Disney's Sequoia Lodge Hotel Review - Part One

It's been a little while since I wrote a blog post and with no Disney trip happening, or planned, I have been debating what to write about. So I thought I would look back to my last Disney trip which was to Disneyland Paris in February and give you an overview of our hotel experience.

For this trip we stayed at Disney's Sequoia Lodge hotel, which Disney give a rating of 'three keys'; or what I would call a moderate resort. So for those of you with experience of staying at Walt Disney World I would compare this resort to the likes of Port Orleans, Coronado Springs and similar.

When we arrived we approached the hotel from the Disney Village as we had travelled by Eurostar and the train station is located next to the Disney Village. This meant that we effectively entered the hotel by the 'back door' and had to find our way to the Reception area.

Sign post to let you know you're in the right place!

Approaching the entrance at the rear of the hotel

The rear of the main building which is the main access point when going to and from Disney Village and  parks

When we first arrived we had to make our way upstairs to find the Reception area. Thankfully our luggage had already made it's way to the hotel by way of the 'Magical Express' service. Checking-in was very straight forward and we were greeted by probably one of the best cast members that we encountered on our visit. We were given our room keys (plastic credit card type) along with our Resort ID card (paper) and a card for charging purposes (paper) plus a map of our hotel (in French!). To be honest I hadn't realised the map was in French until we got home...most of the map is very self explanatory, my basic level french was obviously enough for me to be able to translate without realising I was doing it and the use of traditional symbols on the map also helped. Although I would guess that as the back of the map has 'Mickey ears' with the french flag colours that maps in other languages were available...so not the best service giving an English speaking guest a French version of the map!!

Hotel map

Resort ID, charging card and park ticket - a lot of pieces of paper!

Before we could make our way to our room we had to visit the Left Luggage Office to retrieve our luggage which had been sent over from the train station. Our room was away from the main building in one of five 'lodges'; ours was called 'Big Sur' and was less than a five minute walk from the main building.

Let's talk about theming! So as the name would suggest the Sequoia Lodge is styled along the lines of a 'mountain lodge retreat'.  So lots of natural wood, earthy colours, fantastic landscaping with an abundance of trees, natural materials and the feel of an American National Park.

Some of the walkways between the main building and our 'lodge'.

Our 'lodge'

Entry into our 'lodge' - 'Big Sur'

Once entering into the lodge you walk into an entry hall which has no real signage and looks a bit strange; basically a blank room with stairs off to the right and a pair of very plain, unattractive doors straight in front of you with no guidance on where to go. But suffice to stay if you have a ground floor room (which we had) then you go through these doors and enter a typical hotel corridor, as seen below.

From the photos you can see the palette of colours that has been adopted for the resort; natural colours, reds, oranges, yellows, browns etc. As well as wall coverings and carpets that incorporate images of trees and leaves.

 The theming is then continued inside the hotel rooms.

Just arrived!!

When you enter the room there is a small entry way with the bathroom off to your left, before entering the main room which has two double beds, TV and a small desk and chairs.

The above photo shows the space as you enter the room; this view is looking towards the hotel room door and shows the entry to the bathroom/vanity area on the right of the photo. You can also see a full length mirror which was very handy - after all it's important that you look good!!

In the vanity area there was space for hanging coats and storing luggage plus a very handy safe that worked on a combination lock where you were able to set the code yourself.

Opposite the safe was a sink area with hairdryer.

The bathroom had all the usual facilities including a shower over the bath, and as you can see the natural earth colours and decorating theme were continued into the bathroom.

The wall coverings and pictures in the room all depicted characters from Bambi...not sure if this is the same for all rooms as we obviously only experienced this one room!

Light features also continued the animal vibe;

Now whilst the rooms looked well maintained I was not overly impressed by the level of cleanliness that we experienced over our four nights there. Initially everything looked fine but on day two I noticed that there was a french fry on the floor next to the edge of a unit!! As we had not brought any food back to the room by that point I knew that the offending article had to have been there for some time. I deliberately left it to see if it would get cleaned away during our stay - unfortunately it did not :( Now the trouble is once you notice something like this you start to look for, or perhaps just notice, other inconsistencies and having been used to the very high standards in Disney property in the US our expectations were perhaps set too high?!

