Dream Castle Hotel Magney-le-Hongre Review

Last Updated on March 10, 2023 by Themepark Freak

I was at Disneyland Paris from February 27 until March 1st and I was not planning on booking the Dream Castle Hotel. Unfortunately, the hotel I had booked an hour down the road towards home turned out to be garbage. None of my party wanted to sleep there again, so I booked the Dream Castle Hotel in Magney-le-Hongre. Was the hotel worth it? Here’s my honest review.

No Pictures of Dream Castle Hotel

I have utterly failed as a travel blogger. My third day of Disneyland Paris was falling a part. I had broken my mother in law and she simply wanted to stay at the hotel for the day. My nephew was keen to go back to the park with me, but half way through lunch decided he wanted me to take him back as well.

I’ll get some next time, or maybe some kind person will let me use their photos at some point.

About the Dream Castle Hotel

The Dream Castle Hotel is a non-Disney property located 6.4 kilometers (4 miles) from Disneyland Paris. Depending on where I parked at DLP, it was closer to 6.8 km. The drive between the hotel and Disney parks is incredibly straight forward.

The hotel sports:

• 399 rooms (including family rooms) and suites
• pool
• spa
• fitness room
• restaurant
• bar
• conference rooms
• free parking

Additionally, you can book a room that includes breakfast and all bookings include complementary shuttle service to the Disney parks that leave every 15 minutes.

Checking In to the Dream Castle Hotel

I arrived to the hotel around 10:30 in the morning. My goal was to try to get checked in and see if I could arrange something with the front desk so that my mother in law could pick up the keys at 3pm. I didn’t expect much more since I know actually having a room ready that early was hit or miss.

First Impressions of Dream Castle Hotel

The hotel itself is huge. When I walked in it felt like I was walking into a fancy hotel lobby. The colors were blues and greys. Between the high lobby ceiling, light colors and all the light coming in from the windows the lobby was light, airy and welcoming.

Walking up to the front desk, I only had to wait a moment for the desk agent to get off the phone and was met with a smile. This was night and day from the hotel we stayed at driving to DLP a few days before.

Checking In to the Hotel

When I got up to the desk I explained to the desk agent that I broke my MIL and she’d just like to hang out at the hotel for the day. All I wanted was to make sure that she could pick up our room keys in the afternoon.

The agent listened and asked me to wait a moment. It was entirely possible that our room was ready for early check in. And it was! And there was no extra charge for early check in!

It didn’t take long at all to confirm my information on their print out, pay (they do take American Express) and get the room keys.

I took a picture of the room number on my phone, took a key for myself and threw the key packet at my mother in law so I could go have some fun at Disneyland Paris!

Travel by Car to Disneyland Paris from the Dream Castle Hotel

As mentioned in the about the hotel section, the distance officially on Waze is 6.4 km between the hotel and Disneyland Paris. However, when I put in the return it was 6.8 km from where I parked (row A8).

The drive between the hotel and parks is straight forward. If I was staying for a few days I probably wouldn’t have had to enter it in my navigation.

Staying in the Family Room

Ok, I lied. I do have a few pictures that my mother in law sent me when she got up to the room.

We were staying in room 3037. It was a minute or two walk from the elevator and I noticed that between 10 and 11 PM it can get a little noisy as families with small children return after the fireworks show at the Disneyland Park. Other than that, it’s away from the elevators so it was a relatively quiet location through the night.

The Room Review

My first impression entering the room was, “this is huge!” There were plenty of room for 3 adults (or 2 adults and a 14 year old in my case) and all of our stuff.

What’s the Pouch on the Middle Bed?

The little pouch you see on the bed is an initiative from the hotel for conservation. If you’re staying multiple days, you can hang the bag on your door to let house keeping know they can skip your room. Then in return, house keeping will drop a little treat into the bag.

I had a hotel in Prague do this and I got candy each day I returned back to my room.

The Room Ameneties

The room came with the following ameneties:

• free wi-fi
• flat-screen tv
• desk
• safe
• telephone
• tea and coffee tray with hot water kettle
• blow dryer
• shampoo, conditioner, soap

I can’t tell you how the TV was since we never turned it on. We also didn’t use anything off the tea and coffee tray. However, the soap and shampoo was nice.

The Beds

As you can see from the photo, our room had 3 beds. There are family rooms with a bunk bed and standard, but what we got was 2 singles and a standard (this is sort of equivalent of two twins and a queen).

My nephew (who hates the cold) was put furthest from the window since my mother in law and I were intending to keep the window open vs. use the air conditioning. Those two don’t like the noise the AC was making. I’m American and used to it, they’re Dutch and don’t experience it often so I understand!

My MIL took the middle bed and I got the big one. Needless to say, I had plenty of pillows and room.

The bed had a good topper so it was soft without being obnoxiously soft. I slept really well on it, but it didn’t hurt being completely exhausted after 3 days of running around the parks. Overall, nobody had a complaint about the beds!

The Bathroom

The bathroom was spacious with a big, deep counter. There was a tub that doubled as a shower and the towels were nice and big. There were also plenty of them.

I didn’t take a shower, but I didn’t hear any complaints from my mother in law who did make use of it. I did, however, make use of the bath after the photo my MIL sent earlier in the day.

The water was hot and there was plenty of pressure. The tub itself was plenty deep and I appreciated the bar on the wall as well as the bars in the tub. After walking an accumulated 67,500 steps over 3 days, my poor body was just done. The bars gave some extra security getting in and out.

