Our Paris Stays
Between the four of us, we stayed at 3 different hotels throughout our 10 days in Paris. Since Don and I only stayed at 2 of the 3, I can only fairly review those 2, but I’ve included a little summary of my parents’ stay on the Champs-Élysées for anyone curious!
In the end, it boils down to this: how much time will you actually be in your room? For us, most of our days were spent out and about, so while a nice hotel stay is always welcome, if you’re not going to be there most of the day…just weigh your options carefully.
Disneyland Paris - Hotel Cheyenne
Every building is themed in a Western way, which is cute, but also weirdly made me feel less like I was in Paris. Also note the wrinkled skirt - keep reading.
similar bandana (affiliate link) | shirt (use MAYA10 for a discount) | skirt (affiliate link)
In a nutshell, I don’t think we’d stay here again - it wasn’t bad at all, it just wasn’t great either. The thing about DLP hotels is that they’re all super close to the parks - which is a good thing, so we’ll start with the good. You just take a bus from your hotel, and you arrive outside the metro station that DLP is seated by (which I’ll discuss later). From our hotel, it was a 5 minute ride, tops. You can also definitely just walk, they aren’t far. So back to the actual hotels - I do think it’s a little…weird that they’re so American. I mean we stayed at Cheyenne, there’s also New York, Santa Fe, and Sequoia (among others), and despite the French flags, I didn’t really feel like I was actually in France. I can’t speak for the others, but at the very least, Hotel Cheyenne was very themed. Truthfully, I can’t speak much to the amenities since we didn’t do much there, and it was raining almost the whole time (but there were pony rides and campfires that seemed cute), so let’s get into our stay.
So first things first, there wasn’t an elevator in our building (it’s only two stories). Not a big deal for us, as Don and I are both able to use stairs without a problem, though lugging our almost-overweight suitcases up those very loud stairs was a little less than ideal. Luggage aside though, if someone in your party has trouble with stairs, or using them isn’t an option, call ahead of time and hopefully they would be accommodating. Something totally small but inconvenient - there was no iron in the room. I called down a few times to request one as I’d forgotten my travel steamer at home, but no one actually ever picked up…
With that said though, their staff still had the Disney magic that I’d come to expect. Very friendly, informative, and helpful. I lost my MagicPass, aka my room key and park ticket somewhere in the parks, and within a matter of minutes, despite an impossibly long line in the lobby, a cast member helped me and presented me with a new MagicPass.
Something else to get used to, and maybe it’s just because I’m on the short side - their tub/showers are HIGH. I almost fell getting out, on more than one occasion. The bathroom was compact, but easily shareable between the two of us. I never use the soaps that Disney provides as I’m allergic, but I made an exception for the ones here, they smelled too good to pass up. Totally worth it.
The bedroom (a Woody’s Roundup Standard) itself was a decent size, cozy, and quiet. It’s a Western themed hotel, which is very, very evident throughout the property, and the room is no different. The room came with a double bed, as well as a trundle bed. No minifridge or large closet space, just a shelving/cubby unit with space for hangers (it was definitely sufficient, as there was also a chest of drawers under the TV). It was cute, definitely had Disney vibes as it’s themed to our favorite Toy Story cowboy, but didn’t feel like Mickey Mouse himself slapped me in the face with Disney IP.
The thing I loved most about the hotel (aside from the fact that it has a Starbucks on property), was actually not about the hotel itself, but more about how the whole area is set up. The bus stop, unlike the ones Walt Disney World, isn’t actually at the parks. It’s just outside of Disney Village, and outside of Gare de Marne-la-Vallée - Chessy (aka, the train station). So when you get off the bus, you’re not just dealing with park-goers, you’re amongst travelers heading basically anywhere the station offers. This is what made it so easy for us to get to and from Paris to meet up with my parents while we were staying there (and how we got back to Disneyland so easily after we checked into our other hotel). Now I will say that there are a lot of ticket scalpers outside of Disney Village and the train station, as well as many well armed guards, so it was a bit weird. Spoiler, I’ll be talking more about security there in my June faves next week. You’ll see why.
Truthfully, when we originally booked the trip, we’d booked our room at Hotel Cheyenne for the whole time. As soon as we got there, we both said how glad we were that we’d only be there for three nights. I don’t think we could’ve handled it, mainly due to the need we’d have to travel to and from the city every day.
*one final note: as per usual, if you’re checking out but still want some time in the parks, they’ll hold your luggage for you until you return.
