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.

6...

6...days to go!

So today saw the conclusion to the on going saga with my dollars.  Sure enough this morning I received the order that I had placed yesterday and now no longer require as my original order had eventually turned up yesterday afternoon!

So after a phone call to the company supplying the dollars I was given instructions as to how to return the second order which meant a trip out to my local post office - again!  The lady at the counter recognised me from yesterday and we had a good laugh about the whole situation.  Hopefully everything is now sorted and I can rest easy and start putting dollars into my 'mousekeeping' envelopes.

Talking of 'mousekeeping' envelopes I had some stickers arrive today that will suitably 'bling up' the envelopes...another job to do but a fun easy one.

I have spent the day with my excel planning spreadsheet open and adding things to it as I thought about them.  Mainly just practical stuff like things not to forget to take with us...like the 'mousekeeping' envelopes!

Other than that today has been getting more jobs done around the house, keeping on top of the washing and ironing and confiscating any clothes for the vacation so I don't have to wash them again!

I took my daughter out today to buy a new pair of trainers; we'd ordered some off a well known shopping website at the end of July and they still hadn't been despatched so we'd decided to cancel the order and go shopping today.  Thankfully we had a successful shopping trip as we have a really good sports shop close by!

My daughter is now busy sorting out which pieces of jewellery to take with her...she is 12 years old...don't know where she get's it from!

We also had a bit of a girly night last night sorting our nails out; getting rid of old polish and filing and shaping. So the next dilemma is what colour nail varnish...

Decisions, decisions....at least I'm down to a choice of three my daughter has at least half a dozen bottles lined up to choose from! Wish me luck!

8...

8...days to go!

Well today has been a relatively quiet day mainly getting jobs done around the house.

Firstly I raided everyone's wardrobes to make sure that any clothes they were likely to want to take on holiday have been washed (I know...I just made more work for myself but better today than when I come to pack!) and also to confiscate all the clean and ironed clothes so that they can't wear them between now and when we pack!  Method in my madness you see!

Then I was faced with the task of trying to sort my missing dollars.  So as a recap my dollars were due to arrive 3 days ago and according to our postal service, the Royal Mail, they were delivered and signed for...shame we never got them.  Anyway after tweeting about it I was contacted today via twitter by a very concerned Royal Mail and I am now still waiting to see what the outcome is.  I have also contacted the sender who are also not very happy with the Royal Mail and are also trying to sort it from their side of things...I await further developments.

This afternoon saw me starting off our 'Mousekeeping' envelopes; these are simply an easy way to sort tips for the housekeeping staff to make sure that whilst we are there all the staff who look after us get recognised for their efforts.

Oh and I also managed a run this evening, only a short one but I am getting better at running for longer and this evening only walked three times and ran the rest so I was really pleased and even more confident for that run around Lago Dorado at Disney's Coronado Springs!