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PassPorter Blogs | Tag Archive | resorts

Disneyland: Resort Hotel or Good Neighbor (part 1)

Filed under Disneyland Parkhopper, Fresh Picked Posts by Sarah Mudd on March 21, 2012 at 5:14 am {3 comments}

Hello, Disney friends!  Sorry it has taken a little while in between posts but my life over the past month has looked largely like this:

. . . I promise my daughter’s face isn’t really blurry like that in real life.  Just on the internet!  ;)

So, now that Girl Scout Cookie season has passed us by and I am free from that sugar stranglehold for another year, I am free to blog again!
When last we met, I mentioned that the next step to take after deciding on a time of year to travel was to decide where you’d prefer to stay! So, let’s do!

The decision of where to stay at the Disneyland Resort can be either very easy to make . . . or very difficult, depending on your wants/needs/desires from a hotel.  Disneyland offers two different “groups” of hotel choices:  Disneyland Resort Hotels (aka: “on property”) and Good Neighbor Hotels.  “What’s the difference?” you may ask?  Well, in this installment, let’s take a look at the options in the “easy” group: the Hotels of the Disneyland Resort.  (disclaimer:  I only call it the “easy’ group because it contains just three options.  (That’s easy, right?) ) These hotels aren’t technically broken down into categories like Walt Disney World’s, however they do have slightly different price points.

 

Disney’s Paradise Pier Hotel


Disney’s Paradise Pier Hotel is considered the “least expensive” resort hotel option as its room rates run between around $250-315 per night, depending on the season.  The Paradise Pier offers 460 guest rooms (approximately 364 sq. ft. in size) and nearly 30 suites (ranging in size from 792-1,245 sq. ft.).  The resort is decorated in a “seashore” theme with Surfer Goofy greeting you upon your entry to the hotel’s lobby.  Continuing the beachy theme, the kiddie “movie” area features a TV framed by a sand castle, the room numbers are printed on surfboards, there are beach ball pillows on the beds, lamps that look like lighthouses (with Mickey Mouse in a beach chair of course!), there is a rooftop pool with a slide that is supposed to resemble a wooden roller coaster and the Paradise Pier Hotel is home to the Surf’s Up with Mickey & Friends character breakfast!

 

 

Disneyland Hotel

The “mid-range” resort is the Disneyland Hotel where room rates average around $325-400 per night.  The Disneyland Hotel is the ORIGINAL hotel “on property” (even though none of the current buildings are the same that existed there in the 1950s).  It was opened as a smallish motel in October 1955 and at the time, the room rates were just $15 per night!  The Disneyland Hotel has been expanded and had buildings demolished, renamed and rethemed many times throughout the years but it remains the largest resort on property at 990 guest rooms and suites.  The rooms have all recently been refurbished and new eateries have been opened.  Another great Improvement is the complete retheming of the Never Land Pool area with the addition of monorail-themed slides which are topped with classic 1950’s/1960’s Disneyland signage!  Disneyland Hotel is home to Goofy’s Kitchen, which offers both a character breakfast and character dinner.  If you are hungry for a really good steak, you can make your way to Steakhouse 55 at the Disneyland Hotel or if you’d rather have something a little Polynesian inspired, try the new Tangaroa Terrace!

 

 

Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel and Spa

The “high end” resort at Disneyland is Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel and Spa.  The rates for one of the nearly 750 guest rooms at this gorgeous “Arts & Crafts movement” inspired resort start right around $395 per night.  The Grand Californian also includes an additional 50 villas belonging to the Disney Vacation Club (Villas at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa).  Like the other “on property” resort hotels, “the Grand” hosts a character breakfast.  Folks can have a hearty breakfast with favorite Disney woodland creatures at Storyteller’s Café (which is open for lunch and dinner as well, without characters).  You can also grab a quick bite at White Water Snacks (located near the “resort guests only” entrance into Disney California Adventure park).  However, if you feel more in need of an absolutely indulgent meal, get thee to Napa Rose.  Napa Rose is “Napa wine country” themed and offers a range of award-winning “California cuisine” dishes.  The place is pricey but totally worth it for you foodies out there!  For the ultimate, relaxing date night, try an early dinner at Napa Rose and follow up with a Couples’ Massage at the Mandara Spa (they’re open until 8pm! *winkwink*)

 

Which of the three resort hotels would *I* choose?  Personally, even though I like the beachy theme of Paradise Pier and sure wouldn’t mind the luxury of the Grand Californian, my vote always goes to the Disneyland Hotel.  Even with the extensive changes, it always feels “classic” to me.  Well, that and I have very fond memories of pulling into the Disneyland parking lot in 1983 and parking directly under the monorail track with the nose of our car pointing directly at the Disneyland Hotel and saying, “You know what?  I’m going to stay there sometime when I’m older!”

