Can we talk about the area around Dis??

[TheChapman6]

So My Mom and I are planning this trip. She told me a week ago she wants to stay at the Disneyland Hotel so we can ride the monorail into the park and not walk. Plus she claims it to be more "magical" anyway, today we were talking about it. (over the phone) She said my Aunt who lives in California told her not to stay at the hotels across the street from Disney because of the Hookers standing out on the street?? Has anyone seen this? Her other reason is that the parking lot is soo soo big that it would take us 30 minutes to walk? Can anyone comment on this? I want to save money and I plan to wear my flip flops LOL

 

[skiingfast]

So My Mom and I are planning this trip. She told me a week ago she wants to stay at the Disneyland Hotel so we can ride the monorail into the park and not walk. Plus she claims it to be more "magical" anyway, today we were talking about it. (over the phone) She said my Aunt who lives in California told her not to stay at the hotels across the street from Disney because of the Hookers standing out on the street?? Has anyone seen this? Her other reason is that the parking lot is soo soo big that it would take us 30 minutes to walk? Can anyone comment on this? I want to save money and I plan to wear my flip flops LOL

I think you rmom will be shocked when she gets there.

Harbor Drive is very clean. I've seen people on here talk about the dirty "urbaness" of the sidewalks to the park. In my experience it's been terrible clean and 100% safe. I also noticed that there are many police cars going up and down that route.

The Monorail is not great for getting to the parks. It doesn't serve DCA, it only goas from DTD to Tomorrowland. Can be super crowded and doesn't run all of the time. It's only a minor perk of staying at the DLH.

If you stay somewhere where you have to drive to the Disney Parking this does add time. But there are shuttle from the Toy Story lot that will get you to the gate in 10 minutes. From the Mickey and Friends garage you use Trams that take 15 to 20 minutes to the gates.


Many people get by using flip flops.

 

[pixiewings71]

LOL I don't know if I've ever seen hookers but I have seen homeless men sitting at the bus stop. They don't bother you, they don't talk to you, they barely look at you. But that's the worst I've seen.
The farthest we've walked is about 20 minutes, that was from our hotel on Anaheim Blvd, that's not a Harbor hotel so walking from a Harbor hotel can be much easier. You just have to stay on the right part of Harbor. The HoJo, Candy Cane Inn & Anaheim Plaza are the farthest we like to walk on Harbor, those take about 8-12 minutes depending on how fast you walk. Anything within those borders will be less than that (obviously). It's never taken me 30 minutes to walk to DL, if we stay that far we just drive and park. I don't recommend wearing flip flops in DL tho, it's really hard on your feet and you may regret it. My BFF does it but I don't. If you want to stay on a budget stay on Harbor, but if you want the magical experience stay on-site, the PPH is nice. Also know that the monorail does not pick up at any of the DLR hotels.....no matter if you stay at the DLH, PPH, GCH or even some off-site hotels you can catch the monorail to make your walk shorter. Not the Harbor hotels, those you just walk to (or take ART) but other hotels are on the other side of DTD and you can use the monorail for those.

May I ask where your Aunt lives? California is a huge state...I live in CA and I'm 6 hours from DLR.

 

[jdb in AZ]

I assume the construction at the Disneyland Hotel will be finished by your trip, but that's something you need to check on before making reservations. If construction will be a problem I would check out the Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel. The Grand Californian is wonderful, but it's also a whole lot more expensive than the others.

A cast member told us that the three Disneyland hotels are the same distance from the entrance to the monorail. Dunno if that's true or not. The hotels are also huge and if your in one of the farthest reaches of the hotel you're actually farther away from the main entrance to DLR than the hotels across the street. Hopefully you could catch a tram across the vast parking lot. I've never seen hookers in the area but that doesn't mean there aren't any.

 

[KTR]

I've been twice and never seen a hooker. The streets didn't seem scary or dirty to me. Many of the hotels on Harbor are actually quite a bit closer than PPH or DLH. It's a 5 minute walk from the ones directly across the street to the main gate. The HUGE parking lots of on the other side of the park, where the Disney hotels are.

 

[DizNee Luver]

We've never experienced anything negative out on Harbor.....just lots of traffic. It's well lit & during park times, it stays busy with families walking around.

The only downside to riding the Monorail into DL is.....you miss going thru the front gates, seeing the floral Mickey & walking thru the tunnel to enter Main Street. It really is a magical feeling & something I love doing everyday on our trips.

The motels on Harbor will save you a ton of money & a lot of them are closer to the gates then PPH & DLH. Unless you want to spend a ton of time in your room, I'd skip the resort hotels & stay across the street......then you can spoil yourself at the parks!!!

