Staying in the Wild, Wild West

Finishing our tour of the hotels of Disneyland Paris, let's stroll down the Rio Grande (the name given the canal which runs from Lake Disney) toward the French equivalent of the moderate resorts, Hotel Cheyenne and Hotel Santa Fe.

The second property designed by architect Robert Stern, Hotel Cheyenne offers Guests the opportunity to stay in a western frontier town, albeit one more inspired by films like High Noon than based in reality.

A stagecoach has pulled up out front to deliver folks and freight, and look who stopped by, in full Native American garb no less. Apart from being a fantastic outfit for Mickey and a great location for photos, this spot also provided me one of the most unforgettable moments of my trip to Disneyland Paris.

Guests visit the French park from all over Europe, and you can hear many different languages spoken here. It becomes abundantly clear that, while I may have grown up with Mickey and the gang in the States, he doesn't belong to us. He belongs to the world, and the magic of Disney transcends language and culture. As my wife and I stood, watching Mickey greet these children, an Italian family was dropped off nearby. Obviously at the start of their vacation, they rushed over, excited to see the Big Cheese. No one in that family was more thrilled than the father, who shouted an enthusiastic, "Topolino! Ciao!" (Topolino is the Italian name for Mickey Mouse) It was at once funny and endearing, and I will remember the wonder and delight in that grown man's voice for as long as I live.

Inside the public space of the Hotel Cheyenne are references both direct and indirect to the Westerns of the past, both Hollywood and "Spaghetti" (Spaghetti Westerns, also known as "western all'italiana," were popular in the mid-60s and shot in Italy by directors like Sergio Leone).

The lobby includes sculptures by Remington, and the primary dining facility is the Chuck Wagon Cafe, where grub is served up from the wagons and the cookhouse (although all indoors).

Among my favorite details is this mailbox, designed as a Pony Express satchel. Even better, step outside, and you'll find actual ponies! As they say, this "ain't no one horse town."

The lodging buildings of the hotel are arranged along a grid of western-style, packed dirt streets, with facades broken up to appear like a string of buildings one might find in an old west town (or at least on an old west movie set). Even the names of the buildings and streets help support the story. That's the Doc Holliday building in the second photo below, along East Desperado Street.

Out at the edge of town near the river is the hotel's play area for children, Fort Apache, where kids can let their imagination run wild playing in the fort or the nearby Indian encampment.

Cross the Rio Grande, and you'll find yourself in a western environment of a completely different kind. Hotel Santa Fe, as designed by New Mexico's own Antoine Predock, is an homage to the desert areas of the west, as well as the famous Route 66.

The front entrance of the hotel is designed as a drive-in movie theater, with the spaces in the parking lot arranged to position the cars facing the screen. When the resort opened in 1992, the image on screen was that of Clint Eastwood, but that was changed to a scene from Cars after that film debuted in 2006.

The interiors of Hotel Santa Fe lean heavily on both Route 66 and Native American designs, contrasting the natural hues of the architecture with bright, vibrant colors. The collection of Native American folk art figures behind the front desk of the hotel is particularly impressive.

Just outside the public buildings of the resort is a long mural of Route 66, running from Chicago (Walt Disney's birthplace) to Los Angeles. Along the way are nods to Walt, including Marceline, Missouri (where he spent his childhood), and Disneyland in California.

The lodging structures at Hotel Santa Fe take their cue from the adobe dwellings of Arizona and Utah, with landscaping heavy on cactus and stone.

Connecting the buildings and other facilities of the resort is a series of themed trails. Although quite a bit more esoteric than the movie-inspired sections of Hotel Cheyenne, the trails offer their own unique elements.

The Trail of Monuments is intended as an abstract representation of Monument Valley in Utah (the inspiration for the rockwork at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad). Upon opening, buildings along the Trail of Legends were painted in colors symbolic of key elements of a western town (silver for the bank, gray for the prison, red for the house of ill repute, etc.), but these colors have since been replaced with warmer tones.

The Trail of Water includes aquatic elements like a viaduct, pond and fountain. Along the Trail of Artifacts, you can find rusty old cars, a statue of a rattlesnake and a neon roadrunner. Finally, the Trail of Infinite Space is seen as a long highway with a line of telephone poles that seem to go forever. This trail features, among other things, a crash-landed UFO - a bit of Area 51, right here at Disneyland Resort Paris.

