Motel 6 Questions - have you stayed there?

[bakers3]

Hi!

We are staying at the Motel 6 since we will be traveling with our dog (who will spend days at the DL kennel). I have a couple of random questions.

Their website says they have a shuttle. Does anyone know if they are referring to ART or some other shuttle service? I asked when I called and the clerk said it was the "Disneyland shuttle". We plan on walking for the most part (kids are 11-13 and dog will need the walk anyway) but I was thinking that on nights we are really tired, I could take the kids back on the shuttle while DH walks the dog back or vice versa. We'll have our car but it just doesn't seem worth it to drive. ($$, hassle, distance from lot to gate, etc.)

Also, are the rooms large enough that we could wedge a full size aero bed somewhere? We just added a kiddo to the mix (my 13 yo niece) and were thinking we might want to spread out a bit.


Thanks!

 

[disneychrista]

Where the motel 6? I stayed in one that was located in Stanton and you could deffiently NOT fit an extra full size mattress anywhere. I don't know of one that is close enough to walk.

 

[bakers3]

It is on Disney Way - supposedly .8 mile/20 minute brisk walk. However....after reading a few more threads, I just made an alternate rez at the Anaheim Plaza. Much closer and even with the higher price, dog fee and parking fee it will only add about 150 for our 5 nights.

I think it will be worth the extra cost. We want to take an afternoon break each day and that would be close to 4 miles a day JUST walking back and forth to the motel!

Biggest bummer about the AP is that they will only put pets in smoking rooms. Blech.

 

[oldenewguy]

I have stayed there many times. The shuttle they are talking about is ART. The walk to the park isn't that far but it isn't really close either, not something I would really want to make with kids especially if they are tired. The rooms are a good size and you may be able to sqeeze a bed in there near the door. It's a decent hotel for the price. Hope you have a good time.

 

[Leofoenget]

It is on Disney Way - supposedly .8 mile/20 minute brisk walk. However....after reading a few more threads, I just made an alternate rez at the Anaheim Plaza. Much closer and even with the higher price, dog fee and parking fee it will only add about 150 for our 5 nights.

I think it will be worth the extra cost. We want to take an afternoon break each day and that would be close to 4 miles a day JUST walking back and forth to the motel!

Biggest bummer about the AP is that they will only put pets in smoking rooms. Blech.

I'm staying at the Anaheim Plaza also. I'm not sure what the deal with it is, but it's always pretty cheap, and they always have rooms. They do charge for parking BUT they will let you stay parked there after check out for the day, whereas most on Harbor will not. On my last trip, I walked over there from my hotel (desert inn) to judge how close it is to the park and it's not bad at all. No breakfast but that's ok.

 

[JenDisneylandlver]

We stayed there when it was still the Red Roof Inn. It was okay. Our only complaint was when the alarm next door went off in the middle of the night (no one in there) it took 2 1/2 hours to get someone to go in and turn it off.

They don't have a private shuttle that I'm aware of. But otherwise besides that it was okay. We drove in to the park from there, I wouldn't want to walk it.

 

[prettyprincessbelle]

We stayed there when it was still the Red Roof Inn. It was okay. Our only complaint was when the alarm next door went off in the middle of the night (no one in there) it took 2 1/2 hours to get someone to go in and turn it off.

They don't have a private shuttle that I'm aware of. But otherwise besides that it was okay. We drove in to the park from there, I wouldn't want to walk it.

Ick gag gag gag. We stayed at the Red Roof Inn and had a horrible stay. Our dogs ended up getting fleas and someone tried to break into our room at 4 in the morning (while we were sleeping). It ended up being some drunk guy who had the wrong room number, but it scared my Dad, my Mom, myself and my dogs half to death. The room next to us had a cake thrown at their door, and house keeping didn't clean it up for the 2 days we were there.

Anyways, the drunk guy broke our door off the hinges, we called the girl at the front desk, who called the police, the police questioned the drunk guy, and then the drunk guy went down to the front desk girl and yelled at her. Omg, it was horrible.

Anyways, never again..

 

[davidsprincess]

Biggest bummer about the AP is that they will only put pets in smoking rooms. Blech.

Phone ahead and ask them to open the windows and air out the room. My sisters do that when they have to stay in a smoking room with their dogs. If they do it for you then there should be no "smoke" smell left in the room!

HTH!

 

[JenDisneylandlver]

Ick gag gag gag. We stayed at the Red Roof Inn and had a horrible stay. Our dogs ended up getting fleas and someone tried to break into our room at 4 in the morning (while we were sleeping). It ended up being some drunk guy who had the wrong room number, but it scared my Dad, my Mom, myself and my dogs half to death. The room next to us had a cake thrown at their door, and house keeping didn't clean it up for the 2 days we were there.

Anyways, the drunk guy broke our door off the hinges, we called the girl at the front desk, who called the police, the police questioned the drunk guy, and then the drunk guy went down to the front desk girl and yelled at her. Omg, it was horrible.

Anyways, never again..

OMGoodness! How awful, yeah I'd say never again after all that too!!

 

[bakers3]

Phone ahead and ask them to open the windows and air out the room. My sisters do that when they have to stay in a smoking room with their dogs. If they do it for you then there should be no "smoke" smell left in the room!

HTH!

What a GREAT idea!! Thanks!