 

[LisainCalifornia]

We had an experience staying on Harbor at Best Western Park Place Inn (right across the street from the front gates located on Harbor) where we had a drunk couple arguing in the parking lot of our motel by our room. It was clear from their conversation that they were fighting about money/drugs/prostitution (they very loud because they were both ver impaired). This was about 2:00 am. It wasn't pleasant, and certainly wasn't "vacation-ish". Besides that incident we have stayed at other hotels (Hojos) and done fine. People tend to bother you about timeshares as you walk by, and there is lots of bus exhaust. I don't really love the whole experience.

For me, I would rather stay on property and just have a more "vacation" experience.

But there are alternatives. You could chose to stay at the Hyatt Regency Orange County (they have a shuttle bus and that is a very nice hotel), or even at Paradise Pier which has a lower price point than the DLH. The monorail is NOT a means of transportation--so make sure your mom knows that. It is more of a "ride" than anything else. Yes, it takes you to the park, but you can walk to the front gates faster than waiting for the Monorail, and many people do just that.

 

[bumbershoot]

A cast member told us that the three Disneyland hotels are the same distance from the entrance to the monorail. Dunno if that's true or not.

Oh no, definitely not true. DLH is the closest, from the Grand you have to walk halfway through DTD to get to the monorail, and from PPH you either have to walk behind PPH and then behind DTD to get there, or go out the front, cross the street walk through the Grand, then go halfway through DTD to get there.



I've never seen a single hooker on Harbor. A few homeless people, but they don't bother anyone at all. And I've only seen them in the early mornings; it seems that some sleep on the bus benches, and they clear out in the morningtime.

Some of the hotels on Harbor are closer to the esplanade than DLH and PPH, and depending on where your room is in the Grand, the ones directly across the street are CLOSER than some rooms in the Grand are to the esplanade (you would go to the esplanade to go to Disneyland, and, depending on where you're going in DCA, sometimes to get into DCA, even though there's a DCA entrance from the Grand).


Taking the monorail in is iffy b/c sometimes it's not working, sometimes you just miss one and therefore don't get in as fast as you could have gotten in by walking, sometimes they don't start running until park opening (normal time or MM time) which means those waiting at the gates are IN the park and ON the rides before you even get towards the park. AND of course you have to want to be in Tomorrowland or beyond, because that's where it takes you!


We only rarely take the monorail in, because we rarely want to start off above the Nemo ride, and we love walking in the proper entrance.

 

[jernysgirl]

I too, have never seen a hooker on Harbor, just an occasional homeless person at the bus stop or time share salesman as PPs have pointed out. I feel very safe walking there.

Here are a couple of pics I snapped last June during our walk in:

 

[TheChapman6]

Thanks for your replies I'm going to call my mom tonight and read them all to her. So where is the shortest walk and how long does it take? I want to be first in line for MM and we can stay another day if we go this route as well.

 

[Judy from Boise]

If you go to the DL info sticky, and scroll you should find a couple different arial maps and links.

 

[DisSarahK]

Most of the sidewalks are big and wide (the one pictured above is the narrowest) and lined with flowers. The motels aren't fancy, but they are adequate and so handy to get to DL quickly and easily. I felt very comfortable walking with my family there and never saw anyone remotely like a hooker! (And I'm *very* conservative!) We stayed directly across the main crosswalk from Disneyland and it took us around five minutes to get to Disneyland each day!

 

[AustinTink]

We had an experience staying on Harbor at Best Western Park Place Inn (right across the street from the front gates located on Harbor) where we had a drunk couple arguing in the parking lot of our motel by our room. It was clear from their conversation that they were fighting about money/drugs/prostitution (they very loud because they were both ver impaired). This was about 2:00 am. It wasn't pleasant, and certainly wasn't "vacation-ish". Besides that incident we have stayed at other hotels (Hojos) and done fine. People tend to bother you about timeshares as you walk by, and there is lots of bus exhaust. I don't really love the whole experience.

For me, I would rather stay on property and just have a more "vacation" experience.

But there are alternatives. You could chose to stay at the Hyatt Regency Orange County (they have a shuttle bus and that is a very nice hotel), or even at Paradise Pier which has a lower price point than the DLH. The monorail is NOT a means of transportation--so make sure your mom knows that. It is more of a "ride" than anything else. Yes, it takes you to the park, but you can walk to the front gates faster than waiting for the Monorail, and many people do just that.

It seems like you're the only one who has experienced the whole drugs/hooker thing. I am wondering if anyone else has seen or heard this kind of thing in and around the Harbour hotels.

 

[spacemermaid]

Thanks for your replies I'm going to call my mom tonight and read them all to her. So where is the shortest walk and how long does it take? I want to be first in line for MM and we can stay another day if we go this route as well.

The Best Western Park Place Inn is literally right across the street from the main entrance. I stayed there on my last trip, and even though I was not feeling well (through no fault of the hotel or the Park) & my room was at the very back of the hotel, I was from my room to the turnstiles in 5 minutes.

