Make the Most of Your Disneyland Day: Stay Close and Nap! 10 Disneyland Tips for Mickey’s Halloween Party. I overexplain, I know. But here’s why you should stay at a hotel within walking distance to Disneyland. Especially if you’re attending Mickey’s Halloween Party. And honestly, this is the short version.
There are two choices can make or break your Disneyland day. These two choices make an even greater impact when you have the extra pressure to “do it all” in an 8-hour window—that’s how long Mickey’s Halloween Party lasts. You are paying dearly for that time (up to $15 per hour per person if you bought $120 tickets!) so of course you want to make the most of your Disneyland day!
10 Disneyland Tips for Mickey’s Halloween Party series (view all):
Go to Tip #1: Is Mickey’s Halloween Party Worth It?
Go to Tip #2: DIY Sally Costume Nightmare Before Christmas
Go to Tip #3 (You are here): Make the Most of Your Disneyland Day: Stay Close and Nap!
Go to Tip #4: Comfy Shoes for Disneyland!
Go to Tip #5: Things to Do Before Mickey’s Halloween Party Starts!
Tips #6–#10: Don’t Miss a Trick—or a Treat!—at Mickey’s Halloween Party!
Read my book Disneyland on a Budget: How Our Family Spends 30 Days a Year at Disneyland without Breaking the Bank! (affiliate link)
The two choices that will make or break your Disneyland day:
- Your hotel.
- Your kids’ exhaustion level.
How to make the right choices:
- Stay at a hotel within walking distance to Disneyland.
- Everybody naps.
If I had a dime for every time I told people to make sure to pick a hotel that is within walking distance to Disneyland, I could fully fund our Annual Passes and have enough left over for a few dozen churros.
It’s that important.
But only if you want to maximize the time you spend in the Parks. Believe it or not, there are some people who actually like to relax on vacation. They willingly accept longer lines and a shorter day in Disneyland in exchange for a few extra hours of shuteye, or a leisurely breakfast.
I don’t think most American families do Disney that way. We want to get the most bang for our buck, and we willingly accept radical swings in our kids’ sleep schedules and pushing the limits of how much sugar we can pump into our bodies in one day without getting sick and sore feet in exchange for maximum time spent in Disneyland, which obviously equates to maximum happiness.
We rest when we get back from vacation.
Affiliate links? Yep, we do that. Thanks for supporting this small business!
Hotels Within Walking Distance to Disneyland
Walking distance means just that. There are hundreds of hotels “close” to Disneyland. Most of the hotels are not within walking distance. Technically, yes, you could walk from anywhere in Anaheim and eventually reach Disneyland. Walking distance = 11 minutes or less from the hotel lobby to the security checkpoint. Remember, we’re American, not European. If we’re walking, there had better be a prize at the end. Like Space Mountain. 11 minutes is the walking distance threshold for families with kids because that is the maximum amount of time a mom can carry a sleeping 7-year-old or listen to exhausted, hysterical screaming before she has her own meltdown.
There are loads of hotels that are close to the Toy Story parking lot, or the Mickey and Friends parking structure, or have a dedicated shuttle to Disneyland, or are near an ART stop (Anaheim Resort Transit—a paid shuttle to Disneyland), or a quick drive away thanks to Uber/Lyft.
These are not ideal hotels, because you have to rely on other people to get you to Disneyland.
If you pick a hotel across the street from the Toy Story parking lot and the shuttles are full, or late, you just lost valuable time inside the Parks. You have to walk over to the Toy Story parking lot, which may be closer than the pedestrian entrance to Disneyland, but still takes a few minutes. You have to wait to board a shuttle, then ride to Disneyland, and wait as the shuttle unloads.
Then, to return to your hotel, you have to stand in line for the shuttle again, wait for a shuttle to arrive, ride back to the Toy Story lot, then walk over to your hotel.
Ditto for Mickey and Friends parking structure.
If you take a dedicated shuttle, it’s likely to leave your hotel every half hour in the morning. If you miss the pick up window, you have to wait another 30 minutes. Tick tock.
If you take the ART bus, you’ll stop along the way to Disneyland, and on the way back to your hotel at all of the other stops along the route.
