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Looking over the pool towards the main tower. | Howard Johnson's Standard Room |
The Howard Johnson Hotel is located across from Disneyland on Harbor. This is the opposite side of Disneyland from Downtown Disney. The 317 rooms are in both a 7 story tower and low-rise Pavilion buildings. The grounds are on 7 acres and there were walkways, fountains and plenty of areas for Alex to run around.
The walk to Disneyland was almost 10 minutes. We timed it and the walk from the Disneyland Hotel to Disneyland and they were almost identical. So it was as convenient as all the Disneyland Resort Hotels except for the Grand Californian. This was important to us since we do not believe in spending 15 straight hours at Disneyland and it is easy to take breaks from the Park if the hotel is close.
The prices are outstanding. I've heard as low as $49 per night but typically it will run around $79-$149 depending on location and size. We paid $89 a night but we purchased it through a package.
Our room was outstanding. (Thank-you Willie) We ended up with a double queen in a large room on the top of the tower (7th floor) overlooking the Matterhorn. Cut down the large pine outside our balcony and we would have had a great view of the fireworks. It was still pretty good.
The room was long and had drawers/cabinet running down the length of it which was nice since we had a lot of clutter to get out of Alex's way. There were 2 comfy chairs in an area by the balcony with a table and plenty of room to add a crib or rollaway if needed.
The balcony was not large but had enough room enough for us to take the chairs outside. The door to the balcony has a pushbutton lock, which Alex could reach. He played with it a couple of times which made me be careful not to let him lock me out.
The rooms have all the standard amenities expected in a modern hotel including a refrigerator and coffee maker. The room was set up for internet access which I didn't try but their marketing claims free high-speed access.
The grounds were very nice. As mentioned above there is plenty of room for toddlers to roam about without worry. There are 2 outdoor pools and a kiddie wading pool which looked great but managed to elude us on this trip. There are no restaurants on the grounds but plenty in the area including Mimi's Café next door. Several of the area restaurants will deliver to the hotel.
The staff was fantastic. They were very helpful before our trip when we kept changing dates, packages and room types. They went out of their way to help us get items shipped back home and found us a real nice ride to the airport.
Our only issue with the hotel is not the hotels fault. We missed walking through Downtown Disney every time we walked to the park from the Disneyland Resort Hotels. (mmmmm… Wetzel's Pretzels) This is not enough of a problem to prevent us from returning.
We highly recommend this hotel if you are not staying at a Disneyland Resort Hotel.
Howard Johnson Website
(2005 Update) - We stayed here one night on our June 2005 trip. Once again it was wonderful. The Howard Johnson Hotel now has high-speed internet connections. I just plugged in the ethernet cable into my laptap and was connected with no problems.
The Howard Johnson will continue to be our hotel of choice when we do not stay at the Disney Resort Hotels.