Disneyland Hotels--points or cash?

[RweTHEREyet]

Considering a first trip to Disneyland in 2003. Would love to stay at Grand Californian, but am choking on the points needed per night (guess I kind of equate it to $10.00 per point is what I am paying for the room) and not sure I wish to pay the cash rate either. Would consider either Disneyland Hotel or Paradise Pier. Since I have not stayed at any of them, I have no strong feelings at this point. Dates have not been decided, I am basically gathering information at this point.

I have seen in other posts that people have gotten some decent rates at the Disneyland hotels and I am wondering if I even need to consider using points? If I make a reservation with points and then find a good cash rate and decide to cancel the points, how are those points then treated?

 

[ceejay13]

We've done both points and cash. For us it depends on how we are using our points, but the last two times we stayed at the GC and paid cash. We tend to cherish our Florida visits and I think the points are very high. We were actually there in May and June this year for business. We extended our May trip for 5 days and stayed at the GC. In June we had 2 nights at the DLH. Although the DLH is nice, I much prefer the GC. We have had 3 stays there since it opened. The first time on points, and we had a DD view, which was great. We were actually right over the World of Disney store. The last 2 times, we paid for a theme park view and it is truly magical, to be in the middle of the park during the busy days and watch it after it closes. This year we bought APs, which at the time were only $189. This got us an incredible discount on the room at $189/night at the GC and $99/night at the DLH. Between the discounts on the room and a couple of 20% coupons on just about any purchase you make, it really made sense for us to buy the APs. Either way you go, I think you will really enjoy your trip. It is so much nicer with all the changes the last couple of years.

 

[sueg]

We used pts. to stay at GC & felt that the pts. were well spent. But I think that it is a very personal decision. We take 2 "big" vacations per year. One in March -- usually at OKW (Home) and one in Aug. at HH (2nd Home). The yr. we went to DL, we went in Aug., and used our HH pts., which we would have spent for our Aug/HH trip. Also DL was only part of a 10 day Calif. trip, so using pts. helped us to off-set some of the other lodging costs. Points worked best for us, but I can easily see the benefits of going $$$. Anyway, I think you'll love DL. My 2 DSs, seasoned WDWers, still speak highly of our DL trip 2 yrs. ago.

 

[trishy]

First off, the obvious: your stay at GC, DLH, or PP is going to be comparable to hotel room rather than a DVC resort. The rooms are generally the same in size and style - the hotels are nice along Disney standards, of course, but I include in the decision how much time I'll be in the room. When we stay overnight, we use Paradise most of the time on a discounted advertised rate that seems to be continually running ($99/night). The Disneyland Hotel ($129) is nice because of the convenience of the Peter Pan pool right there in the middle of it all. The Grand Californian is nice because of its newness, location, convenience. If you are planning to spend some time at the hotel, choose GC or DLH. If the parks are the main desire, go cheap with Paradise (you can still use the Peter Pan pool, but it's a walk). You won't find many advertised specials running on the GC. Also, the DLH & PP run specials that include, for example $199 for 2 nights-PP $259-DLH including Park Hopper passes for 2 adults. They're promoting A Bug's Life at Grand California Adventures right now so search the internet or call directly for info on specials. I'll hunt down my paper from the weekend to see what the special is...