From the Forest to the Shore

Continuing our stroll around Lake Disney at Disneyland Resort Paris, we come upon the remaining two deluxe properties, Sequoia Lodge and Newport Bay Club. The Sequoia Lodge, as designed by French architect Antoine Grumbach, recalls America's national parks as well as the familiar architectural styles of Green & Green and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Similar in some ways to the Wilderness Lodge at Walt Disney World, Sequoia Lodge is distinct in that the main building does not include a cavernous lobby area. It's spaces are much more intimate, with several of the rooms grouped into separate lodge buildings, giving the overall resort a more manageable scale.

Sequoia Lodge was undergoing a significant refurbishment during my visit, but portions of the interior were open for Guests. The spaces are dominated by natural elements of wood, stone and copper, with seating areas grouped around crackling fireplaces and towering trees shading the windows from the sun.

The hotels at Disneyland Resort Paris offer many of the same perks as those at other Disney properties (such as early park admission), but there are other benefits to staying on property in France. All resort Guests receive complimentary breakfast in a hotel restaurant every day of your stay (go early!), and Disney characters stop by the resorts in the morning, wearing special attire unique to the theme of each property. Here's Goofy as a park ranger, inside the lobby of the Sequoia Lodge!

Down at the other end of the lake is Newport Bay Club, architect Robert Stern's contribution to the Parisian resort. If it looks similar to Disney's Yacht and Beach Club Resorts in Florida, that's no surprise. Stern designed those, too!

Here, the Newport Bay Club is an immense property, with over 1000 rooms. To help break up that mass and provide a more comfortable scale for Guests, the hotel was designed with long wings, oversize porches and pillars, gently sloping roof lines and an appropriately-placed lighthouse.

Newport Bay Club is reminiscent of New England hotels of the late 1800s and is filled with nautical details and references, set against a background of crisp whites, blues and hardwoods. It's truly beautiful inside.

Newport Bay Club is the resort where we stayed during our May 2011 visit, and it was fantastic. The hotel is a healthy walking distance from the theme parks, close enough to feel part of the action but far enough away to be in a world of its own.

Since Disney's Yacht Club Resort is one of my favorite properties at Walt Disney World, staying at Newport Bay Club felt a bit like coming home at the end of each day. There were definitely those little reminders, though, that we weren't in Orlando. Take that letter "C" on the left side of the sink faucet in the bathroom. At first you might think they've just swapped the hot and cold sides... until you realize the French word for hot is "chaud" (by the way, the letter on the other knob is "F" for "froid" - French for cold).

Then, of course, you look out the window and find a view you can't get anywhere else. That's Hotel New York across the lake and Panoramagique in the air. We could also peek to the left and see Disney Village and a bit of the Disneyland Paris park itself.

An interesting note: Robert Stern's Yacht and Beach Club Resorts also happen to offer views across a lake of structures designed by Michael Graves, who did Hotel New York. In Florida, it's his Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Hotels.

Start Spreadin' the News

The hotels of Disneyland Resort Paris bring a bit of Americana to the Parisian countryside in the form of sophisticated architectural statements. We've previously explored the Disneyland Hotel, at the entrance to the park, with a design somewhat reminiscent of Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa at Walt Disney World. At the opposite end of Disney Village, though, is a property completely unique to the Paris resort - Hotel New York.

Designed by noted architect Michael Graves, Hotel New York is a loving tribute to the "city that doesn't sleep," complete with abstract skyscrapers and a Rockefeller Plaza-like ice skating rink (and yes, those are Big Apples incorporated into the barrier surrounding the ice in the photo above).

Step inside Hotel New York, and you'll find yourself in a space that is at once classic Art Deco as well as ultra-modern, done in a distinctive Michael Graves style.

The hotel includes quite a few nods to aspects, landmarks and neighborhoods of New York, NY.

For all the reverence shown the Big Apple, Graves also had a bit of fun with his design, like with these nods to New York teams playfully positioned in a face-off at either end of a main corridor on the ground floor of the hotel. Of course, with great restaurants and shops on each side, everyone's a winner in this Subway Series!

There are also some nods to Disney history. This children's area off the main lobby is inspired by the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit? The skyscrapers and yellow cab seem a natural fit. I guess the designers forgot that movie took place in Los Angeles.

Probably my favorite discovery from wandering the halls of Hotel New York was a set of reproductions of art from the 1939 New York World's Fair. The art complements the Art Deco styling of parts of the hotel, but it also represents a subtle connection to Disney. Walt visited the 1939 fair, where the Trylon and Perisphere and theme of the World of Tomorrow would heavily influence some of his later efforts in theme park and civic design. The 1939 fair was also held at Flushing Meadows, the same location where Walt would return in 1964 with influential exhibits and attractions of his own.

