September or October?!?! Harbor blvd or Grand Californian?

DSNY4ever · Mar 4, 2015

Help, I can't decide. We can either go September 20-25th (Sunday to Friday) or October 11-16th (also Sunday-Friday). In September we would be there on my son's 4th birthday and our 10th anniversary, but we would stay at one of the Harbor blvd hotels as usual. In October it might be more crowded because of Columbus Day, but we would get to stay at the Grand Californian (for an extra $1000 of course).

What would you choose? I had originally picked September hoping for lower crowds, but the allure of the Grand is so tempting. We have never stayed there. But saving $1000 sounds nice too.

jkolkemo · Mar 4, 2015

$1000 buys really great meals and special Birthday presents for a special 4 year old. Just saying. He won't remember the cool hotel when he gets older, but he will remember character breakfasts, or at least cool pictures. I took my girls for the 50th and they were 3 and 6. Neither remembers the hotel without looking at the scrapbook, but they remember the Princess Meal and loved getting their books signed by all of them. The new hotel by HoJo will be open by then with a cool pool, as well as HoJo if you are looking for the cool hotel factor, but honestly I would go cheap and have fun. We are going this summer for 10 days. I have thought about doing 1 day at DLH, but just can't justify the extra $300 for one night, would rather spend the money on other things.

RemainSeatedPlease · Mar 4, 2015

As much as I'd love to stay at the Grand Californian, I think I'd choose the September trip. The lower crowds will be nice, and you can use the saved money to splurge a little on other things, maybe a nice meal at Blue Bayou or a few more souvenirs. Plus you get to be there for the birthday/anniversary!

DSNY4ever · Mar 4, 2015

We considered the one night thing too, but it is so expensive and dragging everything over there just for one night might be silly, and we always say that, so we never stay there. I thought about putting that money toward other things too. We will probably only do one character breakfast because we are vegetarians so the value isn't there for us to have dinner at Goofy's Kitchen, just not enough food options to make it worth the high price tag. It's a tough call. My son still talks about our hotels from WDW because he loved the pools so much.

DSNY4ever · Mar 4, 2015

What is the new hotel that is going in? I haven't heard about it? I can't get my husband to stay at the HOJO again. We stayed there once and the hotel itself and the service was nice, but we had one of the rooms facing the freeway and it was so loud we had to sleep with pillows over our heads

I thought about blowing the money on fancy meals, but we'll have our 1 year old with us too and I don't think she will sit politely for us to enjoy Blue Bayou or Carthay. Surprisingly my 4 year old loves fancy restaurants so he actually would sit there, haha.

tiffjoy · Mar 4, 2015

September is such a great month to visit! That's my personal favorite month to go. I would save the money, personally, but I'm the type who has not ever paid for a DLR hotel because I just don't see the point. We have a yearly vacation budget, so that is a whole weekend trip or an additional day or two for some other vacation, so I would save it. But, if you only do the one vacation, and staying at the GC is something that is really appealing to you, it could be worth it. Only you an decide that though.

They might not enjoy a fancy dinner, but what about a few character dinings?

DSNY4ever · Mar 4, 2015

Yeah...I think you guys are right. This is the advice I would give to someone else if they were asking me. I just can't think of anything to make it "special" for our 10 year anniversary. I think just being in Disneyland will be special enough for DS. We will do one character meal, but like I said, being vegetarians the DLR buffets usually don't work out as a good value for us.

I'll have to come up with something special for our anniversary. With the little ones, tours and fancy dinners are out. Maybe DH would like staying an extra day and going to the beach or something...except he is crazy like me and will probably say "Nah, lets just send all the time at Disney" haha!

tiffjoy · Mar 4, 2015

What about this? We did the Discover the Magic tour on our DD's fifth birthday as a present for her, and she absolutely loved it! So did our then two and a half year old DD. My DH and I thought it was so nice and very well done, and we will likely do it again for DD's 6th birthday because she's already asked about it. If you have the Disney Visa card, you get a 20% discount, and your one year old would be free.

https://disneyland.disney.go.com/events-tours/discover-the-magic/

ClaraOswald · Mar 4, 2015

I would save $1000 and go in September. (And if I could, I'd put some of that "savings" toward staying longer!)

beachdreamr1229 · Mar 4, 2015

Go in September and stay on Harbor. It hurts me to say that, but the cost of the onsite hotels is out of control. And $1000 can be used for gifts, a nice dinner, or many other things. GCH is beautiful and I would love to stay there, too, but there's just no way to justify the cost.