So whilst our beds were made each day I do not think the bed linen was changed during our stay. Pillows that we had removed off the beds while sleeping were left where we had placed them on the floor. Glasses that had been used were left where we had left them (some with water in) and not replaced. There were no towel animals and no little notes from 'mousekeeping'. The toiletries were only replenished once during our stay and when I purposefully removed all the toiletries to give the appearance of them all having been used (just to see what would happen) no replacements were left for us.

The room was of a decent size, a good layout and with good basic facilities but was let down by the poor cleanliness. One point to note is that the rooms do not have tea/coffee making facilities; these are however available but you have to ask for them at reception (they are not offered) we on this occasion did not bother asking. On a positive note all the hotel rooms have access to free Wi-Fi which we found worked pretty well for all four of us, and which we took great advantage of as free Wi-Fi has not yet reached the parks or Disney Village. However, we found that the Wi-Fi did not work in the hotel's restaurants. If you're looking for free Wi-Fi outside of the hotels then try the Earl of Sandwich in Disney Village!

The view from our room was lovely and completely within keeping of the layout and theming of the resort;

 And here to finish part one off are a few more shots of the beautiful outside areas of the hotel;

Covered walk ways linking the lodges, the indoor pool, gym and main building.

A lovely bright and sunny day (if rather cold) to catch a few more shots of the landscaping around our lodge;

The walk away from our lodge getting ready to embark on a day in the parks.

Looking Ahead....

So having completed my diary posts from my trip to Disneyland Paris what's next on the horizon?

Well I would love to say that a transatlantic Disney vacation (either coast...I'm not fussy!) has been booked but alas no :(

As I have said on previous posts taking a family of four, especially when the two 'kids' are no longer kids, is not a cheap affair. And then when you factor in the timing to avoid key exam dates for the kids as well as allowing for my job working in education then our windows of opportunities are limited...and consequently expensive! Our situation at the moment means that I can only dream about getting state-side but until that time arrives I will have to suffice with co-hosting the Disney Dream Girls podcast, watching social media and finding other distractions.

Which brings me to a small trip that we do have planned. Next July Simon and I will be visiting London for a long weekend as we will be attending Star Wars Celebration 2016!

Now whilst I enjoy the Star Wars films it's Simon that is the big fan; he has been a fan since the original was first released and has a ton of books, comics, action toys etc. So not only will we be attending Star Wars Celebration we will be doing so in costume!

Simon is very creative and simply loves the chance to 'make stuff'. So it didn't take him long once the idea of attending Star Wars Celebration had been mentioned to take the next logical step and suggest that 'if we're going we might as well go in costume'. I thought well that's ok we can trawl the internet and find some pretty decent costumes...I'm happy to do that (providing Princess Leia's metal bikini outfit wasn't an option!) but oh no Simon had other ideas!

This was his chance to make our very own costumes from scratch!

We decided to find something that we could both do together and the logical route to take was to become Mandalorian's. Now for those of you not completely up on their Star Wars universe these are a set of mercenaries of which Boba Fett is probably the most well known.

So our spare time is consumed by costume building. We've ordered our 'soft parts' that's the clothing underneath the armour! Simon is busy making guns...I have two small blasters under construction and Simon is now making his much larger blaster! We are making good progress with making our own helmets and are making headway with colour options.

Various stages of helmet construction...lots of foamex (a malleable card), a heat gun, glue gun, super glue and lots of attention to detail!

Not really sure what I'm doing but I'll give it my best shot!

Moulding the foamex after applying heat

Waiting to be filled, sanded and first coat of primer paint

Now this is pretty serious stuff and having chosen to become Mandalorians we have actually joined a group on-line called 'Mandalorian Mercs Costume Club'. This is a worldwide non-profit organisation which came about through fans love of Star Wars and the desire to create costumes based on the films. The club sets the standards for Mandalorian costuming as based on the Star Wars universe whilst still allowing it's members their own creativity. So whilst there are certain elements of the costumes we are making that we have to follow guidelines for there is still scope for a lot of our (well I say 'our' but of course I really mean Simon's!) own creativity to come through. I'm even hoping to get a little Disney in there somewhere....

As our costumes take shape I shall keep you posted.

