OrcaPotter
Lucky to be local to the Mouse
- Joined
- May 21, 2005
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- 1,185
In doing my research before my first trip last week, I scoured the DIS for everything I could on the hotels my group were considering. There is a lot on here, but the "less" popular the hotel, the fewer reviews you'll find. My group desperately wanted to stay on-site, but the prices kept them out of our reach. So! In the end, we ultimately went with the Fairfield Inn. Primarily, because my one friend gets Marriot points, so she got a boon when she made the reservation.
The reviews I found for the Fairfield were several months out of date, though subsequent posts confirmed that the hotel had undergone a refurbishment. I have therefore made it a goal to post an up-to-date review on this hotel based on our stay from July 5th-10th, 2011.
Note: The fixation on "motel" vs. "hotel" on the DIS has always amused me, because frankly, I give no distinction. To me, a "motel" is a sketchy, $29-a-night dive off of an old highway where you go to either escape the law, escape a spouse, or film a low-budget slasher movie. While the technicality behind the terms defines one or the other based on whether the doors open to the outside or to an inside hallway, I have stayed in upscale resorts where the doors open to the outside and therefore to me, a hotel is a hotel.
On that thought, the Fairfield's rooms do open to an outside hallway like 98% of the rest of the hotels on Harbor. I'm going to break down my review into categories:
Building & Grounds
The Fairfield is set further back from the road than the other hotels on Harbor; a McDonalds and Millie's restaurant are in front of the property. My group and I flew in, so parking was not an issue for us. However, it looked like the hotel was fairly full--and so was the parking lot. Parking appeared to be limited and it is my understanding that they do charge you to park. A parking attendant at a sort of impromptu station at the entrance to the property seemed to be present during the day and the evening. It was staffed by a very nice lady who would greet us and ask us about our day when we returned around 10:30 PM or so.
The grounds were clean, though being completely surrounded by other hotels and restaurants, there's nothing fancy going on. However, the hotel appears clean, updated, and adorned with beautiful fuchsia flowers on the lower level. Not a big deal for us that the grounds weren't otherwise remarkable; we were only at the hotel to sleep.
Please forgive the night shots; it was the only time I thought to get outside photos, LOL
Outside of the lobby
The pool is rather small and was packed most of the time. It's located at the front of the property, but it's my opinion that it doesn't appear it's just hanging out there for all the world to see since the property is much further back from the main road. I saw a small hot tub there as well. With a packed hotel, the appeal of squeezing in a swim during our vacation wasn't there. Coming from Florida, though, swimming was not a priority; had we stayed at an on-site resort, however, we would have made time to take advantage of their pools. Otherwise? The Fairfield's pool is only good for those kids that absolutely must come into contact with some sort of chlorinated body of water. The hotel is close enough to the parks that you can take over-stimulated and hot kids back for a rest and a cool-down in the pool.
The lobby isn't huge, but it is decently sized with a sitting area separated from a kids' sitting area that has a large TV playing the Disney Channel. The adult area has comfortable modern seating with photographs of Disneyland when it was being built. Complimentary lemon and lime water is provided by the doors. The check-in/out desk could be larger to accommodate the crowd: We arrived around 4 PM and there was a long line of other guests waiting to check in. It moved quickly; my friend was able to bypass the line since she is a Rewards member. Off from the lobby is a gift shop. I briefly peeked in there and noticed a decent-sized selection of essentials as well as California-Disney gifts.
There were 4 or 5 elevators. We never waited too long for one, though there was a day or two that we left our room at a time that everyone else was, so being on the lower floors meant you had to wait a while for one empty enough for you to squeeze in to. But otherwise, we never had a problem. The third floor has a Pizza Hut Express and a small market, along with some arcade games. We peeked in there but never utilized it.
Room
We had a standard 2 queen room facing Harbor and Disneyland on the third floor. It was also located nearly at the end of the hall, so we had very little noise from neighbors. The location was very quiet. We never heard traffic from the road and seldom heard our neighbor next door. I never even noticed noise from the floor above or below us. Granted, we left no later than 9 AM each morning and returned around 10:30 at the earliest, so it's possible we missed most of the crowds.
View from our door. You can see Space Mountain peeking from behind the trees, and the Matterhorn was visible too further to the right.
