When choosing where to stay on your Disneyland vacation, the first big decision you need to make is whether to stay at an official Disneyland hotel or one of the several hotels in the surrounding area.
Related: Best hotels near Disneyland: Where to stay—and off the property
Disneyland has three hotels on site: the Disneyland Hotel, Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa, and the recently reimagined Pixar Place Hotel. When you choose one of these properties as your “home away from home” during your Disneyland vacation, you’ll get access to special benefits you won’t find anywhere else.
The basics of Disneyland Resort hotels
Before we get too far into the benefits, here’s a little information on each of the three Disneyland hotels to help you choose which one is best for your vacation.
Disneyland Hotel
The Disneyland Hotel dates back to 1955 – the same year Disneyland opened. Although the hotel feels sophisticated and modern, you’ll find design details in every room that echo Disneyland’s past.
The large lake’s waterslide is modeled after a Monorail car, and the giant chairs in the lobby resemble Mad Tea Party teacups. The murals in the guest room towers depict classic Disneyland attractions.
The Villas at Disneyland Hotel, the newest Disney Vacation Club tower, opened on September 28, 2023. The Villas at Disneyland Hotel come in a variety of sizes, from studio rooms for up to two guests to three-bedroom villas that sleep up to 12.
The average cost to stay at the Disneyland Hotel is $600/night.
Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel and Spa
Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa combines traditional California craftsman style with luxurious accommodations such as large stone fireplaces, rustic furnishings and an outdoor color scheme.
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This hotel is also very close to Disneyland. It offers a private entrance to Disney California Adventure Park and a separate entrance to Downtown Disney (which you can use to access the Monorail to Disneyland Park).
Rooms at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa cost around $700 per night.
Hotel Pixar Place
The Pixar Place Hotel, formerly the Paradise Pier Hotel, is the newest lodging option at Disneyland. And it’s very affordable. At this hotel, you’ll find nods to every Pixar movie, including a meet and greet with Bing Bong from “Inside Out” and a “Finding Nemo”-themed waterslide and splash pad.
Pixar Place Hotel also has a private walkway and entrance to the Paradise Gardens area of Disney California Adventure Park. The rooftop pool deck is a prime spot to watch the fireworks, too.
The average cost to stay at Pixar Place Hotel is $450/night.
Early theme park entry
Guests at any of the three Disneyland hotels can take advantage of 30-minute early entry to Disneyland Park or Disney California Adventure Park (valid park admission required). This allows visitors to get a head start on popular attractions before the park opens to the general public for the day.
Which park opens early varies by day, but the current schedule is as follows:
- Disneyland Park: Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays
- Disney California Adventure Park: Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays
Thirty minutes may not sound like much, but it can mean the difference between waiting only five minutes versus an hour to get to Space Mountain. At Disneyland, you can start your Lightning Lane Multi Pass “skip the line” earlier than other guests because Disneyland requires you to be inside the park before you can start selecting rides.
Easy access to parks
All three Disneyland hotels are within walking distance of the resort’s two theme parks. Thanks to its walkable feet, you can reach the parks quickly in the morning or take a short walk back to your hotel for a lunch break.
Disneyland Hotel guests can follow the path to the shops and restaurants of Downtown Disney. You can walk all the way through Downtown Disney to the esplanade between Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure Park or take a short walk to the Downtown Disney Monorail station to reach Disneyland Park.
When you stay at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa, you can enter directly into Disney California Adventure Park through the hotel’s private theme park entrance. You will also enjoy a much shorter wait at security against visitors using the main entrance. If you would like to visit Downtown Disney or Disneyland, there is a different way to travel and enter.
Finally, Pixar Place hotel guests can use a dedicated walkway across the street from the hotel to access Disney California Adventure Park or exit through the back door of the hotel towards Downtown Disney.
Fireworks, actors and fun activities
When you stay at a Disneyland hotel, the fun doesn’t stop when you leave the parks each day.
You can happen to your favorite character without stepping foot in the park. You can often find Bing Bong from “Inside Out” greeting guests outside the Pixar Place Hotel, and you can listen to the musical stylings of Joe Gardner from “Soul” playing the piano inside the lobby.
Disneyland hotels offer character meals at Goofy’s Kitchen at the Disneyland Hotel, as well as at Storytellers Cafe and Napa Rose at the Grand Californian. You might be lucky enough to meet the characters in the lobby of the Disneyland Hotel, too.
There are no scheduled times for this amazing meet and greet, but your best bet is between meal times at Goofy’s Kitchen when the characters are going to and from the restaurant.
If you love fireworks but your kids are tired before nightfall, there are several options for viewing fireworks from Disneyland hotels. If you stay on the concierge level at the Disneyland Hotel, you can watch the Disneyland fireworks from the E-Ticket Club lounge. The lounge also serves delicious food and drinks throughout the day.
Guests at the Grand Californian can access the sixth floor observation deck with spectacular views of the World of Color at Disney California Adventure Park. Those staying in a group level room can get a glimpse of the Disneyland fireworks from the balcony of the concierge lounge.
As mentioned above, the Pixar Place Hotel pool is a great place to watch the Disneyland fireworks. The building even plays music from the show so you can get a better idea of what you can find inside the park.
Each hotel also offers a calendar of weekly activities, from fitness classes to arts and crafts. A few of our favorites include the Disneyland Hotel reading tour, free painting classes at Pixar Place Hotel and morning yoga overlooking Disney California Adventure Park at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa.
You can view the hotel’s full schedule of operations here.
It’s not as expensive as you might think
There are helpful ways to add credit cards or rewards points to your Disneyland program to pay less out of pocket for your Disneyland hotel stay. TPG has a full guide to the best Disney credit cards, but below are a few of our top tips.
If you have a card that comes with access to the Citi travel portal – like Citi Strata Premier℠ Card (see prices and fees) or a non-annual fee option such as Citi Double Cash® Card (see rates and fees) or Citi Rewards+® Card (see rates and fees) — you can book Disneyland hotels that way. Your Citi ThankYou Rewards points are worth 1 cent each when you redeem them for hotel stays through the portal.
Similarly, if you have a card like the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card, Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card, or Capital One VentureOne Rewards Credit Card, you can redeem Capital One miles for one cent each with Capital. One stop travel site for Disneyland hotel stays.
If you have a card that comes with an annual travel credit, you can use it on purchases with a code like “travel.” For example, you can use the annual Chase Sapphire Reserve® $300 travel credit at a Disneyland hotel if the charge is as expensive as the trip. To make sure it does, book your room or hotel package and tickets directly through Disney or through a travel agent, like TPG partner Mouse Advice.
The Capital One Venture X credit card has the same $300 annual travel credit, but you can only use it for bookings made through the Capital One Travel portal.
With the Disney® Premier Visa® Card and the Disney® Visa® Card, you can earn rewards dollars that you can spend on Disney hotel stays. One dollar of rewards is worth $1 of your payment.
In addition to the various ways you can save using points, miles, and travel credits, Disneyland often offers discounts of 25% to 30% on hotel stays. You can view the latest offers here.
Bottom line
There’s no denying that Disneyland’s on-site hotel options are more expensive than most off-property hotels, but nothing can match the feeling of being in the middle of the magic. The benefits of staying local are clear, and with fewer points and pixie dust miles, you can reduce the out-of-pocket costs of your Disneyland vacation.
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