Angrose · Mar 4, 2015

Can you move up your dates to include Dapper Day on Sep 18th? The Dapper Day rates for GCH are $249, which may help with the budget. If not, then maybe you can get a little nicer room, like a suite, at one of the Harbor hotels. I know it's nice to have some separate adult space after the kids go to bed. The new hotel going in will be over by Hojo, behind Mimi's. It's a Marriott Courtyard and looks very cool: http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/snadt-courtyard-anaheim-downtown/

If you stay on Harbor, maybe you could get a babysitter one night so you can go to a nice dinner for your anniversary. I know that some people on here have done that and had good experience with local agencies.

DSNY4ever · Mar 4, 2015

Wow, how had I not heard about this Courtyard Marriott coming, that looks like it is going to be really popular! I never knew the Dapper Days rates were so good either.

I definitely think we are just going to save the money. I never seem to be able to justify the prices of the Disney hotels..maybe someday when we win the lottery, or one day as a huge splurge when the kids are old enough to appreciate it more. I am going to look into that kids tour it looks cute. And we'll probably just put the money into our account for our next trip

ClaraOswald · Mar 4, 2015

Yeah, it's hard to justify such a huge price jump when most people aren't even in the hotel that much.

DSNY4ever · Mar 4, 2015

So true ClaraOswald! We are almost never in our hotel at Disneyland. In WDW we take more breaks at the hotel (plus their onsite properties are more affordable). We have trained our children to stroller nap so that we never have to go back to the hotel :O)

gottalovepluto · Mar 4, 2015

DSNY4ever said:
...or one day as a huge splurge when the kids are old enough to appreciate it more.

Yes to this! My childhood memories of DL aren't of the hotels we stayed at (though my parents sure remember some hole-in-the-wall spots they still tell stories about when they took us) but I don't really have memories of that, it's all about the park! As an adult now I really appreciate all that the Disney hotels have to offer, but as a kid all I needed was a park ticket & a full belly!

nolenbelledavis · Mar 4, 2015

Well, this is going against the grain, but I'll just tell you our experience. We stayed at the HOJOs in May year before last and then last August we were at GC. I had reservations for the Candy Cane Inn when I got a 25% off coupon from orbitz. My "helpful"

neighbor pointed out to me that I could probably use that on a DLR hotel. We decided to pay the difference and just have the experience once. Well, ha! Now we are dvc owners because we thought we had died and gone to heaven. I know everyone has different priorities when traveling and different things they love, but we loved the convenience of the GC and the early morning hours. One early morning didn't work for us because a lot of the rides were down, but it did another day and it was amazing. We were able to ride toy story mania 3 times in a row, with zero wait, they don't even have the whole ride open because there are so few people there. Then we did Screamin' twice in a row. All before the park opened for the regular hours. The kids talk about it regularly. Then because your hotel is connect to CA, it's so easy to go back mid-day, when the crowd levels are higher and go swimming or just rest in your comfortable bed. It really changed the dynamic of the trip for us. We have 4 kids though, so walking anywhere isn't a small undertaking, really. You can also check into renting dvc points. They have a scavenger hunt in the hotel at 4 every day, but we didn't get to make it to that. I agree with what the others said, the grown ups will appreciate the hotel more than the kids, in general.

Jerryp49 · Mar 5, 2015

The website for the new Courtyard Marriott list the address as 1420 S. Harbor but the building itself is more like on West Manchester. They are using the same driveway for Mimi`s Cafe as an access road to their hotel I guess so they can claim they are across the street from Disneyland. They say it`s a 5 minute walk but that would be from the curb , from the hotel it would be a little longer. It is still close ,less than 10 minutes. With littles ones in tow ,we prefer the location of the GCH. We were there for Dapper Days last Sept during a heat wave. It was close to 100 everyday and hit 105. Oct. may be cooler.

ludari · Mar 5, 2015

You should be aware that from September 3-6 runDisney has an race scheduled at Disneyland. It might be a little more crowded at the parks and obviously during race days there will be some road closures.

ClaraOswald · Mar 5, 2015

ludari said:
You should be aware that from September 3-6 runDisney has an race scheduled at Disneyland. It might be a little more crowded at the parks and obviously during race days there will be some road closures.

According to the first post in the thread, the OP will be going at the end of September, not the beginning.

tarheelalum · Mar 5, 2015

I would go in October and stay at an easy walking distance Hotel on Harbor Blvd. Better weather in October and you will save a ton of money by staying on Harbor blvd.

September or October?!?! Harbor blvd or Grand Californian?

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