Disneyland Paris - February 2015 - Day 5 - The Last Day

Well here we are, the last day of our short trip to Disneyland Paris.

It was yet another early start for us, breakfast was booked for 7.00am and we made it for 7.30am...we had the usual breakfast selections which I have to say we were all a little bored with by now. Not quite the same as staying at a Disney hotel in the US where the breakfast choices are wide and varied.

We then had to finish off our packing...I did feel a little mean squashing Sulley into the bags though...

Don't worry he made it home all safe and sound!

Because we had booked our trip direct with Disneyland Paris we automatically qualified for the Disney Express service. We took our cases down to the Left Luggage Office in the hotel and were then free to enjoy the parks on our last day knowing that the cases would be waiting for us at the train station later on.

We all decided that we'd really like to ride Ratatouille once more so off to Walt Disney Studios we went. Both Simon and I went through the turnstiles without a problem but neither of the kids tickets would work...so we were left with us one side of the gate and the kids on the other and a cast member who didn't speak enough English to be able to tell us what the problem was. The next thing we know is the cast member saying something to us in mainly French and then walking away...luckily they returned with two new tickets for the kids which got them through the turnstiles. Now the new tickets the kids got were basically one day park tickets which was fine for what we needed, but I was a little disappointed that they didn't give us back the original tickets that had stopped working. You see I'm a bit sentimental and like to keep things like tickets as mementos of trips but on this occasion I couldn't :(

The original park tickets we received (well the two we had left!)

The day tickets that replaced the ones that stopped working!

Now we were inside the Studios we headed to the right to ride Ratatouille. As we approached the Toon Studio area of the park it became very busy; on passing Crush's Coaster the queue was out into the pavement area, and in fact the Stand-By line hadn't even opened.

Then as we rounded the corner we were met with a sea of people and what looked like a very long queue. So we jumped on the end of the queue suspecting it was for Ratatouille and Simon went off to investigate.

Joining the queue...

Sure enough Ratatouille was not yet open, even the Stand-By line was not yet open and this large queue had formed. But there was also a lot of people simply congregating in the 'Place de Remy' the town square like area in front of the ride - there seemed to be no organisation as to what was happening. There were no cast members about, no-one giving out information, no-one organising the waiting guests...it just seemed terribly disorganised.

The queue on the way to Place de Remy

Almost in Place de Remy - just a tad busy!! 

We are not amused!

There was also an equally large queue for the Fastpass booths, which were already issuing tickets for midday and beyond. But as the ride was not yet operational, and showed no signs of being operational any time soon getting a Fastpass seemed a little pointless!

So we left the area and walked back round past Crush's Coaster which now displayed a 60 minute wait. Both the Stand-By line and the Single Rider line were taking up a lot of space in the thoroughfare and were making navigating this area rather tiresome.

We took this time to get a photo with the Partners statue, which is just beyond Disney Studio 1.

So what to do now?

We decided to look at the 'wait times board' as that might gives us an idea. Well the board confirmed that both Ratatouille and Crush's Coaster were closed. The shortest wait times were for the Tower of Terror and Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, neither of which we were interested in riding. So we looked at some of the shows; Animagique and CineMagique both of which were scheduled to start at either 11.00am or 11.30am and most of the showings were in French...the first English presentations weren't until the early afternoon! So after a 20 minute visit to Walt Disney Studios we found ourselves leaving the park and heading to Disneyland Park.

The Studios for us on this visit had been rather disappointing; I'm hoping for others visiting that we were just unlucky with our timings and that perhaps at busier times of the year this park has more to offer. There is so much potential here that I hope Disneyland Paris recognise that and continue to give this park the expansion it deserves and needs.

Arriving in Disneyland Park we headed for probably our favourite ride; Big Thunder Mountain. The wait time was 40 minutes but that was fine we were all happy to wait that long, so we joined the queue which seemed longer than on previous 40 minute waits but that didn't put us off. We'd been in the very slow moving queue about 10 minutes when both Simon and I noticed at almost the same time that we'd not seen any trains come through since joining the queue. Then I realised that the background music had stopped playing and on looking down to the entrance to the queue the cast members were turning guests away...this wasn't going to be our day! So we decided to turn around and leave the queue and as we headed away from the ride we looked back and could see that there was a train stopped on the track right at the top of one of the lift hills - oops!