Next post, we’ll take a look at the oodles of Good Neighbor choices!

 

Until next time, have a magical day!

 

Patience is a Virtue (Unless You’re Planning a Disney Vacation!)

Filed under Grown-Up Disney by aliceinwdw on January 25, 2012 at 6:45 pm {no comments}

Let me start by clarifying: I don’t mean that patience is needed to do the (fun!) stuff; i.e. the planning, etc., I mean that you, well, I, will need patience for the waiting to plan!

You Totally Do This, Don’t You?

So, I can honestly say that I love starting to thinking about our next trip practically as soon as I set foot in the door after returning home from our latest vacation! Ok, so I may not exactly be knocking the luggage out of DH’s hands while tearing down the hallway to go and grab my Disney Vacation Club (“DVC”) points chart — because I already have them memorized. *eyeroll* Ok, not really! — but, I have more than likely already had a conversation, or four, with him about where we should stay next time. Huh. Yeah, I guess it’s not really screaming “World’s Most Patient Person” is it? But I can’t help it! I want to go back before I’ve even left (that makes sense)!

Where else can we stay?

Ok, so being that we are also DVC members, we have been pretty spoiled by our ability to stay at quite a few of the resorts at Walt Disney World (“WDW”), including:

Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa:

Saratoga Springs Villas * photo taken by GTCindy

Animal Kingdom Lodge (“AKL”), both Jambo House (main building) and Kidani Village (DVC villas):

AKL - Kidani Village - Savannah * photo taken by chezp

Bay Lake Tower (“BLT”) at Disney’s Contemporary Resort:

Bay Lake Tower - Bay Lake * photo taken by chezp

And even BoardWalk Villas:

BoardWalk Villas - BoardWalk/Crescent Lake * photo taken by mestitch

Like I said, totally spoiled! I know this, but we’ve been able to do so much with our membership, like stay at all of these resorts, because we’ve learned a few tricks! For example, with these couple of stays under our belts (or is that all those zebra domes?), we have realized that we can make the most of our trips if we do split-stays; i.e. if we change rooms/resorts at some point during our trip. (Although, on one occasion, we did this four times in two weeks! *Please do not attempt this on your next vacation; it is not recommended!* :-P ) However, as crazy as that trip was, it did, to say the least, allow us to experience a lot more “resort” than if we had chosen to do a more “traditional” reservation.

There’s only one hitch to this brilliant (if I say so myself!) idea: When staying on DVC points, I cannot book at another resort, except my home resort, until seven months out from my anticipated arrival date. Whhhhy? (Well, I know why, but I’m going for dramatic effect here!)

So, not only do I have to try and decide where we’re going to (hopefully) stay next time, but I have to wait to see if any of my choices are even viable options! This is where my issue (and subsequent topic for this week) lies, I need patience! Unfortunately, I don’t really have much of it. LOL! I mean, I know I’m a grown-up (well, by “definition,” as we’ve previously discussed! ;-) ) and, as such, I’m supposed to know that “good things come to those that wait,” right? Well, do the “preachers” of this zen-like thinking ever go to Disney World? I’m thinking no, because, there are just too many of us over on the PassPorter message boards who have either have a vacation ticker, some sort of countdown, create posts for their double, and then single, digit dances and/or actually have all of the above! So, I know your out there and that’s why I had to discuss the waiting; I knew you’d understand!

However, and I don’t mean to only direct my conversation to the DVC members, but, there is super, ginormous news that will make it seem like whatever-such-holiday-you-celebrate-that-requires-torturous-waiting-for-presents to any do-it-yourself planners out there: We can finally book our own vacations online! *Cue the chorus of angels singing!* OMGosh I’m so excited about this news (thanks for the reminder, Cheryl!) and yet so bummed, all at the same time, because I can’t “do” anything with it beyond August at this point (which is 7 months out from now).

Oh the humanity! (Yeah and if you think I’m bad now, you should see me when it’s time to book my dining reservations online! Ha ha ha, oh but you will!)

Anyway, the news of the online reservation system made me think about my planning that’s on hold, which then made me think about the prior resorts we’ve stayed at, and thus the sharing of my rambling thoughts — since that’s all I can do for the time being! Well, that and wonder: What’s worse? The waiting to book or the waiting for the actual trip?! I can’t really say for sure; however, being that I’m currently at the waiting-to-book stage, I’m totally voting for that! :-)

So, I guess I should get going; that DVC website isn’t going to “test” itself! And, while I’m at it — *channels my inner rock star* — I am going to attempt to try and find myself “a little patience…yeeeeah…just a little patience…ooooooo oooo yeeeah…” (Just be thankful you can’t actually hear me!)

So, until next time!