Go (Wild) West

Since opening in 1992, the anchor attraction of Disney Village at Disneyland Resort Paris has been Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, a dining and entertainment spectacular inspired by the real exposition William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody toured through Europe from 1889-1906.

Thanks to a partnership with the Buffalo Bill Museum in Colorado, the lobby of the theater is packed with posters, photographs and artifacts recalling Cody's time in Europe. The exhibit focuses particularly on the period of April to June, 1905, when Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World (the original show's full title) played the Champ de Mars in Paris.

Photographs of the massive show and some of the tour's more famous guest stars (like Sitting Bull, below) help ground the Disney Village attraction in reality and provide a true sense of history. This is no mere rodeo. You're about to experience a reenactment of events that happened here more than a century ago.

Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show isn't all history lesson, though. It's also loads of fun. On the way in to your arena-side seat, be sure to grab a cowboy hat. These keepsakes come with colored bands that (in typical dinner show fashion) separate sections of the audience into teams.

As you tuck into the chili, cornbread and ribs, the lights go down for the show to begin. Buffalo Bill himself rides center stage to address the crowd and get things going, bringing to life a highly-authentic demonstration of elements of life in the old west.

Apart from the competition sequences which involve plenty of audience participation, the show also features segments recreating the Pony Express, and Indian attack and a stagecoach robbery. The cast, both human and animal, has been brought to Paris from the United States and includes skilled rodeo cowboys, Native Americans, horses, longhorn cattle and (most impressive of all) a thundering herd of real bison.

The show is at once both reverent and funny, stunning and "down home." In 2009, as a way to reinvigorate the show and inspire repeat visitation, Mickey and the gang were added to the mix. While Disney characters may seem contrary to everything else the show is trying to achieve, they're brought in at just the right moments so as not to upset the more historic aspects of the presentation.

It's been nearly 100 years since William Cody passed, but his spirit and the spirit of the Wild West he loved so much are alive and well today at Disneyland Resort Paris.

Village People and Places

Nearly everything at Disneyland Resort Paris is within walking distance, and connecting the parks with the resorts and the rail station is Disney Village. This shopping, dining and entertainment complex was designed by noted architect Frank Gehry and originally opened as Festival Disney, but the area was renamed in 1996 to give it more appeal as a gathering spot for Guests after a day in the theme parks.

Similar to the Downtown Disney districts at other Disney resorts, Disney Village features a mix of Disney-branded locations with operating participants such as Starbucks, McDonald's and Earl of Sandwich.

There are also several themed dining establishments such as Rainforest Cafe, Planet Hollywood and the Bavarian-inspired King Ludwig's Castle.

You can also catch a movie at Disney Village, at the 15 screen Gaumont Cinema (avec Imax). While we didn't spend valuable time in Paris watching American movies, I did find it very entertaining to see how certain releases had been retitled for ease of translation overseas. Perhaps there's not a word in French for "hangover?"

The bit of construction you see to the right of the cinema in the above photo is the future home of Paris's own World of Disney, set to open in 2012. For now, Guests can get their Disneyland Paris souvenir fix at the Disney Store and several other character shops along the avenue.

Inside the Disney Store are large character vignettes, much like those found in the mall-based Disney Stores of the '90s. Here, you'll see the characters visiting Disneyland Resort Paris landmarks, such as Le Chateau de la Belle au Bois Dormant or Walt Disney Studios Park.

You'll also find a veritable cornucopia of Disney character stars floating and flying above the center of the massive store. There's Launchpad McQuack, Kit Cloudkicker and Baloo the bear from TaleSpin, along with my favorite, Professor Ludwig Von Drake, piloting a hot air balloon.

Many of the establishments at Disney Village have changed over the years, but one of the originals is still among the best. Annette's Diner, named in tribute to everyone's favorite Mouseketeer, is a simple pleasure. It's a throwback to another era, with burgers and shakes, carhops, Googie architecture and fun music.

Annette's isn't the only thing that remains from Day One at Disney Village. Here and there around the resort, you'll also occasionally come across something like this: One of the few vestiges of the original name of Disneyland Resort Paris, Euro Disney.

Way down at the other end of Disney Village is a relative newcomer on the scene, Panoramagique. This tethered balloon attraction (operated by the same company that runs Characters in Flight at Walt Disney World) takes off from a setting that looks like it would be right at home between Main Street and Discoveryland. That's appropriate, I suppose, since you can sometimes see the balloon from those areas of the park.

What's great about Panoramagique, though, is the view you get from the balloon itself. It's a spectacular panorama of Disney Village, Lake Disney and the parks and resort areas of Disneyland Paris. Check it out for yourself in the video below from DLRP Magic.