By this time we needed cheering up and warming up so we popped into the Cable Car Bake Shop and had coffee, hot chocolates and muffins!

Re-charged we headed over to Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast and even this ride didn't run completely smoothly...although a couple of stops as we went round did mean we could rack up our scores...or at least try to! Molly did manage to get over 100,000 for the first time ever!!

Next we jumped onto the Disneyland Railroad at the Discoveryland station to take a tour around the park to Fantasyland. There is the lovely Grand Canyon diorama that you travel through on your way between Main Street USA and Frontierland which is a highlight of taking the train journey. Strangely we stopped at the station in Frontierland despite the station being closed and this was the view from the train...

This was once a 'petting zoo' type area

It was such a shame to see a whole area just left to ruin...there was literally nothing there but empty buildings and paddocks. If my memory serves me right this had once been a small petting zoo/farm type area populated with animals that children could get up close and personal with. Now there is nothing except empty space - what a waste :(

Once in Fantasyland the kids rode the Mad Hatters Tea Cups, followed by a quick stop over into Adventureland to ride Pirates of the Caribbean one last time. Back into Fantasyland to ride 'it's a small world' before we headed down Main Street USA...

Last photo in the park!

We did some last minute shopping as we left the park and then headed into the Disney Village in search of food and there could only be one place to go...yes it had to be Earl of Sandwich!

The infamous gold brick!

I think Molly might be a bit happy to be here!!

As we'd got a long journey ahead of us we made sure we ate well...I had Thai chicken soup followed by a Philly cheese steak sandwich and then my favourite - bread pudding!

Fully fuelled we wandered through the Disney Village to make our way to the train station. On the way we stopped at the Disney Store where me and Molly bought our first Tsum Tsum's; I opted for the classic Mickey & Minnie while Molly bought Perry the Platypus from Phineas & Ferb. We also took a stroll around the World of Disney store where I bought myself a new Mickey mug for work.

We got to the train station around 3.30pm and simply visited the Disney Express desk to fetch our luggage and whilst we had a small wait it wasn't too long and the desk operated very efficiently. Next we checked in for our Eurostar train which again was very straight forward and then found ourselves with about an hour to wait for the train. Unfortunately once through check-in there was nothing to do...no where to sit, no where to grab a coffee...nothing! Thankfully after about 35 minutes we were let through to the platform where our train was waiting so we had plenty of time to get on board and get settled ready for our journey home.

We arrived back at Ebbsfleet on time and were in our car and on our way home, in heavy rain, in no time at all.

And that was Disneyland Paris...a short visit and whilst not the same calibre as the parks in the US it did mean that I got my fix of Disney at a time that I really needed it. Will we be going back to Paris any time soon? I don't think so...from our families point of view whilst we enjoyed the trip we all agreed that we would rather save up for a trip to Walt Disney World or even Disneyland. Now this may be some way off but we will get there one day and until then I have plenty of Disney memories to keep me going!

The Force is Strong

This year has seen a number of close friends celebrate one of those milestone birthdays that we like to mark with grand celebrations. While sat at one of these celebrations I asked Simon what he would like to do for his 'milestone' birthday next year...perhaps a weekend away he suggested...

Now one thing that we would both love to do would be to visit Walt Disney World during Star Wars Weekends but as these fall during school term time it really isn't an option for either me (as I work in education) or the kids! And there is no way they'd let us visit WDW without them!!

Then I had a bit of a brainwave. I thought I remembered hearing during reports from this years Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim that next year the celebration would be happening in London. So a quick Google search soon revealed that I was right...July 2016 Star Wars Celebration comes to London for 3 days - woo hoo!

I tentatively looked up the ticket prices expecting something extortionate but was very pleasantly surprised. A few minutes later and 2 sets of 3 day tickets were booked...eek we're going to Star Wars Celebration.

Little did I know what I'd started...

...we could go in costume...he said..

...wouldn't it be cool to cosplay while we're there...he said...

...I'm not wearing a metal bikini...I said...

Suffice to say costumes have been decided and the lengthy process of making them ourselves has begun. Please note that when I refer to 'us' making them I do of course mean that Simon will be making them whilst I offer lots of support, the ability to hold something still whilst it is cut and of course provide cups of tea and/or coffee as and when needed.

