Empire State Club: the VIP experience at New York the Art of Marvel hotel

If you’ve ever had the chance to stay at the Marvel Hotel, you’ll know that the quality of the superior rooms is already among the best in the business (see our review of the New York – The Art of Marvel Hotel for a full tour).

Well, the Hotel New York really needed a facelift before the renovation. But the job the Imagineers have done is remarkable.

As far as we’re concerned, we stayed there in August 2021, when you still had to wear masks (not very practical for getting photographed in the Super Hero Station), but we remember it fondly.

What does Empire State Club offer?

That feeling of being privileged is exactly what the Empire State Club has to offer and promises to deliver:

Empire State Club Rooms

The 65 Empire State Club rooms are located throughout the hotel on the 3rd, 4th, 7th and 8th floors. These superior rooms have some extras.

The huge headboard in imitation leather with a modern motif, the additional Marvel paintings and the more comfortable armchair next to the bed are among the new details that stand out.

Each guest will find a bathrobe and slippers with the hotel’s logo as additional amenities. These accessories are available on loan, but can also be purchased if required.

All ESC rooms can accommodate up to 4 people. Some can even be connected for larger families.

The following are the four main types of room configurations available in the Empire State Club:

• ESC 1 Double Bed Room with Garden or Lake View
• ESC Room with 2 double beds and garden view
• ESC room with 1 king-size bed and 1 sofa bed overlooking Lake Disney
• ESC room with 2 double beds and a view of the Disney Lake

Access to the Empire State Club lounge

This is the real bonus of this offer! Like the lounges you’ll find in airports for business and first class passengers, Disney New York’s Arf of Marvel offers you a quieter, less crowded and more comfortable place to enjoy breakfast, a snack or a drink at any time of the day.

Your Magic Pass will give you access from 12 noon to 10 p.m. to enjoy a non-alcoholic drink and bask in the cosy atmosphere of this private lounge.

Breakfast in the Lounge

The all-you-can-eat buffet is not served in the Downtown restaurant, but in the private lounge. Considering how noisy Downtown can be in the morning when the room is full, the peace and quiet of the lounge is more than appreciated.

The ‘all you can eat’ breakfast includes all the sweet and savoury dishes on offer.

Tea Time in the Lounge

In addition to breakfast, there is a family afternoon tea in the Empire State Club lounge from 4pm to 6pm once per day per room night. This is an ideal way to recharge your batteries at the end of the day, before you head back to the parks, for example.

The buffet offers a limited but quality selection of savoury (sandwiches, toast) and sweet snacks (macaroons, choux pastry, verrines, fruit).

Private Reception

Guests who have chosen the Empire State Club have their own private reception, unlike other residents in traditional accommodation who have to go to the lobby reception. If you have any questions, the Empire State Club reception is always available.

Our opinion of the Empire State Club

If you can’t afford a suite (which is quite understandable) but can spare a few hundred euros, we really recommend you opt for this package. The extra touches, the special welcome and access to the lounge are well worth the extra cost.

Having breakfast in the lounge can save you precious minutes in the morning to avoid the crowds in Downtown. Minutes you can spend in the park. The Empire State Club is the icing on the cake of a stay at the Marvel hotel. Something to do once in the life of a Disneyphile or Marvel maniac!

Is the Empire State Club room worth it?

Short answer: for a couple or a family who will actually use the lounge, yes, on most dates. For guests who leave the hotel before 8 am and come back after 10 pm, no. The Empire State Club is a package of services, and its value depends entirely on how many of them you would have paid for anyway.

What you get, and what it would cost separately

Here is what the Empire State Club actually adds to a Standard room at Hotel New York, with what each benefit would cost you if you paid for it separately:

• Breakfast in the private lounge, every morning. The same all-you-can-eat buffet as the Downtown Restaurant, without the queue and the noise. Paid separately, breakfast at Downtown costs around €28 per adult (at the time of writing): about €56 a day for a couple, more for a family.
• Afternoon tea in the lounge, once per night booked. Sandwiches, toasts, macarons, choux pastries, verrines and fruit, served between 4 pm and 6 pm. Worth roughly €20 to €30 per person for something comparable in the parks.
• Soft drinks in the lounge from noon to 10 pm. Water, juices and hot drinks whenever you pass by the hotel, which replaces a few purchases at park prices.
• A private reception, open at any time. Dedicated check-in and check-out on the Club floor, no queue at the lobby, one desk for every question during your stay.
• An upgraded room on a Club floor. Same size as a Standard room, but with the large faux-leather headboard, extra Marvel artwork, a more comfortable armchair, and bathrobes and slippers with the hotel’s logo. Garden view or Lake Disney view, up to 4 people, some rooms connecting.
• A calm place to start and end the day. The lounge is the real reason to book: a quiet room away from the crowds of Downtown, morning and evening. If you have ever waited for a table at the Downtown buffet on a Saturday morning, you know what that is worth.

