Desert Inn and Suite is a motel very close to the Disneyland Resort. In fact, it is on Harbor Blvd., directly across the street from the entrance into Disneyland. A short walk, with a crosswalk and light will put you at the security table to enter the Disneyland Resort. Reservations can be made on their website http://www.anaheimdesertinn.com or by calling 800-433-5270.
Desert Inn and Suites Review, written by disneydreamer of the DisneyMouseLinks forums.
Desert Inn & Suites, located on Harbor Blvd, directly across from the entrance to the Disneyland Resort, where the shuttles & buses go in.
We were pleased with the room we had in the beginning. We stayed in a C-1 Suite, that had 4 queen beds, 1 1/2 bathrooms, a small microwave, a small fridge (larger than dorm size, but not by much), a small couch & a table with 2 chairs. These rooms are nothing fancy & are broken into 2 rooms with a door between (that we usually left open). This is advertised as a non-smoking motel, BUT, guests may stand on the walkways & smoke. So towards the end of our trip we had smokers in the room next to ours & their constant smoking filtered thru our air conditioner or door when it was open.
We also had a catastrophe happen the afternoon before we left......as our 18 yr old son was napping, water started pouring in thru the fire alarm sprinkler (not the sprinkler going off, just water pouring in around it). My 20 yr old son, grabbed a garbage can & set underneath it as my mother-in-law called the office. They came up about 30 minutes later to see what the problem was (30 minutes, can you image the mess, if they had not been in the room, or we had left bags of souvenirs on the bed??). They ended up running to the room one floor up above ours, to find out the kids were playing in the tub & had over run the water & had made quite the flood in their room. So the staff came back down & asked us to keep the can on the bed until the "dripping" stopped, & then they would come & change the bed. My mother-in-law said, I don't think changing the bed is gonna fix the problem of the mattress being soaked. They said, I'm not sure we have any spare ones, she suggested in a very firm voice they had better find one!! I wasn't very happy to hear about this when we came back to find the mess. We were on our way to dinner & it had been well over 2 hours since anyone checked in with our room, so we stopped by the office & demanded the mess be cleaned up by the time we came back from dinner. Well, a little aggressiveness seemed to take care of the problem & we had a new mattress & dry bedding when we got back. My problem with the whole matter was, they acted like we were putting them out & it was our fault...... I hope they charge the room above us for all the mess they caused, believe me, if they had ruined any of our stuff, they would have been paying for it !
Now, lets discuss parking.....if you've read any reviews on this motel, you would already know they do not have enough spaces for rooms. It is one car per room, so even with our room accommodating 8 people, we could only occupy one parking space. If you own a vehicle larger than a mini van (with out a rack on top), you will not be able to park in the underground parking area & finding a spot up top is not an easy task. We took a 12 passenger van & it was a very tight squeeze to put it in a parking space. A few times, the office let us park in their "registration" area, because there were no spaces left. (this was a bonus, since we had heard, if they were out of spaces you would need to park at other lots & pay $10 per night, so we were happy they had changed that policy).
The pool is not a huge one, but it is inside which I found a nice break after being outside at the parks in the heat. They also had a hot tub which was nice & hot, very relaxing. When we used the pool the most we saw were around 12 people, so it being a smaller pool really wasn't an issue.
This motel has a viewing deck on the 5th floor that is opened at night for viewing the fireworks at Disneyland. We took advantage of this many times during our stay. If you get up there about 10 minutes early, you can secure a good view without someone stepping in front of you.
This motel has a great location for walking to and from the park, and the value is good for family on budgets. Keep in mind, it is nothing fancy, & they aren't always quick to fix problems....so be persistent.
Will we use it again? Probably not, just due to the water incident & their attitude about it. They also put a hold on your credit card you reserve & pay with, so make sure it is the same card, you will find $200-300 un-available for up to 3-5 days prior to you checking out. (and if you use different cards, they will put holds on both of them)