Disneyland's Grand Californian Hotel and Spa Review
Last weekend two of my best friends and I spent two magic filled days and one blissful
night at the Grand Californian Hotel located in Anaheim California. Yep, that
hotel. After many, many reviews from people online and people we know raving
about this place we all decided to stay the night.
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| Credit: https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/ |
Disneyland’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa is a flagship hotel
at the Disneyland Resort with a AAA four-diamond rating that is themed as a National-
Park Lodge. With styling from the 20-th century American Arts & Crafts
movement, this hotel thematically fits well with Disney California Adventure.
It even offers an entrance from the hotel directly to DCA. Being the Resorts
newest and luxurious hotel they welcome guest from all over including DVC (
Disney Vacation Club) members. It includes some the resorts best restaurants
such a Napa Rose, character-based table service restaurant Storyteller’s Café and
the underrated counter service restaurant Whitewater Snacks.
This review features room photos, reviews from two of the three
restaurants, the pros and cons of the theme and my overall thoughts on my stay.
That being said let's get started. For me, the most gorgeous feature of the hotel is the entrance. When you walk through
the magical sliding front doors, you enter into a whole new world. As a girl
who has lived in Southern California for a while now, anytime you can escape
the smog and traffic of SoCal without actually leaving the wonderful amenities
of living in SoCal, you take it!
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| Credit: https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/ |
*Storytellers review
If I were to make a list of my top character- based restaurants it
would go like this, (keep in mind this order is based on best food, ambiance,
time waiting to be seating, character time and overall magical experience…
1. Storytellers
(DGC)
2. Plaza Inn
(Located in Disneyland)
3. Goofy’s
Kitchen ( Located in The Disneyland Hotel)
In my opinion, Storytellers has the whole package, great ambiance
filled with many character photo opportunities, delicious food and a hard
working staff there to make sure you have everything you need. Rating 5/5
Finally, at 3 we checked in to our hotel. But as you can imagine
the 3 pm crowd is different than the “nobody’s up” 8 am crowd. In short, there were lines. Luckily there was staff
planted around the check-in lines to walk down the line with their I-pads
starting vacation goers check-in process. Basically, they were there to go
through all the formalities such as checking to make sure you actually booked a
room; so when you get to the front desk all you have to do is pay and get your
room keys. Seriously, I wish all hotels did this.
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| Credit: https://disneyparks.disney.go.com |
Walking into our room was like a breath of magical air. It was a gorgeous room overlooking the courtyard
with every 15-20 mins the monorail passing by. Now I know what you could be
possibly thinking-- that sound after a while must have been annoying. Honestly, after we closed our patio door we barely heard it. The room still kept the Park
theme with hidden traces of Disney characters, we had the underrated but
adorable Chip and Dale. The beds were incredibly comfortable with great bedding
and excellent pillows, the dual headed shower one being the standard removable
head and the other a waterfall. Many
other amenities of this room included the expensive samples of the Disneyland’s
body care line H20+ Beauty, robes for all guest and upon request slippers. There
was a large TV but we didn’t watch anything we just listened to the soundtracks
of their award-winning shows like Fantasmic, world of color and the songs that
are played throughout the park.
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| Credit: https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/ |
Did I mention this hotel had a pool? Well, they had three and of
course a spa. One is a children's pool, another having a huge water slide
and the other a regular standard but the rather large pool. Each one having food
service available as well as cabana rentals.
*Whitewater Snacks
I had visited this place prior but I will give a review of the
time during my stay. We went down to Whitewater snacks on our second day for
some good and quick breakfast and plain and simple that is what we got. A feature
about this place we didn’t know until it was too late is that they have mobile
ordering. I am a huge advocate of mobile ordering if they have it I’m doing it.
You have been waiting in lines all day at the park, why do it if you don’t have
to? It would have come in handy too because the lines here were particularly long.
Note they are not always long as previously stated, the other times I have been
here we were able to walk straight through the line, we must have just shown
up during their peak time. Either way, the wait was worth it because the food
was great. I ordered the breakfast burrito, one friend ordered the American breakfast
and the other ordered the avocado toast (Pictured above).
We came to this hotel during a great season, right before the peak
or I should say right before Star Wars land opened. So It wasn’t as busy as
other reviews have stated however the price did reflect a peak season. A two-bedroom overlooking the courtyard for four adults (one couldn’t make it) was a
little over $650 a night. This price also included our AP discount. We know
that this hotel was the most expensive out of the three in the resort and with
the many great things the other two hotels offer for a fraction of this cost it
can be a bit hard to justify unless you want to splurge. That’s what we wanted
to do, splurge and experience and we did.
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| Credit: disneyvacationclub.disney.go.com |
Would I ever come back? Of course but we all decided that if we were
to come back we are going to splurge even more for a better room with better
views. So here is my rating scale for the hotel as follows…
·
Food 4/5
·
Ambience 5/5
·
Service 4/5
·
Cleanliness 5/5
·
Price 3/5
·
Activities and Amenities 4/5
·
Pools 5/5
Overall
4.2 /5
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❤-Kyree... 💋
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