We're big fans of a good Disney bar crawl. While Disneyland and Walt Disney World both have respectable bar crawls, the international scene is not as bright. If you're planning a trip to Disneyland Paris, though, and wanted to see how to get some adulting done, we're here to help! Here's our guide to the hotel bars of Disneyland Paris, as told through a bar crawl!
Disneyland Paris Bars - Before We Begin
Before you embark on your Disneyland Paris bar crawl, there are a few things you need to know.
Do they serve alcohol in Disneyland Paris?
Yes. Alcohol is served inside Disneyland Paris, including inside both parks. Alcohol is most commonly found inside restaurants, though you’ll also occasionally find carts selling champagne.
It’s Easy To Visit The Bars at Disneyland Paris
Disneyland Paris is a great place for a bar crawl. First of all, the hotels are all close together. You can walk among all of them in under 30 minutes (Davy Crockett Ranch excepted). Second, the hotels are close to Disney Village, which is itself home to a few bars if you wanted to mix things up.
The entire Disneyland Paris Bar Crawl route should take less than 30 minutes walking.
Relatedly, you definitely don’t need to stick to the order we give below. If you’re staying at a Disney hotel, it will make total sense to finish there. And really, it makes no difference in what order you visit the three hotels around Lac Buena Vista.
Things Are Quiet Until The Evening Hours
While some of the bars are open at 11AM, they’re all quiet until around 7PM, when the first round of people are coming in from Walt Disney Studios Park closing. They’ll peak from 7PM until maybe 11PM or midnight, at which point they quickly drop off and close.
Empty space at Red Garter Saloon around 4PM
You’ll Probably Want To Grab Food at Disney Village
Any good bar crawl involves food, which is unfortunately a weakness of Disneyland Paris. The bars tend to have depressing menus consisting primarily of overpriced pizzas. If you want real food, your best best is going to be to add a stop at Disney Village. Just try to avoid peak dining time around 8:30PM…
The Hotel Bars Have Mostly The Same Menu
The hotel bars at Disneyland Paris have mostly the same menu, with two notable exceptions.
First, the prices vary between the bars, with Disneyland Hotel (Paris) charging the most and Hotel Cheyenne & Santa Fe charging the least for the same items. During one of our stays, beers were €8 for a half-liter at Hotel Cheyenne, while they were €10.50 at Disneyland Hotel. Standard cocktails were €12.50 at Hotel Cheyenne and €16 at Disneyland Hotel.
Second, each hotel has a few speciality cocktails and/or beers. To keep theme alive, each bar has a few unique offerings. Usually these are just cocktails, but you’ll find a few beers featured as well.
A Tour of the Bars of Disneyland Paris
With the basics out of the way, let’s get to the Disneyland Paris Hotel Bar Crawl!
First Stop - Red Garter Saloon, Disney's Hotel Cheyenne
Red Garter Saloon at Disney's Hotel Cheyenne is a good place to start unless you’re staying at Hotel Cheyenne or Santa Fe and want to finish close to home.
We still haven’t made it to the Rio Grande Bar of Disney's Santa Fe Hotel (due to negative reviews), but if you wanted to check it out, you’d pair it with a visit to the Saloon.
The walk from Disney Village is about 15 minutes, and for most of the afternoon Hotel Cheyenne is pretty deserted. The space of Hotel Cheyenne is great to walk through, though. We loved the look of the place when we first swung by just to visit, and we wholly endorse it after our recent stay at the hotel.
There’s some fun spots to be found around Hotel Cheyenne
Red Garter Saloon at Hotel Cheyenne is one of our favorite stops. We’ve visited during Halloween and outside of holiday season, and we enjoyed the decorations and ambiance on both visits. The outdoor seating is great for people watching, but you’d really only catch much around the time the parks close.
The Saloon has a television, which sort of takes away from the theme, but we get that some people would take that trade. Unlike the other bars on this list, ordering at the Saloon is done entirely at the bar. This is convenient, but can also get frustrating as you’ll sometimes have to stand around waiting while three people in front of you order complex cocktails.
The standard hours for Red Garter Saloon are 4PM to midnight Sunday through Friday, 4PM to 1AM Saturday.
A nice patio, but little action midday.
Second Stop - Captain's Quarters, Newport Bay Club
From Red Garter Saloon, walk back to Lac Buena Vista and have drinks at Captain's Quarters at Disney's Newport Bay Club. Again, as we said earlier, you can mix up the order of the Lac Buena Vista bars as much as you please.
Newport Bay Club is a hotel aiming for the style of Yacht and Beach Club. The hotel was renovated in spring 2016, which gives it a fairly fresh feeling.
Newport Bay Club's bar, Captain's Quarters, is a comfortable spot overlooking Hotel New York and Lac Buena Vista. Unfortunately, this view is somewhat interrupted by the roof of the ground floor of the hotel. Why they didn't just build a patio, I don't know.