Add it up for two adults and the food and drink alone represent somewhere between €100 and €120 a day, before you put any value on the reception, the room upgrade and the peace and quiet.

How much more does it cost right now?

The table below is generated from our daily reading of the Disneyland Paris booking engine for the coming weeks. The “average premium” column is the key figure: it is the difference between an Empire State Club room and the cheapest Standard room on the same day, per person, for a 1 night / 2 days package for 2 adults and 1 child. Compare it with the €100 to €120 above.

Empire State Club rooms: current package prices

When the premium for the whole party is close to the value of breakfast and afternoon tea, the Club room is effectively free: you pay the same and get the lounge, the reception and the better room on top. That is often the case on quiet midweek dates and in low season. On peak dates (school holidays, Halloween, Christmas week), the premium can climb to twice that amount or more: you are then paying for exclusivity, which is a perfectly good reason, but it is no longer a bargain.

Empire State Club suites

All the suites at Hotel New York – The Art of Marvel belong to the Empire State Club, with the same lounge and reception privileges. From the most affordable to the most exclusive: the Super Heroes Suite (a living room and a bedroom, up to 4 guests), the Super Heroes Suite with separate bedroom, the Spider-Man Suite, Peter Parker’s own room and the most sought-after of the hotel, which sleeps up to 5, the Avengers Suite, the largest family suite, up to 6 guests, and the Presidential Suite “The Art of Marvel”, one of a kind, on the top floor. The “premium” column tells you how much each suite adds to the price of a Standard room on the same night.

A suite that is missing from the table is simply not on sale on any of the dates we track at the moment; the Spider-Man Suite in particular sells out months ahead on school-holiday dates. For a specific night, the booking engine remains the only way to check, and prices there are the ones our tables are read from.

Check availability for your dates

Who should book it, and who should not

The Empire State Club makes the most sense in these situations:

• You will have breakfast at the hotel every morning. A couple or a family of three or four who would have paid for the Downtown buffet anyway recovers most of the premium on breakfast alone.
• You plan an afternoon break at the hotel. With young children, in summer or on long park days, the 4 pm to 6 pm afternoon tea in the lounge turns a forced pause into a treat, and the lounge stays open until 10 pm for a quiet drink after the fireworks.
• You are staying two nights or more. The benefits are daily: each extra night adds a breakfast and an afternoon tea, so the longer the stay, the better the value.
• The premium on your dates is modest. As a rule of thumb, under about €40 per person per night (see the table above) the Club is close to free once meals are counted. Midweek dates and low season are where you find it.
• You are celebrating something. Birthday, anniversary, first Disney trip: the private reception, the Club floor and the lounge give a stay the feeling of an occasion, without paying suite prices.
• You want a quieter hotel experience. The lounge and the dedicated reception keep you away from the busiest areas of a 500-room hotel at the busiest times of day.
• You want the view. The lake-view rooms cost a little more again; they are worth it mainly for the view over Lake Disney at night from the Club floors.

Skip it if you are doing rope drop to park close every day and will hardly see the hotel in daylight, if you would rather spend the difference on Disney Premier Access, which the Club does not include, or if the premium on your dates is far above the value of the meals. In that case a Standard room at Hotel New York gives you the same hotel, the same pool and the same ten-minute walk to the parks. And if what you want is the lounge experience at a lower price, the Compass Club at Newport Bay Club offers a very similar formula in a 4-star hotel.

Our own verdict, after a stay in August 2021: if a suite is out of reach but you can stretch to a few hundred euros more, the Empire State Club is the icing on the cake of a stay at the Marvel hotel, and the calm breakfast alone saves you precious minutes every morning that you spend in the park instead.

Does the Empire State Club entitle me to a Fast Pass?

Unfortunately not. The free Fast Pass in its former form no longer exists and has been replaced by Disney Premier Access, a paid queue cutting service.