Dessert Inn & Suites

[Lynn-Marie]

We're staying at the Dessert Inn & Suites for the first time during our August visit to DLR. We're staying in a Palour Suite (floorplan A - for those of you who have the CSAA book). The room will be on the 5th floor and will have a spa. There are three adults and my son (who will turn 23 months on that trip).

For those of you who have stayed here... do you have any words of wisdom on staying at this place? Is the 5th floor our best choice? Anything I should be sure to do/not do while staying there?

Thanks for any info!

 

[Judy from Boise]

We like to stay there on our winter trips because of the indoor pool .
We have never had that type of room, I will be very interested in hearing about it when you return

I do think that being on the 5th floor will be quieter than other locations.

 

[Bob O]

Please post how you liked the hotel when you come back. We are thinking of staying their in Dec. and your thought would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Lynn-Marie]

Judy & Bob... we'll definitely report back. Send me a PM if I forget! We'll be back by 8/6.

I didn't realize they had an indoor pool! What a total bonus!

 

[Mindy E in AZ]

I'm a new poster here but your post caught my eye. Dh and I just made our reservations for the Desert Inn & Suites a couple hrs ago. I'm eagerly awaiting a report of what you thought of it. We're going w/ our kids in October.

 

[Lynn-Marie]

I've heard through the grapevine (DIS-speak for PM's) that the continental breakfast is akin to a cheap stop at the quickie mart (doughnuts and mini muffins and watered down juice).

Has anyone been to the Dessert Inn lately? Did you eat their free continental breakfast? Was it at least fresh?

Lynn-Marie <-- who is now starting to associate "continental breakfast" with "get indigestion here, fast."

 

[Bob O]

Im looking forward to your report. We havent made reservations yet so it will be interesting to hear your comments.

 

[aussiemickeys]

We stayed at the Desert Inn & Suites in April for two weeks.

We really enjoyed our stay. We had a Parlour C two room suite & it was huge - exactly what we needed.

The hotel is set out like an upside down L. There are two different sections of buildings. As you arrive the lobby is right at the front (quite friendly staff always). Then a 3 story long building.

The bottom floor has the breakfast room, the tiny gift shop, the indoor pool & spa, parking spaces, the guest laundry, small gamesroom & other utility rooms. The two floors above that are the guests rooms. We were on the middle floor & had trouble with noise from the room above on a couple of nights. The rooms (on the three story building anyway) are not very soundproof so I would recommend you ask for the top floor no matter which building you are in.

The back area of the hotel has the 5 story building. The hotel is not that large though, the back area would only be a couple of minutes extra walk from the front.

The hotel is very clean, but a touch old. This was no problem to us at all. The rooms were clean, spacious & comfortable.

It is also located in between a Denny's, has an IHOP a couple of doors down - also a Tony Romas & Mcdonalds. Be sure to try Millies restaurant (on the same block) as we have had heaps of great meals there.

The absolute BEST thing about this hotel (& I cannot rave about this enough) is that it is a 5 minute walk from your hotel room to the turnstiles at either Disneyland or DCA!!!!!!! Not forgetting Downtown Disney as well. This is just the best thing after a long day at the parks - to know you will be back relaxing in your room so soon.

Hope this has helped a little & if you have any more questions I am glad to help.

Oh yeh - a couple of other thoughts:
Each room gets allocated one parking space each.

There is no one to help take your lugguge to or from your rooms (but we found a couple of those luggage trolleys around whenever we had to do this so wasn't any problem for us).

The lifts (again in the three story building) are so slow. We took the stairs every time.

The continental breakfast is only served at a set time each day (most days we found this did not suit us as we started off the day really early) Sorry I can't remember the actual times.
It consisted of (in April anyway) - Juice, Coffee, 1 type of fruit (seemed to alternate between red apples & oranges), 2 different types of flavoured danishes & toast (+ butter & jam). They also had plenty of trays so that you could load up & take everything back to eat in your room if you wanted.

We would stay there again anytime! Location, Location, Location!!!!