In fact, the most noise we heard was from the fireworks! We could see them a little bit from where we were, but I would imagine higher floors could see them better.
The room itself was decently sized and clearly had been recently refurbished. The linens were new, clean, and fresh. They were an interesting choice, too, as there was a sheet on top of a thin down spread, and no sheet under that. With the hot weather, this was perfect and still kept us warm with the A/C turned down cold. All the pillows were assorted in firmness, too, with alternative down. In other words, the beds were absolutely comfortable and I never moved an inch when I collapsed into mine at the end of a long day!
The TV was new and flat/widescreen--it had to be at least 26 inches, too. We only turned it on once for the weather, which was unusual for my group because we always have the TV on when we travel together. Goes to show how serious we were about our theme parking! There were six large dresser drawers that held all of our things easily. There was also a small writing desk and ergonomic task chair with electrical plugs and a light. Additionally, a love seat next to the beds folded out into a twin-sized bed; we never used it, but it was nice to know it was there.
The chair folded out to a bed.
Of note: Many hotel rooms seem to like to conserve energy by not providing a lot of good light. Please forgive the darkness of these photos ... even with the window's curtains wide open, it was hard to get decent shots.
The pictures in the room were all Disney themed. The particular one above was a curious one, however. As WDW residents, we immediately identified it as Cinderella Castle. A beautiful picture, as I'm sure the hotel agrees; it fits their "Disneyland under construction" theme, so perhaps there was no such image available of Sleeping Beauty Castle. I never took a photo of the bathroom, but there was a small picture on the wall in there as well featuring Disneyland's iconic front gate topiary.
I made dozens of custom magnets to decorate our room's door. It added an extra bit of pixie dust to our trip!
The sink was outside of the bathroom with an open closet to the side with hangers, a real quality hairdryer, as well as the ironing board and iron. There was plenty of counter space, and a small fridge is hidden behind cabinet doors underneath. This came in handy for keeping my medication cool and of course any drinks we wanted chilled for the next day. There is no safe, however; the hotel states that if you want to use a safe you can use the one at the front desk. The bathroom was small, but for the level of this type of hotel I was not surprised and it fit our needs without issue. The towels at hotels could always be bigger, however. I found the batch we were given to be scratchy, too, but again, quality towels wasn't something we were concerned with. Toiletries were you standard fare, only the shampoo and conditioner provided are Pantene Pro-V brand.
I'm sorry I don't have more photos -- I intended to take them, but the excitement of our vacation dominated our time and were only in the room to sleep, shower, and change.
Service
Service was fantastic for our entire stay. We left a tip for housekeeping each morning, so by the end of our stay we had a nice supply of towels for 4 adult women! Housekeeping staff was friendly, too; we exchanged pleasantries in passing each morning and the lovely ladies always kept their hair adorned with flowers
I had previously mentioned the parking attendant; she was lovely every time we passed her. While I personally did not deal with the front desk, they appeared attentive and pleasant; my friend never complained.
Concluding Notes
- I never saw the rest of the hotel until we were leaving at 4 AM on the day we left. The hotel is pretty large and I only knew of the one set of elevators. From where we were located, the travel to/from our room was pretty quick. If you can, request a room facing Harbor.
- We had a standard room, but I understand there are "themed" rooms and family suites. From what I can tell, a "themed" room is virtually the same as standard, only with certain characters featured in the pictures and on the bed's blanket. A family suite has a sitting area and a kids' "room" with bunkbeds and their own TV.
- It took us about 7-10 minutes to walk from the hotel to the plaza between the theme parks. It depended on how quickly we were able to cross Harbor. The folks who love the HoJo ... I didn't envy that walk back there at the end of the day. We estimated a total of 20 miles walked for the 4 full days we were in the parks; so any further than the Fairfield and we would've been crawling.
- The McDonald's was extremely convenient. Try to go during non-rush hours. The one day we went around 9 AM, it was mobbed. The next day around 7 AM, there was no one. We ate the rest of our meals in the parks.
- No doubt because of the close options and on-site food option on the third floor, there is no complimentary breakfast. This is a bummer. The Pizza Hut Express does serve breakfast, however. We preferred McDonald's. Our first morning we did Goofy's Kitchen: It took us about 15 minutes or so to walk there from the Fairfield at 6:30 AM. Our last morning we got beignets at the Jazz Kitchen. So you have a lot of options; still, my only fault with this Fairfield was the lack of free breakfast.
