Best Hotel Accommodations - Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend

When planning a Disney racecation, there are certain things that are important to lock down fairly early on. First of all is your registration to the race (they sell out so quick now!), flights/transportation and of course, your accommodations! When thinking of a hotel for a racecation it is all about location, location, location. Oh and price! Whether you are going with your family or sharing a room with your best running friends, it is important to get the most for your dollar. And since you are travelling somewhere to race (and possibly sight see) you really would like to have a hotel that is close to the action without breaking your budget.
Luckily, with the Disneyland races there are many hotel options for you to choose from that fit all price levels. Now with all the options (44 in all between on property and Good Neighbor hotels) it would be tough (and a bit long!) to write a comprehensive list of all the available hotels. So I am going to pick a few options to review and hope that they give you a broad sense of what is available to book on your next racecation to the Disneyland Resort!

It just so happens that the three Good Neighbor hotels I will be talking about happen to be in the Moderate category, however they offer very different experiences and are at different locations around the Disneyland Resort!

Run Disney also provides comprehensive information on shuttles to the resort for race and expo days. They have outlined the hotels and routes that ART (Anaheim Resort Transit) goes in order to get you to the expo as well as the race start and then back to the resorts after you have finished. Please make sure you leave enough time for the transfer in the mornings and prepare for long lines after you finish to be back to your resort.

The first best hotel (and my personal favorite) is Best Western Park Inn and Suites which is located just across Harbor Blvd from the Main Entrance to Disneyland. You literally cross the street and you are walking onto the resort property, it is very close and convenient! The rooms are spacious and nicely appointed. You have your choice between king or two queen beds and each room also comes with a pullout sofa bed! So if you are looking to save some money, you can get a double queen room and be able to sleep 5-6 people! Though there is only one bathroom, so pick your battles!

Speaking of the bathroom, the shower/tub and toilet are separate from the sink area, there is a large closet with mirrors on the sliding doors, a large desk and comfortable chair, large entertainment center with a flat screen TV. There is also a mini fridge and microwave in each room as well as many plugs to charge all your electronic devices. They also offer an impressive complimentary continental breakfast each morning with eggs, bacon, waffles, along with all your standard breakfast items. Please note that it opens at 6am so it will not be open in time for runners to grab something on their way to the start line. (Side note: I would grab an extra banana and bagel and put it in my room for the next mornings breakfast while I walked to the corrals, worked out great!)

They commonly have discounts and we used our AAA membership to get a room for around $90/night during Disneyland Half weekend last year. It was a fantastic rate for a great room in a great location! 

The next hotel is the Anabella Hotel located on Katella Avenue just south of the resort by the California Adventure park. While the hotel is close to the parks, it is quite a walk to get to the entrance of the resort. You would have to take Katella to Harbor and follow that up to the main entrance there, or take Katella to S West Street and enter the resort via Downtown Disney. Either way will be about a 30 minute walk so just be aware! The ART is also available to transfer you to and from the resort.

The rooms are beautifully appointed and provide many rooming options from your standard to concierge level. Options include two queen beds or one king, with full granite bathrooms and free wifi (a must nowadays!) There is a fridge and coffee machine along with a complete entertainment system including a flat screen TV. They have a great restaurant on site, but do not offer a complimentary continental breakfast unless you are a Business First or Concierge level guest. 

The grounds are beautiful and the hotel is quite lovely with so many options (even bunk beds for the kids!). Their prices are a bit more than the Best Western coming in at $121/night for a standard room up to $150-190 a night for concierge or kids suite rooms. This is a great option for those that want to be a bit more removed from the parks and be able to enjoy some peace and quiet. 

The third Good Neighbor hotel is the Howard Johnson located on S Harbor Blvd just west of the Disneyland Resort. This hotel is also serviced by the ART and will be providing transfers for Run Disney for the races and expo. You can walk from the hotel to the Disneyland resort, just realize that it will take some time because you are walking along a busy area and can take approximately 20-30 minutes depending on traffic.

Howard Johnson is a world of its own! Not only do they have warm, spacious rooms, but they also have a pool and water park area (yes, I said water park!) that can rival some stand alone parks that you have to pay to get in to. And this area is complimentary to all guests! So if you have kiddos and want to have a place to come have some fun at outside of the park, this place is perfect!

