Review: Disneyland Hotel

Mar 9

Written By Randy | The Family Travel Guy

The Disneyland Hotel, located at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, features nostalgic themes of the original Disneyland Park with a sprinkling of pixie dust in everything at the sleek modern designed hotel. Considered to be the mid-tier option (in terms of price) of the three Disneyland Resort hotels, the hotel is located just steps from Downtown Disney and is a short walk to both Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure Park.

Hotel Overview:
The Disneyland Hotel is comprised of three separate towers; the Fantasy Tower, the Adventure Tower and the Frontier Tower. The main lobby area is located in the Fantasy Tower.

The hotel features 973 rooms, including 71 suites, with Standard rooms accommodating up to five guests. View category rooms are a nice upgrade and provide spectacular resort, pool or city views. The light-up Sleeping Beauty Castle headboards and timeless artwork in each room make for a magical start to your Disneyland trip.

Dining options at the Disneyland Hotel include:

Goofy’s Kitchen – Character dining with buffet-service available for breakfast/brunch and dinner
Steakhouse 55 – A fresh update on the classic steakhouse concept with an intimate ambiance and a renowned wine cellar. Serves breakfast and dinner.
Tangaroa Terrace – A quick service casual island dining experience inspired by Adventureland, featuring tiki torches and tropical music.

Other Dining Options include Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar, a jungle cruise inspired hideaway offering tropical cocktails, juices and bar menu. Lastly, there is the Coffee House featuring quick bites and coffee.

There are two gift shops within the Fantasy Tower, the Fantasia Shop which carries gifts, clothing and Disney souvenirs, and Small World, which carries small gifts, drinks, snacks and other items.

What Makes the Disneyland Hotel Unique?

If you need any more reason to stay at the Disneyland Hotel for your next trip to Disneyland, here are my top five reasons to consider staying here:

Modern Accommodations with a Magical Touch

Perfect size rooms/suites for families, featuring light-up Sleeping Beauty Castle headboards and timeless artwork in each room and Disney themes and decor throughout, which makes a great start to your Disneyland trip

The resort/pool view from our room was great

Character Dining at Goofy's Kitchen

Located near the pools outside the Fantasy Tower and typically features Goofy, Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Pluto, Chip, and Dale.

Kid-Friendly Amenities

Themed Pools with waterslides including two monorail waterslides, E-Ticket and D-Ticket pools and Mickey spa and Minnie spa whirlpools
Key to the Magic cards make a great souvenir for kids after the trip and are great during the trip for charging meals and merchandise back to the hotel room for one unified bill at checkout.

Location and Value for the Price

While the walk to Disneyland isn't that bad, you'll already be through security once entering Downtown Disney and it'll sure beat walking along Harbor Blvd to the parks (or taking a shuttle), where most other off-site hotels/motels are located.
You could also take the Monorail into Disneyland Park and the Disneyland Hotel is the closest to it, once getting through security into Downtown Disney.
Staying at the Disneyland Hotel isn't cheap by any means, but you can get a great value for the price given all of the great Disney perks, convenience and overall Disney experience including extra magic hour, easier park access, preferred access reservations, resort amenities, package express, key to magic cards and much more.

Extra Magic Hour

You'll get access to early park hours available (one hour before normal opening) on select days at either Disneyland or California Adventure

Summary

We had a great stay at the Disneyland hotel during the holiday season and loved the Disney decor and magic featured throughout the hotel. The convenience of staying here was great, as we were able to quickly get through security in the morning and into the parks before major crowds arrived.

We enjoyed dinner and Goofy's Kitchen and saved valuable park time by being able to meet with all of my kids favorite characters. By seeing them here and getting autographs during our meal, we didn't need to visit them while in the parks and wait in long lines.