Overall, I was very happy at the Fairfield and would not hesitate to stay there again. If you want a comfortable, clean place to stay and don't care about a pool, this is the place for you.
You can read my trip report here.
The reviews I found for the Fairfield were several months out of date, though subsequent posts confirmed that the hotel had undergone a refurbishment. I have therefore made it a goal to post an up-to-date review on this hotel based on our stay from July 5th-10th, 2011.
Note: The fixation on "motel" vs. "hotel" on the DIS has always amused me, because frankly, I give no distinction. To me, a "motel" is a sketchy, $29-a-night dive off of an old highway where you go to either escape the law, escape a spouse, or film a low-budget slasher movie. While the technicality behind the terms defines one or the other based on whether the doors open to the outside or to an inside hallway, I have stayed in upscale resorts where the doors open to the outside and therefore to me, a hotel is a hotel.
On that thought, the Fairfield's rooms do open to an outside hallway like 98% of the rest of the hotels on Harbor. I'm going to break down my review into categories:
Building & Grounds
The Fairfield is set further back from the road than the other hotels on Harbor; a McDonalds and Millie's restaurant are in front of the property. My group and I flew in, so parking was not an issue for us. However, it looked like the hotel was fairly full--and so was the parking lot. Parking appeared to be limited and it is my understanding that they do charge you to park. A parking attendant at a sort of impromptu station at the entrance to the property seemed to be present during the day and the evening. It was staffed by a very nice lady who would greet us and ask us about our day when we returned around 10:30 PM or so.
The grounds were clean, though being completely surrounded by other hotels and restaurants, there's nothing fancy going on. However, the hotel appears clean, updated, and adorned with beautiful fuchsia flowers on the lower level. Not a big deal for us that the grounds weren't otherwise remarkable; we were only at the hotel to sleep.
Please forgive the night shots; it was the only time I thought to get outside photos, LOL
Outside of the lobby
The pool is rather small and was packed most of the time. It's located at the front of the property, but it's my opinion that it doesn't appear it's just hanging out there for all the world to see since the property is much further back from the main road. I saw a small hot tub there as well. With a packed hotel, the appeal of squeezing in a swim during our vacation wasn't there. Coming from Florida, though, swimming was not a priority; had we stayed at an on-site resort, however, we would have made time to take advantage of their pools. Otherwise? The Fairfield's pool is only good for those kids that absolutely must come into contact with some sort of chlorinated body of water. The hotel is close enough to the parks that you can take over-stimulated and hot kids back for a rest and a cool-down in the pool.
The lobby isn't huge, but it is decently sized with a sitting area separated from a kids' sitting area that has a large TV playing the Disney Channel. The adult area has comfortable modern seating with photographs of Disneyland when it was being built. Complimentary lemon and lime water is provided by the doors. The check-in/out desk could be larger to accommodate the crowd: We arrived around 4 PM and there was a long line of other guests waiting to check in. It moved quickly; my friend was able to bypass the line since she is a Rewards member. Off from the lobby is a gift shop. I briefly peeked in there and noticed a decent-sized selection of essentials as well as California-Disney gifts.
There were 4 or 5 elevators. We never waited too long for one, though there was a day or two that we left our room at a time that everyone else was, so being on the lower floors meant you had to wait a while for one empty enough for you to squeeze in to. But otherwise, we never had a problem. The third floor has a Pizza Hut Express and a small market, along with some arcade games. We peeked in there but never utilized it.
Room
We had a standard 2 queen room facing Harbor and Disneyland on the third floor. It was also located nearly at the end of the hall, so we had very little noise from neighbors. The location was very quiet. We never heard traffic from the road and seldom heard our neighbor next door. I never even noticed noise from the floor above or below us. Granted, we left no later than 9 AM each morning and returned around 10:30 at the earliest, so it's possible we missed most of the crowds.
View from our door. You can see Space Mountain peeking from behind the trees, and the Matterhorn was visible too further to the right.
In fact, the most noise we heard was from the fireworks! We could see them a little bit from where we were, but I would imagine higher floors could see them better.
