Disney's Newport Bay Club, Marne-la-Vallee

As a Travel Agent it is my job to ensure that when customers come to ask for my opinion and recommendations that I can give them first hand experience and I have been selling Disney Park tickets for years now and have never gotten round to visiting Disneyland Paris, so when a special incentive was sent around the office for a visit for a bargain price in November I decided to snap it up as an early birthday treat and booked myself into the Newport ...
...The Newport Bay Club is located just 10 minutes walk from the Disney Parks and Disney Village or just jump on the complimentary transport you to your chosen park.

When I visited Disney World in Orlando we stayed off site and for half of the holiday I found myself wishing that we had stayed on site to avail of the extra benefits that those staying on site get so when this offer became available I knew I had to try it out for the good ... more

As a Travel Agent it is my job to ensure that when customers come to ask for my opinion and recommendations that I can give them first hand experience and I have been selling Disney Park tickets for years now and have never gotten round to visiting Disneyland Paris, so when a special incentive was sent around the office for a visit for a bargain price in November I decided to snap it up as an early birthday treat and booked myself into the Newport Bay Club.

*~*The Location*~*

The Newport Bay Club is located just 10 minutes walk from the Disney Parks and Disney Village or just jump on the complimentary transport you to your chosen park.

When I visited Disney World in Orlando we stayed off site and for half of the holiday I found myself wishing that we had stayed on site to avail of the extra benefits that those staying on site get so when this offer became available I knew I had to try it out for the good of my customers!!

*~*The Newport Bay*~*

Officially rated a 3 star property this nautical themed hotel is not going anywhere. When we arrived on the hotel on the transfer bus from Charles De Gaulle, the exterior of the building was amazing and it was so huge!
The hotel looked brand new and so american I felt I was in the states not in Paris!
As we entered the hotel through the main entrance it felt like I was boarding the Titanic as there was certainly the nautical theme running through the hotel and we headed straight for reception which was located on the right hand side as we entered.

Checking in seemed to take quite a while as we entered the queue there was a member of staff halfway through that took your details from you and provided you with your registration form which needed to be completed with your name, address, date of birth, passport number and card details if you wanted to charge items to your room.

I completed the form and signed it and as I arrived at the front of the queue this was taken from another member of staff who entered the details into her computer system and welcomed us to the hotel, providing us with our tickets, and advising us as to where we could leave our luggage until our room would be ready later on that afternoon.

We decided to drop our bags and then go to the Disney Studios Park as it was raining and we still had the rest of the day to go and as most of the attractions would be undercover we thought this would give us the most out of our short visit.

Once we returned from the park we had to collect our luggage and pick up our room keys, we waited at the key pick up area for 20 minutes and still no-one came over to attend to us, as I am more than a little impatient I decided to wander over to the check-in area and try and get my key that way and I did, defintately not a good start in the service area Disney.

*~*The Rooms*~*

Our room was located in the west wing which was accessed just passed the gift shop towards the convention center and the lifts took us up to the third floor where our room was located. 3197.

As we entered the room it looked very plain, decorated in a nautical theme in blue, white and red. We had one large king sized bed in the centre of the room and at the foot of the bed was the large tv cabinet and drawers for storage. A small table and chair were also in the room that overlooked the Captain Cod Restaurant below.
The bathroom was immediately to the right as we entered the room and was very large with a standard size bath and over head shower and large vanity area with 4 overhead lights that did not appear to work. The safe was in the room but it had been dismantled and was unusable, not ideal when you have travel documents and money to store.
As we were both exhausted from traveling and visiting the park, we decided to have an early night so as my other half got into bed he commented on how the head board was dirty as if a can of coke had been spilt and not wiped down, urgh!
I decided to go in the bath to relax it was at this point I could tell that the plug didn't fit the hole and I had to have a shower instead.
Finally after unpacking our things I climbed into my bed and noticed various marks on the sheets as if they had been dropped in dirt and the dirt had been left to dry, I now wasn't happy.
My partner said we would complain first thing in the morning and try to switch rooms and hopefully it would be a bit cleaner, I agreed and settled down to watch some tv the choice of Disney Channel or BBC World News finally sent me to sleep and after half an hour I was woken up by clanging noises behind our room, great I thought we have noisy neighbours, I tried to ignore it and go back to sleep but the noise kept disturbing me and it was then that I realised behind our room were the elevator shafts and they were in constant use which meant the slightest noise woke me up.
I was exhausted and just wanted to get a good night's sleep after all I had been awake since 4am!!
I woke my other half who told me to pack our things and he would phone reception to get us moved, he knew that if we didn't move I would be a total nightmare and keep him awake.
Reception advised us that they would get someone to come for our bags and change our room, we were moved to a room on the same floor with a lake view, this was far away from the lifts so it was much quieter. Finally a good night's sleep.

