The Villas at Disneyland Hotel: Accessible Studio w/ Tub

Date of Visit: June 24-28, 2024

When I told Mik about the new DVC at Disneyland, he was interested in trying it out and doing Disneyland as part of his 30th birthday trip, but if I was not able to get a reservation when the booking window opened, he was also good with not going to at all. I ended up being able to get an Accessible Studio w/ Tub. Glad I had not gone with a one-bedroom because I later learned you pay the taxes here like at Aulani and it certainly would not have been worth using points and still owing the one-bedroom tax amount at checkout when there are many just as close hotels we have had good experiences at when visiting Disneyland.

From the start the stay was non-magical. First off the check in process is chaotic and not clear. When we drove up to the building, they basically expected us to unload in front and use bell services, which we never do at DVC. After we explained we wanted to just go in and check in, we were directed to go around to where there are some spots for check in. There were no accessible spots available, though, as the row of them here seems to be not just for check in and can be used for your whole stay. Later when Dad parked the car he found there were none in self-parking available and in the parking garage there are not even any accessible spots.

Check in inside was slow because apparently they expect you to use online check in, go straight to your room, checkout online, and basically never interact with the front desk. Well, I have found the Disney apps to be glitchy, not user friendly, and my account in particular has long been messed up because it merged with Mom’s DVC and mine for other Disney making my experience even worse than most. I could not even check in online using the app. I did eventually get it to work on the browser, but I do not trust the digital key working and I certainly was not going to log the others into my account for them to have a digital key or trust Mom could reliably figure it out on her own. Thus, we checked in to get real key cards. Later we learned we could add everybody’s tickets to each person’s account and app and maybe that would have worked if we linked the reservation for the digital key for the others, but mine never showed digital key as available to use so did not even try. The front desk staff at check in at least was friendly and as expected. It just was having only 2 cast members at main check in time made for a slow check in.

What really got us hating the Villas at Disneyland Hotel was bell services. First, we were surprised that they did not have carts you could use yourself because we have never stayed at a DVC or Hilton timeshare that we could not do that and even all the Best Westerns we had stayed at in the week and a half leading up to this stay had carts you could use. We travel with two large storage containers and a cooler, so taking it all to our room was not exactly an option. Thus, we used bell services. We knew they probably expected a tip, but we were not expected to have to use them and had no cash. I expected the awkward pause at the end with them waiting for a tip, but the guy refused to leave without a tip and when we told him we had no cash he still refused to leave because they take Venmo. I do not use that and even if I had cash at this point I no longer even wanted to tip at all because of their attitude, especially his. At this point, Mik came out of the bathroom and told us to take the cash in his wallet and we finally got him to leave with Mik’s 5 $1 bills (Mom being Mom, then realized she had a $5 bill and paid Mik back…).

Now we were only an hour or two into our stay and done with the Villas at Disneyland Hotel. The rest of the stay really was okay to good and if the start had not been so horrible, it might have actually have been a place we would consider staying again when visiting Disneyland.

The next big issue we ran into was the room was hot. At first I thought it was just that the settings were off until we entered the room. It was set at auto and 65 when we first came in and was 75, but overnight it only ended up cooling to 71. It certainly did not feel like 71, though, as we are used to keeping our house at 77 and lower than that in a place that does not have the same humidity is cold to us. We found if we put the fan on high it felt mostly comfortable. However, anytime you touched the thermostat, it reverted back to auto and then it got uncomfortable again because Mom is known to mess with the thermostat whenever she is hot or cold. One evening we came back and it was actually off (she says she did not touch it, but more than likely she did) and again it took until morning for it to be almost comfortable in the room.

The last major issue we had was there was no hot water in the shower. Having just come from a hotel that only just barely got comfortable warm, not even getting to that was extremely disappointing. The shower felt even colder because of the style of shower head that made it is so you had to keep ending up out of the water stream to get the toiletries and lather up. For once Mik was glad we did not have a roll in shower! However, a roll in shower could not have been as bad as this tub that had too short of a shower curtain resulting in way more water in the bathroom than the roll in showers we have experienced lately.

Besides the shower, the bathroom was good. We liked that it had a barn door (and that it did not have a bottom track to potentially get messed up and trap you like the Hampton Inn we had just been at).

The bars worked for Mik to be able to get on and off toilet himself.

The fairy characters lights in the mirror were fun and we found them to be bright enough that we only needed the main lights in bathroom when using shower.

We appreciated that they have a large refillable for the lotion compared to most places still seeming to do just a small bottle of lotion when they have the wall mounted other toiletries.