Their rooms are nicely appointed, spacious and include a fridge, coffee maker (it's a Keurig!), free wi-fi (bonus!), desk area and TV. There are a few bed configurations with two queen beds, or one king, or one queen with bunk beds, a fold out couch, there are so many options. Basically you can fit a family of 4-6 easily in one of these rooms, just again, be aware of the bathroom situation, there is just one! :)
Unfortunately they do not offer a continental breakfast, but do have a restaurant on-site, along with other options on the street. The rates run any where between $175/night and upwards of $220/night. They do have rate sales and offers through out the year that can cut those rates in half sometimes, making it a very economical place to stay!

Lastly but not least, are a couple of on-property options for your magical Run Disney experience. The Disneyland Hotel has done some major room remodels and have provided guests with a room experience not to be missed! Including the headboards pictured below, with a flip of a switch a fiber optic light show appears with some music to add to the magic! The rooms come with two queens or one king and a fold out sofa, floor to ceiling windows with fantastic views of the grounds (and parks!), beautifully appointed bathrooms with hidden Disney touches, a coffee maker, and premium bath amenities.

The Grand Californian is a beautiful homage to the rustic Arts and Crafts period with dark woods and luxurious features strewn throughout the resort, it is tough not to get swept up in the whimsy of this Craftsman style treasure. The rooms are wonderfully appointed with two queens or one king bed with a pull out sofa, flat screen TV's, comfortable seating, a coffee maker and premium bathroom amenities. The views are also hard to beat from anywhere in the hotel!

In addition to these beautiful hotel accommodations both of their pool areas are fantastic places for an afternoon respite from the parks, offering water slides, hot tubs and cabanas, there is a little something for everyone. Neither resort offers a complimentary continental breakfast unless you are on the Concierge level, then there is a special room where there are complimentary snacks, drinks and offerings throughout the day for those guests.

What is wonderfully unique about these resorts is their proximity to the start and finish lines of the races, they are quite literally right outside. The runner area and finish line is staged in the parking lot and street right outside the front of the Disneyland Hotel and only a few minutes walk from the Grand Californian. You can reach the runner area in less than 10 minutes, talk about prime location! That location can come with a hefty price tag though, the Disneyland Hotel rates start around $300/night whereas the Grand Californian rates start at $400/night with Concierge level rates starting at around $650/night. Both hotels provide wonderful memories and amenities (including an exclusive entry way into California Adventure from the Grand Californian) and are a must see even if you don't have the ability to stay there.

There you have it! Some really great choices of places to stay that have many different offerings for any budget and age range. There are so many other places that have rave reviews from other runners, so don't just take my word, ask around and get opinions! With so many choices you will never run out of options for your next Disneyland racecation! 

Disneyland Weekend Recap: The Expo

I'm so sorry that my recaps are so sporatic! Between work and home life I've been swamped lately. Definitely running into the "there's so much to do and not enough hours to do it" syndrome. So thank you for hanging in with me on these, considering my recaps are almost a month after the races.

Ugh...that makes it sound worse.

So now onto the next big event and the official beginning of the runDisney race weekend: the expo!!! So let me preface this recap by saying I've had only one other experience with a runDisney expo and it was during the Princess Half Marathon this year, which from what I heard from the runDisney faithfuls, one of their worst. You can read my recap of that here. So when I went to Disneyland race weekend I was hopeful that I would encounter a better planned and laid out expo than what I had experienced earlier this year.

Friday morning I met up with Jen of Travel Girl on the Run, Kim of Kim Runs Disney and Beyond and Jen of Hello Fitness...We Meet Again. We decided to grab an early breakfast and get into the expo line early before it opens at 10am, so we figured meeting around 8ish would be good to scope out the line and grab something to eat. Well good thing we had done that because by 8am, there were two lines forming, one for bibs and one for the runDisney merch area of the expo. Both lines had at least 50-100 people each in them.  So we hopped into the merch line, as we knew from experience that the merch area is the one that fills up and items thin out the quickest. So if we really wanted something, we had to get there REALLY early.

Race Recap: See Jane Run 5K

I signed up for the See Jane Run 5k late last year. There was a coupon for a discounted entry through Zozi that was just too good to be true. I think the race rate was $25 and I had a $10 credit for that site, making this race entry only $15. What a score of a deal, right?

