The new hotel tower at Grand Legacy At The Park is open! If you’re looking for a hotel near Disneyland, you’ve found it: Grand Legacy At The Park is our family’s favorite hotel across the street from Disneyland!
The 2-room and 3-room family suites are filling up fast with summer guests—everyone wants to visit the Disneyland Resort during the Diamond Celebration! Our family was delighted to be among the first families to stay in one of the new 2-room suites at Grand Legacy At The Park!
We have watched the multimillion dollar remodel and expansion of our favorite hotel across the street from Disneyland with interest during our many stays throughout the construction period, and even though we witnessed the new tower going up, we never dreamed that the final result would be this outstanding!
I’m taking you inside one of the new 2-room suites at Grand Legacy At The Park with a great view of Disney California Adventure Park, and delivering the latest Grand Legacy news, including the new retail spots on the ground floor of the tower (Creamistry is coming!), The Fifth rooftop lounge, and The Splash pool bar! Grand Legacy At The Park is officially a resort hotel! Plus, Grand Legacy boasts the perfect location: it’s right across the street from Disneyland!
[Tweet “First look at the new suites with a #Disneyland view! #familytravel #hotel @grandlegacyatp”]
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Affordably Priced Hotel Near Disneyland: Grand Legacy At The Park
It’s no secret that our family loves Disneyland! We’ve spent close to 200 days at The Happiest Place On Earth over the last ten years, and we’ve stayed with Grand Legacy so many times…I lost count at 60 nights! Since we spend more than 30 days at Disneyland each year, we have to stay at a hotel we can count on for friendly service and clean rooms at a great price. Grand Legacy delivers a great hotel experience to our family 100% of the time.
We live in Phoenix, so we make every trip to California count. Our latest Disneyland vacation plans included celebrating my mom’s birthday at Disneyland, visiting Disneyland for three more days, and taking the kids to Universal Studios and The Wizarding World of Harry Potter for the first time!
Our family has stayed with Grand Legacy At The Park almost exclusively during our Disneyland trips over the past year. We spent 34 days in Disneyland last year, so we’ve watched the final stages of Grand Legacy’s expansion step by step, and we were excited to stay in one of the new 2-bedroom suites with a great view of Disneyland!
We arrived at Grand Legacy At The Park and checked in inside the beautiful new hotel lobby. Watch my video of Grand Legacy At The Park Disneyland Resort New Lobby 2016! The fun Disney mural is nearly finished, and it’s a great spot for a family photo!
Mom and I took a second family photo at the uPost kiosk and shared it on Twitter @thealldaymom! The uPost kiosk will move up to The Fifth rooftop lounge soon so you can share your photos with an amazing backdrop: Disneyland!
We arrived at 9am—of course that’s a little too early to check in! We pre-checked at the front desk and walked across to Disneyland to start celebrating Mom’s birthday until our room was ready—you can see Moses leading “Happy Birthday” for Mom at the Plaza Inn here! When our room was ready, we took the elevator to the third floor and took a tour of our 2-room suite!
The view of California Adventure and Disneyland from the new suites is amazing! You’re gonna want to ask for room 383: you can see the Tower of Terror from anywhere in the bedroom! There’s also a great view of Cars Land from this room, and if you go to the window and look to the right, you’ll see Space Mountain and the Matterhorn—and Disneyland fireworks!
[Tweet “Room 383! See what’s new at Mission Breakout! #Disneyland #familytravel @grandlegacyatp”]
After we put our luggage away and filled the fridge, we went back to Disneyland until the Park closed! I love that the kids are big enough to close Disneyland now! We still take a big rest break every afternoon though—that’s why we love to stay at Grand Legacy: we can get back to the room in just a few minutes!
On our way back from Disneyland we noticed the new lights on the tower! They flash with different colors and together with the color-changing, twinkling star on the Grand Legacy At The Park sign, the new tower really shines at night!
We wanted to put the suite through its paces, so my mom and dad stayed with us on our first night. The 2-room suites at Grand Legacy At The Park sleep six people in three beds: there are two Queen beds in the bedroom and a Queen sofa sleeper in the parlor room. Here, Jefferson, Dad, Jameson, and Mom unwind in the parlor room after a long day in the Parks!
The next morning I woke up early to get ready for another day of fun in Disneyland! The hotel is so pretty at sunrise (and sunset)!
That morning all six of us got ready in the suite, then Mom and Dad headed to Malibu for the weekend while we spent another fantastic day in Disneyland! The bathroom in the suite is fresh and bright, with several modern textures of granite and tile.
The granite-topped vanity has loads of open storage to stash all your toiletries.
