The King welcomes - and parents can enjoy sitting on a throne - rollover to see a 'baronial hall'

:: Panoramic Views

•  BEDROOM •  ENTRANCE LOBBY AND RECEPTION •  SMALL CONFERENCEROOM

The French park at Marne la Vallée, some 30 miles outside Paris, with its Disney studio park alongside the Wonderful World, continues to grow and currently attracts over 12 million visitors a year. Alongside the Resort and with regular buses servicing them every fifteen minutes is a growing community of hotels. Opening in July 2004 Mövenpicks Dream Castle is one of a clutch of new hotels that alleviate the pressures Disney was feeling on the hotels within the Park where, they confessed, they were actually turning holiday makers away. Even now, with their own options on the rooms in the new hotels outside the park as additional space to let, they still trade at over 93% occupancy. Dream Castle in its first year has achieved an occupancy level of some 64%.

All hotels have to have an element of theatre, to be larger than life, in order not to disappoint guests who always expect something more than they have in their own home. This is a task that becomes increasingly difficult as incomes rise and expectations with them. It becomes even more difficult for an hotel set against the competition from the Lion King, or the Disney Dream Castle itself. Interestingly the Disney spokesman claimed that their ‘dream’ was built to higher standards in France because European visitors had real castles to measure their dream against unlike visitors to the US world, real castles to touch and explore.

The hotel is inextricably linked to its neighbour as its name shows.Children are the focus here, with steps up to the reception so that they too can see what is going on, as well as an abundance of Mickey and Minnie (rollover to see more above top). Positioned so that they can be easily seen from reception are a childrens play area including a small decorative roundabout and a secure infant play zone

Metaphors become mixed – architectural metaphors even more so. Mövenpick Dream Castle is loosely based on a French Chateau – quite convincingly so, with its turrets and dormer windows. Framed by its two wings (one labelled the Princess wing, the other the Frog wing…) is a formal garden with the beginnings of topiary work and lavender beds adding to the echoes of the past that the architecture raises. Less convincing is when these references are carried inside. Constant references to the Three Musketeers of Alexander Dumas and movie fame are too intermittent to be convincing, and whilst high quality detailing and materials have been used throughout the building the lack of conviction makes the romantic allusions seem more appliqué than integral to the building fabric. Rustic is not a quality associated with Chateau, and yet rustic creeps into the design alongside the regal and the armorial that befit an aristocratic castle.

The theatre starts inside the front door, where a statue of the ermine clad king greets guests on arrival. The imperious figure is not out of place to those arriving from a day at Disney, and it is complimented by thrones for parents to rest in and suits of armour surrounding the children’s area. At the reception desk is a flight of steps so that children (or is it Snow Whites companions?) can climb up to see over the counter, being just one of many details that have been thought through as a piece of child friendly design. (Another immediate example is the positioning of a second handrail around the lift at a height that the little ones can easily hold onto instead of having to hang from the adults' rail).