Hotels near Disney - recommendations?!

[onecactus]

I'm looking at many different hotels within walking distance to Disneyland, and I can't decide which one to choose!!! And now I'm back with more questions!

1. I've looked at Howard Johnson, Fairfield Inn so far. Anyone has any recommendations on other hotels within walking distance to Disneyland?

2. Do most hotels near the area have complimentary shuttle to Disney, if they are not within walking distance?

3. We're planning on visiting Universal, and going to San Diego Sea World and Zoo. We're looking at the California City Pass (3 day Disney Hopper Pass, and 1 day tickets to all of the above). Do hotels have shuttle to San Diego's attractions or am I better with renting a car?

4. Does anyone know of any hotels around Disney that has decent complimentary breakfast? My friend (who went last year) was disappointed with her hotel because complimentary breakfast turned out to be cold coffee and stale donuts!

Thanks

 

[VWCat]

I've stayed at the howard johnson,it's close and clean and has a shuttle I believe,not sure about the continental breaky tho as I stayed there like 10 years ago.

 

[hlbtimes2]

I highly recomend the candy cane inn (www.candycaneinn.net). They are walking distance, have their own shuttle and free breakfast. Its not a huge grand hotel, but consistantly gets good reviews. Its clean, close and affordable. It is an older motel, like most in the area. The doors do open to outside, rather into a indoor hallway. The rooms are a bit small, but for our family of 4 they are fine.

Breakfast is :
apples, oranges, bananas
3 kinds of cold cereal
instant oatmeal
bagels, bread, english muffins (with commercial toaters)
3 kinds of cream cheese, peanut butter, butter and jelly
muffins/ pastries
juice,milk, coffee

Not a great hot meal, but its fresh and plenty to get your moving in the morning.

You might check with www.airportbus.com for transporation to the various locations for your city pass. We've rented a car the last few visits and find it easier and very affordable. If you are a costco member check their rates, they are pretty good.

 

[hlbtimes2]

Oh, and to answer the shuttle question- its hit and miss. Most are on the ART line (www.rideart.org). We always stay somewhere close enough to walk and not mess with the shuttle (other then the one at the candy cane inn)

 

[onecactus]

Thanks....I'll look into Candy Cane Inn!

Has anyone actually looked into the Southern California CityPass Transportation Pass from anaheimsightseeing.com/sightseeing.cfm/tour_id/1201/mode/tour_detail/location_id/1021 ?

We thought about car rental, but we don't know if highways are a mess between Disney + Universal, and between Disney + San Diego, not to mention about the parking at these locations....

p.s. I don't know why I can't post url links in my posts! Arg!

 

[hlbtimes2]

You have to have more then 10 posts before you can link. YOu are almost there!

 

[hlbtimes2]

We took the bus to Universal once, about 6 years ago. It was ok. It got us there and back! I didnt like that we had to travel on their schedule. We were stuck at US until it was time for them to bring us back. I also dont like wasting time driving from hotel to hotel picking people up. I like to vacation on my own time schedule.

 

[PeterPansPixie]

I would love to stay at Candy Cane but their rates are always too expensive when I check. Hojo's seems to have the better rates (if that is a concern).

Is there a way to get better rates at Candy Cane?

 

[hlbtimes2]

The offer a AAA discount. And, when you count in the free breakfast it brings the rate down a little bit. For us its worth not having to walk back and forth. We have caught the 12:45 am shuttle back to the hotel more times then I should admit. Wouldnt want to walk to all the way to hojo's at 1 am!

 

[PeterPansPixie]

The offer a AAA discount. And, when you count in the free breakfast it brings the rate down a little bit. For us its worth not having to walk back and forth. We have caught the 12:45 am shuttle back to the hotel more times then I should admit. Wouldnt want to walk to all the way to hojo's at 1 am!

We got Hojo's for $69/night in December and Candy Cane is $109/night. If it was a $10-$20 difference, we would probably choose CC. We decided to take ART on our next trip as my tootsies can't handle the walk back to the hotel. But we might try Candy Cane when it's just DH and me.

 

[onecactus]

Does anyone know off hand if parking at Disneyland, Universal Studio and San Diego attractions are in fact a nightmare?

How far is the commute between Disneyland and Universal Studio, and between Anaheim and San Diego?

Sorry for bombarding with questions - this is the first time I've ever planned a trip to LA!