*~*The Restaurants & Bars*~*

Cape Cod is where the buffet breakfast is served and there is plenty of it.
When you check-in you are asked what time you want to arrive for breakfast so we picked the earliest slot so that we could get into the park for the exclusive magic hours that is available to guests. As the park was opening at 8am for hotel guests only we decided to book breakfast for 7.30am so that we could go straight from breakfast and luckily we picked a really good time slot as at 8am the queues were so long people were queing down the stairs.

The breakfast was a continental style breakfast offering pastries, bread rolls, toast, ham, cheese, yogurts, fruit salad, hot drinks and fruit juices and it really was a case of eat as much as you can.
The food in the park and in Disneyland Paris in general is very expensive so I always made sure I had enough to keep me going and ate so much I felt sick!

The restaurant is nice and feels a much higher standard than those normally found in a 3 star property, however we only ate here for breakfast so am unable to comment on the evening buffet which was better suited for families.

We decided to eat in the Yacht Club restaurant as it seemed to be a lot quieter compared to all other restaurants at the Disney Hotels and seemed to offer a more relaxing environment for those without children wanting to relax after a manic day at the Disney parks.

The food offered was pretty expensive and our bill came to €126 for a 2 course meal and a bottle of wine but it was delicious and beats some of the 4 star restaurants that I have previously visited.

I opted for the Goats Cheese and caramalized onion tart for my starter and my partner opted for the Duck Fois Gras which he said was the best thing he had tasted in a while, I had a little taste but after seeing it on Gordon Ramsay's programme I was a little off knowing how it was produced.

For the main course I had steamed cod with vegetables and this was the best fish dish I have ever had at a restaurant it was out of this world. My partner had the Lamb shank which was served with casserole vegetables and the waitress even came to the table first with the lamb to ensure that it was cooked correctly for him before putting it on the plate to be served..very impressive.

Children are also permitted in this restaurant however the staff do not attempt to warn them of the dangers of running around when they are serving and this led to a waiter being knocked over with a very large tray carrying glasses as the parents continued to talk rather than discipling the children from running around the restaurant and screaming around other customers.

For a quick night cap we decided to visit the Captain's Quarters Bar only to find that it was closed for a convention, my partner was most disappointed as he felt that it was a more adult environment to the family bar Fisherman's Wharf and was not looking forward to sharing a room with Buzz'z laser blaster toys that were rapidly following us around like a bad smell and giving me a distinct headache! We decided to have a cocktail there for the very nice price of €10.00 each, the atmosphere to be fair was not too bad and we had a nice seat in front of the window overlooking Lake Disney and the other Disney hotels situated around the Lake and it was really nice that we could sit back and relax in such a nice atmosphere.

The following night we made it into the Captain's Quarter bar for that night and arrived around 10.30pm it was still pretty full with very tired looking children that looked desperate to get to bed and a group of adults away on business and as we sat in the dimly lit bar we enjoyed another round of cocktails in a slightly more romantic atmosphere.

The newport bay hotel should be a 4 star hotel, the only part of the hotel that is let down are the rooms they really need to be better maintained for when guests arrive and ensure that every guest gets a similar quality room as the rates to stay are pretty high.

Despite the problems that we had with our room we cannot fault any other aspect of the Newport Bay and would definately stay here again, over any of the other hotels apart from the New York and Disneyland Hotel provided we could fit them into our budget.
The Newport Bay is a great hotel that would suit guests of all ages. 

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