We stayed here for 3 nights from Sunday 4 August 2019, a party of 4 adults
I booked a room only rate via Expedia as we are all annual pass holders. The only room available at the time was a Lake View room. These rooms are exactly the same as the other rooms, they just have a view of the lake.
No bell service offering to transfer luggage to your rooms, but we didn't mind. Reception was great. Very quick and efficient. The CM checking us in was really nice. I’d emailed the hotel about a week before our visit asking if we could please have a room that was close to the lifts as I was aware the hotel is very big and you can potentially have a very long walk to your room.
The CM had a look at what we’d been allocated and said it was in a good location. He showed me the map and I was happy with the location.
Our daughter has a medical condition which allows a priority pass within the parks. We spoke to the CM about this and he was able to arrange the pass for us. Previously this could only be done using guest services at either park so this is a great timesaver.
The lobby is really nice, very spacious and lovely theming.
Our room was on the 4th floor in the west wing, room 4183
Room looked nice, although not as big as expected, two beds, nice dressing table with ample plug sockets. Large unit with tv, ice bucket, 4 glasses and very large drawers which were great.
Our view
I found the beds a bit hard and slightly lumpy, but that may just be personal taste. I’ve also found this at HNY, Cheyenne and the DLH so I think it’s just the type of mattresses they use sometimes rather than the hotel class. Lewis, our teenage son said he thought the Cheyenne beds were more comfortable.
I’d initially been unsure about the bathroom set up because I couldn't get my head around the fact that there wasn't a sink in the same room as the toilet.....but actually this worked very well for us. The bath and toilet are in a separate room. The sink and wardrobe area are separate, with a curtain that closes it off. This was really useful when everyone was getting ready in the mornings. Someone could be in the shower and someone else getting dressed in the other area. The bench was large enough to have our suitcase on it too.
A digital safe is provided along with an iron and ironing board. Hairdryer on the wall, worked fine for us, a bit slow but fine.
The shower wasn't great. Very difficult to get a good, consistent temperature and it kept falling down.
There are ice machines on each floor. The one on our floor was not very good so my DH would go to the bar each night instead to get some ice from there. There are also machines for hot drinks. The hotel information page mentions that you can get 1 free drink per person, per day. We didn’t use it so can’t comment on what it was like.
No fridge or mini-bar. There aren’t fridges in any of the Disney Hotels, but the HNY and DLH both offer mini-bars (not that we use them) but wanted to note this in case anyone was expecting it here too as the NPB now classed as 4*. I know that a kettle can be requested from reception, again the same as all the other hotels.
The curtains didn’t fully close at each end meaning that we didn’t get total blackout. Even if they did close the curtains didn’t seem dense enough to create black out. Again, I can only really compare this to HNY but I used to bump into walls first thing in the morning on my way to the bathroom because it was so dark, lol. Here’s what it looked like at 8am:
Not a huge deal for us as adults, but if our kids had been really young this would have been a huge problem.
There is air conditioning in the room but it’s not very strong. I’ve read numerous posts about this and there is a general consensus that it’s because the European air con isn’t as strong as it is in the US because it’s not normally needed. I’m going to politely disagree with this. Having stayed at the Hotel New York numerous times in high summer season I can tell you that the air con system there was fantastic. When you entered the hotel foyer there was an instant ‘woosh!’ of cold air where you immediately felt the temperature difference. This was not the case here at the Newport Bay Club. Also, in the rooms I noticed that the air con vent was quite small and narrow. It was positioned over to one side of the room, instead of slightly more central. This meant that you could feel the air con directly opposite the vent, at the dressing table, but hardly anything at all where the beds were.
In practical terms this meant that our room felt slightly stuffy and we all woke up with stuffy noses each morning and slept with the covers kicked off. One of the reasons I booked this hotel was because it offered air con. Not great.
We used the swimming pool on one afternoon. It’s a really beautiful pool with an indoor and outdoor section. We didn’t swim inside, just outside as it was a very hot afternoon. However, the pool itself was actually roasting! We went in expecting it to cool us down but it was actually colder sitting in the slightly windy sun. We still really enjoyed the swim though, lots of sun loungers to use too.
We didn’t eat in any of the restaurants but I understand there are two, one of them offering a buffet.
We had a drink one night in the bar, The Captain’s Quarters. The bar is nice, lovely big armchairs to lounge in but the service wasn’t good. We waited for a while to be served the first time and when we wanted more drinks went to the bar and were told to go back to our table as it was table service. Still took another 10 minutes for someone to come and see us.
The shop is nice and the staff were lovely in here. Very friendly and nothing too much trouble for them.
There are free shuttle busses to the parks, but we never use these and prefer to walk for two reasons. Firstly, I love being in our Disney bubble and not having to see much of real life in terms of busses, sometimes being overloaded and having to wait on the way back etc. Secondly, walking means you clear the security at the entrance to the village and don’t have to battle with everyone else entering the parks. Here’s what the main entrance looked like one morning as we passed:
) and the only difference we found where the pancakes. But since you ask about it being worth it, make sure your free breakfast is the hotel breakfast, because it isn't always! Sometimes you get vouchers to get a hot drink and a croissant in the parks!