I had been off the training game for a couple of weeks, so when the race came up on Sunday July 14th, I felt like I could still have a good race and a stomp out a decent finish time. What I really loved about the race itself is that it was a female centric race, but did not exclude men. There were plenty of men running both the 5K and half marathon courses. Not to mention at the finish line you received a champagne glass full of See's chocolate and Barefoot champagne to toast with your fellow runners. Now I would say that is a pretty sweet ending to a race! But that's where it ends, what about where it begins? First stop was the expo!

Race Recap: Rock and Roll Seattle Half Marathon

A year ago I watched my friend Danielle complete her first half marathon at the Seattle Rock and Roll race. I was so inspired and motivated by what I saw around me that day, that I went to the registration tent that same day and signed up for the next years race. Never having run a distance longer than 5k, I knew that I had a lot of training ahead of me, but I was excited for the challenge.
 
Fast forward a year, I've completed a half marathon already and I ran plenty of double digit training runs to feel comfortable with the distance of 13.1 miles. And it was time to run the race I had signed up for so long ago.
 
It began with the expo on Friday, it was quite impressive and the bib pickup process was quite easy!

Running Tip Jar: Revisited

One of the best motivators I used for myself with training for my first 1/2 marathon was the "Running Tip Jar".  I posted about this when I first started training for the Princess Half Marathon at WDW. I would pay myself for all the miles I ran in training for the PHM weekend.  I would contribute to the jar $5 for each weekday run I would complete, then $1 a mile for my long runs. I would also keep track on my print out of the training schedule I kept clipped to the front of my fridge!

Race Recap: BMO Vancouver 8K

It thrills me to be writing this recap.  I wanted to run the BMO Half Marathon in Vancouver and almost signed up for it half a dozen times, but something always kept me from doing it. Then my back issue happened and I realized that I was really glad I hadn't spent the money because I knew I would not have been able to run that course.

However my good friend Danielle was running the half, so I decided to go up with her and cheer her on at the finish. Then she tempted me with entering the 8k...oh running peer pressure, how ruthless you can be. My doctor said I could run 5 miles and with this 8k just looking at me on the page saying "you know you wanna run me", I gave in and registered.  What can I say?  I'm weak for bling.

Race Recap: Princess Half Marathon

Many months ago I started a long journey with a goal in mind and an ultimate destination of this race.  Right here and right now is the culmination of all the hard work, time spent and sacrifices that I made to train.  It all comes down to this point, these series of moments, this final delivery of the prize I've been fighting so hard for.  This is it.  It's go time.

The 2:30am wake up call is an ungodly way to wake up, but the race started in three hours and there was so much still to do.  The room was already buzzing with everyone up and about getting dressed and ready to catch the first buses.  I've seen pictures and heard hellish stories about the lines to get on the buses to get to the race and if you didn't have a car to drive yourself there, the bus was your only form of transport.  The buses started transporting at 3am, so it was important to get on the first couple of buses to ensure you made it to the start on time!

I've got my take on Cinderella running outfit on and I'm ready to head to the buses!

Race Recap: Royal Family 5K

I woke up to a quiet room on Saturday morning to get ready to run the Royal Family 5K.  None of my roomies were running it, nor were they waking early to come and see/cheer anyone on.

3:30am was far too early for this one to be awake, but I was and I was getting ready for my first runDisney race EVER!

 

I decided not to dress like a Princess for this race, but rather let my inner Winnie the Pooh come out!

I arrived via bus to the parking lots outside of Epcot where the drop off point was and made the walk toward the bag check area.  There were tons of signs and volunteers to help us sleepy eyed runners get to where we needed to be.

 

Got my picture taken before heading towards the corrals!  This is the first time I'd ever been to a runDisney event and was pretty happy with how smoothly the transitions were between locations.

PHM Weekend Day 2: Expo and Meet-ups!

An early morning for Marcia and I as we woke up at 6am to be dressed and at Coronado Springs resort by 7am for the #RunShopEat meet-up!

First, the run!  We had a few people that were interested in meeting up with us for this, well meet-up, but by the time the morning came it was just Marcia and I.  Oh well, it was fun still!

The Coronado property is really pretty and I would consider staying here in the future.  Expansive and quiet!  These are just a few of the vantage points from our run.  After we ran and were thoroughly sweaty (it was quite hot at 7:30am, lower 70's in the sun I would say) we went inside to get in line for the expo.