Spent three days in glorious - albeit expensive - Disneyland from August 15 through the 18th. Disneyland itself and Disney’s California Adventure were awesome - I think I like DCA better than Disneyland. It's just not as jam-packed with visitors form every corner of the earth! So it's not as frustrating getting around. Anyway.....this is a review of the hotel, not the parks , so here we go...... Our plane had arrived early in the morning on the 15th so from reading other reviews, I was aware our room would most likely not be ready upon our arrival at the hotel - which it wasn't. The gal at the desk was very kind though and service was fast and efficient. Because we'd won our trip over the radio (air, transfers, hotel park hopper passes for 4), the desk was able to give us our pass for the park, and held our bags for us so that we could begin our day at the parks and have fun while waiting for our room which we were told would be ready after 3:00. We spent 4 1/2 hours at DCA (10 - 2:30) before returning to the hotel at 2:30 as we were pretty darn hot and in need of some freshening up by this time as we had been up since 3:30 a.m. to catch our early flight. At 2:30, the girl at the desk told us our room wasn’t ready yet. So we had a cool drink just outside Goofy’s Kitchen for another 30 minutes. At 3:00, the room still wasn’t ready. The gal said she’d ask that a ‘rush’ be put on it. At 3:30, we checked once again….still not ready. The gal actually left the desk to go check on the room herself. After about 10 minutes, she came back to say the cleaning person was in the room next door and would be detailing ours next. Meanwhile, we heard other guests making their initial check-in and their rooms were available time after time. The guest next to us was even told, “Actually, the room we had you booked for wasn’t ready, so I kept you in the same room-type, but moved you to a one that’s available right now….” Wow – that’s would’ve been great if they’d have doe that for us – or….how about, if a guest checks in at 9:30 a.m., the room they’re ‘booked for’ gets put on the ‘list’ to be cleaned earlier in the day than say someone who hasn’t yet checked in? Folks arriving at the hotel at 3:30 walked right into their rooms, but we, who checked in at 9:30 had to wait time after time. Finally our room was ready just before 4:00 – and I don’t mean to be a downer….The people were nice about everything...polite, professional – just the situation itself was a bummer. The room was just as you see in all the pictures listed on this site – two queen beds, nicely appointed bathroom, light and airy. We were the tiniest bit bummed to see that our view from the narrow balcony was the entrance/driveway to the hotel and its parking lot - however...this was actually great as we were able to see the Disneyland fireworks from the room on our second night (we were inside the park for them our first night).
The hotel gift shop was great as was the bar near the pool – very friendly folks (visitors and staff alike!). Didn’t use the pool – we had three days and wanted as much time in the parks as possible!
We all loved walking through Downtown Disney each day (several times a day!) to go to and from the parks. Save yourself and walk it rather than taking the monorail! Folks get on the monorail inside Disneyland to take it as an actual ‘ride’, then, when the monorail arrives at the platform in Downtown Disney, very few people get off, leaving room for only a handful of people to get on and ride into then park. We waited two ‘sessions’ and then said “forget it” and walked there in less than half the time. From the Disneyland Hotel to Disneyland or DCA , the walk is only about 10 minutes at a fair pace.
Prices….as someone else said – everything is three times more expensive than in the ‘real world’. My husband and I had 4 beers – bottled Coors Lights – at Tortilla Joes and the tab was 26 dollars! The beers were 6.50 each! Even the waitress said, “I know – its highway robbery!” ?!?! Anyway – live and learn, right? ESPN Zone had awesome food and ‘real world’ prices and was terrific.
I had booked a character breakfast for our last morning on Sunday. On the phone when I booked, I was told the price would be 143+ change and that included tax and gratuity, but when I got there, it ended up coming to 178+change. It was one of daughter’s favorite things about the trip though – and she’s 14! So I can’t complain. It DID make it a tad harder to swallow my breakfast ;-) But the food was super good and there were so many choices and the service was great not to mention the characters were very fun – so really…although I won’t do it again, it was probably worth it.
I had the absolute best time ever on our vacation – I know my review begins with a downer – but when you’re tired and have been traveling and walking the parks for a long time…it really would be nice to have a better system for getting those rooms ready for folks who’ve been checked in for hours and hours. Disneyland truly is a magical place and we all hated leaving. Everyone there does such an awesome job, it really tears your heart out to go back to reality. Thanks Disney for a FAB time!!!
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC.