Pixar Place Hotel — Hotel in Anaheim

The new/old Pixar Place Hotel, one of three Disneyland Resort property hotels, offers that Disney magic with a new twist. Disney did a great job overhauling the Hotel and retheming it to Pixar. There are so many details in the lobby and the rooms, it now looks like a traditional yet modern Disney Hotel than it did when it was the Paradise Pier Hotel. Let’s get to it…||||--PARKING--||Parking is easy. There is a dedicated parking structure directly next to the hotel itself. The walk from the parking structure to the hotel is a real breeze. A plus compared to its sister property hotels. Disneyland Hotel since it’s so big is a longer walk from the parking lot to your actual room, and unless you did valet at the Grand Californian, that parking lot is across the street! So, Pixar Place gets points just for the lot being closer and more convenient! ||||--CHECK-IN--||Check-in is relatively easy as it is with all Disney Hotels. You can check in online or choose in person check-in. One thing you will notice though is that the Check-In area is significantly smaller compared to its sister property hotels. That really doesn’t have an impact on the process though, just something that you will notice. ||||--ROOM--||The biggie!! What’s the room like? I want to say that THESE ROOMS are far more themed than Grand Californian and the Disneyland Hotel! Grand Californian is more about the décor, while Disneyland Hotel is more about the history. So, this hotel looks like they had a little bit more freedom on the theming as well as a lot to work with as far as the source material. Each floor is themed to a Pixar movie. The floor my family and I stayed at was Monsters and it was appropriately the 13th floor! While the floors are themed to a Pixar movie, the rooms aren’t. Just a clarification, the room will NOT reflect the floor theme. Each room is decorated with artwork from Pixar with little details such as a Luxo ball roll pillow, and a Luxo Jr. lamp. Beds are comfy, the room overall is vibrant and not blah! The restrooms have been updated and they now have a modern look to them. Speaking of the restroom, a sliding door as opposed to a swinging door is placed for privacy. I get it, with space being limited, one must get creative and use a sliding door which is practical, and it blends well with the room. With that being said, the door slides pretty fast. A word of caution, keep your hands and fingers away from the door as you are closing it. The way the handle is placed will definitely smash your fingers as you are closing the door behind you. There are no stickers giving you that warning. Obviously, what is supposed to happen is you guide the door till it lines up with the lock on the door frame, at least that’s the thought behind it. But without thinking about it, one may hold and guide the sliding door thinking it’s going to stop when it doesn’t and SMASH goes your fingers! BE CAREFUL! ||||--ROOM VIEW--||The position of the hotel, you either have an eastern view which is sold as the Premium View, or a western view which is sold as the Standard View. Obviously, having a Premium View is AWESOME! You have direct sight of California Adventure and the Grand Californian! Standard View, is it all that bad? I’ll say this, compared to the Disneyland Hotel’s southern view which is their Standard View, it’s BETTER THAN the Disneyland Hotel’s Standard View. The Standard View which is the room we had, overlooked the Pool and Splash Pad area. With a direct western view, you will see an amazing sunset! It’s not all that bad. ||||--POOL DECK--||Let’s talk about the pool. Sorry folks, this is where things take a small dive. Compared to the Disneyland Hotel and the Grand Californian, the pool here is significantly smaller. I know over the years they have tried to upgrade this area but it’s small. I think it’s a situation where Disney had to work with what they had. The Pool Deck is located on the 3rd floor as opposed to floor level. The pool itself is a rectangle and nothing more. It’s approximately 50 feet long and about 20 feet wide. The spa looks like it’s smaller than the sister property hotels and there’s only one. The splash pad and the slide takes up the other half of the pool area. The splash pad is cute, and the slide is rather decent but slow. Don’t expect a fast speed like at the Disneyland Hotel or the Grand Californian. BUT aside from the pool, there is a large outdoor lounging area with games (need to be a guest to play them) themed to Pixar movies, tables, chairs, sofas with Pixar theming, a fireplace, and a few fire pits themed to Pixar( just think Jack Jack). In addition, there’s also a snack bar called Small Bytes that includes a bar that is open throughout the day up until 10p.m. At night, this place comes alive as a perfect viewing area for the Disneyland fireworks. AMAZING! If you want to just chill, have a bite and a drink, it’s PERFECT!||||--DINING--||This hotel does have a couple of places to dine. The Great Maple, the main restaurant offers a great menu and the food is delicious. Great place to eat if you don’t feel like going far. There is a quick service restaurant inside the hotel as well. Can’t tell you much about it since we have never been. Finally, as mentioned in the Pool review, there is a quick service restaurant and bar called Small Bytes. Food here is quite good. The smash burger is a different take on the burger, they basically used 4 dinner rolls to make one burger. It’s actually good! Chips and Ceviche is good…and to wash everything down, something from the bar is a great option. Try the adult floats! ||||--ELEVATORS FROM THE TOY STORY 3 FURNACE--||There’s only ONE, ONE DRAWBACK to this place that makes sense but doesn’t. The elevators! OMG the elevator system here is TERRIBLE! I’m not sure if this was a holdover from the original ownership or a weird didn’t think it through upgrade after the initial takeover. Here’s the thing. Four elevator cars, A,B,C, and D (Glass Elevator). Each one goes L through 15. BUT, each car only goes to the floor you press on the keypad OUTSIDE of the elevator, and when you press a floor, you are assigned to a car. For example, if there is let’s say a dozen people in the lobby and they are going to multiple floors, instead of that dozen people cramming into one car, this “system” will essentially separate the trips for the most efficient ride. So, if floors 12 and 14 were pressed, that group will be sent to Car A. If floors 4, 7, and 9 were pressed, that group would be sent to Car C. Something like that. And you can’t pick floors once you are inside the elevator car. If you mistakenly get into a random elevator thinking you can stop on your floor on the way up or down, that’s not going to happen. You have to get off on any of the floors that the car stops on and then once outside, you press your desired floor and wait for an available car. You can’t just ride the elevator either because you can’t select any floor from the inside. While this seems efficient or was thought of as efficient, it makes for a longer wait. It seems like some of the Cast Members know this just by the comments made. There’s nothing that can be done though. There are stairs but like many buildings, it’s a one-way trip. So, you can exit your floor through the stairs, you just can’t go back up because the doors are locked from the inside. Take this into account when time planning. Oh and Elevator D, the Glass Elevator, you can’t select that elevator just to ride it. Again, the “system” assigns the elevators based on the desired floors. Many guests want to ride the glass elevator because of the view, and if you are lucky enough to ride it, it’s quite stunning. But, lucky is the key word. You more than likely be assigned cars A through C first before ever getting car D. ||||--OVERALL--||The Hotel is definitely a place to consider while staying at the Disneyland Resort. As for the pricing for the rooms, is it worth it? To be honest, that is really subjective. Can you find a cheaper hotel along the Anaheim Resort Strip that has amenities equal to this hotel? Probably could. Don’t forget as with any of the Disney properties, you are paying for the convenience, the theming, and the name. It’s really up to you to decide whether or not it’s worth it. In the end, the kids will love it! Aside from the elevators, if I had to score this place out of 10, I...