For those Star Wars fans out there we will be going as Mandalorians...think Boba and Jango Fett and you'll get the idea. So we are still in the early stages of creating our costumes but we have a template for the helmet and work has begun on our guns, I think I even know what colour scheme to go for! Suffice to say we have a corner of the house that is starting to resemble a work shop and plans are afoot to make a work space in the garage so that the task ahead can be tackled effectively.

The fun begins...

I shall endeavour to keep you updated with the progress over the coming weeks and I would imagine months!! I wonder what the theme for this year's Halloween party will be? Mmmm....I wonder.....

Disneyland Paris - February 2015 - Day 4

So here we are on our penultimate day of our little trip - day 4.

Despite being up nice and early for breakfast in the hotel we decided to take the morning at a leisurely pace and rather than heading for the parks we had a wander around the Disney Village and took the opportunity to get some shopping done!

But boy was it cold this morning, here's a few photos that hopefully capture what a beautiful, but extremely cold day it was!

Frozen river

Stranded duck in the ice!

Warning sign!!!

Ever so slightly frosty!!

Heading to Disney Village on a crisp, beautiful morning.











We decided to head for the large World of Disney store where I was able to buy some earrings, tea towels and a pin for my fellow 'Disney Dream Girl' Michelle.  Molly also bought herself a pin and was desperate to buy a Sulley pillow but alas there was not one in the store.  So we thought we would try the Disney Store only to find that it hadn't yet opened for the day!

Our next stop was Disney Fashion, probably my favourite of all the shops as this stocked my style of merchandise.

I love all the Disney Couture range, and anything that is a little bit different from the norm; whether it's the fabric, the pattern or the cut of a garment I always make a beeline for items that are just that bit unusual. Hence why I left with a tinkerbell long sleeve top, a grey Mickey bling t-shirt, a long sleeve Mickey t-shirt and a pair of Mickey ears!

Some of our shopping haul from the trip

Well all this wandering about and shopping had made us hungry and there was only really one place for us to go...Earl of Sandwich...our 'go to' restaurant of choice for this trip. Beautiful food and great prices in a nice warm building with free wifi!! After lunch we headed back to the hotel to drop off our shopping bags before heading over to Disneyland Park.

After taking a stroll down Main Street USA we headed over into Frontierland and straight to Phantom Manor.

View from the front door of Phantom Manor looking towards Big Thunder Mountain

View from the front door of Phantom Manor, the 'Molly Brown' was in dock having some maintenance work completed

When we exited the ride we went left and took in the sights of Boot Hill; this is a small area themed as a cemetery and is well worth taking a look as it is beautifully done. It is all too easy to turn right when leaving Phantom Manor to get back to the hustle of the park but then you miss out on what is a little gem of an area.

Photos of just some of the gravestones scattered around Boot Hill...

After Phantom Manor we braved the 40 minute wait time to ride Big Thunder Mountain, probably our favourite ride. We then went back over to Main Street USA and decided it was treat time; so despite the cold we headed over to The Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlour. The ice-cream choices here are all standard Ben & Jerry's flavours although they do serve crepes...I opted for a crepe filled with Nutella and a dollop of vanilla ice-cream.

About to order

 As we were on Main Street we decided to have a wander of the shops in search of the Sulley pillow that Molly was after, and sure enough she found one!

Yay we've found one!!

Now shopping can build up an appetite and stomachs were beginning to rumble so we wandered over into Fantasyland looking for food. We had a look at Toad Hall Restaurant but none of us were particularly taken with the choice of offerings; fish & chips, chicken nuggets and the same salads that could be found in every Disney restaurant. I do like the theming though of this restaurant so here's just a couple of photos.

We decided to look elsewhere for food and ended up in Adventureland, but as we passed by Pirates of the Caribbean we just couldn't resist taking a ride...after all a 5 minute wait is not to be passed up!

