Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel has been recently rethemed and officially made its retheming premiere in late January 2024. Rethemed as the Pixar Place Hotel, it is the only pixar themed hotel in the entire U.S. and is the only place where you can meet new characters like Bing Bong and Joe Gardner! To celebrate my 30th birthday, we traveled cross county to California to check out the hotel for ourselves!
As we walked through the doors, we were immediately thrown into a land of pixar animation, with the pixar lamp as the main event. The lobby is certainly stunning and offers whimsical yet modernized artwork.
The front desk is located to the left, where we were greeted by several guest service employees. Although advertised as being officially rethemed and open on January 30th, we were surprised to be warned upon check in that construction was still well underway and we could expect construction to be starting as early as 6am (no kidding).
The website did state they were continuing some work on the resort, but in the progress notes there was nothing stating how little of the resort was up and running. It does list all the portions of the hotel that were open, which gave the impression guests wouldnt be missing much.
They must have had several unhappy guests already as they added a pretty lengthy disclaimer before completing check in.
The first thing we noticed after checking in was the unique elevator setup. A touchpad computer system was implemented a few years back during refurbishment . To use the elevators you first select which floor you want to go to on the touchpad, then the screen will tell you which elevator to use to reach your floor. For those of you who have been following our disney vacations for awhile now, you know our history with touch screen elevators.
For those who are new to our journey, we first experienced touch screen elevator buttons on the wish during our disney wedding in 2022. Unfortunately, the day before our wedding, we got stuck in an elevator due to the buttons being unresponsive. We are all for new technology, but in some cases the old way is more reliable. Thankfully, no similar issues occured during our stay at pixar place, but the service was still slow and overcomplicated for what it was. Stairs were not an option at this time due to construction.
As we took the elevator to our room on the 7th floor, we were able to see that over half of the floors were still in the demolition process and not even close to being completed. It appears that the public areas within the resort had been the main priority during construction.
When we had booked our stay, there was no mention of continuing construction or how much still had to be done. For families who are traveling from far away, it can be a bit of a shock and disappointment to find out the hotel isnt close to completion. Being told at check in doesnt give families many options. We personally wouldve held off on our trip until the hotel was completed if we had known.
We stayed in room 715, which included one bed and a couch with a pull out bed. The room was decently sized and offered many fun nods towards pixar animation. The bed was comfortable enough, on the firm side, and we enjoyed the addition of our own personal pixar lamp.
As far as theming goes, Pixar Place did a great job of incorporating pixar touches into the room. It was one of the better themed rooms compared to the other disney resorts we have stayed at.
Amenities:
We had a pool view and decided to check that out next. The pool complex is located on the 3rd floor and consists of a medium sized swimming pool, a water pad, and a water slide.
Surrounding the pool area is plenty of outdoor seating, character fire pits, and an outdoor game area. Shuffleboard, bao toss, chess and several other games are available for guests.
While the outdoor areas were wonderfully themed, we were unable to use them during our stay due to the current hours. The pool and all outdoor areas, including the fire pits, close at 8pm. We wish the outdoor areas were open later so we could have enjoyed them after a day at the parks.
On fireworks nights, guests can watch and listen to the music live on the pool deck. Unfortunately, fireworks were not showing during our trip.
There is also a fitness center located at the hotel. We did not use it during our stay.
Early access to the parks is available for hotel guests with valid theme park admission. Early admission begins a half hour before park opening. Make sure you have a valid park reservation for the park with early access to make the most of this perk. During our stay, we had early access at 7:30am for Disneyland park on thursday and 7:30am for DCA on Friday. We ended up missing early entry and honestly didnt feel it was needed at either park.
One of the best perks of staying at Disney's pixar place hotel is that you get your own private entrance to DCA. This entrance can be found directly across from the hotel next to the grand californian. Guests gain access to the private entrance using their room key and its a short walk to security before entering the park next to corn dog castle.
Dining options:
Pixar place hotel offers several dining options. Sketch pad cafe is a small quick service cafe for coffee, tea, and pastries in the mornings.
Small Bytes will be opening later this year on the pool deck for drinks and snacks.
The great maple modern american eatery is a non-disney dining option located next to the lobby. It is open for brunch, lunch, and dinner. We had the chance to eat there for dinner one night during our stay. Our review will be coming at a later date.
Shopping:
Stor-E is the hotels only gift shop located next to the lobby. The gift shop has pixar themed merchandise as well as snacks and minimal disneyland souvenirs.
Downtown disney is about 10 minutes away by walking and has more stores and merch to choose from.
Issues during our stay:
There were a couple hiccups during our stay that are worth mentioning. The biggest issue for us was the paper-thin walls. On our first night, we discovered that we could hear everything from our neighbors rooms, and can assume they could hear everything from us. Im talking full on word for word conversations, snoring, and toilet flushing throughout the night. This was definitely the worst experience we have had with any hotel in terms of noise. Considering how much construction was going on, we certainly hope they decide to go back and fix this issue before they finish the rooms completely.
We also had some issues with our hvac system. The system was tempermental and extremely loud. We noticed that increasing the temperature by one degree would turn the heat on automatically and the room would become overbearingly hot for about 20 minutes before shutting off again.
On our first night, I attempted to get some ice for our room and walked to the vending machine area with our bucket. Our floors ice machine was out of order and i reluctantly tried to find a working machine on another floor using the stairs. The stairs were difficult to find and I am still unsure if they were meant for casual guest usage. I had to go out the main door to the outside and enter another door to the stairs. They had every floor, including our own, set to automatically lock once closed (and no signs alluding to this). I was unable to get out from the stairs until a construction employee crossed paths with me at 4am who had a special key.
I later learned that none of the vending machines worked for ice currently and you had to specifically call and ask for ice if you require it. We called for ice each night before bed and it took about 15-20 minutes for the ice to make it to our room. This was not discussed at check in and hopefully wont be a concern once they finish construction.
Our final thoughts:
If you want to stay at a Disneyland theme park hotel, the Pixar Place hotel is the most affordable of the 3. The location is close to DCA with its own private entrance, but has quite a walk to get to Disneyland park. The rooms are spacious, but offer no soundproofing.
Overall the upgrades from Paradise Pier Hotel to Pixar Place Hotel are substantial, but there is still plenty of work to be done. The concept of a pixar themed hotel has a lot of potential and we were hoping to be blown away! We had high hopes for this hotel experience, which ultimately fell short of expectations upon realization that the hotel was not completed at the time of its premiere.
We personally dont feel that the hotel is up to disney standards in its current condition and we were disappointed in how unfinished the resort was. Even though the hotel remains less than halfway completed, guests are paying full price. Construction began around 5:30am to 6am daily during our stay and it did keep us from being able to sleep in during our vacation. Hopefully, once construction has been completed and things settle down, the kinks will work itself out.
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