Disney Paris - Hotel Santa Fe

[mikeyUK]

Hi

having recently been to Disney paris, I would recommend the Hotel Sequioa Lodge where we stayed.

Whilst there we decided to go around and visit all the hotels and I have to say that I thought the Sequioa Lodge, Cheyenne and the Newport are the best.

I would be very interested to hear other peoples views on the Hotel Santa Fe. To us it looked like a badly designed housing estate. I know it is the cheapest, but the hotel Cheyenne at a few pounds more, is MUCH nicer with lots of character

Mike

[neal]

The Santa Fe is a terrible hotel. I agree with your comment about it looking like a run down estate.

It has no atmosphere to it at all, looks terrible and don't even get started on the bar!

I've got a pic taken of our box sized room there:

http://images.fotopic.net/?id=1186343

With a view of the lovely mountain thing...

http://images.fotopic.net/?id=1186346

[Lisa1976]

I didn't think the Hotel Santa Fe was that bad to be honest and lets face it, if you spend more time at your hotel then at the Park thats pretty sad. For somewhere just to get your head down and a restaurant to eat breakfast in, the price was fine. I don't see the point in shelling out loads of money to stay in a better hotel when you should be out at the parks all day anyway!.

Sorry just my view. Mind you i did go about 3 Christmas' ago so its probably gone down hill from the sounds of it.

[Whitequeen]

Yuk! Yuk! Yuk!

I hated it!!!:(

Had to climb across the bed to close the curtains coz there was no room for the cot/crib!!! Only 2 towels between 4 of us!!!
Public toilets disgusting!!!! Staff rude.....I could go on!!!!
We did only sleep there and that was quite enough!!!!

For a few £'s more Cheyenne was much better!:thumbs:

[neal]

Ok, let me rephrase that - For a Disney Hotel, the Santa Fe is terrible beyond belief!

The restaurant was appalling - you're much better off going to the Disney Village and eating there or go to one of the other hotels.

The main problem with DLP is theres not much to do in the evenings, so you're stuck with either visiting one of the other hotels or watching a film in French at the cinema (why they dont show more English films is beyond me) so you do end up spending a bit of time in your hotel so its worth paying the bit extra and getting a much nicer one.

I've yet to read a good review of the Santa Fe.

[Chris/Lisa]

We really hated the Sante Fe! Our room stank of smoke, you had to walk miles outside to go to the bar which was awfull with THE cheesiest cabaret on! Toe curling stuff and a million miles away from Disney!:eek: :(

[mikeyUK]

Hi everyone

Great to hear your comments on the Santa Fe. I have to admit I never saw in the rooms, but on the outside i was just shocked. I know DLP is not up to standard of Florida (in fact far from it in my opinion) but I was still shocked by the santa fe. I think part of the problem is that the town Santa fe in New Mexico is a really nice place and so the name conjures up all kinds of fab and pleasent images. The Hotel Cheyenne is only a few quid more and has MUCH more character.

Anyway I am pleased to say that I am going to Orlando for 2 weeks in November, it is the first time i have been there since I worked there for Disney in 1993 and 1994, so really excited about that.

cheers
Mike

[neal]

That was my point exactly - the Santa Fe has no character. Its just a low-budget hotel painted orange and as un-disney like as anything could be.

They'd do better to rebuild something new there.

The "entertainment" was abysmal - karaoke, in a bar that would look run down compared to a Peckham pub. Unhelpfull staff and a bad location also do it no favours.

I would really, really, REALLY recommend not staying at the Santa Fe, and either go for the Cheyenne or a non-disney hotel which runs a shuttle service to the park.

[Jaynie]

Out rooms were ok, although we had inter connecting ones so probably felt bigger as we kept the door open, breakfasts were ok, but look out of the window and feel you are in a run down army barracks or worse! Maybe it would have been better if the sun were shining, I agree, we stayed in the Cheyenne and thought it was great

[pluto]

The rooms were ok for the price but the rest of the place was poor compared to Disney standards. The thing is if your on a budget and are going to spend most of your time in the parks then its ok as the room are reasonable and breakfast was basic but ok

[windbag]

We stayed three times at the Santa Fe as we went with Leger and it was the cheapest. We didnt like the food or entertainment but for a place to sleep it was ok. Yes the walking was more than anywhere else but wed never stayed anywhere else. Then we came into a bit of money and went Eurostar to Sequoia Lodge - what a difference!! Then I could see how naff Santa Fe had been. However, when we went back to the Lodge the following year, we were in an outside room away from the main building and it was dirty and cramped with mozzies bussing through the window which wouldnt shut properly. It was worrying to leave anything of value in the room in case someone broke in under cover of the bushes outside our window. The last few times weve stayed at Disney Hotel which we found too posh for us mere plebs but our fav has to be Newport with a lakeside view. Lovely, just the right air of decadance for us so we didnt feel like fish out of water; lovely large room; great view and not too much walking.

[TR_Wolf]

Originally posted by neal
The main problem with DLP is theres not much to do in the evenings, so you're stuck with either visiting one of the other hotels or watching a film in French at the cinema (why they dont show more English films is beyond me)

Its because IT IS IN FRANCE. Its a French resort simply based on the original American idea. They show English movies but there are more French visitors than English ones, so it makes more sense to show more French films.

Actually I saw Pirates of the Caribbean in French there, it was really funny! ("Monsieur, c'est CAPITANE, Jaques Sparrow") hehehe. The cinema was actually quite nice too!

But in general the Santa Fe is not bad at all for what you're paying. We only used it to sleep in, and to get breakfast in, and thats fine, as generally I spend more time in Disneyland than in the hotel!

I've had no problems with it, I think its a very nice place to stay for a few days, Id recommend it to others for the price.

However yeah on looking out our window, a view of something other than the car park might've been nice :P

[mikeyUK]

I have to say that whilst the Santa Fe is OK value, the hotel Cheyenne is only fractionally more expensive yet has much more character, both inside and outside. Something worth bearing in mind if you haven't checked it out yet.

I agree that as the park is in France you would generally expect to see more movies and shows in French and CM's speaking french, that goes without saying. However, the two most widely spoken languages in Europe are English by far and Spanish. DLP has never achieved the target visitor numbers, though it is doing much better than the early days. For example the studios park gets 2.8m visitors yet they anticipated 10m a year. I emphasise that I am not the kind of person who goes abroad expecting people to speak English but at the end of the day disney built this to be a european park, not French, so it may just be if they had shows with translations equally in other languages to french and more multi-lingual CM's they may encourage more visitors.

I knew the managing director of disney marketing in the UK and she said that the main problem that they have is that they cant get enough people who speak many languages. Apart from relocation issues, people who have the skills to be fluent in several languages are not going to stay there long on minimal wages. They have a very high turnover of staff, so they end up with a lot of local people who are not necessarily that good in other languages