Now, one thing I can say is there probably should have been a bar at the back as well. The step into the tub was quite high so if you have someone who’s not sturdy on their feet, or older and stiffer, they may struggle with this particular bath tub (even for a shower).

After about a 40 minute bath that was pretty warm, the bathroom really didn’t steam up. That was nice when brushing my teeth! I could look at myself!

The Buffet Dinner

While I was over in the parks, my mother in law and nephew decided to eat at La Rotisserie for dinner. This particular restaurant is the buffet and it’s open from 18:30 to 10:30pm daily. The cost is 35 € for adults and 17 € for children ages 3-11. Children under 3 are free.

Now, this is second hand information, however my mother in law and nephew like eating. So I trust their judgement when they said the food was OK. It wasn’t exceptional, but it wasn’t the worst dinner buffet they’d ever gone to. My mother in law didn’t think it was quite worth the 35 €. Maybe more of a 25 € buffet.

The Bar

While I didn’t go down and use the bar, I did have to go and get a 7up for my nephew who got an upset stomach shortly after we turned out the lights.

Each floor does have a vending machine on it, but it didn’t have any 7up/Sprite or ginger ale. Not to mention it looked like someone rocked it and you couldn’t get anything out of it if you wanted to.

Luckily, the bar was still open and I was able to secure a 7up (they didn’t have ginger ale which I’d have preferred getting). Be prepared for sticker shock, the small 150ml bottle was 4 euro. If I was just going down for a drink, I wouldn’t have been happy. As it was, I wanted to go to bed so it was what it was.

The Shuttle to Disneyland Paris

Once again, this is second hand information from my MIL. She decided to join me over at the Walt Disney Studio for the Marvel light show on Wednesday night. Since the shuttle was running, she could just hop on and meet me there.

She said that the shuttle stops at the other hotels that the hotel group owns (Explorers and another one). This causes the shuttle to get very crowded. There’s limited seating and people don’t get up for those who are obviously older and unsteady on their feet or disabled. The conclusion is if you have a hidden disability that requires seating, you’re probably going to be in for a rough time unless someone moves.

This sounds a lot like the Dinsey World hotel shuttles I experienced in the past. People are just in their own world and aren’t aware of other people in their bubble.

Breakfast and Chaos Included

Breakfast was included in the price of my room. This came in the form of a fairly typical European buffet. I saw the following options:

• various breads
• cold cereals
• salad and toppings (lettuce, tomato, cucumber, etc)
• cold cuts
• scrambled eggs
• bacon
• sausage
• baked beans
• greek yoghurt
• fruit slices
• pancakes
• nutella
• milk, juice, coffee, tea, hot chocolate
• pure chaos

I’m sure there were other things to eat, however, due to my diabetes I tend to eat a lower carb meal on days I’m not going to be doing a lot of exercise. Since I was driving back to the Netherlands on this day, which is roughly a 5.5 hour drive, I didn’t want to have to manage my blood glucose.

Due to the sheer amount of kids running around and sticking their hands in the breakfast things they could reach, I stuck to the things kids don’t normally like. Greek yogurt, cucumbers (yes, for breakfast, it’s lovely), deli meats, and cheeses. Then thankfully the scrambled eggs and bacon were way too high for the littles to get to.

The food was edible, but it’s certainly not the best breakfast buffet I’ve ever been to.

The Chaos of Breakfast

If you don’t like children running around like a wild things with little parental supervision, skip this breakfast.

While I was enjoying my coffee (for machine coffee it was pretty good) I was watching a large family with several littles around ages 4-6. The adults were glued to their phones while the kids were constantly trying to get their attention. When the children couldn’t get their attention, they’d run off to bother people at other tables or go put their hands in the food.

Trust me, as someone who’s child free I completely understand this type of hotel is going to attract families with children. I completely understand these children are going to be making themselves sick from excitement because they’re about to go to see Mickey Mouse. However, parents, if you’re taking your children out please parent them. Not everyone likes eating the germs that get on the pancakes because your child had to touch every single one of them before choosing! Especially after those hands wiped snot off their dripping noses or fingers that were digging for gold!

Needless to say, breakfast didn’t take very long. It was so loud we couldn’t hold a normal conversation so it wasn’t worth lingering over subpar food in a room that was giving us all a headache.

Checking Out

Checking out was a breeze. Normally you’d just throw your key cards in a tall plastic container by the check in counter, however, I needed to talk to the front desk agent. I wanted to let her know that my nephew had been sick overnight and threw up in all of the plastic garbage cans.

While we did rinse out the garbage cans in the bathroom, we used the shower. I felt that house keeping may appreciate this knowledge so they can give some extra attention to both the garbage cans and shower. Maybe even block the room for the night to air it out with the window open.

The front desk agent seemed appreciative of this and noted it down. I also scored some plastic bags to use as puke bags on the drive home.

Summing Up the Dream Castle Hotel

Was the 212 € for the 1 night stay worth the price? For booking this room on February 27th after nobody wanted to stay at the B&B HOTEL Beauvais again, YES. I’m so glad that I booked this particular hotel.

When I went to look at the website, there are packages that offer cheaper rates for extended stays as well as spa and wellness access. I think if you wanted to break up your trip to Disney with a rest day, this could be a great way to do it!

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