Reviews of Disneyland Hotel
Reviewed by FamilyOfSix Review Date: 07/12/2013
Rating: (7) Recommended
We stayed in the Disneyland Hotel in early June 2013. We were so excited to stay in this hotel, as we never spring for such an expensive place. We booked two rooms as we were traveling with my sister and her family, and each room was reserved for 5 people. The reservation process is lengthy, and you need to give the names and ages of each person staying in the rooms at the time of making the reservation. Having gone through that process, and being assured that we were going to have two rooms that would sleep 5 comfortably and be either adjoining or located very near each other, I was beyond dismayed when my sister checked in before we did and was told that we were getting one room for 4 people adjoining another room for 5 people. Totally unacceptable since we needed all the beds. My husband called to try to fix the reservation before we arrived, but was told that there were no other rooms on property for 5 people (right...) and that we didn't even make a reservation for 5... I had the printed up confirmation letters showing clearly rooms for 5 people. This agent was so incredibly rude to my husband, and not helpful, and really should not be working for Disney at all. I have had better service from people working at a La Quinta Inn.
Anyway, when we finally got to the Disneyland hotel, my husband showed the desk agent our paperwork, and "magically" they found a room for 5 people for us. Only problem-- it was 7 floors away from the other room. What a major pain to have our party split by 7 floors. I really wasn't happy with this situation, but was much more dismayed by the very rude treatment from the agent on the phone.
Now the hotel...
In the lobby, the teacup chairs are cute. Too bad several of them were ripped. Ripped vinyl chairs... Not exactly Deluxe...
The theming is subtle. Too subtle. I think they need more Mickey magic. I don't know why they advertise being greeted by Goofy at the Disneyland hotel, but I never saw him and I didn't see a poster announcing when he'd be in the lobby or anything. Maybe the greeting is at Goofy's Kitchen? Who knows.
The rooms are fine. I would try to get to the highest floor possible. One of our rooms was on the 10th floor of the Fantasy Tower. We could actually see the fireworks from the room. That was very cool. The 5-person rooms are large enough, comfortable, and the beds are all comfortable. The executive desk is a little bit cumbersome and maybe it would be better to have a small table or something that would be more useful to families. The bathroom was strange to me because the toilet was closed off from the bathroom, but was only accessed through the bathroom. So if someone was in the shower, they would need to leave the door unlocked for someone else to access the toilet in the toilet room. This was a problem for self-conscious teens... It would have made more sense to have the sink on the outside of the room at least.
The rooms were in decent shape. They didn't seem very new, but not too worn down. The headboard was cool, though.
The pools were really great. We were there on days that weren't so hot-- low 70s. It was so fun because the pools were heated to different temperatures. The cooler pool was the one my kids seemed to like the most, but I liked the middle pool which was pretty warm. There was another little pool where the water slides ended. The water slides were a little rough (hard on the shoulders) but the kids seemed to like them. I wouldn't recommend them for adults! The hot tub was nice too. All in all, the pool area was really great.
The best part of the hotel was its location. It was an easy walk to Disneyland or California Adventure-- taking only 10 minutes at most. Even for the early extra magic hours at 7 AM, we didn't need to leave the hotel until 6:45 AM and had plenty of time to make it to the front gate for the lineup for entering early. The parking at the Disneyland Hotel is not bad. I had read complaints about the parking being far away, but it wasn't at all. And we didn't need to use our car anyway being right there by Downtown Disney and all that good stuff.
Next time I will try a different hotel, though, due to the mixup at the start of the stay and the fact that we were given rooms so far apart. I didn't like the way they handled the whole situation at all. So we will try the Paradise Pier or the Grand Californian, but not Disneyland Hotel.
I give this hotel 7 stars in spite of that because of the location and the pool. I take away 2 stars for the check in problem, and 1 more for the price and lack of theming and sloppy appearance of the lobby area.
Pros:
Location, Pools, early entry to parksCons:
Reservation mix up, Lack of theming, No sign of Goofy, EXPENSIVEReviewed by jandg4816 Review Date: 05/21/2013
Rating: (9) Recommended
We stayed at the Disneyland Hotel May 4 - May 8 2013. Our room was in the Fantasy Tower. The room was very nice, and we had a wonderful view of the fireworks. My five year old loved the fireworks headboard ,it really added that magical touch. The walk to the parks was quick, and going thru downtown Disney made it more enjoyable. We had breakfast twice at Tangaroa Terrace, once at Goofy's Kitchen, and once at Steakhouse 55. All three were great, my sons favorite was Goofy's and my husband loved Steakhouse 55, I liked all three. We would definitely stay here again!
Pros:
Room, restaurantsCons:
noneReviewed by mlm8363 Review Date: 02/13/2013
Rating: (9) Recommended
My visit was 1/29/13 - 2/2/13. This was my first ever visit to Disneyland. I'd heard about the 2 1/2 year refurbishment and was anxious to see it. The new dark wood furniture looks great and the fireworks headboards are special. I watched mine every night! There are several options for breakfast at the hotel - Tangaroa Terrace was my favorite. Goofy's Kitchen is too expensive. Housekeeping was good and they started early. Once I came back to my room at 9:50AM to leave some shopping and the housekeeper was at my door, about to enter. I always had plenty of clean towels, tissue, etc. The H2O toiletries have a pleasant smell, but I still miss the Mickey shaped soap bars. Although housekeeping didn't do any washcloth animals for me, there was a class in the hotel lobby one morning for guests to learn to make them.
Pros:
entire hotel recently refurbished, close to Downtown Disney and monorail, excellent gift shopCons:
long walk to the parksReviewed by ksmwats3 Review Date: 01/19/2013
Rating: (9) Recommended
My mom, daughter(20), and I stayed here 12/11-12/16 for our "girls" vacation. Our room was in the Fantasy Tower and check in was very fast, also there are characters in the lobby! The rooms were awesome and the beds very comfortable. The best part was that we could lay in bed and watch the fireworks (They have a TV channel that streams the music)! It was chilly when we were there so we did not use the pool but it looked very nice.
The only negative was that the shower temp was only warm for the 1st person in the morning and since my mom is the early bird, my daughter and I got stuck with lukewarm/cold showers.
