Happiest Blog On Earth...Ayres Hotel Anaheim

A GREAT Off-Property Alternative...     

By now, most of you know that Joyce and I love staying at the On-Property Hotels at the Disneyland Resort. Our favorite of course is the Grand Californian. I don't like using this word often, but I do use it to describe this hotel - elegant! How else would you describe this place? Don't get me wrong, the Disneyland Hotel and Paradise Pier are awesome as well, just in different ways. I could go on, but this isn't about the Resort Hotels...it's about the next best thing: Ayres Hotels of Southern California -   Anaheim. 

Ayres Hotel Anaheim

Ok, truthfully, it IS kind of spendy to stay at a Disneyland Resort Hotel. I won't lie. If you can afford to do it all the time, awesome! If not, then you're like most of us. So, on our most recent visit to the Disneyland Resort, Joyce and I had a serious talk about where to stay. We WANTED to stay at a Resort Hotel, but it just wasn't in the budget this trip. So, we began looking at the "Good Neighbor" hotels, and found a lot of nice places...but they still carried that spendy price tag. So, we decided to expand our search a little. Of course, the farther away from the Parks you go, the less expensive, that's pretty logical. But the farther you go, the less convenient it is. Again...pretty logical. We wanted to save some money, but at the same time wanted to be close to the Resort. So Joyce remembered this chain of hotels she came across when we were looking for a place to stay when we visited Coronado. The Ayres Hotels of Southern California. She found that there was one only two miles from Disneyland! And, right off the interstate! Two BIG pluses. She got on their website, showed me the photos - very nice - and of course, read the reviews. And let me tell you, we were hard pressed to find ANYTHING negative. Oh there were a few things: room was too loud (uh, right off the interstate dude), and the room was too hot (I'll reply to that comment in a moment). So we decided to book our room. 

The reservation process was super easy. We reserved a King Room, nothing special. About a week before our vacation, they sent us an email confirming everything. First, let me tell you, getting there was almost too easy! The hotel is located literally right off the interstate, across the street from the Honda Center on Katella Avenue in Anaheim. As we pulled into the drive-way, we were both blown away by how beautiful the place is. The exterior of the Hotel is truly beautiful, the grounds are well kept, clean. As we walked in to the lobby, once again, blown away! Beautifully ornate fireplace going; comfy regal looking chairs around it; inviting seating areas. The whole package. Check-in was one of the best experiences we've ever had. Second only to the Grand Californian. Seriously. The girl who processed our check-in was extremely friendly, welcomed us to the Hotel and to California, answered all questions we had, then gave us a detailed map of the grounds and where our room was located. Ok, on to the room.

King Bed Room - VERY comfortable bed

Or room was located on the third floor. And although we booked a standard king, the room we walked in to was far from that. Our king sized bed was THE most comfortable bed I've experienced (made it difficult to get up in the morning!), very comfy leather easy chair, awesome sofa, small table and chairs for dining, business desk and comfortable chair, 32" flat screen TV (yeah!) and honestly, the bath area was beautiful too. There was also a kind of wet-bar area, with a microwave, refrigerator, coffee maker and a small sink. Oh, and one of the coolest things: next to the bed, an iHome MP3 alarm clock/radio where you could plug your iPhone or iPod into! And of course, free Wi-Fi, which came in handy because our AT&T Mi-Fi's (personal wi-fi devices), couldn't find a signal! Our room had an awesome view as well. We faced the direction of Disneyland (and the interstate), and didn't really realize how wonderful this was until Monday night, when Disneyland launched the Halloween Fireworks Show. We could see it from our room! BONUS!!

Sitting/Dining/Wet Bar Area

The hotel offered free parking and a daily free buffet style breakfast. Now, the parking was great. Convenient and safe, well lit. The breakfast, well, although I'm sure it's very good, Joyce and I are a little picky about our dining experiences, I don't know, maybe we've watched too many of those Mystery Diner shows on the Food Network! So, since we weren't even aware of the free breakfast, we just skipped that perk and ate at the Park. So, on to the negative comments we've read about the Ayres. One of the comments was that the hotel was too loud, too much traffic noise. Uh...right off the interstate! Yes, we could hear some traffic noise, but honestly, it wasn't bad at all. On a scale of 1-5 for loudness, I'd say our room was about a 1.75. Believe me, because we record podcasts I'm VERY sensitive to external noise! The second complaint was that the room was too hot. Uh, nope! Now maybe something has changed since that reviewer stayed, but if anything, our A/C worked TOO WELL!! It was at times, COLD. We had to bundle up in bed...but that's not necessarily a bad thing!  Now, the rooms are eco-friendly, there's a device on the wall as you enter where you have to put one of your room key cards in, in order to have the power in the room active. This is so if you're gone for a long time, you're not wasting electricity. So, it's obvious that if you remove the card, the power goes out, as does the A/C. So maybe that contributed to the heat in the room? For our visit, neither of these negative comments were validated at all.  

Cozy Dining Area

The whole place, including the rooms, is decorated in a European inspired look, and it kind of gives you the feeling you're in a cross between a Disneyland Resort Hotel and the Bellagio in Las Vegas!  The entire place was very comfortable, very clean, very inviting, very convenient. One thing that did kind of strike me as odd: the Ayres Hotel IS a Disney Good Neighbor Hotel, however, it's not advertised in any Disney media as such. Why? In my opinion, Ayres is much nicer, cleaner and affordable than MANY of the Good Neighbor Hotels within walking distance to the Resort. This hotel certainly aligns with that wonderful Disney Customer Service Magic. 

Nice, Clean Bath Area

Joyce and I will certainly be returning to the Ayres Hotel Anaheim in the future. The price is perfect for anyone, especially those going to the Disneyland Resort on a budget. But the great thing is, IF you ARE on a budget, staying here you won't have to give up comfort, convenience and elegance (there's that word again!) in favor of money. You get the best of all worlds here. And they usually have awesome package deals, or discounts available. Joyce and I took advantage of their Autumn Special when we went, and currently they're running similar specials. Just check out their website for complete details (http://www.ayresanaheim.com). Since hotel reviews are new for me, I'm going to create a new rating scale: instead of 1-4 stars, I'm giving 1-4 E-Tickets (with one being STAY AWAY and four being STAY HERE!). So, Ayres Hotels of Southern California - Anaheim receives 4 E-Tickets from Tales From The Mouse House! ~~ Al