Question for you Trey. I am in total agreement with your off site hotel advice for DL, as long as you stay in walking distance. Now at WDW we prefer to stay onsite because of the transportation factor. How would you rate staying onsite at DLP? I know you said you prefer the HI over NBC. I'm interested in hearing your impression of SF. That's where I was considering purely because of the cost factor.
By staying at the HI, I would lose out on the GMF breakfast. Is the quality of the HI so much better that I could afford to lose the GMF. Of course we'd still be at the parks right at opening. We tour much like you do, with getting there early, maxmizing fastpass, etc.
Well, with only one trip to DLP (two days down with one to go tomorrow) I need to be careful about giving advice about anything. I am a neophyte here. With that said, here is some feedback:
1. DLP started doing EMH I believe in April. It is only for DLP and not WDS, and is either two hours in the morning or two in the evening. I had only one EMH and it was in the evening. It was not very crowded this week and I was ready to leave at 7PM (when regualr hours ended) but felt compelled to stay and use the one EMH I had on Monday night. But this week it was not necessary. So the value of EMH was low for me in retrospect.
2. The GMFL is only for certain DLP hotels - can't remember which - and that is valuable because you need to eat anyways and might as well do it in the park. Got to ride PP as many times as I wanted (three in all) and the only other option was Dumbo which I passed on
. So GMFL had value but I am not sure it was enough to justify the expense of a DLP hotel. Plus they only had PP and Dumbo open for rides, which are good ones to ride during GMFL (as they get so long later in the day) but are nevertheless a very limited selection.
3. The NBC was about a 5 minute walk to Disney Village, and then from there a 5 minute walk to DLP or WDS. The
Disneyland Hotel is right there with zero walk, and the New York and Sequoia are right around the lake and 5 minutes max walk. That has some value.
4. As I understand it the Santa Fe (where I will be tomorrow night for one night) and Cheyenne have no air conditioning, and are designed more for families. The family part would be good for me if I had my kids with me, but since I was solo SF and Cheyenne were not top choices, especially without the A/C and it being June here.
I did not want to do NBC again on the final day (good choice in retrospect) and the choice was between SF and Cheyenne. So I chose SF.
One thing I wish I knew then is that the NBC gave me three day tix good for a whole week. I only used two days. So I could have used the tix from NBC tomorrow and stayed at the HI and not been forced to buy any more tix. But I did not know this and thought the three day tix were for consecutive days. So I got a night at the SF which included a two day ticket. So I paid for five park days but can only use three.
In hindsight I would just have gone to the HI as I like it here.
5. The HI is a quick bus trip to the train station right next to the DLP entrance. I took the "pink bus" from the HI to the train station yesterday morning to catch the RER into Paris. The bus was timely and fast. Then when I returned from Paris this evening by train I took the pink bus back to the HI and that was fast.
6. The only remaining difference is the immersion factor and at the NBC I felt zero immersion. Have no idea what the other Disney hotels are like here. Will know abut the Santa Fe tomorrow night.
On the map it looked like the HI might be walking distance but it really isn't. My guess is that it is a good 20-25 minute walk from DLP to the HI.
One thing about HI to warn anyone about is luggage holding. At NBC they held my luggage by me checking it and giving it to the luggage porters and giving me a receipt. I have many gifts I have bought and was slightly concerned about that but it worked fine.
At the HI I left my luggage behind when I went into Paris and just took an overnight bag. Here they gave me a key and told me to leave my luggage in the luggage room. So I did that but there is no security on that as it is DIY and anyone walking in there could easily grab your luggage and walk away with it. When I returned from Paris this evening to the HI I retrieved my luggage intact (whew!) but noticed as I left the luggage room that the door lock was not even working properly and anyone could easily walk in there tonight with no key at all. Further, the luggage room is right next to the hotel exit door so it would be easy for someone to take all of the luggage out of there into a waiting car and drive off (I hope no thieves read the DIS and get any ideas!). So in conclusion I felt much more secure with my possesions left at the NBC than the HI.
7. This week maximizing FP would have limited value. There are no FP rides at WDS and even if there were there was no need for FP this week at that park. At DLP the only ride that I needed FP for was BTM. So I got four FPs in all on day 1 - one for Space and three for BTM. With the 30 minute windows and reputation for strict window enforcement that made FP collection very difficult. For example, I got a ticket for the Lion King show at 11AM for the 12:30 show and then made my way to BTM. The FP window was something like 12:25-12:55 and would conflict with my Lion King show. So I rode POTC and Indiana Jones to let some time go by and them picked up the FPs for a window of something like 12:55-1:25 which worked with my Lion King show. When it is busier here I am sure FP is a godsend but nevertheless it is hard to maximize FP with the current FP policies.
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Seriously I cannot imagine a 3 or 5 year old not loving the Tarzan show.