The room itself was decently sized and clearly had been recently refurbished. The linens were new, clean, and fresh. They were an interesting choice, too, as there was a sheet on top of a thin down spread, and no sheet under that. With the hot weather, this was perfect and still kept us warm with the A/C turned down cold. All the pillows were assorted in firmness, too, with alternative down. In other words, the beds were absolutely comfortable and I never moved an inch when I collapsed into mine at the end of a long day!
The TV was new and flat/widescreen--it had to be at least 26 inches, too. We only turned it on once for the weather, which was unusual for my group because we always have the TV on when we travel together. Goes to show how serious we were about our theme parking! There were six large dresser drawers that held all of our things easily. There was also a small writing desk and ergonomic task chair with electrical plugs and a light. Additionally, a love seat next to the beds folded out into a twin-sized bed; we never used it, but it was nice to know it was there.
The chair folded out to a bed.
Of note: Many hotel rooms seem to like to conserve energy by not providing a lot of good light. Please forgive the darkness of these photos ... even with the window's curtains wide open, it was hard to get decent shots.
The pictures in the room were all Disney themed. The particular one above was a curious one, however. As WDW residents, we immediately identified it as Cinderella Castle. A beautiful picture, as I'm sure the hotel agrees; it fits their "Disneyland under construction" theme, so perhaps there was no such image available of Sleeping Beauty Castle. I never took a photo of the bathroom, but there was a small picture on the wall in there as well featuring Disneyland's iconic front gate topiary.
I made dozens of custom magnets to decorate our room's door. It added an extra bit of pixie dust to our trip!
The sink was outside of the bathroom with an open closet to the side with hangers, a real quality hairdryer, as well as the ironing board and iron. There was plenty of counter space, and a small fridge is hidden behind cabinet doors underneath. This came in handy for keeping my medication cool and of course any drinks we wanted chilled for the next day. There is no safe, however; the hotel states that if you want to use a safe you can use the one at the front desk. The bathroom was small, but for the level of this type of hotel I was not surprised and it fit our needs without issue. The towels at hotels could always be bigger, however. I found the batch we were given to be scratchy, too, but again, quality towels wasn't something we were concerned with. Toiletries were you standard fare, only the shampoo and conditioner provided are Pantene Pro-V brand.
I'm sorry I don't have more photos -- I intended to take them, but the excitement of our vacation dominated our time and were only in the room to sleep, shower, and change.
Service
Service was fantastic for our entire stay. We left a tip for housekeeping each morning, so by the end of our stay we had a nice supply of towels for 4 adult women! Housekeeping staff was friendly, too; we exchanged pleasantries in passing each morning and the lovely ladies always kept their hair adorned with flowers
I had previously mentioned the parking attendant; she was lovely every time we passed her. While I personally did not deal with the front desk, they appeared attentive and pleasant; my friend never complained.Concluding Notes
- I never saw the rest of the hotel until we were leaving at 4 AM on the day we left. The hotel is pretty large and I only knew of the one set of elevators. From where we were located, the travel to/from our room was pretty quick. If you can, request a room facing Harbor.
- We had a standard room, but I understand there are "themed" rooms and family suites. From what I can tell, a "themed" room is virtually the same as standard, only with certain characters featured in the pictures and on the bed's blanket. A family suite has a sitting area and a kids' "room" with bunkbeds and their own TV.
- It took us about 7-10 minutes to walk from the hotel to the plaza between the theme parks. It depended on how quickly we were able to cross Harbor. The folks who love the HoJo ... I didn't envy that walk back there at the end of the day. We estimated a total of 20 miles walked for the 4 full days we were in the parks; so any further than the Fairfield and we would've been crawling.
- The McDonald's was extremely convenient. Try to go during non-rush hours. The one day we went around 9 AM, it was mobbed. The next day around 7 AM, there was no one. We ate the rest of our meals in the parks.
- No doubt because of the close options and on-site food option on the third floor, there is no complimentary breakfast. This is a bummer. The Pizza Hut Express does serve breakfast, however. We preferred McDonald's. Our first morning we did Goofy's Kitchen: It took us about 15 minutes or so to walk there from the Fairfield at 6:30 AM. Our last morning we got beignets at the Jazz Kitchen. So you have a lot of options; still, my only fault with this Fairfield was the lack of free breakfast.
Overall, I was very happy at the Fairfield and would not hesitate to stay there again. If you want a comfortable, clean place to stay and don't care about a pool, this is the place for you.
You can read my trip report here.
)