Uber/Lyft may be your best bet if you do end up staying at a hotel that isn’t within walking distance to Disneyland. However, we noticed that the passenger pick up/drop off area is getting mighty crowded as of October, 2017. We heard one side of several upset phone calls between passengers and their Uber drivers this week as we walked past them on our way into Disneyland, both in the morning and at night. Evidently it takes another 15 minutes to circle the block if the Uber driver can’t fit into line at the passenger pick up/drop off area. We also noticed a sign at a hotel on Harbor Blvd. warning NO Uber pick up/drop off, so you’ll have to hunt for a pick up/drop off location that saves you from walking and is easily accessible for the driver.
The pick up and drop off should go off without a hitch, but cars still have that super long light at Harbor Blvd and East Shuttle Area to wait for (that’s where the pedestrian entrance and the shuttle and car drop off area is), plus you have to wait at least a few minutes for the Uber car to arrive, and pack your family inside. If your family needs a large vehicle, you’ll pay more.
Again, all of these ways to get to Disneyland rely on other people. I prefer to be in charge of my own schedule. We get a lot more Disneyland time when we simply walk directly from our hotel room to the Disneyland pedestrian entrance and back again, whenever we feel like it.
Which Hotels are Within Walking Distance to Disneyland?
There are dozens of hotels that are within walking distance to Disneyland. For a maximum 11-minute walk from your hotel to the security checkpoint past the Disneyland pedestrian entrance at Harbor Blvd. and East Shuttle Area:
Check hotels on Harbor Blvd. south of Ball Rd. and north of Katella Ave. (Google Map)
On that map, you can see that Best Western Park Place Inn & Suites is directly across Harbor Blvd. from the Disneyland pedestrian entrance. Howard Johnson (9 minute walk) is on the north boundary, and Castle Inn & Suites (11 minute walk) is on the south boundary.
My landmark boundary hotels are Howard Johnson Anaheim Hotel and Water Playground at the north end, and Castle Inn & Suites at the south end. Hotels between those two points will get you to the security checkpoint past the Disneyland pedestrian entrance in 11 minutes or less.
Note that Candy Cane Inn is just south of Castle Inn, but since it’s on the same side as Disneyland, that is one less light to cross at. It’s a 9 minute walk from Candy Cane Inn to Disneyland.
There are outliers that technically fit the 11 minute threshold too if you walk very fast, but crossing one more street at a light isn’t necessary when you have so many hotels to choose from between HoJo and the Castle Inn.
We’ve stayed at hotels across the street from Disneyland well over 200 nights over the last 11 years, and we frequent several. Some are nicer than others, but each one fits my three Disneyland hotel requirements:
Close
Clean
Cheap
In order from the closest hotel to Disneyland, these are our favorites:
- Best Western Park Place Inn & Suites ($10 parking)
- Best Western Anaheim Inn ($5 resort fee—haha on “resort”)
- Grand Legacy At The Park ($15 parking fee)
- Castle Inn & Suites (FREE parking!)
- Howard Johnson Anaheim Hotel and Water Playground (FREE parking!)
Another great hotel we’ve discovered this year is Best Western Stovall’s Inn on Katella. It takes 11 minutes to walk to the security checkpoint outside the Disneyland Hotel, but you’ll save a lot of time using this security checkpoint, and you can hop onto the Monorail! (At the Harbor Blvd. security checkpoint for the hotels listed above, you could wait as long as 30 minutes just to get past security!) Read our review of Best Western Stovall’s Inn here.
Read all of our Disneyland hotel reviews here!
The Disneyland Resort hotels are also close to the gates, and we love the Disneyland Hotel and the Grand Californian, but know that you’ll pay at least triple the rate of the Harbor Blvd. hotels, and the resort hotels are not any closer.
Our favorite offsite hotel within walking distance to Disneyland is Grand Legacy At The Park. It’s a little farther from the Disneyland pedestrian entrance compared to our old favorite (Best Western Park Place Inn & Suites), but the rooms are nicely remodeled, and we can always get the nicer Grand Legacy rooms cheaper than the Best Western Park Place rooms if I keep an eye on rates, which I always do! It only takes 6 minutes to walk to security from Grand Legacy.
Mickey’s Halloween Party Tip: Stay Close and Nap!
Just above is my short list for the best hotels within walking distance to Disneyland. If you’re attending Mickey’s Halloween Party, it is important that you stay close to Disneyland, either at one of the Disneyland Resort hotels (The Grand Californian, Paradise Pier Hotel, or Disneyland Hotel) or directly across from the Disneyland pedestrian entrance on Harbor Blvd.
Again, stay on Harbor Blvd. between Ball Rd. and Katella Ave. for the shortest walk.
