My Review of The Anabella Hotel
My family (myself, wife, son - 6 and daughter - 4) stayed here from May 11th to 18th, 2007 in a Concierge Room.
The Anabella is situated south of DCA, just across the street. If you walk out of the hotel, you would be looking right across at the corner where the Sun Wheel is. It is about a 15-20 minute walk to Disneyland Resort and Downtown Disney. There is also the Anaheim Resort Transit that picks people up about 100 feet from the front of the hotel.
Amenities (from their site, my comments in brackets)
- Parking (make sure you get a parking pass and display it on the dash of your car
- Situated on the AnaheimConvention Center Campus. Just on the south side of the street from DCA
- 2 pools (one for adults only, which we never did get to, since we have kids)
- Jacuzzi (can hold about 10 or so people, more if you don’t mind the crowding)
- State-of-the-art business center
- Fitness center -- offering a wide variety of equipment and free weights
- Tangerine Grill & Patio Restaurant and Bar
- Room Service
- Bellman Service/Concierge Service
- Guest Laundry & same day Dry Cleaning Service (wife used once during our trip. Said it was clean)
- Bella Nail/Hair Salon & Spa -- offering numerous services including European spa pedicures, manicures and facials (pricy)
- Gift Shop (bought some water here, pretty basic)
- Disneyland ® Resort Park Hopper ® tickets available at the front desk (bought from Alaska Air instead)
- Southern California CITYPASS tickets available at the front desk
When I was planning our vacation, I wanted to pick a place that was nice, but didn’t cost an arm and leg to stay at. Honestly, that left out all the official DL Resort hotels. From doing a ton of reading on websites, I finally picked the Anabella to stay at and I wasn’t disappointed.
Most of the hotels have the same basic features, but what intrigued me about this one was the upgrade to the Concierge Room (CR). Since we were going to be using the room for some mid-day nap times, we wanted to have something a bit more spacious so we wouldn’t be on top of each other.
The CR has quite a few added things that make it worthwhile. The best was the bottom floor rooms (the hotel is only 2 floors) have their own private patio. This was nice to sit at while people were still inside getting ready or for my wife and I to sit at while the kids fell asleep at nights. Due to all the hedges the Anabella has, we had a lot of privacy here.
The other main bonus for the upgrade to the CR was the free continental breakfast at their on-site restaurant, The Tangerine Grill. http://www.tangerinegrillandpatio.com/
The breakfast on our first day included pancakes. Not sure if that was an error or a first day bonus, since the rest of the days each person got 2 muffins/croissants/danish to go along with a nice plate of fresh fruit. This was more than enough to keep us going until lunch. We never did eat any other meals there, but the menu does look good (check the link above).
The room we had was very spacious. My wife and I had a king size bed and the kids shared a double. The CR comes with upgraded bedding and I always had a good sleep (of course that could be cause we were so tired from all the walking). That said, it was quiet and we never really noticed other people there. The maids did a very good job of cleaning and even made some nice decorations with towels and the toilet paper, lol. I left some money on the pillow as a tip, but it was never taken. Always did that in the Dominican, so not sure why they left it here.
The hotel does have two pools, although we never did make it to the adult only one. The family pool is okay. If your kids cannot swim, make sure you bring some sort of flotation device (life jacket, water wings) and the shallow end is 3 ft deep. We did see some younger kids just playing on the stairs, as the rest of the pool was too deep. The center only goes 5 ft deep, but that’s enough for the majority of people. The hotel supplies towels right at the pool area. Along with the rest of the hotel, this place was kept very clean. From time to time, someone from the restaurant came out too see if you wanted any food or drinks. We declined, but we saw quite a few others partake in having their lunch poolside.
The grounds are very lush with trees, hedges, plants and a fountain or two. They are constantly keeping it clean. Sweeping up leaves, garbage, etc. It was no problem walking barefoot from our room to the pool.
For people that want computer access, there is a business area that has computers. If you upgrade to CR, the access is free, so I’m not sure what it would cost if you were in a regular room. You get a credit card type key for the business room access.
The check in/out desk is in a nice open room. We had very good service from the staff there. When I took the wrong key to the pool (the business room one, rather than the actual room key), the concierge even remembered my name! He also called after we were there for a few hours to ensure that everything was to our liking. That was a nice touch. Check in and out was painless.
The room cost us $135 US a night.
Overall Ratings
Room – 5
Pool – 3
Service – 5
Restaurant – 4
Cost – 5
Final rating – 4.5