There can sure be a lot of anxiety around planning a Disney vacation. We do not want to add to your worry. We have all made travel mistakes. Instead, this post is meant to be an honest overview of common trip-ups when booking a hotel near Disneyland Resort. Let us help you leap over some common hurdles and make the best booking for your Disneyland vacation. Here are five mistakes to avoid when booking a hotel near Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California.
Mistake 1: Assuming Disney hotels are the only hotels
You are headed to Disneyland, so you should book the Disneyland Hotel… right? Well, maybe, but there might be better options for you.
Let’s do a quick overview. Disneyland Hotel is one of three Disney owned and operated hotels at Disneyland Resort. These three hotels are collectively called Disneyland Resort Hotels. They are individually named Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel and Spa, Disneyland Hotel and Pixar Place Hotel.
The Disneyland Resort Hotels are wonderful. We love the rooms, the pools and the outstanding cast members. Plus, these hotels usually come with extra perks. If we had Scrooge McDuck’s pool of money, we would stay in these hotels every time we visited Disneyland. But like most families, we do not have an unlimited vacation budget, so we often turn to off-property hotels.
A special update: If you are considering a Disneyland Resort Hotel because you think it will allow you extra time in the parks, you should be aware that the “Early Entry” perk is no longer being offered after January 4, 2026. At that time Disneyland Resort Hotels are switching to offering each guest one included Lightning Lane entry per stay.
Consider Off-Property Accommodations
Off-property or third-party hotels make up the vast majority of hotels near Disneyland Resort. These are the kinds of hotels and motels you can find all over the country. Many of them have names you might recognize (i.e. Marriott, Howard Johnson, Best Western, etc). Off-property hotels frequently offer cheaper rates than the Disney hotels. They might also be attractive to you if you are looking to book with hotels points or use a business center.
Many visitors who have made previous trips to Walt Disney World Resort assume that the hotel landscape near Disneyland Resort is similar. This is not the case. Walt Disney World has many more on-property hotels, and the off-property hotels are much further from the parks than their California counterparts.
A Disneyland Hotel booking might be the perfect choice for you. Or, it might result in you spending an unnecessarily high amount of money. (We have resources on this site that we hope will help you figure that you.) Ultimately, we want you to remember that you have options.
Mistake 2: Assuming Disneyland Hotel is the closest hotel
Okay, so you know that you have other options besides the Disney hotels. But, did you also know that the Disneyland Hotel is not even the closest hotel to the Disney parks? Many folks who have not been to the Disneyland Hotel assume—with a name like that—it must adjoin Disneyland Park. It does not.
To reach Disneyland Park from the Disneyland Hotel, you will need to cross through the Downtown Disney District. The same is true for Pixar Place Hotel. There is one Disneyland Resort Hotel that does neighbor a theme park: Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel and Spa.
Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel and Spa is the closest option for walking from your hotel to the Disneyland Resort parks, but the other two Disney hotels do not come in second and third. Rather, several of the the off-property hotels located on Harbor Boulevard offer shorter walks.
To understand why this would be the case, consider the screenshot from the Disneyland app below.
Disneyland Resort area, as seen on the Disneyland app:
You can see that Pixar Place Hotel and Disneyland Hotel sit on the western edge of the Disneyland Resort. While the western borders of the two parks come close to those hotels, the entrances for those parks do not. The main entrances to both parks are off the Esplanade. We have marked that main entrance area with a pink star.
Pedestrians can enter the Esplanade from Downtown Disney District to the west or the entrance on Harbor Boulevard to the east. We have marked that eastern pedestrian entrance with a blue star. The hotels closest to this Harbor Boulevard pedestrian entrance offer shorter walking times than either Pixar Place Hotel or Disneyland Hotel. Plus, they almost certainly offer cheaper nightly rates.
Before leaving this topic, we do want to call your attention to one thing. With the recent overhaul of Pixar Place Hotel, Disney hotel guests got a special entrance to Disney California Adventure Park. That outdoor gated walkway into the Paradise Gardens Park land is now slated to close in early 2026. Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel and Spa will still offer a guest-only entrance into the Grizzly Peak area of Disney California Adventure Park. There is no similar entrance into Disneyland Park. So, we would still argue that several hotels on Harbor Boulevard still offer better proximity to the parks overall.
Mistake 3: Booking a hotel “right next to Disneyland”
If you have started browsing hotels near Disneyland, you will see that many of them claim to be “just steps from Disneyland.” While this may technically be true, those steps will take you straight into a wall. Let us explain.
Hopefully the last section gave you a good idea of where the actual entrances to Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure Park are located. If you are staying at an off-property hotel, you will almost always be using the main entrances (pink star) to both parks. To access these main entrances, you will first need to go through security checkpoints. For pedestrians, those checkpoints are on the west side of Downtown Disney District or near the Harbor Boulevard entrance (blue star) on the east side of Disneyland Resort. If you are arriving on foot, you will need to go through these pinch points to reach the parks. (Those taking a tram or shuttle from parking areas may be screened there.)
