Anaheim Resort Transit - Residnec Inn Maingate

[emum]

Hoping someone may be able to give a little advice....

We're spending the first 5 nights at the Residence Inn Maingate, and having read the reviews on Expedia / TripAdvisor , it would seem that certainly at the end of each Disneyland day, we may need to get back to the hotel in something more comfortable than sneakers / joggers

Would purchasing 5 day ART tickets (for $40 for the 6 of us) be worth it ? If so, how close is the bus stop to the hotel, and where does one purchase the ticket ?

Alternatively, is there any other means of suitable transport back to the hotel other than on foot ?

Oh, and what's "The Block at Orange" like for shopping ? Worth a trip, or not ?

Thanks for any help.

Cheers,
Sally

 

[aussiemickeys]

Emum,
I don't have an answer about your transport to hotel question sorry.
We have been to "The Block at Orange" & while pleasant enough (& of course we bought plenty), it didn't really thrill any of us. Just a nice outdoor shopping mall.
I have been reading that the new shopping/dining area called Anaheim Gardenwalk will be opening in June. This is just a couple of blocks from Disneyland so I can't wait to check that out when we go later this year. We have also in the past gone to Ontario Mills Factory Outlet Mall (which we love) & MainPlace mall (which is not too far away) & we enjoy a lot. I always hesitate to recommend shopping places though, because we are from a small city of 30,000 people only, so our normal shopping experiences are a world away from what someone that lives in a big city (like Sydney) would have access to on a daily basis.
I forgot to ask on your other post, but are you planning on going to Knotts Berry Farm while in the Disneyland area?

 

[melbarkwith]

<Oh, and what's "The Block at Orange" like for shopping ? Worth a trip, or not ?>

My mum and I (and 11m DD) visited both Target in Anaheim & The Block at Orange while we were at DL. The Block is a very nice open air mall (probably not so nice on a rainy day!) The only reason we went there was because our shopping tour was cancelled b/c of insufficient numbers.

We certainly managed to spend a small fortune there, so if you do go there is no shortage of places to spend. Our fave stores there were Old Navy (we were in there over an hour , the total bill wasn't too horrendous), Hilo Hattie (mostly because we've been to Hawaii in the past), Borders (cheap compared to our Borders here), Steve and ?? University Wear - SUPER cheap clothes. Nothing very fancy there, but way cheap. I bought my DD a poloshirt/dress thingy and I think it was $4.95. Of course, I also bought a bunch of other things there too.

We had just as much fun at Target (which is really sad I know). I bought a heap of scrapbooking stuff cheap, a Levi denim dress for DD for around $10, again tons of clothes for my kids and some toys (things the kids had seen at DL but were much cheaper).

Hope that helps.
Mel
*The only downside to this trip was having to lug it all back on ART, complete with sleeping baby in stroller.

 

[emum]

Thanks so much for the replies

I looked up the ART website, and it seems to stop at the RI front door, so that's one question answered

As to the shopping - that's a major reason why I'm so excited to be going to the US

However, we are doing a stop-over in Hawaii both on the way over (with a free trip to Hil Hattie included), and the way back, as well as an outlet tour in Las Vegas, so I guess there's no great need to do The Block. I wouldn't mind checking out Target tho' Oh, how tragic am I ? LOL !

Aussiemickeys - I've wanted to do Knotts since I was a wee thing (I am the biggest Snoopy fan around), but just heard the most awful things about Knotts So we've decided to give it a miss, and do a day at LegoLand instead. *sigh*

Cheers,
Sally

 

[aussiemickeys]

Emum,
What bad stuff have you heard about Knotts (are you thinking of Magic Mountain?). We love Knotts for a change of pace from Disney. We make sure we go for 1 day out of each trip. Having said that though, I have just remembered the age of your kids & Knotts has some big thrill rides that might be a bit too intense for the young ones yet.
Don't be upset about going to Legoland, we went once & I thought this place was awesome (& a lot has been added since then). We took our nephews (aged 11 & 8 at the time), we stayed just about all day & we all just loved it. There was a lot of stuff that only the kids could do, but it was such a pretty & clever park that I was not bored for a second. I would LOVE to go back again! You must try the apple fries (which if basically just fried apple pieces) dipped in a cream - Yummo!
Here is another vote for a visit to the big "Target" just down the road from Disneyland. (I was a bit embarresed to write previously how much we enjoy this - I thought I might come up sounding too small town!). This is a must for us every trip. We spend at least 2 hours in here & stock up on heaps of stuff like DVDs, CDs, unusual greeting cards & bags & heaps of other stuff. We always walk to it (about a mile) & depending on just how carried away we get with the shopping is when we decide if we are able to walk back or if we need to catch a taxi. Another food thing - if you are walking back towards Disney from here, about a block away from Target is a chain fast food place called "Jack In The Box" that has fantastic (& out of the ordinary flavoured) thickshakes.

 

[avalon451]

Hoping someone may be able to give a little advice....

We're spending the first 5 nights at the Residence Inn Maingate, and having read the reviews on Expedia / TripAdvisor , it would seem that certainly at the end of each Disneyland day, we may need to get back to the hotel in something more comfortable than sneakers / joggers

Would purchasing 5 day ART tickets (for $40 for the 6 of us) be worth it ? If so, how close is the bus stop to the hotel, and where does one purchase the ticket ?

Alternatively, is there any other means of suitable transport back to the hotel other than on foot ?

Oh, and what's "The Block at Orange" like for shopping ? Worth a trip, or not ?

Thanks for any help.

Cheers,
Sally

Hey, Sally,

My brother and his family stayed there a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, they were NOT happy with ART. They said it was okay during the weekdays, but they ended up waiting longer than they wanted to. The weekend was pretty bad; they said sometimes it just didn't come at all, or was very late, or very crowded at park closing. A couple of times they just grabbed a cab out of frustration, and said that was a fine alternative for $7.00. They have a DD5 who couldn't walk it without using up all her energy before even getting to the parks!

Hope your experience is better! Maybe they just hit a bad week.