 

[lilallybean]

We just got back from 9 nights at the Motel 6. We thought it was a good pick for us. It was close enough for us to walk to the park. A few times part of our group rode the ART and others would walk. We always got there in about the same amount of time. The rooms were good size, we actually had 2 kids (9 and 7) sleeping on the floor. We took the bedspreads and folded them up to make a soft spot, I sprayed the bedding down with a lysol type product and let it air out for a few hours while we were in the park, I took a platic table cloth with felt lining and placed it on top of those, we got an extra sheet and used the kids blankets we brought from home...worked out well. Our favorite part about the motel was that the floors were NOT carpet, they were the fake hardwood flooring. We had no trouble getting extra towels, we didn't use housekeeping. The evening shift worker 'Jeremy' helped us to add on 2 nights at a discount price! We just talked nice to him and we got the room extended the 2 nights, normal cost of about $80 per night and we got it for a total of $101 !!! It was noisy at times due to people being at the pool, but nothing that disturbed us too much. We were very pleased with our stay there and have no complaints at all.

 

[tlovesdis]

We stayed at the Motel 6 once and thought it was fine, nothing fancy. Our room was really large, so you could easily fit a blow up bed in there. The shuttle is the ART.

We have stayed at Anaheim Plaza 3 times and will be staying there again next month! We love it! It's nothing fancy at all, but it is clean, the pool is huge, the rooms are huge, and it's an easy walk to the park!

 

[prettyprincessbelle]

This is good to know guys, thank you. DBF and I are planning atleast one 2 day trip every month, and we don't want to go broke over the hotel. We just need a place to sleep and shower and as long as it's clean, I'm happy..

Thank you again!

 

[Spassvogel]

Well, I registered for this site just to find out about the Motel 6. Last October we stayed at the Disneyland Hotel for the kids' first visit. This time the wife wanted to save a little money so it was the Motel 6. They are very deceptive on the phone about distances and shuttles. Their website says "minutes from Disneyland's entrance" but that could mean a thousand minutes for all we know. On the phone they say it's within walking distance, and that there's a shuttle if we don't want to walk. Of course the "shuttle" is ART.

We had a much better offsite time staying at the Crowne Plaza a couple years ago. That was without the kids though. I can't imagine that 20 minute walk after a day of walking around with the kids.

It looks like they're remodeling, there is debris, gravel, and bits of wood strewn about. The room smells like wet paint. There is no clock (!) and no phone. (my guess is that they took them out to remodel and forgot to put this one back).

The once nice thing I noticed: They have a little set of inputs below the TV so you can hook up your own DVD player, computer, HDMI camera, or whatever. That's pretty cool.

Either way, if we're gonna bother coming, I'm definitely going to hold out for a better location next time.

EDIT TO ADD: Motel 6 also charges an additional fee for WiFi...which is one of my major pet peeves. (especially when it's really crummy).

 

[DizNee Luver]

We've stayed twice at the Motel 6 & yes they've been doing a major refurb there, but have not had any issues with this. The big thing we noticed with the refurb is they've removed the carpets. At first we were like....that's weird but after staying we realized how wonderful that was. No stained, dirty carpet that soaks up smells. The flooring was hardwood looking & kept clean. It gave the room a bigger feel. We had 3 adults & 2 kids in a 2 queen standard room. We brought an air mattress for the 2nd kid & found the room plenty big to put this up & leave it up the entire trip.

As for the distance from the motel.......we found it too far to walk, especially with kids. You do so much walking at the parks, that adding more walking to get from the motel to the park to be a bit much. The ART system is cheap but we did have some issues with it....hopefully they've worked out the kinks in this. (my older boys stayed there in March & said they didn't have any problems with the buses like we did the year before)

We recommend this motel for anyone looking for a cheap, decent stay while at Disneyland. We pretty much used it for sleeping & bathing. The boys did take advantage of the pool a couple times. The rooms were clean, the staff was pleasant & we never had any problems while there.

 

[pixiewings71]

Just a quick note, the Crowne Plaza has a FREE shuttle so you would not have to walk to the parks or back.

I've never stayed at the Motel 6, OP can you report back if you do stay there?

 

[Huff]

We've stayed at this Motel 6 many times over the years. It started out as Motel 6, then was redone as Red Roof (Same Owners own both chains) and more recently back to Motel 6. The rooms are much larger than most Motel 6's and has a nice inside lobby, registration desk and gift shop which are items not found at most Motel 6's. There are elevators to the upper floors.

Prices range from $49-$89 depending on season and days. Not a bad deal at all and much nicer than most Motel 6's.

When it was Red Roof they had their own Red Roof shuttle. They like most area hotels have done away with free shuttles and use ART instead.

 

[Spassvogel]

It looks like much of the refurbishing at the motel 6 is done. The noise, thankfully, didn't start until around 9am. The kids were up by then anyway.

The morning walk to the park wasn't bad, but the return trip seemed about five times as long. It didn't help that the family wanted to eat at Quiznos, which was down Harbor the opposite direction from the Harbor/Disney Way intersection. (note: the whole point was to eat off-site to save some money, but it ended up being about $30 for four of us, which was only about $3 cheaper than our lunch at Disneyland...In N Out burger is only $21 for the four of us, but we wanted something different this time, hehe).

Based on other Motel 6 reviews over on Motels.com it looks like they've done a lot to fix the stuff that really was bad (like the no-tub showers for example). Overall, other than the foot-blistering walk back, and the really crappy internet, I guess we're getting what we paid for, hehe.

Now if they can get Indiana Jones ride fixed, and Big Thunder fixed, we'll be stylin'