Many hotels are, in fact, right next to the parks, some even offering nice views of fireworks. But, if you are staying north or south of Disneyland Resort, you will still need to walk all around the perimeter of the parks to actually access them. Other hotels claiming to be next to Disneyland are next to Disneyland parking areas.
Plan Your Route
Our point is not to take claims of being “right next to Disneyland” at face value. Look at a map to determine where the hotel you are considering is actually located. Then, try to trace the route you will take from your hotel to the parks’ entrances. (No scaling the walls around Disneyland.) Note how many streets you will need to cross. Also pay attention to whether you will be crossing regular city streets or the freeway. Google Maps is a helpful tool for this.
Ultimately, you may decide to book a hotel further from the parks and make use of ART, or a car. Or perhaps you will trade a further walk for cheaper accommodations. You know what will work best for you, but we want you to go in with your eyes open and feet ready.
Mistake 4: Ignoring fees (or paying for things you will not use)
As you are booking a hotel near Disneyland, pay attention to what is included with your reservation. If you have not visited Disneyland Resort for some time (pre-2020), you may be surprised to find that many hotels that used to offer free breakfast no longer do so. On that note, many hotels now charge an additional fee for parking. Be aware of what is included and what is not. Relatedly, be aware of what you need and what you do not.
Fortunately, recent changes in FTC regulations have targeted hidden fees at hotels and required them to be more transparent about the full cost of a nightly stay. This is great news, but you should still be aware of the costs of particular services at your hotel.
If you are bringing a pet with you, check to see if there is an extra fee for having a pet on your reservation. If you are bringing a car, check the parking fees at your hotel. At the time of writing, some hotels near Disneyland require cars to be parked by a valet and charge $41.00 for that service. Other hotels—closer to Disneyland and with lower nightly rates—charge half that for self-parking. Yet other hotels include free parking with reservations… but that perk is likely rolled-into higher nightly rates.
Find a hotel that matches your needs
As you are calculating the cost for different hotels, we recommend making an honest accounting of the total cost of your stay with the services you will actually use. If the hotel is offering free breakfast or happy hour, ask yourself if you will take advantage of those services. Avoid unnecessary pressure to wake early or eat something you do not enjoy because of those “free” services. Maybe you prefer to eat in the parks or at a character breakfast. If you do not need free breakfast, a luxurious pool or a room with a kitchen, consider whether those unused perks are increasing the price of your stay. There might be a better hotel for you.
To boil down our advice: you have many options for places to stay around Disneyland. Take advantage of this abundance and find a hotel that meets your needs. Make a list of the amenities and services you require for your stay. Price out hotels. If the items on this list come with an extra fee, add that to your total estimate for your stay. If you are calculating something like breakfast, estimate how much you would spend on an alternative breakfast in your room or in the parks. Put the numbers together, and find the hotel that gives you the best value for your money. Do not pay for things you do not need and remember to account for the things you do.
Mistake 5: Booking at the wrong time
Like hotels everywhere, the price you pay for your accommodations near Disneyland will depend on when you book and what discounts you use.
First of all, hotels usually charge different base rates for different nights. As you would expect, more popular nights will be priced higher than slow times. The prices can also be different depending on how far in advance you book. Typically, reserving far in advance of your stay will secure cheaper rates than a later booking, and you will have your pick of room types. However, if hotels are not filling their rooms as they expected, they may lower rates or offer promotions as those dates draw near.
Book Early and Modify
What we do is book a hotel room as soon as we know we will need one. However, we never choose a non-refundable option for that reservations. Rather, we make a reservation at the best nightly rate we can find, and then we watch prices as our trip approaches. If we see a more favorable rate, we will modify our existing reservation or make a new reservation with a better value. In this way, we are protected against rate increases on a hotel room, but we also preserve the option to lower our rate or apply new promotions.
Just today, I saved about $200 by modifying a reservation I had made three months earlier: same hotel, room type and dates. All I did was modify the reservation after a price drop. Another example comes from a refundable reservation I made last spring. As my stay approached, the hotel offered a new promotion that included free daily breakfast. I modified my reservation to include that promotion. So, while I was still paying the same price as my original booking, I now had breakfast included in that price.
The Disneyland Resort Hotels typically do not change their nightly rates once they have been set for particular dates. However, they are constantly introducing new promotions. If you keep your eye on these, you could save a lot of money or be able to move into a higher room type by applying a new discount. Other area hotels also offer promotions throughout the year or change their nightly rates according to bookings.
This may all seem like common sense, but, in our observation, most consumers do not take the time to do this. If you have the time and perseverance to monitor and modify hotel reservations, you could end up with some nice savings or extra perks. We suggest you also check for promotions on the Disneyland website and with organizations where you are a member.
Thank you for reading this post on common mistakes people make when booking a Disneyland hotel.
We hope you have found this post helpful and that we can help you avoid these mistakes when you choose your Disneyland area hotel. For even more advice on reserving accommodations near Disneyland, check-out our post Staying Near Disneyland: Book the Best Hotel for You. That page is part of our larger free planning guide: Step-by-Step Disneyland Prep. Finally, please consider subscribing to our newsletter below to get new posts in your inbox. Thanks again for reading!
