mikelynn91
Registered: August 2006
Posts: 1
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Review Date: Thu February 21, 2013
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Would you recommend the product? Yes
| Rating: 9
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Pros:
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spacious room, location, clean, safe
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Cons:
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moderate walk after a long day
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We surprised our daughter with a trip to DL for her 16th birthday. She thought we were headed to WDW.
The experience flying in to LAX was very interesting. Anyone who has flown into Orlando (MCO)knows that the lower floor pretty much belongs to WDW and Magical Express. We were pointed to a bench on the sidewalk and told to wait for DL Magic Express. No waving casting members ~ just "sit there". Thankfully a large purple DL bus pulled up after about 15 mins and we gladly loaded!
It was nice to pull into HoJo after the bus journey of a little less than an hour. The staff was friendly and welcoming. We used a travel agent and all our paperwork was in order. The room we were given was spacious and clean. We would definitely stay there again. I think January is off-season for DL so it was pretty quiet. There were folks swimming! Georgians don't swim in the winter so we just kept walking...
The difference between DL and WDW transportation is also different in that we literally "walked" into main gate and all three choices lay right before us... straight ahead Downtown, to the left DCA, and to the right DL. Amazing! We loved that ~ as you get very tired of waiting for buses at WDW and any trip into the parks takes an hour or so of waiting and riding. The only negative - we played so hard during the day that the walk home was moderate. It reminded me of staying in a Value resort at WDW and getting back to your bus stop only to have a half mile to walk to your room in the resort.  It's really not that bad - you're just tired of walking!
We LOVED Mimi's (ate there twice). We also ate McDs for breakfast both mornings for convenience and budget. We ate Quiznos. We ate one counter meal in the park. We stopped in to a little family market for water and sodas. I brought snacks with us from home. You definitely have plenty of options in all price ranges so that you can stay on target money-wise.
We flew out of LAX early on Sunday morning. We had to sit out on a bench to wait for our van (non-magical because of time of departure). I would recommend not flying out too early. That was a little unnerving to be out on the dark street so early in the morning. Not HoJos fault -the van we chose was running behind and we shouldn't have been out there so long.
I would highly recommend HoJo - just keep in mind the walk at the end of the day is moderate. We will try one a little closer this next trip but I think we would be happy to return to HoJo if we aren't satisfied.
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kymom99
Registered: June 2008
Location: Newport, KY
Posts: 32
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Review Date: Tue July 24, 2012
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Would you recommend the product? Yes
| Rating: 8
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Pros:
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large rooms, friendly staff
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Cons:
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nothing major
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We stayed 3 nights, July 10-13th in a deluxe queen room in building 2. I had emailed and asked for a quiet room and we were placed on the 4th floor. We didn't hear a sound. The room was large and clean. The beds were comfortable. There was a "balcony" but it was literally 2 feet deep. You could just barely squeeze out to stand on it. The rooms that had full balconies weren't much better. There was no furniture and if you decided to take a chair out from the room, it looked as if the only place to put it would be in front of the AC unit anyway.
We used the quiet pool once. My son said it was freezing but I didn't try it. The chairs had cushions, but they looked very dingy and stained. This was the only thing around the property that didn't look very fresh. I would have also liked it if there were some benches around the grounds. The only ones I saw were for the smokers.The flowers and fountains were lovely. I would have liked to have been able to sit and enjoy them.
We left a note for housekeeping asking for extra towels along with a tip. They took the tip and didn't leave any extra towels.
The walk was manageable. Most days we took the advice to cross Harbor at our corner and enjoyed a quiet walk to the theme park gates.
We had a car and there was plenty of free parking.
Overall a good place to stay while visiting DLR.
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karenmoreton
Registered: July 2012
Posts: 1
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Review Date: Fri July 20, 2012
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Would you recommend the product? Yes
| Rating: 9
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Pros:
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location, room size, cleanliness, great service
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Cons:
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Although the location appears to be the farthest away from the Disneyland entrance (of all of the hotels on that block), it is actually one of the more convenient locations because it is at the end of the block, where there is a crosswalk. What no one seems to mention in their reviews is that if you stay at another hotel, say in the middle of the block, you can't simply walk across the street. The median has a fence running down the middle of it to prevent people from just walking across the street. We also loved being next to Mimi's. My daughter is a vegetarian and sometimes hard to please, but she absolutely loved it.
From everything that I read about this particular Howard Johnson's, the one thing that I kept reading about was service. Our great experience with service actually happened after our stay. A couple of weeks after we got home, my son noticed that he was missing a special t-shirt and feared that we had left it at the hotel. While I doubted it because (we thought) we did a thorough search of the rooms before we left, I called. Sure enough, they called me back in an hour, had found the t-shirt, and mailed it (and a pair of shorts!) to us at no charge. Because the t-shirt was irreplaceable, we were very relieved and grateful!
While I would agree with some of the reviews that say the rooms are somewhat dated, we felt they were extremely well maintained (not a speck of mold in the showers, and that's saying something!). The sound on our TV wasn't the greatest, but who's watching TV when you're at Disney?!
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bobbis
Registered: April 2008
Location: iowa
Posts: 10
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Review Date: Sun July 24, 2011
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Would you recommend the product? Yes
| Rating: 8
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Pros:
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large rooms, close to parks, clean
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Cons:
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My family of 4 stayed in July 2011. The hotel is older, as are all of the hotels within walking distance, but the rooms are much larger than most hotels and are very clean. The beds are comfortable, & the pool & splash park are nice. Our room was on the top floor of building 1, so we did get sunlight through the sky lights in the morning, which was really nice. Our room had a perfect view of the Matterhorn & fireworks. The only problem is that, as an older hotel, the patio doors don't close tightly, so you can hear all of the noise from the fireworks. This wasn't really a big deal, as fireworks are over before 10pm. Price is great at a third of the cost of the Disneyland hotels, and staff was helpful.
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