$650 a night is supposed to get you proximity ✅, immersion ✅, and magic❌. The hotel is themed well. Lots of Pixar art in the common areas as well as the room. The view of the park from our room was beautiful. The pool area was a bit tiny, but never felt overcrowded. The splash pad was cute and the waterslide was perfectly designed. If you sat up it almost stopped you it ran so gently, but if you laid down you got some decent speed and a big splash at the end. I was very impressed with whoever designed the slide.

The bad… I don’t know if it’s bad management, the fact that you step outside of the hotel and you’re in downtown Anaheim or something else, but it’s as if the staff forgets they are cast at Disney in the land of magic or maybe I’m just spoiled with Disney World and Land just doesn’t have the pixie dust.

I remember my first Disney World Resort experience, we booked a $45 (which I thought was pretty inexpensive) a night camp site for a couple days before moving into a resort hotel room for the remainder of our trip. I borrowed a tent from my Dad. There was a gentle rain starting. I quickly went to set up the tent only to find out my brother had borrowed it and packed it up wet. It was disgusting. I called the front desk to ask if they sold tents. They did not and when I told them the story they moved us into a cabin at no extra cost. I couldn’t believe it! I have countless other magic stories, but that is my favorite Disney Magic story. I was hooked, the cost of the parks and the resorts were high, but I saw what you were paying for, the magic so you just rolled with it.

