Hotel tips for Disneyland
The right hotel can be the home-away-from-home experience you always hope for in a vacation or it can be the nightmare you must return to after an exhausting day of seeing sights. For us, the hotel isn’t often that important when we plan to be out doing things most of the day. But with five days of high intensity activities, I felt that finding a good hotel for this trip would be pretty important. I want to take some time and mention some of the hotel options surrounding Disneyland, the things we found important, and what we learned from this experience.
Three priorities I looked at when considering hotels were proximity, cost, and comfort. I hoped to be in walking distance of Disneyland so we wouldn’t have to deal with waiting for trams, finding parking spots, folding and unfolding the stroller, etc. Fortunately there is a row of hotels directly across the street from the Disneyland entrance which include budget hotels: Travellodge, Doubletree, Howard Johsnsons, Ramada Inn, and the one we chose, Best Western. Here is a good map of what Disney calls “good neighbor hotels.” The Disney resorts were running a special of staying three nights and getting two nights free, but at over $200 per night, this option still ended up more costly for us than paying full price at a hotel across the street. Another option worth considering, particularly with a large group, is to rent a house for a week. I’m including a link for reference to one website I liked, but I can’t speak to whether this site is any different from the other gillion vacation home rental sites on the web.
Another factor that I called my “comfort consideration” was finding a suite. A suite, or sometimes called family suite, offers a bedroom and another family room area separated by a wall or tall divider to give privacy. The family room often has a bed or pull-out sofa. It is especially nice to spring for this kind of room if you have an afternoon napper, so that one child can sleep without everyone having to tip-toe or exit the room during naptime.
With those conditions in mind I thought I struck gold finding the Best Western Park Place Inn and Mini Suites. It is about as close as you can get to the gates of Disneyland. The price was not bad for the area: 5 nights for $800 which included two queen beds in one “room” and one pull-out sofa. The reason I put quotes around “room” is that what we learned is that a mini suite does not mean the second room is mini. There really wasn’t a second room, there was a waist-high ”mini”- partition that divided the sofa area from the two queens. Though it was nice to have a little extra space in the room for a couch, it offered very little in the way of privacy from light or noise for those sleeping on the queens. Perhaps this was a misunderstanding on my part about the definition of a mini suite, so I am trying to be explicit for anyone considering hotels for the area. If your intention is to be able to play cards or watch tv in another room while the children sleep at night, a mini suite will not fill that bill. I have since found a list of hotels near Disneyland that advertise full suites.
As for a review of the hotel, I would put it at about a 3 of 5 stars. A few things we noticed; the pull-out bed was far too lumpy to sleep on. The courtesy of the staff lost points in my eyes when the desk clerk who helped me was also answering the phone mid-conversation as I was trying to see what other room options were available to me. (I had waited in a sizeable line to talk with someone, I would then appreciate not having to compete with the phone as well for attention!) Another thing I hadn’t considered was that since we were so close to Disneyland, each time the fireworks went off at 9:30 it sounded like they were being lit in our parking lot. The boom had a surprising echo. Most of the time we were out watching the fireworks, so that wasn’t an issue. But the first night we arrived and one other night when we turned in early, the sounds were off-putting to our two-year-old. The last thing worth mentioning is that most of these hotels offer “continental” breakfast. Captain Kidd’s, a restaurant next-door to our hotel, offered a buffet of donuts, other pastries, and some bagels with cream cheese for hotel guests. Paying restaurant guests could enjoy the buffet in another room, with eggs, potatoes, and other more adult breakfast choices. It may be better to bring your own granola bars for breakfast.
So what would I do differently? After a little more snooping I noticed a Howard Johnson’s a bit farther down the street which had a huge play pirate ship on their property. Tripadvisor.com also has very high reviews of this hotel, so I think I would look into the cost of that hotel. It is the farthest on the strip mall of hotels from Disneyland, but this means only about an extra five or ten minutes of walking and perhaps a more muted echo of fireworks (but perhaps not). Since we planned to only spend half-days at Disneyland and then rest for chunks of time during the day, the pirate ship water park at this hotel seems like a nice option to have for older siblings while the younger one naps. (Our hotel had a unheated pool that for me was uncomfortably cold. Luckily our eldest didn’t seem to mind.) I must say I have no experience with this Howard Johnson’s and am not benefitting from mentioning them. I just thought it worth saying since that’s what I would do differently.
I should also say that I had put a high importance on finding a suite when I planned for this trip. I envisioned my husband and I relaxing after the kids were in bed, playing cards or taking in a movie. What ended up happening was we all stayed out much later than usual and I was ready to pass out shortly after the kids finally fell asleep. My little one was way too excited to take a nap most days, so in reality the room arrangement ended up being just fine. I do think that there are trips where creating space away from the kids helps maintain everyone’s sanity. But on this trip we had very little energy once we reached our room. All we ended up needing was a soft pillow to land on at night and good black out shades.
Great post! Very informative. If I ever return to Disneyland in this lifetime I will be sure to remember the ear plugs!
Great post. I am filing this away for future reference.
Thanks for the honest review. I will definitely use your info when we look into our stay.