The first restaurant we tried was Colonel Hathi's Pizza Outpost but despite it only being 5.00pm (or thereabouts) it was closed, the lights were on and the doors open but no-one was around and there was no sign of it being operational...strange! We knew that the other counter service restaurant in Adventureland, Restaurant Hakuna Matata, was also closed as today was it's scheduled day to be closed. This meant we had to try the next land which was Frontierland, which was fine because I quite fancied some Mexican food from Fuente del Oro Restaurante...but we were faced with the same situation again...doors open, lights on but very evidently no food was being served! So we back tracked on ourselves and thought we'd try Cowboy Cookout Barbecue but guess what? Yep, exactly the same scenario again!  To say we were all getting a little frustrated would be an understatement...never mind the hunger!

We now just wanted food quick, so decided that one place we could guarantee being open was Casey's Corner. As it turned out our timing here was pretty good as the parade was just about to go by, so by the time we got our food we sat outside (yes it still was very cold!!) munching on hot dogs, chicken nuggets and fries just as the parade passed by!

By now the night was beginning to draw in and we were drawn to the lovely neon lights of Discoveryland and the fun of Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast.

Entrance to Discoveryland

The kids then wanted to ride Big Thunder Mountain...again. But there was a 40 minute wait...it was also very dark but more importantly freezing cold and I really didn't fancy getting even colder whizzing through the night-time air! The warmth of shops beckoned and a few more treats were bought; some cookies, chocolates for my team at work, a Phantom Manor t-shirt and some Nightmare Before Christmas PJ's!!

It was now time to go get our spot staked out for Disney Dreams! We headed towards the centre of the Central Plaza area and found a spot with the castle almost dead centre in front of us but more importantly we stood at some railings so that no-one else could stand in front of us and spoil our view - crafty!!

We had just over an hour to wait so the kids took their cash and went off in search of sweets. Simon and I needed something to keep us warm and hot chocolate seemed the ideal option. Now just a few yards from us was a cart selling drinks and crepes, but as we stood there we could see guests going up to the open window and getting turned away. It looked like they had stopped serving, which I thought was a bit strange as they had a massive captive audience all waiting for Disney Dreams to start. But I headed over there anyway and luckily for me they were still serving drinks but they had run out of crepes!! Knowing how good the service can be in the US parks I thought that this was really not acceptable...if they were running low more stock should have been brought in rather than just running out and having to turn people away! But hey that's just my opinion!

The kids returned and we munched on a few sweets, drank our hot chocolate and stood chatting to another British family who had joined our little viewing spot.  As it got closer to Disney Dreams starting the area around us began to get busy, but luckily our view was unimpeded as the spot we had picked prevented anyone from pushing in or standing in front of us. This meant that both Simon and Molly were in brilliant positions to get their respective video camera's out to film the whole show.

Our view ready for Disney Dreams to start

Now unfortunately despite grabbing this spot with over an hour to go we still found ourselves being pushed and jostled about by other guests. I have to say this is not something we have really come across in the US parks but this wasn't the first time it had happened to us in Paris. As we stood there enjoying the show a family pushed their way through and stood their two children on the narrow railing right next to Simon...they then began to push into Simon (almost spilling a drink over him) trying to move us out of our position. But we stood our ground and despite all their effort we didn't budge and still managed to get some fantastic video of the whole show.

The show itself is amazing, there is so much going on that it is definitely worth seeing more than once if you can. There are fireworks, and lasers, and projections, and water fountains and all set to a fantastic score. As much as I loved this show and was in awe of everything that was going on, and how long it went on for I still prefer Wishes over at Walt Disney World. There is something about Wishes that gets me every time, it brings about an emotional reaction in me that always makes me shed a tear or two which Disney Dreams just didn't manage to do.

By the time the show was over we were all extremely cold from having stood still for so long...in fact I have distinct memory of walking back to the hotel and not being able to feel my feet! Exiting the park took quite a while as Disney Dreams takes place at 'park closing' and so everyone is making for the exit at the same time. We thought we'd be crafty and walk down Discovery Arcade that runs parallel with Main Street which was easier to navigate but getting to an actual exit was hard work. The only turnstiles that were working as exits were to the far right, despite there being other turnstiles to the left and center...as no-one was coming into the park wouldn't it have been sensible to use all the turnstiles as exits and so speed up the process for all concerned...but hey that's just my thoughts!!

Finally we made it back to the hotel and warmth and to aid our defrosting we hit the hotel shop for beer, crisps and chocolate!

Just one more day to go...