Hotel Indigo

I don’t usually write hotel reviews, but on our recent trip to Disneyland we stayed at such an extraordinary hotel I thought I’d share a quick recap. We decided to take a quick three-night trip down to Disneyland in December to ring in the Christmas season. Booking our trip just a few weeks in advance proved challenging because a lot of the hotels were already booked and in my humble hotel opinion, many were overpriced for the sub-par quality they offered.

Using Yelp to scan the area around the resort, I discovered Hotel Indigo (http://www.ihg.com/hotelindigo/hotels/us/en/anaheim/laxex/hoteldetail.) Until recently, Hotel Indigo was a Holiday Inn Express. They conducted a major renovation and re-opened, brand new in October 2013. When reading the reviews online about the hotel, don’t be scared off by complaints of construction noise, etc. It’s completely renovated, spotless, shiny and perfect for anyone staying in the area.

Located just around the corner of Harbor and Katella, Hotel Indigo is within walking distance of the park, only about 10-15 minutes at a moderate pace.  They offer free parking which is really uncommon with the Good Neighbor hotels. They even let us stay all day for free in their lot the day we checked out. (At previous local hotels, we were charged an additional $12-15 if we weren’t out of the lot before noon.)

Check in was quick and easy, the desk staff were very friendly and they even gave us bottles water and hot chocolate chip cookies. When we arrived at our room, we were stunned at how beautiful it was. We especially loved the lack of carpeting. I’m not sure what the material was – some sort of faux-hardwood that not only looked great, but felt great. It was such a nice change from the stale, raggedy carpets common in so many off-property hotels. Some other highlights included:

 

–       Free wi-fi with a strong signal.

–       Tons of outlets. You don’t have to climb behind the bed in this hotel to plug in your iPhone!

–       Keurig Coffee machine with regular, decaf and herbal tea offerings.

–       Good sized mini-fridge and an easy to use safe in the closet.

–       Big, flat screen t.v. with easy access for all of our chords so we could watch our iPad/Netflix.

–       Beautiful linens including a very comfortable bed, sheets with a high-thread count and huge, soft fluffy towels in the bathroom.

The bathroom was equally as gorgeous as the main room. The only thing that could be considered a drawback was the lack of a bathtub, which might be an issue for families with small children. The staff informed us that none of the rooms have a bathtub, but instead, every shower has a traditional showerhead and handheld wand that children could easily use.

There is a small restaurant in the lobby (we didn’t choose to dine there) but it looked nice which is good since no free-continental breakfast is provided. The weather during our trip was horrible which kept us away from the pool area, but it looked pretty spacious and had good seating with a cute cabana-type area.

One of the things we loved best about Hotel Indigo was the price. We paid $114 a night during peak season. We booked directly through the hotel’s website just a few weeks in advance and got an outstanding deal. For that low rate, I’d expect a hotel with cruddy carpet, tiny rough towels and poor service overall. Hotel Indigo is the opposite of what I expected for what we paid. It wasn’t just clean and convenient, it was beautiful, relaxing, and helped make our trip to Disneyland one of the best in quite sometime. From this point forward, Hotel Indigo will be our go-to off property hotel for all of our Anaheim vacations.