Disneyland Hotels and Transportation


Picking a hotel is hard. You want a hotel that’s close to the park, clean, and inexpensive. But around Disneyland, you have to compromise a bit. If you’ve been to Walt Disney World, you may expect that the majority of the visitors stay in Disney owned hotels. That’s not the case at Disneyland. Lots of visitors stay at nearby hotels or the rely on the parking system.

Disney Hotels

Disney has three “on property” hotels. These hotels are owned and run by Disney and are part of Disneyland. These are high quality hotels with the Disney name, which means they can be a pricey.

The Disneyland Hotel was built in 1955 for Disneyland’s opening. The hotel has gone through several expansions and upgrades over the years. It’s located at the west side of Downtown Disney. It’s very close to one of the two monorail stops (the other stop is inside Disneyland), so you can get into the park without walking through the shopping district.

The Grand Californian opened with California Adventure. It has an entrance to that park for hotel guests. It does not have an entrance to Disneyland Park, and non-hotel guests are not allowed to use the entrance.

Paradise Pier Hotel is on the southwest corner of the Disneyland property. This puts it close to the parks, but there is no direct entrance to the park. You have to walk along the perimeter of the property to get to the parks, so some of the Good Neighbor Hotels have a shorter walk.

Good Neighbor Hotels

Disney works closely with some of the nearby hotels. They’re called Good Neighbor Hotels. Many of the hotels within walking distance are Good Neighbors. These are the hotels that Disney recommends as convenient, comfortable, and clean, even though they’re not Disney owned. That recommendation does not mean that these are the best hotels you can find, but they are good places to sleep. Being closer to the parks is a nice plus. The downside is that having the recommendation from Disney means they can charge more. It’s not uncommon for a Good Neighbor Hotel to charge close to $200 per night during busy season. These hotels also sell park tickets at their front desks.

Hotels Not in Walking Distance

If your hotel isn’t within walking distance, you have several good options. Disney has designated areas for services like Uber and Lyft. Some hotels have shuttles to the parks, but unless there are only one or two of you, it’ll be cheaper to use Disney’s parking lots.

Parking

There are a lot of locals going to the park, and driving is how most of them get to the parks. There are two parking lots: Mickey and Friends, and Toy Story. Parking costs are the same at each, starting at $20 for a car.

Mickey and Friends is a six-story parking structure on the northwest side of the resort. It has escalators and a few elevators all the way up, so you don’t have to worry about climbing lots of stairs. There is a tram that runs from Mickey and Friends through Downtown Disney to the parks. Trams leave regularly, about every five minutes. It can be difficult to get some strollers into the tram, but it’s doable.

Toy Story is a large parking lot on the southeast side of the resort. It’s a separated from the rest of the Disney property in Anaheim, but there are city buses running to and from Toy Story and the parks. Their timing is less consistent than the Mickey and Friends Tram, but you can typically expect one every ten minutes.

For more parking details, visit Disneyland’s parking page.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Height Restrictions Translated to Age Ranges

Image
Height restrictions keep kids safe, but they can be frustrating. If you have ever taken kids to the parks, you know what I mean. Every cast member measures a little differently, so sometimes you make it all the way to the loading zone and then get turned away. Other times your kids are just slightly too short, and you wish they would have worn taller shoes. One of the most difficult things, in my mind, is planning trips and figuring out how long it will be ’till your kids can meet height restrictions. Especially when some can ride and some can’t, the younger ones want to know how much longer ’till they’ll be big enough. I don’t know any parents that have memorized a growth chart and can say, “My child will grow 1 inch in the next 9 months, so we should plan a trip then.” When we plan trips with our kids, we just keep measuring them and telling them to eat a bunch in hopes they’ll be tall enough for more rides. Fortunately, the CDC (Center for Disease Control) has released  data  that s
Read more

Nostalgia's Role in the Parks

Image
Disney has carved a strange place in the consumer’s mind. Few other brands command the love and respect of a group of fans the way Disney can. Not many people set goals to see every Six Flags park, collect every variation of Great Value pasta, or to decorate their homes like natural architecture symbols. But Disney fans try to visit each of Disney’s parks, impulse buy pins, plush, figurines, and hundreds of other collectibles, and decorate their homes to match Disney architecture. Simple themes – like the American Frontier, a European Village, or a Tropical Paradise – are instead labelled as Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Adventureland, whether they are actually connected to the Disney places or not. This is partly because of Disney’s skilled marketing teams. But the reason these teams have been so successful can be attributed to nostalgia. Disney thrives on nostalgia. Here are several websites that describe Main Street as nostalgic – one , two , three ,. It’s a common claim, but there
Read more

Ward Kimball and the Disneyland Railroad

Image
It was 1948, and Walt desperately wanted to go to the Chicago Railroad Fair. Knowing Lillian and his daughters wouldn’t want go, Walt invited his friend Ward Kimball. Walt and Ward enjoyed the fair, and when Walt started building Disneyland in 1954, he knew he had to have a train. This wasn’t the first time Walt and Ward talked about trains. Back in 1945, Ward let Walt drive one of his engines at the Grizzly Flats Railroad, Ward’s personal railroad. We can’t say for sure, but it’s very likely that Walt’s Lilly Belle came because he wanted to have a railroad just like Ward’s. Now Ward Kimball is immortalized in the Ward Kimball engine at Disneyland. The Person Ward Kimball was an animator for Walt Disney. Hired in 1934, Ward started on the Silly Symphony cartoons. He went on to help animate many films including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Fantasia, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan. Ward was one of the studio’s “Nine Old Men”. He was a brilliant animator, known f
Read more