Disneyland Rookie Dad Needs Help - Hotel for 5 & Must Do Reservations

[jamescam]

Let me start by saying thank you in advance for any help you can provide!

My wife is the planner of our team of 5 (the two of us, an 11 year old, and 4 year old twins), and when we took our oldest to Disney World for her 6th birthday she did an outstanding job planning the whole trip (Princess breakfast, Character dinners, etc.). Unfortunately, she is swamped and I have taken on the mantle of planning our families first ever trip to Disneyland from 12/9 to 12/13. Unfortunately I need a lot of help in two different areas with getting the most of our $2000 hotel & tickets budget (airfare & meals not included):

Hotels: I am 80% certain that I want to stay at one of the 3 on-site hotels. Unfortunately all of us in one room is a little tight and the rates I saw for suites are out of our price range. My hotel questions:

1. Does anyone have any insight on good suite or 2 room packages for any of the 3 on-site hotels? I didnt run across on online booking tool that let me select 2 adjoining rooms, I did see the option to upgrade to a 2 room suite on the disney site but as I said it added $1k+ to the cost which took me out of my budget range.

2. Would anyone recommend one of the suites at one of the nearby Neighorhood Hotels? I am leary with the twins having to wait for a shuttle to go back to the hotel for a nap, but I am more concerned about the 5 of us not being comfortable when we get to the hotel.

Must Do Reservations: Again, my 1st time to Disneyland but can anyone provide insight on the Must Do Things that I need to put in my reservations now for? I remember thinking my wife was nuts when she got up at 6am exactly 60 days (I may be wrong on days) in advance of our Disney World trip to make a reservation for the Princess Breakfast. After disbelieving her of the need to get up early she had me call later in the day and she was 100% right, no more reservations available. I have to imagine they have something similar at Disneyland but I have no idea where to look. I want the twins (1 boy, 1 girl) to have the complete experience so any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,
Rookie Disneyland Dad

 

[DDhunter]

As to one of your questions, my family of 5 stayed in DLH. You get 2 queen beds and a twin size daybed. I had my daughters share a queen and my son got the daybed. We felt we had plenty of room, but did not spend a whole lot of time in the room.

 

[DorkyDisneyMom]

We have a family of 5 and stayed at The Disneyland Hotel. We had 2 queens and the daybed. We did the same as the above poster. My DD took the daybed and the boys did the queen bed. We didn't feel too cramped but we also didn't spend too much time in the hotel.

My other suggestion is maybe looking at The HoJo Kids' Suites. They look really nice they only have 3 of them but you might call them to see if they have one available.

We are doing The HoJo this time because we are on a budget. From what I have read it's easily walkable.

I know there are other closer hotels on Harbor and I am sure others will give you suggestions.

If you have a girl and a boy for a character breakfast I would try Goofy's Kitchen. We really had a great breakfast there. We are considering Minnie and Friends this time just for different characters. They do have a princess meal but I am not sure how well a 4 year old boy would do, I guess it depends on the boy.

Hope this helps just a little bit.

 

[Brady's Mom]

HoJo has 14 Kid's suites, not 3. They just opened them in the last month or so. I know there was a post with pictures just recently. Hopefully someone has it and will post it if you are interested.

The only character recommendations I have are if you have girls - consider Ariel's Grotto for the Princesses otherwise it's in line for Princess Fantasy Faire and that line can get really long!

With DLR you don't have to call at exactly 60 days out to still get your PS, a lot of times you can get them the same day for a good time. You aren't going at peak times in Dec. so you still have time to decide where you want to eat.

One other good thing about Dec. is that fireworks and parades show every night and the castle lights are gorgeous. Oh, and fake bubble snow - on Mainstreet if that matters to your family. We live in snow all winter long so fake snow is just ehhh to us, but to others it matters.

 

[californiamomof4grls]

We stayed at the HoJo not too far if you have a good stroller. LOVED the hotel! There customer service was wonderful!! They have a great water park for the kids if you are going when it is still warm. They do not have a breakfast. There hotel was very nice on the inside! At night it was tuff to walk with our 4 exhausted girls.
The year before last we stayed at the Best Western Park place inn. They have a mini suite 2 queens and a pull out bed from a couch. Microwave and fridge and breakfast at the next door Captin Rons. We used the Googlemaps to look at the area to see how far it was we were looking to walk. You type your address into google click maps and then a window pops up on the map and has a bar on it that says street view. This hotel is litterally across the street you go from the crosswalk to the driveway to the hotel...very close fou your naps! Which is what we did. When we went Ihop was kids eat free after four. I don't know if it still is.
We LOVE goffys kitchen! Hope some of this help sorry it was so long! Have lots of fun!