The ambiance of the bar is otherwise quite nice. The nautical theming isn't so overwhelming, pretty much consisting of a model boat in the middle of the room and some nautical drinks.
Captain’s Quarters is probably the best bar to visit if you’re looking for a quiet time with subtle elegance. Whenever we’ve been there, there just hasn’t been much going on. It’s fairly secluded in the hotel, and there’s just a certain stuffiness to the entire theme. The hours for Captain's Quarters are usually 11AM to 1AM.
Third Stop - Redwood Bar and Lounge, Disney's Sequoia Lodge
After Captain’s Quarters, head next door to Redwood Bar and Lounge at Sequoia Lodge. We've talked about Redwood Bar and Lounge in our review of Disney's Sequoia Lodge.
The fireplace at Redwood Bar and Lounge!
Redwood is one of our favorite bars in Disneyland Paris. While we've written positively about the ambiances at the other bars, Redwood was a step above those.
In the middle of Sequoia Lodge, it doesn't offer the views that Captain's Quarters does, but with a fireplace surrounded by couches in the middle, the American national park theming is on-point.
The central location keeps the bar buzzing, but the size and environment keep that buzz from becoming annoyingly loud. It can get pretty full, but it never really feels crowded. The size and shape combine for one unfortunate consequence: we always have the hardest time with service at Redwood.
Fourth Stop - New York City Bar, Disney's Hotel New York
[Note: Hotel New York is closed due to a remodel. It will reopen in June 2020 as Hotel New York — The Art of Marvel.]
From Redwood Lounge, keeping heading around the “lake” to New York City Bar, the bar of Disney's Hotel New York.
Disney's Hotel New York is a (you guessed it) New York themed hotel. The outside of the building looks a bit dated to us (not just in the way it is supposed to), but we found the inside to be a bit more retro chique.
Major lens flare on this one. Sorry!
We’ve enjoyed all our visits to New York City Bar. As a specialty, they offer two Old Fashioned cocktails, of which we’ve tried the “traditional” (it’s fine), and some Brooklyn Brewery beers.
The theming is okay, with an old-school American city vibe and various New York related images lining the ceiling. It’s sort of the bare minimum (not unlike Captain’s Quarters) that could pass for “Disney detail” these days.
The downside is that despite the cozy ambiance, there is no view from this bar. The bar is more spacious than it seems at first glance, but we’ve never had any trouble with service or crowds. Like the other deluxe hotel bars, the hours are typically 11AM to midnight or 1AM.
Fifth Stop - Cafe Fantasia, Disneyland Hotel
Last but definitely not least, from New York City Bar, you’ll head through Disney Village to Cafe Fantasia at Disneyland Hotel.
In some ways, Cafe Fantasia captures the Disneyland Paris experience in a nutshell—it is at the same time stunning and disappointing.
The good—the decor inside the bar is easily a step above the other bars, with music from Fantasia on the walls, vintage imagery, and a beautiful, gigantic roman-numeral clock in the ceiling, we felt surrounded by Disney magic.
Well, mostly. The problem is that Cafe Fantasia is not particularly large, and it is attached directly and openly to a foyer of Disneyland Hotel. This means there is a lot of noise from outside the bar and a decent amount of foot traffic coming in and out of the bar.
This definitely takes away from the vibe set by the rest of the bar. Yes, the piano player outside adds to the ambiance, which is nice, but the kids running in and out can be a bit much. Cafe Fantasia is usually open 11AM to midnight or 1AM.
Conclusions
We haven’t spent much times at the Disney Village watering holes, but you could definitely double the length of this bar crawl by adding some stops from there.
A bar crawl is always a great way to check out different spaces you'd otherwise miss, and as Disney fans that's honestly the top reason we do it. We like to visit the hotels and take in their theming. We discovered Hotel Cheyenne on our first bar crawl, and we loved staying there on our next trip.
Anyone with only two days at the park should spend them at the parks, but if you've got a third day, consider a trip to the following bars, in order of preference: Cafe Fantasia, Redwood Bar and Lounge Red Garter Saloon, New York City Bar, and Captain's Quarters.
Do you have any tips or questions about the Disneyland Paris hotel bars?
All Your Other Disneyland Paris Planning Questions Answered
Don’t be overwhelmed by Disneyland Paris planning! Take a second to check out our most important content! Just starting out? Check out our Disneyland Paris Trip Planning Guide. Need to know how much this is going to take out of your pocket? We’ve got a post on How Much it Costs to Go to Disneyland Paris.
Know what to ride with our: Disneyland Paris Rides Guide and Walt Disney Studios Park Rides Guide. And just as important, know how to get on the best rides without the wait with our Guide to Disneyland Paris Premier Access! For the complete guides to a day at the park, we have a One Day Disneyland Paris Itinerary and a Walt Disney Studios Park Itinerary.
Finally, before you head out, be sure to check out our to-the-point packing list, 10 essentials you forget to pack for every Disney trip. And if you're interested in saving, there's no better list than our 53 Ways to Save on your Disney trip from start to finish.