From what I have heard, sometimes they run early entry specials, but I can't confirm that. The official hotels like the Hilton and Sheraton sometimes run these early entry specials as well...it will be advertised on their web sites. However, I have never seen them advertised during peak season.
One benefit that you will get at either the Disney hotels, or the ones on the monorail line like the Hilton, is that during periods of restricted admission or peak days, as long as you're holding a valid park ticket (passport), you are guaranteed admission since you're a hotel guest.
You can walk from the Hilton to Bayside Station on the monorail line, but they also run a shuttle bus from the hotel to the station and back all day and evening. We stayed at the Sheraton, which is even closer to the monorail station and even they had a shuttle bus to the monorail station, which we took because the hotel was up on a bit of a hill...nice to have a ride especially at the end of a long day in the parks! And the shuttle bus is so cute and Disney-fied!
As far as I know, the monorail is the only way to get to the parks from the cluster of hotels where the Hilton and Sheraton are...there's no bus service to the parks and it would be a very loooong walk. The monorail is super clean, comfortable, is never crowded, and has frequent service...to me, it's totally worth paying for a pass.