Take a look at this stunning bathroom in our new suite at Grand Legacy! I love the clean and current tile finishes; it’s hard to believe this is an affordably priced hotel!
Here’s a closer look at that shower tile detail:
When we got back to the room that night, we were greeted once again by the Tower of Terror view—in all its spooky nighttime glory!
We were up and at ’em early the next morning for the kids’ first visit to Universal Studios! KC and I hadn’t been to Universal Studios since we were kids and let me tell you, it’s a whole new world!
Hotel near Disneyland and Universal Studios?
Universal Studios is 35 miles from Grand Legacy At The Park—just a 40-minute drive on the weekend! When I researched hotels near Universal Studios, the hotels I liked were either in a safe area but too expensive, or in a sketchy Hollywood neighborhood (and therefore less expensive).
It made more sense to stay put at Grand Legacy and drive to Universal Studios; we spent less time driving back and forth than we would have spent repacking, reloading the car, checking into a new hotel room, re-unloading the car, unpacking in a new hotel room…only a mom can understand the drama of a split hotel stay.
[Tweet “Only a mom can understand the drama of a split hotel stay. #familytravel #universalstudios #hotel”]
We have annual passes for Universal Studios, which means many (many, many!) more trips to Harry Potter World—er, Universal Studios! We also have Disneyland Annual Passes and we’ll be visiting both theme parks on almost every trip to California, so I’m happy to know the drive between Anaheim and Hollywood is easy.
If you travel from Anaheim to Hollywood Monday through Friday, be prepared to hit work day traffic—it will take well over an hour to get to Universal Studios from the Disneyland Resort. On a weekday, plan to leave Anaheim two hours before Universal Studios opens so you don’t stress out about the traffic, and you’ll arrive in time to park and enter Universal Studios when it opens. Our Saturday drive from Grand Legacy to the Universal Studios parking lot took exactly 40 minutes!
Travel tip: I recommend using Google Maps before and on your route to Hollywood. In our experience, Siri does not keep up with current LA traffic closures and accidents nearly as well as Google.
In my book, it’s best to pick one “home base” hotel and radiate your travel plans from there.
[Tweet “Pick a “home base” hotel and radiate your travel plans from there. #familytravel #summervacation”]
We were welcomed back to Grand Legacy by this super view of California Adventure!
We woke up refreshed and ready to spend another wonderful day in Disneyland! Look at this knockout sunrise Disneyland view from our room!
That afternoon during our break from Disneyland, I went to the Grand Legacy pool to check out The Splash, the brand new pool bar! We don’t often take time to swim in hotel pools because, as we tell our poor kids who consider swimming on par with riding Hyperspace Mountain, “You can swim at home.” But now that we can get a drink and a snack while we lounge by the pool…Grand Legacy just reached resort status!
[Tweet “Grand Legacy just reached resort status! The Splash pool bar is open! #Disneyland #familytravel”]
The pool at Grand Legacy was bustling with friendly staff and guests, and I credit some of that happy energy to The Splash! Kids were splashing, parents were chatting…food and wine bring people together!
We spent one more night enjoying the new suite, and one more day in Disneyland! Here’s an inside look at the crisp design in the parlor room in the 2-room suite, and the Disneyland view from the parlor room window:
Grand Legacy At The Park: New Shops, New Breakfast, and The Fifth Opening Soon!
We can’t wait for our next visit to Grand Legacy At The Park! First, because it means we’re going to Disneyland! Second, because there are more new features coming soon to Grand Legacy!
- The gift shop and ticket sales office (for tickets to Disneyland and other So Cal theme parks and attractions) are open now! The rest of the new shops including Creamistry ice cream will be open soon!
- It’s almost time to go up to The Fifth! The Fifth is a family friendly rooftop lounge on the fifth floor [get it?] of the new Grand Legacy tower! The Fifth offers an amazing view of the Disneyland fireworks and a wraparound view of the Disneyland Resort that goes from Cars Land to the Matterhorn…they’ll serve tasty small plates and cocktails too! Keep an eye on their Instagram @thefifthoc for the latest news!
- Grand Legacy is crafting a tempting breakfast menu to replace the current continental breakfast! Breakfast will be served in the new tower breakfast room!
I can’t wait to get an updated family photo on The Fifth! This photo was taken last summer and Jefferson is already an inch taller than me!
Thanks to our friends at Grand Legacy At The Park for hosting our family in the dazzling new 2-room suite!
♫♫When can we do this again?!♫
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45 things Mom has to do before vacation: 2 week vacation packing checklist!
Be Part of the Story at our Favorite Hotel Across the Street from Disneyland!