Entrance to Disneyland is under/through the beautiful Disneyland hotel!
Overall, it was alright. We were there to sleep, shower, and change, knowing that we’d want to spend most of our time soaking up our first trip to an international Disney park. Had we wanted more, I know we would’ve stayed elsewhere. We chose Cheyenne for the decent pricing, and if we’d been willing to spend a lot more, we would’ve stayed at Disneyland Hotel.
Paris - Hôtel Pont Royal
Now Hôtel Pont Royal, we’d visit time and time again. It’s a small(ish) boutique hotel with the sweetest, most attentive staff. The room itself was smaller than ours at Hotel Cheyenne, but we’d still prefer it, between the two. We wanted a hotel that was in the city, but also not in the city. The Louvre and Musée d’Orsay were about a 10 minute, beautiful walk away, and walking to the Champs-Élysées took about 15-20 minutes (10 minute taxi ride). We could see the top of La Tour Eiffel from our balcony, and were able to watch it twinkle each night when we returned to our room (it twinkles for the first 5 minutes of every hour after the sun goes down). It gave us the feeling of being very much in Paris, but also removed enough from loud tourist crowds.
Taken on our balcony at Hotel Pont Royal
Taken on our walk after lunch at Cocorico. The Louvre is visible to the left of me.
One of the things I was most excited about for Paris was just being able to walk everywhere, and Hôtel Pont Royal’s location let me do just that. One morning, Don and I decided to go out for a walk, and came across several cafes, ultimately stopping at Cocorico (which became our favorite eatery of the trip), and then continued on to the Louvre. Another day, we strolled around, came upon a flower shop literally right across the street from the hotel, and Don bought me some beautiful flowers. We walked to a bakery nearby and bought croissants for breakfast and stocked up on sandwiches for lunch; another day, we stopped at the Monoprix immediately outside the hotel, grabbed some wraps, and ate, chatted, and admired the Seine all while we walked to meet my parents to at the Louvre.
So boo boo the fool here (me) can’t find ANY of the pictures we took of our Hotel Pont Royal room. If they ever resurface, I’ll add them here. In the meantime, this was taken in the flower shop across the street from the hotel.
So back to the room. Again, it’s tiny! But sweet. Similar to Hotel Cheyenne, it did not come with an iron/ironing board, but within 5 minutes of me making the request, they were brought up. Once again, the shower was a little high, but I got used to it. The housekeeping staff was lovely, and the turn-down service was always pleasant to return to after a long day of sightseeing.
The only real downside: we had a closet, with plenty of shelving space above, but no drawers! So we hung up what we could, but basically lived out of our suitcases for the rest of the week. Since we had an iron though, it wasn’t really that much of a problem.
But with all of that said - we were barely in the room. We were usually out by 10 or 10:30am, and returned around 11 pm or midnight. While we were there though, it was comfy, perfect, and I loved just looking out over the balcony and soaking it all in.
Croissant with honey, French-style scrambled eggs.
Our stay included a complimentary breakfast, which we only took advantage of once, as we rarely roused timely enough. There was a good selection of pastries, breads, cheese, and fruit. Eggs and breakfast meats were also bountiful, but I did not notice anything other than pork, which I don’t eat (though I did not make any inquiries as to alternatives). The coffee, as expected, was smooth and delicious.
Overall, we really enjoyed our stay here. The staff at the hotel was truly so friendly, and made us feel right at home. We’d absolutely stay here again!
As for my parents’ hotel, I will say that we learned one main thing on this trip: don’t stay on the Champs-Élysées, and don’t eat a majority of your meals there. Their hotel was actually lovely and there weren’t really any complaints, but obviously staying on the Champs-Élysées means tourists. While the room itself was quiet and removed, the hotel’s rooms faced inwards, so the view was of the lobby.
As soon as you left the building, you’re in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the Champs-Élysées, and even though the Arc de Triomphe is right there (which was gorgeous), it’s still very busy, and not very relaxing. We were warned about the meals in the area as well. While we actually had two pretty decent meals there, we were informed that because it’s such a touristy area, restaurants aren’t as concerned with how good the food actually is, because no matter what, they’ll get the foot traffic. We noticed that at some places, but actually really enjoyed our meals at Le Drugstore and Cafe di Roma. Obviously, be sure to stop at Laduree for macarons though (the line is usually really long, but actually moves pretty quickly).
Overall, I definitely recommend scoping out boutique hotels if you’re looking for a future stay!