 

[ScooterL]

Sea World and the San Diego Zoo have big parking lots, so no, parking isn't a hassle. (You have to pay to park at Sea World, the Zoo is free.) Disneyland has a huge parking structure, too, so it's also usually not a problem to park (it can fill up on *extremely* busy days, though), but then it takes some time to ride the tram to the park entrance.

The drive from Anaheim to San Diego should be less than two hours, even given a reasonable amount of traffic - I've done it in 70 minutes, but that's leaving San Diego early on a Saturday or Sunday morning. If you're traveling outside of the peak travel hours, then you can expect it to take about 90 minutes. It's pretty easy to avoid the worst of the traffic by leaving at the appropriate times. Basically if you leave either San Diego or Anaheim after 8:00 or 9:00 on a weekday you'll miss most of the commuter traffic, on Saturdays you want to leave Anaheim before 11:00 to go south, and on Sundays you want to leave San Diego before 1:00. On any day, if you leave after 7 p.m. you shouldn't have much in the way of traffic delays. San Diego->Anaheim is bad between 2:30 and 6:00 on weekdays, though Anaheim->San Diego isn't too bad at any time of day - southbound traffic on I5 isn't nearly as bad as northbound.

 

[hlbtimes2]

According to mapquest, its less then an hour to US (about 40-50 minutes). Its a couple hours to SanDeigo. I dont recall parking at US being a problem, but its been a few years since I've driven and parked. We'll be doing it at the end of April. We are going to LA to the science center for a Star Wars exhibit, then to US for the rest of the day. I have not been to SD. We talked about going this trip, but had to cut a day off our trip, so now we don't think we'll have time to go down there.

 

[casaazul]

We have stayed at Hojo's and Carousel Inn. Both were very nice. The rooms at Hojo were larger, but the walk was longer and there was no free breakfast. The Carousel Inn was directly across the street from DL and nice rooms, plus free breakfast!

As others have said, about 2 hours. Parking is easy at Sea World, costs some, but parking lot is huge. If you rent a car, make sure you either write down license number or leave something in window that id's your car. There were soooooooo many white Dodge rental cars in the parking lot, it took us 1/2 hour to find our exact one, LOL!

Universal Was about an hour from DL, and parking seemed to be quick and easy. My sister drove, and I think it was pay also, not sure.

Have fun planning.. Ask if you have more questions.

 

[onecactus]

Thanks everyone for the help. It's great to know that some of you have driven between Universal - Anaheim - San Diego, and parking isn't ridiculous as I think it'd be. I just don't want my husband to throw a tantrum if driving/parking is bad!

After reading some of your responses, I'm thinking maybe it's a good idea to choose a hotel with complimentary breakfast (saves $ on food too).

So, of all the following hotels that has complimentary breakfast (within walking distance to Disneyland), which of the hotel would you recommend, or have good experiences with?

• Candy Cane Inn
• Park Vue Inn
• Del Sol Anaheim Resort
• Tropicana Inn & Suites
• Ramada Inn Maingate Anaheim

Thanks again all!

 

[tracer]

This hasn't been mentioned and it's not on your list, but we like the Best Western Park Place Inn. It is directly across the street from DL at the stop light - I think it's the closest GN hotel. We just stayed there a few weeks ago and will return in Dec. The free b-fast consists of, 3 cold cereals, oatmeal, apples, oranges, toast, bagles, donuts, danish, hard boiled eggs, coffee, juices, milk and butter and cream cheese for the bagels and toast.

 

[DizLushLvr]

I have similar questions, I started my own thread if anybody can help.

 

[PrairyChikk]

Good tip about making sure you're able to ID your rental car. We're renting one when we're there next week. I never would have thought about it until it was too late.

 

[hidisney]

Hi, we just went last Sep.-Oct. using the city pass from Costco. I don't know about those hotels, we stayed at Castle Inn. That hotel is very cheap and reasonably close to DL (about 10 min. walk). Its not very nice, but we were just there to sleep. About driving to Universal and San Diego, I hope you're not thinking about getting there before they open because the traffic was horrible. We left our hotel at about 7am for Universal, and we arrived at about 8:45. As for San Diego, I think it took us 2 hours to get to the Zoo. Seaworld is about 5-10 min. away from the Zoo. All of those places have lots of parking, and you have to pay at SW and Universal. Hope I answered some of your questions. By the way, we also used the airportbus tour packages to go to Knotts, and several people were going to those places too. It may be better than driving, but I don't know.

 

[KimAshton]

Does the hotel have enough parking?? I know I stayed at one hotel in 2003 and there was barely any parking at the hotel Desert Palms I think