The room I stayed in was clean & comfortable (the bed was ) & breakfast was included. I'm going to stay there again on my holiday trip.

 

[spacemermaid]

It seems like you're the only one who has experienced the whole drugs/hooker thing. I am wondering if anyone else has seen or heard this kind of thing in and around the Harbour hotels.

I have, but it was years ago now, and in a certain hotel that used to be the epitome of "family friendly" but had really gone downhill since I had last stayed there. Same type of experience- being awakened early in the a.m. by a...flashily dressed man yelling at & slapping around a....scantily dressed young woman (I'm keepin' it clean as this is an all ages board) in the parking lot right outside my hotel room.They were arguing over money & services provided.

But that speaks less of the area and more of the hotel...this was waaaaaaaay before I discovered Tripadvisor or the Disboards, so I had no way of knowing that the place I'd stayed at as a preteen had fallen on, shall we say, hard times.

 

[ladypage]

We always walk to the park, and we've only had a problem once, which was solved very quickly and efficiently. This totally isn't meant to scare you, it's more to show you how fast it can be fixed. This took place either late March or early April.

We left the park and decided to walk back to our hotel, which was the Holiday Inn on Manchester Avenue. It was dark out, and as soon as we cleared the crowd exiting, we noticed one guy who we had passed by and then turned around and started following us. We were still right next to Disney, so we didn't think much of it until we went in to the little ABC store and he followed us in, left right behind us, and stuck around outside glancing at us when we went back in because we forgot to grab something. When he followed us across the street and for another block we knew he was up to something. We guessed he was going to try and steal our wallets or something. So we just made a quick bee line in to the first hotel, told them what was up, and they called the police and a cab for us.

Even though the guy was obviously up to no good, I was surprised how well it was handled. It's not just Disney who looks out for you down there, the other businesses do too, because they rely on the safe feeling that people who go to Disney get as well. I wish I had paid attention to which hotel helped us because they were awesome.

Other than that one time, with that one guy, we have never had problems. I felt safer there than I do at home, and normally I'm the most cautious on vacations.

 

[momrek06]

I have been going to DL since moving here to CA in 2008. We lived in the OC for 2 years so we went ALLOT. We always park in PUMBAA. And there is a bit of a walk as we never take the buses or trams, we like to walk.
Then we moved to SD in 2010 and we have been coming up for 2 day-cations and we stay at either CCI or HoJo's and we always walk to and from the Parks. We can honestly tell you, we have never encountered any issues what so ever and we go in early and we stay late.

OP, I know you and your family will be fine!

 

[TheChapman6]

I have been going to DL since moving here to CA in 2008. We lived in the OC for 2 years so we went ALLOT. We always park in PUMBAA. And there is a bit of a walk as we never take the buses or trams, we like to walk.
Then we moved to SD in 2010 and we have been coming up for 2 day-cations and we stay at either CCI or HoJo's and we always walk to and from the Parks. We can honestly tell you, we have never encountered any issues what so ever and we go in early and we stay late.

OP, I know you and your family will be fine!

Thanks for your posting. Thanks to everyone. With tax the room at DL Hotel is 333.XX a night and I think we can save by being across the street. JMO

 

[VandVsmama]

There is probably a very good reason why you don't see many vagabonds near the hotels/motels right next to DL. It would seriously detract from Anaheim tax revenues earned from tourists and travelers who stay in those establishments. And it would reduce visitors to Disneyland. Heck, that 15-17% room tax goes somewhere, so it would not behoove (sp?) the city of Anaheim to allow the area to turn into Skid Row.

 

[Markie Mouse]

Thanks for your replies I'm going to call my mom tonight and read them all to her. So where is the shortest walk and how long does it take? I want to be first in line for MM and we can stay another day if we go this route as well.

That would be the Park Place Inn. Another option, which I will be doing, is the Fairfield Inn Marriott. They recently renovated and it's a bit better quality then Tropicana and BW PPI in my opinion, plus it has free Wi-Fi which is a big deal for me. Only thing is depending on which room you get, it would be closer to a 10 min walk rather than a 5 min walk at BW PPI. I've stayed at Castle Inn, Anaheim Plaza, BW PPI, BW Park Vue Inn, Camelot, BW Stovall's, and Jolly Roger(which isn't a close Harbor hotel) and have never seen a hooker or drug dealers. I think maybe people have had bad luck and and been at the wrong place at the wrong time. I live in old town Tempe here in AZ and there was a shooting across the street from me, it doesn't mean I live in the Hood or it happens regularly. I'm sure there have been fights or disturbances at DLH or PPH but because a majority of vacationers stay in the Good Neighbor hotels the chances of something like this happening are higher. But you'll have a really good chance it won't happen. Have fun either way you go!