Why does it matter if I stay at a hotel within walking distance to Disneyland?
1. You never, ever, ever want to use the Disneyland parking lots. While we have parked at Disneyland many, many times on daytrips, we never park at Disneyland when we stay overnight.
Why not? Because when Disneyland parking works, it is no big deal. You wait a couple minutes to drive up to the cashier, pay for your parking, get directed to a parking spot, go down the escalator, hit the restroom, hop on a tram, and you’re at the gates in no time. Actually, within about 20 minutes, but at least without any issues.
BUT. When parking does not go so well, like when Disneyland decides to route traffic to the Toy Story parking lot, even though the Mickey and Friends parking structure is not full, and thousands of people who aren’t familiar with the area have to drive around the block and figure out where the Toy Story parking lot is, parking is awful. Example: it once took us a full hour to park at the Toy Story parking lot when parking was diverted away from the Mickey and Friends parking structure at 8 a.m.
Disneyland parking is not included with Mickey’s Halloween Party tickets. Parking at Disneyland costs $20 (or $35 Preferred Parking, but that saves maximum of 3 minutes if you are parked farthest away from the escalator so don’t waste that fifteen bucks).
Remember to include parking charges and/or resort fees when you compare hotel rates.
For example, we’ve never stayed at one of the closest hotels to Disneyland (name withheld), because its cheap rates end up being expensive after it tacks on both a parking fee and a resort fee for a total of $18 per night!
At most of the hotels across the street from Disneyland, hotel parking is cheaper than the $20 parking fee at Disneyland—or even free!
2. As I detailed at the top of the article, you don’t want to rely on other people to get you into Disneyland. When you stay at a hotel within walking distance to Disneyland, you are in control of your schedule. For an event like Mickey’s Halloween Party, controlling your time is extra important, since you only have 8 hours to spend inside the Parks.
3. You need to be able to take your kiddos back to the hotel room quickly if they have a problem with their costume, have a blowout, or melt down. Nothing will go wrong—probably. But I like to be prepared. We have had to rush back to the hotel from Disneyland several times over the years, and if we had needed to wait for a shuttle or take the tram back to the Disneyland parking lot, the problems could easily have turned into emergencies.
Booking a “home base” hotel that’s just a few minutes’ walk from the Parks is vital when you take your kids to Disneyland!
Give Your Kids a Nap Before Mickey’s Halloween Party!
Mickey’s Halloween Party goes on until 11 p.m. or midnight. If you stay at a close hotel, you can put the kids to bed just few minutes after you leave the Party.
Most kids—even my big kids (11 and 13)—cannot make it through a Disneyland day from open to close.
You want to make the most of your time at Mickey’s Halloween Party, so you don’t want to leave early.
If your kids have a nap the day of Mickey’s Halloween Party, your chances for closing the Party are much better than if they melt down 90 minutes after their usual bedtime.
Our entire family takes a nap almost every day we’re at Disneyland. At home, the kids get 11 hours of sleep a night. At Disneyland, they only get 7 hours of sleep! A 1-hour nap plus another hour relaxing at the hotel snacking and watching Disney Channel keeps everybody happy. This is especially important on longer trips (4 days or more) because the sleep deprivation builds up in kids—and adults!
Whether you’re just driving in for Mickey’s Halloween Party, or the Party is part of your longer Disneyland vacation, do try to get everyone down for a nap in the afternoon so you can enjoy every minute of the Party!
More Disneyland Tips:
Disneyland on a Budget $5 Challenge: What Can You Get for $5 at Disneyland?
Disneyland Freebies! How To Unlock Free Disney PhotoPass Downloads!
Be Part of the Story at our Favorite Hotel Across the Street from Disneyland!
10 Disneyland Tips for Mickey’s Halloween Party series (view all):
Go to Tip #1: Is Mickey’s Halloween Party Worth It?
Go to Tip #2: DIY Sally Costume Nightmare Before Christmas
Go to Tip #3 (You are here): Make the Most of Your Disneyland Day: Stay Close and Nap!
Go to Tip #4: Comfy Shoes for Disneyland!
Go to Tip #5: Things to Do Before Mickey’s Halloween Party Starts!
Tips #6–#10: Don’t Miss a Trick—or a Treat!—at Mickey’s Halloween Party!
Read my book Disneyland on a Budget: How Our Family Spends 30 Days a Year at Disneyland without Breaking the Bank! (affiliate link)
What’s your favorite hotel across the street from Disneyland?