 

[hydster]

when we go to DL and while it isnt a 5 star hotel by any means it is nice because you are only a few doors down from the crosswalk that you can cross to get to where the trams let those who paid to park in the DL parking lot get dropped off! You save yourself the $$ to park and unless you are exceptionally lucky and get a spot right next to the tram p/u spot you dont usually end up walking much further from the hotel to the gate than you do from your car to the tram p/u and from the tram dropoff to the front gate at DL. It is not a Hyatt but you dont pay the $$$ for the Hyatt there either! The continental breakfast is VERY weak in our opinion but there is an IHOP 2 doors away and very convenient! We were there 9-11 last year and the breakfast consisted of Toast you did yourself, some fruit (I believe oranges and maybe bananas) some dried out sweetroll type things and then watered down orange juice and milk. It was definitely NOT something that would hold anyone over for a long period of time but if you dont like alot for breakfast or dont want to spend the money I guess you could make do. There ALWAYS seemed to be a line of people wanting free food so it must be ok for some!

You are smart to get a room on the top floor in my opinion! The rooms are older, not insulated very well and that way you will be further away from the parking lot noise! The elevators can be slow though so be prepared! In Sept last year we had a room at the end in the back and it was excellent. It was on the 1st floor and we were fine there but we have stayed there with a room on the 2nd floor overlooking the parking lot and it was a nightmare some nights!

Dont get really excited over the indoor pool! It isnt that great! It is very small and doesnt have anything great like a diving board. If I remember right it went to 7 feet deep (Maybe not quite that deep) and it can get VERY noisy in there if there are more than about 5 people in there. The hot tub is in there as well and it was OK..nothing spectacular but ok!

I guess the best thing about this hotel is it's proximity to the park! For us (we have small kids) it was awesome to not have to worry about when they got tired having to drive back to a hotel or wait for a shuttle...we just hitched them on our shoulders, or put them in our stroller and took them back to sleep! It is quiet there during the day most of the time because people are usually gone! We never used any of the other rest. around because we hated walking out and finding somewhere to eat so we gagged down Park food which was gross to say the least but if you do the other poster was correct that there is a Tony Romas not far and other places within walking distance!

If you go into this thinking it isnt a 5 star hotel and you are mostly paying for convenience you will be fine! However if you want excellent service, wonderfully decorated rooms, non-motel like atmosphere, having a hallway to the door of your room INSIDE rather than outside or need everything to be in top notch condition for you to have a good time and enjoy yourself then this hotel probably is NOT for you!

We love it there and are willing to overlook some of the problems because it is cheap and close to the park! If I were paying more $$$ I would expect more! We went last September 9-9 to 9-16 (unintentionally but Mr. Bin Laden helped us make that stay last and last and last) and my parents went with us. We got a 2 bedroom suite and basically what it was was 2 adjoining regular hotel rooms! It was really nice that we had 2 bathrooms, 2 showers, 2 sinks and 4 queen size beds! Fortunately the kids took turns sleeping with the grandparents! I also loved having the fridge so we could put pop and milk in there for us to take to the park for our kids to drink and not buy the costly drinks in DL all day long!

ANyway go into it with an open mind and realizing you arent spending a fortune, you probably wont be there much and you will be fine!

Heidi

 

[Mortimer Mouse]

Hydster, although your report was fair for the Desert Inn, not only is it not a 5 star it's not even a 4 or 3 star IMHO.
The room was old and dated (Cracked tile, stained carpets ect.)
Pool, staff, breakfast were very WEAK.
To be fair we stayed there only one night last Feb. after 4 nights at PP so we might've been a little spoiled.
I wouldn't recomend it if you plan to spend any time at the motel,
but if you're looking just for a place to shower, sleep and best possible location to the parks then go for it. it's cheap enough.
Just one mans thoughts.

 

[Lynn-Marie]

Thanks for all of the feedback on the Dessert Inn!

Since we go back to the hotel and spend a good amount of time there (we have a - going on - 23 month old) it sounds like we should keep trying for a better rate at PP.

I'll report back if we go to the Dessert Inn.

 

[Bob O]

What kind of Restuarant is Milie's???
Is this area close to freway on and off ramps
And thanks for the comments, good or bad!!