Day One at Disneyland Paris - Eurostar, Bistrot Chez Remy and Hotel New York

I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to start sharing my holiday photos from Disneyland Paris on my blog, but better late than never right?! Back in September 2018, my Mum, Dad, sisters and I enjoyed a 4 night/5 day holiday to one of the happiest places on earth to begin the celebrations for my 30^th birthday. We had been once before, around ten years ago, but because there had been such a long gap, it felt like we were going for the first time. This time round I did a lot more research and planning (you can check out my planning post here) and despite being completely exhausted by the end of it, we all had an amazing holiday. As we packed so much into our five days (and due to the fact I took over one thousand photographs!) I’ve decided to write a separate post for each day of our holiday, sharing with you some of my personal highlights. So, we’ll begin with Day One…

We had decided to take the Eurostar from St Pancras, so were up bright and early (OK, maybe not so bright!) to get a taxi to the station. We arrived in plenty of time, so relaxed with a bit of breakfast in a place called Le Pain Quotidien, just inside the station. After going through check-in and security, we made it onto the train and made ourselves comfortable for the journey over to Paris. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been able to get a wheelchair space, which meant I’d had to bring my manual wheelchair instead of the electric one, as it could fold up. But it did mean that we ended up in Standard Premier, as we needed a bit more space, so at least we were a bit more comfortable! It also meant we were provided with more breakfast on the journey, so there was no chance of us going hungry!

Going through security and passport control at the other end took a lot longer than we thought, which meant we were starting to panic, as we had a late lunch reservation at Bistrot Chez Rémy and still needed to drop our bags off at the hotel. So as soon as we were out of the station, we raced over to the Hotel New York to check in and drop our bags off. Thankfully, they were able to ring and postpone our booking by half an hour, which gave us just enough time to walk through the Studios and get to the restaurant.

I’d heard so many good things about Bistrot Chez Rémy and it certainly lived up to expectations. I won’t go into too much detail about the food we had because I’m planning a separate post about what we ate while we were in Disneyland, but I will say that it was probably one of our favourite meals. However, I think it was the décor that really made our experience so special. The idea of the restaurant is to make you feel like you’ve been shrunk down to the size of a rat from Ratatouille, so everything around you is massive. The lights on the ceiling are designed to look like Christmas fairy lights, plates are stacked behind some of the seating, other chairs are made to look like bottle lids, there are huge pieces of cutlery lying around and giant cocktail umbrellas offer ‘shade’ on some of the tables. The attention to detail really was incredible – everywhere you looked there was something else that made you feel tiny. 

As we came outside after demolishing our food, we were greeted by a group of musicians playing traditional French music, so we decided to stay around for a bit to listen. It’s such a lovely setting, especially when the sun is shining. There are tables outside where you can sit under the trees and listen to the water from the fountain tumbling down as the band play. After a busy (and slightly stressful) day so far, it was a lovely place to just stop and take a breath for a few minutes.

We decided that we would head back to our hotel so we could take our bags up to our room and settle in properly, so made our way back through the Studios and through the Disney Village. As we were going through the Village though, we noticed that an area had been roped off. There weren’t very many people waiting around, but we decided to stop for a few minutes to see if anything was happening. And, sure enough, we soon heard the sound of hooves and country music, as the cast from the Wild West Show paraded round the Village to advertise the upcoming show. It was good fun to see them all dressed up, although unfortunately we didn’t manage to fit in seeing the show.

As I mentioned, we were staying in the Hotel New York, which has since closed and is being revamped to become a Marvel Hotel. It’s one of the reasons we wanted to stay in it, because I knew it would be our last chance before it disappeared for good. We had two adjoining rooms – I shared with my two sisters, while my parents had the double room. Although the hotel was definitely a bit tired (but then what can you expect from a hotel that’s about to be re-done), it was comfortable and clean and still had the attention to detail that you come to expect from Disney. We had a nice spacious bathroom, including Disney toiletries, two very comfortable double beds, a television (with my name on the screen!), a minibar and desk area. I loved all the little touches like the Empire State light and the cut out apple in the chairs. Our view wasn’t particularly interesting – we could just about see the top of Space Mountain – but then we weren’t really there for the view. 

While the others relaxed, my Mum and I decided to go and explore the hotel a bit. I was a bit confused about which you would call the front and which you would call the back, but the part that overlooked the car park definitely wasn’t the prettiest of the hotels! It did, however, have a yellow New York taxi parked outside, which was popular for photos. At the other side of the hotel, you could see across the lake to Newport Bay Hotel (which looks a lot prettier from the outside than the New York!) There’s a small pond right in front of the hotel with a fountain, as well as a little racetrack for children to ride quad bikes on. I believe they turn this into an ice rink around Christmas, which I can imagine would be really pretty. Sitting by the lake watching the ducks is a really lovely way to just have some quiet time away from the busyness of the parks.

It was getting late and as we’d had a long day and already eaten a big late lunch, we decided not to try and go into the parks again. Instead, we opted to check out the New York Bar in our hotel for a chilled out evening of drinks and chatter about what we wanted to do the next day. They had all sorts of different cocktails on offer, and as it was our first night, we decided to push the boat out and order some fancy ones. I ended up with a non-alcoholic light-up mocktail, Rosiie had a rather fancy looking red cocktail with a light-up ice cube and Bekkah went for a children’s cup, again with a light-up ice cube! We also got a few packets of crisps and discussed what we wanted to try and do in the morning before heading up to our room for an early night.

Don’t forget to check back again soon to find out what we got up to on Day Two of our Disneyland Paris holiday! You can also check out vlogs from our trip on my YouTube channel.

Have you been to Disneyland Paris or are you planning a Disney holiday soon? I’d love to hear your favourite things about Disney!

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