Disney's Sequoia Lodge Hotel Review - Part 2

The first part of my review talked about the general theming of the hotel as well as the room we stayed in; what shall we look at next?

So what facilities does the hotel have to offer? Well there are two restaurants, one bar, one shop, a swimming pool and a gym.

On this trip we didn't have chance to use the swimming pool or the gym; we had a quick look in and both looked nice enough. The pool and gym are located within another lodge type building away from the main hotel and although predominately an indoor pool there is a small section of the pool that ventures outside. Suffice to say as this was the middle of February and rather chilly the outside pool area was not open. Whether you make use of these type of facilities or not is purely a personal one but I think it's one worth thinking about when considering which hotel to book. As most stays to Disneyland Paris are likely to be only a few days will you have the time, or the inclination, to use these type of facilities or would you rather be spending your time in the parks? I know for us time in the parks was much higher up on our list of things to do than spending a few hours in the pool. And whilst having a pool and gym at the hotel was an added benefit of choosing the Sequoia Lodge it wasn't a deciding factor for us; we were more interested in it's location, size of rooms and restaurant facilities.

Talking of restaurants the hotel has two; Hunters Grill and Beaver Creek Tavern. Well I say two restaurants, and once upon a time these did operate as two restaurants; one a buffet and the other your more traditional table service. However, from my research prior to travelling, and since, it would appear that both locations kind of operate as one. I shall try and explain...both restaurants are located in the same area of the hotel opposite each other across a small foyer area and appear to operate more as one restaurant that has two separate dining rooms. Although we never used them for dinner we did use them for breakfast most mornings of our stay.

So let's explain how breakfast works. Breakfast is included as part of your stay so when you check in you are asked what time you would like breakfast for each day of your stay. Each time slot has a limited number of places and so the time you want may not always be available. For each day of your stay you are given a different coloured card with a time slot on. On the designated day at the specified time you present your card at the podium located between the two restaurants. A cast member then directs you to one of the two restaurants where you then join the queue for that restaurant and wait for a cast member to seat you. This was a relatively short process and sounds more time consuming than it actually was.

Grizzly Bear standing guard outside the restaurants

Entry to 'Hunters Grill'

You are then shown to a table and the cast member writes on the paper tablecloth to indicate that the table has been allocated; they usually draw a tri-circle 'Mickey' and the number of people dining. We ate in both restaurants during our stay and both operated in exactly the same way, buffet style, and offered the same food options for breakfast.

Central food station which housed majority of the food options available

Breakfast options included; hot drinks (coffee, tea, hot chocolate, hot milk), fruit juices, cereals, toast with various spreads (jams, marmalade, butter, chocolate spread), croissants, pain au chocolate, fruit salad, deli meats, olives, cheeses and bread. There were signs for hot breakfast options that were an additional cost but we were unable to fathom out how to get this should we have wanted it as there were no cast members operating a hot food station, nor were we offered it by any of the cast members we had contact with - very strange! We did take breakfast in Disneyland Park one morning at Plaza Gardens and the food options were basically the same; perhaps a few different deli meats and a couple of variations on the bread choices but otherwise the same.

Traditional French pastries

Healthy fruit salad option

View from Hunters Creek restaurant

We found the breakfast to be of a decent quality and well stocked. The cast members worked very hard to keep everything flowing as the restaurants were continually busy; after all everyone staying at the hotel would be taking advantage of the included breakfast. On previous trips (quite a few years ago admittedly so things may have changed) we had stayed at the Hotel Cheyenne and here it was more of a cafeteria style serving; having to queue to fill your tray with your choice of breakfast and then finding a table in a very busy dining hall. For us personally this was very chaotic and not a pleasant way to start the day and was one of the reasons for choosing the Sequoia Lodge over the cheaper hotels.

Because the breakfast was self-serve buffet style a lot of guests took advantage of this by stocking up on bread rolls, meats and cheeses and making sandwiches to take with them for later in the day!

As far as I could make out the restaurants then open again for dinner as an all-you-can-eat-buffet style offering. The hotel also has one bar; the Redwood Bar and Lounge. This is quite expansive and beautifully decorated and with an open fire, making it a very cosy environment. We took advantage of it one evening and whilst we enjoyed sitting and relaxing with a drink it was extremely busy (we had to wait for a table to come free) and also relatively expensive.

One thing to note when comparing to Disney resort hotels at Walt Disney World is the lack of a 'food court' type offering. Walt Disney World hotels will have a food court in the moderate and budget hotels and a cafe type offering in the delux resorts where food of varying descriptions can be bought at any time during the day. Whereas in Paris hotel food options are restricted to specific meal times or the bar areas.

Located just across from the bar area and is the hotel shop; Northwest Passage. The shop is not overly big, stocks the usual array of merchandise and has enough to keep you meandering around for five or ten minutes. The merchandise wasn't anything special with very little that appeared unique to the hotel. We also found that the type of items stocked was not as expansive as what we were used to seeing in Disney resort hotels in the states. There were a few essentials (e.g. toothpaste etc) but these were all located behind the cashiers desk and were very limited. Food items were limited to 'Disney' themed cookies and candies, with a small selection of branded candies/chocolates and potato chips. There was a fridge with mainly soft drinks and a couple of choices of lagers/beers. Wine was only available by request from the cashier and was very expensive. We had expected/hoped to be able to visit the shop and come away with some nibbles and treats to take back to the room (as we would have done in the US) but we really struggled to find anything worth bothering with.

One of the best things about this hotel is it's location; located on the shore of Lake Disney it looks out towards the Disney Village and is only a few minutes walk from the Village itself. It then takes about a 10 minute walk through the Village to get to the parks; the hotel does lay on a free shuttle service but for us the walk was so short it really didn't seem worth while taking the shuttle, in fact we never even thought about using it! The walk is really rather pleasant and quite scenic, even when it's freezing cold!

Walking through the hotel grounds.

On the promenade, outside the rear entrance to the hotel.

Looking towards Hotel New York

Looking towards Newport Bay Club

Walking over the river looking away from the Disney Village and towards Hotel Cheyenne area

Close up on detail on the fencing around Lake Disney

Various shots walking around in front of Hotel New York, looking out over Lake Disney towards PanoraMagique (tethered hot air balloon ride like Characters in Flight at Downtown Disney at Walt Disney World) and the Disney Village.

The Sequoia Lodge is a beautifully themed hotel, set in some great landscaping all adding to the vibe of an American National Park. Personally I would have liked to have seen a few more 'Disney' references within the theming as in some areas whilst it embodied the National Park feel it was hard to see the connection to Disney.

But I suppose the question to end with is would we stay at Sequoia Lodge again? Well, yes I think we would; this was our second time staying here and we really liked the resort. It was within our budget range, it was a good distance to the parks and Disney Village, the inclusion of a well organised breakfast was great and there were enough amenities at the resort for our length of stay.

Well that about concludes my thoughts on Disney's Sequoia Lodge, next time I shall be looking back once again to more details about my visit to Disneyland Paris. Thanks for reading :)

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.