In August of 2011, SharkBoy and I are going on a religious jihad. We will don our specially blessed yarmulkes with big plastic ears attached and crawl on our knees to the front doors of DISNEYLAND! Specifically, we’re making our visit to the D23 Expo – the official Disney Fan Club get together.

After purchasing our Expo tickets, we started to look into hotels. If you’ve never been to the park in Anaheim, it’s a bit of a trip down Kitschy Lane. When the park opened, Disney himself said that he wished he had bought up all the land around the park because there were some really dodgy hotels/motels opening up around the property. He thought these eyesores were cheapening the experience.

Now, we’ve been to The Land before, on a two day whirlwind trip, and I recall that there seemed to be a ton of weird hotels outside the park – the most memorable was the Alpine Inn, with its fake snow and icicles in balmy California. Unfortunately there ain’t no room at the Inn (it’s on the same “block” as The Land – convenient!) so we started to look at other hotels.

When we look at hotels, we usually cross reference them through Google Earth, the hotel website itself and TripAdvisor. I can hear you cringe from here. Taking in advice from some stranger off the internet is like asking Jeffrey Dhamler over for dinner. But if you’re careful you can read between the lines.

Note this fine example for the Tropicana Hotel, directly across from the Land’s entrance:

Took my family for a trip to Disneyland so that we could heal from family problems. Looking forward to being in our “happy” place. Spent 8 days at this hotel and had nothing but problems the whole time we were there. It started on the day we checked in and just went downhill from there.

“Family problems”? Sounds like they were projecting Mom and Dad’s utter hate for each other onto the hotel.

Or this poor lady’s violation within her sheets at the Anaheim Camelot (yes it looks like a castle):

Long Black hairs on all the sheets and blankets- gross ! Since I am fussy about bedding, I had my own and just put my own on the beds. Then I left a note telling the housekeeping not to change bedding. They didn’t speak English, tossed out the note and put my bedding on the floor to put theirs back on. You could not pay me to stay there again !

Wait… she brings her own bedding with her?  That sounds a tad bit anal to me. I’m surprised she didn’t complain about the birds chirping outside her window in the morning.

And staying on the Castle theme: one from The Castle Inn:

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5. hair dryer did not work – shower curtain and tub looked like a crime scene
6. a room on our floor caught on fire at 4am and the hotel staff did not evacuate guests despite smoke and flames coming from the rooms bathroom. They were more worried about having to give a refund than the guests safety.
7. Night front desk clerk looked and acted like he had a hangover.
8. it is a longer walk from Disneyland than you think. especially at 11pm.
9. the pool is freezing and is the size of a goldfish bowl.
10. dark, scary hotel with people smoking outside that look like meth heads.

Okay so there were flames shooting out from under a bathroom door in a room not occupied by our psychic reviewer. Check. And the night clerk looked tired. Check. And smokers look like Meth Heads. Check check check!

I think we’re going to get a tent and hang out under one of the underpasses.