Pixar Place lacked magic. Outside of the cleaning staff I found every department lacking. The gift shop wouldn’t let me open up a stroller before buying it to see if my kids would fit in it. The stroller was labeled baby’s stroller and it turned out it was a bit too small, I opened it anyway and repackaged it. The barista wouldn’t add sweetener to my wife’s latte, so I walked over to where he told me we could add the sweetener ourselves (after two attempts) and brought him one and said can you just add it for us, which he did. I needed a garbage bag to gather up first cloths to take down to the laundry. I asked a cast member helping people with the elevator (that could be its own paragraph) who looked at me completely clueless and suggested I find someone in housekeeping. I went to the front desk who was also baffled and offered me a smaller, but actually stronger bag, which I accepted. I tried the bellhop desk but it was empty. Call me petty, but I can’t get a darn garbage bag from anyone?!?! The bellhop who brought our luggage up was nice, but when I asked about insider tips etc he didn’t have anything meaningful to share, on our checkout day we learned there was a really cool miniature golf thing we had walked by each day. We thought it was a business conference or something and didn’t venture in to that area. No one mentioned, make sure you check out our mini golf setup inside the conference area?!?!

At check out we needed an extra 45 minutes so we called down to ask for an hour, they put us on hold and came back on the line to say the best they could do was 15 minutes. So 45 minutes later we checked out. The cleaning people were super nice and I felt really guilty I was messing up their system. I left extra tip and talked to them three times to make sure everything was ok as we scrambled to try and get out of the room for them. From what I could gather they had other rooms to clean and it didn’t impact them at all, but still I felt bad because they have a thankless job to do. With 5 hours between check out and check in, I found managements inability to give us an additional 30 minutes to be the straw that broke the camel’s back on the lack of magic. At 11:45, I used the room phone to call the bellhop desk, which no one answered. A message said please call back between 12 and 2. So I went downstairs to find the desk empty. When someone finally appeared, they told me they couldn’t collect bags outside of a room. Ran...

Google Review

I’m giving Pixar Place Hotel one star because, while parts of the stay weren’t bad, the serious issues we experienced—combined with the hotel’s lack of communication—made this a very disappointing experience.

Bed Bugs: My two-year-old son developed severe bed bug bites during our stay, which we believe came from the pack and play provided by the hotel. He was so itchy that he scratched until he bled, and after we returned home, he developed a skin infection that required antibiotics and medical treatment. To prevent bringing the infestation home, we had to throw away some of his clothing and a suitcase. I contacted the Guest Claims team on November 3 and followed up multiple times, but I have yet to receive any response. This lack of communication is unacceptable, especially when it concerns a child’s health.

Room Key Issues: We had significant problems with both physical and digital keys on our last night and the morning of checkout. The keys would sometimes work for our room but not for the Creators Club, and other times the opposite was true. Even after replacements, the issues persisted, adding unnecessary frustration to our stay.

Rude Staff: On our first day, we encountered rude staff members. A lifeguard at the pool responded to a simple question about whether the water was heated with an annoyed tone, and a bar staff member at the pool had a similarly dismissive attitude when we made a purchase. While most of the staff were friendly, these interactions left a bad impression.

Elevators: The elevators were one of the most frustrating parts of our stay. While elevator D offered a small view, which was nice, the system overall was very slow and overly complicated. The touch screen technology assigns you to a specific elevator, but only one operates at a time, making the wait time excessively long, especially when multiple groups are waiting. Since we were on the 14th floor, the stairs weren’t an option, so this was a constant issue.

Creators Club: While the Creators Club was a nice perk, the food selection was exactly the same every day. For families staying multiple nights, the lack of variety became disappointing. Adding more kid-friendly options and changing the menu every few days would make a big difference for guests paying extra for this service.

Birthday Requests: We were celebrating my son’s second birthday, and I asked in advance about what details could be added for the occasion, as I was thinking of getting some decorations myself. The staff member mentioned a birthday package that included a door banner but failed to disclose it was part of a paid package. I was also told a message could be added to the TV, but unfortunately, that was never done. A kind front desk staff member later gave small gifts for my two kids as a gesture, which I appreciated, but the lack of clear communication about the birthday details was disappointing.

What Was Good: The view from our room was amazing, and the Halloween decorations around the hotel were a thoughtful and fun touch for families.

Overall Impression: While the stay itself had a few good moments, the issues we faced—including bed bugs from the pack and play, key problems, rude staff, frustrating elevators, repetitive Creators Club options, and unclear communication about birthday requests—overshadowed our experience. Spending nearly $3,000 for a stay where serious health concerns are ignored is unacceptable. Until Pixar Place Hotel improves its communication, accountability, and functionality, I cannot recommend staying here.

Update: 12.16.24 unfortunately we still don’t know what happened to my son’s skin. He ended up having a severe infection on his skin. The cause is unknown but it is definitely connected to the hotel. The hotel finally got back to me almost two weeks later. Seems like they were fed up with me and didn’t bother to accommodate in any...