Tropicana or the Best Westerns? About This Page:

[mom23k9s]

I am planning our first ever trip to Disneyland!!! We are travelling Sept 5 - 12 and I'm planning on 3 nights close to Hollywood and the rest at Disneyland. Please have patience with me cause I'll probably have a lot of questions. Here's the first.

There's 3 hotels I'm looking at. There's the Best Western Anaheim Inn, Best Western Park Place Inn, and the Tropicana? They're all rated about the same on TripAdvisor. Can anyone else offer any more feedback? On TripAdvisor, everyone emphasizes the location, which is a major factor in my choice in hotel. I want to be able to walk to the parks. But I want to know more about the cleanliness and attitude of the staff, etc.

Oh, one more question while I'm at it. What is the benefit of booking at a "Good Neighbor" hotel? You don't get your park purchases delivered or early entry, do you?

Thanks for the help! I'll be asking for much more!

[disney777]

If they are all rating about the same, I would pick the one that's closest to Park Vue Inn (1570 S. Harbor Blvd).PVI is the closest (they call it a hotel, but it's more like a motel) to the parks. I think the "Good Neighbor" designation means the hotel has some tie to Disney, and that you can arrange to buy park tickets at the hotel. No early entry or package delivery. Sometimes there will be some special deal.

[Tink and co.]

We had a good stay at Tropicana, and it's location can't be beat (closer than DL Hotel). It was your basic clean room (we had a fridge and microwave too) with small pool. Our only complaint was the free continental breakfast was yucky, but that's easily fixed. We'd happily stay there again if the price was right.

[Meggera]

Hi! We stayed at the Candy Cane Inn, and being a Good Neighbor Hotel, we did get Early Entry into the parks. It doesn't work the same way as it does at WDW. At DLR, you are given an Early Entry pass to use once. We also got a Magic Morning pass (or something like that...early entry) into Toontown, meaning that we got to enter an hour before it opened to everyone else. There is a huge ceremony with the Fab 5 and the Mayor of Toontown, and we all got buttons saying we were honorary citizens of Toontown. Very neat! Be sure to ask about these.

HTH!

[Meggera]

One more thing, the Candy Cane Inn is within walking distance, too. The rooms were beautiful. The continental breakfast was wonderful, and we can't say enough good things about the staff. We really, really enjoyed our stay here. Oh! They also offer a free shuttle to and from the park and free WiFi, unlike other hotels who charge for shuttles AND for WiFi.

You can see pictures of the room at my TR...Sing with me...California Here We Come! Days 7 & 8, updated 12/20. Page 5 has pictures of the hotel room and the outside with the gorgeous flowers in bloom.

[coffeechef]

I stayed at the Tropican last year and also the Hojos. HOjo was a nicer hotel, but don't get a room on the highway side. We had one over looking DL> it was about a 10 minute walk. Tropicana was 5 minutes closer. ALso a Nice more motel type. I have heard good things about Candycane too

[HeatherD]

We stay at the Best Western Park Place every year. We've tried a few others (Desert Inn most recently), but always come back to it. Everyone talks about others being "closest", and I won't belabor any points. But I will point out that Park Place is right at the light/crosswalk to enter the plaza (I think Park Vue is the other one, so they're equal).

Full disclosure, the free breakfast at Captain Kidd's is going downhill. However, for our priorities, it doesn't outweigh the convenience of being that close to the entrance. So many of them are close that I'd say you can't go wrong (location-wise) with anything that stretches from the McDonald's to IHOP (or Tony Roma's, can't recall which is further). So, it's more of what you feel about the room and the service, which could be "six in one, half dozen in the other."

I also like the fact that Best Western is a national chain. While they are franchises, they still have to answer to Best Western and have a standard to meet. Our rooms have always been clean and the beds good for sleeping.

Um, my vote is for Park Place, in case that wasn't clear....