 

[laura&fam]

As far as a character meal, there is some general info on the DISboards, here's the link in case you didn't see it: http://www.wdwinfo.com/Disneyland/dining.htm It has a summary of the meal and the cost. A couple of things to note, some meals are inside the park and require park admission and some do not. Also some restaurants feature character meals only at certain times (i.e. breakfast only). It's a good idea to make priority seating (like reservations) ahead of time. You can do this up to 60 days ahead of the date by calling disneyland: 714-781-DINE (3463). But as mentioned before you may be alright calling a day ahead or even the day of. It just depends on how busy they are.

As far as where to stay we have always stayed across the street on Harbor Boulevard and feel like most of those hotels are barely further away from the entrance to Disneyland than the Disneyland hotel. I have found this link, originally posted by Hydroguy incredibly helpful: http://www.geocities.com/ashpsyche/DisneylandLinkMap

Also you can search the Disneyland forum by clicking in the upper right hand corner of the thread list. Sorry if you know this already, I've just found it helpful for answering my questions before. Good luck with your planning.

 

[nottellin']

Would anyone recommend one of the suites at one of the nearby Neighorhood Hotels? I am leary with the twins having to wait for a shuttle to go back to the hotel for a nap, but I am more concerned about the 5 of us not being comfortable when we get to the hotel.

I have never been to the Desert inn and suites but they are right across the street from Disneyland.
From what I can gather Disneyland is quite a bit different from DW ( I have never been to DW), in the fact that the offsite hotels are much closer at DL.

I can say that we stayed at the Tropicana Inn and Suites ,and we have stayed at the Disneyland hotel and in all honesty for us the Tropicana felt closer. I'm not sure if the Tropicana has suites, but I would recomend that hotel. The rooms are clean and the staff in awesome.

As for must see or do's I suggest the Princess Lunch ar Ariels, I love the food. Goofy's kitchen is quite good as well but my personal fav is Ariel's. Even my DS (6) loved it.

 

[QueenDoOver]

Let me start by saying thank you in advance for any help you can provide!

My wife is the planner of our team of 5 (the two of us, an 11 year old, and 4 year old twins), and when we took our oldest to Disney World for her 6th birthday she did an outstanding job planning the whole trip (Princess breakfast, Character dinners, etc.). Unfortunately, she is swamped and I have taken on the mantle of planning our families first ever trip to Disneyland from 12/9 to 12/13. Unfortunately I need a lot of help in two different areas with getting the most of our $2000 hotel & tickets budget (airfare & meals not included):

Hotels: I am 80% certain that I want to stay at one of the 3 on-site hotels. Unfortunately all of us in one room is a little tight and the rates I saw for suites are out of our price range. My hotel questions:

1. Does anyone have any insight on good suite or 2 room packages for any of the 3 on-site hotels? I didnt run across on online booking tool that let me select 2 adjoining rooms, I did see the option to upgrade to a 2 room suite on the disney site but as I said it added $1k+ to the cost which took me out of my budget range.

2. Would anyone recommend one of the suites at one of the nearby Neighorhood Hotels? I am leary with the twins having to wait for a shuttle to go back to the hotel for a nap, but I am more concerned about the 5 of us not being comfortable when we get to the hotel.

Must Do Reservations: Again, my 1st time to Disneyland but can anyone provide insight on the Must Do Things that I need to put in my reservations now for? I remember thinking my wife was nuts when she got up at 6am exactly 60 days (I may be wrong on days) in advance of our Disney World trip to make a reservation for the Princess Breakfast. After disbelieving her of the need to get up early she had me call later in the day and she was 100% right, no more reservations available. I have to imagine they have something similar at Disneyland but I have no idea where to look. I want the twins (1 boy, 1 girl) to have the complete experience so any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,
Rookie Disneyland Dad

PPH with 5 day hoppers is $1765
$987 just for the tickets.

If you booked it as an annual pass holder it would be $100 less by the time you pay the extra money for the annual pass for one person. You also would then get your food discount of 10% off of most food purchases.

You could stay in a Pirate Suite at Howard Johnson for a few hundred dollars less. You would then have two bathrooms, a room with a seperate king size bed and then the bunk beds and the foldout twin in the other room. The walking distance is essentially the same, but PPH is on Disney property and from Hojo it is the city street.

I have stayed at both. I prefer the PPH walk, but you will sacrifice space and privacy for the privilidge. Obviously you have to decide what is the most important to you. I agree with the other posters that the room will be big enough with the fold down bed. Honestly the two 4 year olds would probabyly fit on that themselves.

For a first trip, I would be inclined to go with Paradise Pier. (I see that when you try to price a package that is the only one that comes up, but when I check the annual pass calendar, it shows Disneyland Hotel as available too and it is about $80 more for the 4 nights)

I would suggest that if you are going to book a package at a Disney Property and you are not going to go the annual pass route, then book at costco.com as they offer a free character breakfast and the price and the perks are the same.

Hope that makes sense. For a first trip, and the holiday season, you may want to consider a tour. I hear the holiday tour is fabulous and plan on doing that this season with my family.

Hope that you have a wonderful trip.

Tracey