We stayed here 6 nights for Spring Break last month to go to Disneyland. We stayed in an executive suite with two adults, two teens and two preschoolers. Check in was smooth. The desk people were always polite and helpful. Our room was 115. It was enormous and actually reasonably quiet without the fan running even though the single window looked out on the street. However, it was very dark in the room even with all the lights on. The room had two queen beds and a couch that folded out to a bed. There was a medium sized TV. We think it was regular broadcast TV rather than cable, but we weren't sure. The fan/air conditioner made an enormous amount of noise. My poor wife needed ear plugs to sleep on the couple of warm nights when we needed the air conditioner. The carpets were brown and old, and there was a suspicious sticky spot about 6 in x 9 in in the middle of the floor that was there undisturbed during the whole week. Housekeeping cleaned but left things like the spot on the carpet and a smashed bug on the bathroom mirror. Beds were old and bouncy. Linens were old and threadbare. The towels were small sized. There were insufficient pillows in the room, and because the hotel was sold out, there weren't many extras to be had. One of the two sinks was very slow to drain, and the toilet clogged up the first night. However, the maintenance people were there within 10 minutes to fix it. There was a small refrigerator in the room that worked well. Internet access is free, but there were dead spots all over the hotel (including 115) judging from the people all gathered in the lobby with their laptops each evening. Speaking of laptops, there were no safes in the rooms, and there is no safe at the front desk either. In the lobby, the wireless connection was fast. There is no breakfast, although there are the packets of coffee in the rooms.
The grounds are primarily the parking lot and a tiny pool in the center that we did not feel tempted to use. There is a small patch of grass next to the pool. It was not particularly inviting because of the surrounding parking lot.
The hotel is a long block away from the main gate of Disneyland. It is a reasonable walk for a healthy family with two kids in a double stroller. It feels safe at just about any hour: I escorted our teenagers to and back from Disney around 10 PM and midnight, and there were always crowds of tourists on the sidewalks. There is a little strip mall next door with inexpensive Chinese (good) and Mexican (outstanding) along with a donut/ice cream shop (good) and pizza shop (untried). Across the street is a 7-11 that is always busy but the counter people are fast, accurate and polite. It was a good place for a credit union member to get money without ATM charges. Parking at the hotel is free, but they ran out of marked spaces later in the week and were having people park in the entry driveway and anywhere else there was unobstructed space.
The price was reasonable although not great given the condition of the hotel and room. It appears that they are doing room by room renovations and have a small army of people maintaining the place. It needs them! The main attractions for us were the ability to walk to Disneyland and the option to have 2 adults and 4 kids in one room. We've stayed in the Portofino across the street (I have a review here from the past traveling on business), and that hotel is a clear step up in quality without much of a difference in price or distance to Disneyland. We'd stay there again without hesitation. The castle inn was merely OK, and we stayed there because the Portofino was already booked.










