, but you can have an full day with rain.

I wouldn't let the different Disney parks determine where to go. As that might only be one to three days(?) on your entire journey. I would look at the other things you want to see/do in France&Europe and Japan and see what appeals to you more.

The issue with rooms for 5 people might be slightly better in Europe, but that's easy to investigate on websites like hotels.com etc.