The one big positive of this place was the TV. Mik liked that he could connect his iPad and stream to itThe kitchenette area is under the TV, which made this feel very much like staying in a hotel room versus a studio. While it did allow for more “counter space” than the typical studio, it was more inconvenient that you could not leave stuff on it much because then it blocked the television. It also meant that instead of having a dresser for clothes you only had cabinets for your food (or you could have used them for clothes, but then no where for the food, which I guess if we had not been on part of a larger road trip we would not have had as much to food store as we do eat at the parks especially for a Disneyland trip). We did like that it had three power outlets as well as USB and USB-C ports for charging, though.

The fridge was small with no freezer, which was kind of expected, but also part of what makes the studios feel like a hotel instead of a studio and being “home” like DVC is supposedly trying to be with the whole Welcome Home thing. Really do not much care about having a freezer, but really was one of the smallest fridges we had during our three week trip that also involved staying at ~10 different Best Westerns and a Hampton Inn.

The Keurig was nice compared to a coffee pot as it allowed us to easily do decaf and regular. It still feels so wasteful and a step back when the toiletries have gone away from single use, but we now travel with reusable k-cups and ground coffee so we do not request and use more than initially stocked.

The sofa is a Murphy bed. The ottoman in front of it was nice in that it opened up to be storage, but we moved it to be by the window and just kept the bed down the whole time so did not actually use it.

Once the bed was down, there was a light, 2 outlets, and 2 USB ports.

The bed side “tables” also had power outlets, but not USB ports. The bed also had a light up headboard. The way they had black panels covering part of it made it looked messed up and poorly done to me.

When we first got our room assignment as 1st floor, I was disappointed because I never even thought that was a possibility. It did not end up being bad, but it did odd being at the end of the hall that also had the fitness center, the model rooms they were showing, and that led out to the grill area (only even realized that was there because it was viewed from our room window). Not having to deal with elevators was nice, though, and did help it not take quite so long for us to make the four trips to get our stuff to truck at check out.

Between the closet and the window there was a bench. This worked out to be a good place to put mine and Mik’s suitcases and just not unpack them.

Mik liked that the only carpet in the room was the rug under the bed. The carpet in the hall from the lobby to the room, though, was annoyingly thick. This was especially a problem when we were trying to be more efficient to get everything to the truck at checkout and I could not pull a suitcase and push Mik with the other hand like I usually can because I needed two hands to push him on the thick carpet.

Overall I guess it was worth using our points to stay here as we have not been using them for anything other than our annual family trip and I had them to use, but certainly not somewhere we would ever stay again as for not much more than the room taxes we still had to pay we could have had a better stay experience with breakfast included at a nearby hotel as we have mostly done for Disneyland trips. Also, would even use DVC points for a hotel room at Pixar Place over the Villas at Disneyland as at least you know you are getting a hotel room and are closer to the parks (stayed there once with Mik using DVC points when it was Paradise Pier and we enjoyed it). 

Destination Info:

The Villas at Disneyland Hotel

1150 Magic Way

Anaheim, CA 92802

Hampton Inn Tucson Airport

Date of Visit: June 20-24, 2024

While for longer stays, we prefer to have a roll in shower, when booking in February I could not find anything to book that was central or at least near something we planned to do. We ended up booking a King Accessible w/ Tub at the Hampton Inn Tucson Airport to at least have toilet grab bars in a location that works good for the various things we like to do when visiting Tucson.

The parking in front was initially rather disappointing. The space for unloading is great in that it basically a whole parking spot turned into access aisle between the 2nd and 3rd accessible spots, but the sidewalk there is not ramped. At first I thought you had to go around to the front entrance, but there is a ramped sidewalk on the side of the first accessible spot, which was not a van accessible spot. Later when we came back and all the spots were full, we discovered there were more accessible spots around back and those were better in that the ramped sidewalk was between the two spots, although the ramped sidewalk did cause there to be a slight trip hazard where the front passenger gets out.

Mostly we really like that more places have gone with a barn door for the bathrooms. This barn door was messed up, though, and the first time I used the bathroom I got trapped. Luckily, I was not alone and Dad figured out that the bottom track holder was loose so that it turned when you closed the door all the way and then blocked the door from reopening. We did not feel like dealing with maintenance during our stay, but we reported it as we were checking out and they were right on sending someone up to look at it, so pretty sure they would have at least attempted to promptly fix if we had reported it when we first noticed.

For once, the grab bars were in a way that Mik could get on toilet himself. Surprisingly, he did not knock the toilet paper off like usually happens with the single side holders.

The tub had a fold down seat on the back wall. It also had pump bottle toiletries. I was somewhat disappointed the water never really got hot even when turned as far as it goes, but at least it did get reasonably warm which our next hotel did not even do.

The roll under sink was a little awkward with the faucet on the side. It was a problem and maybe that makes it easier for some to use.

Under the TV, there was a microwave (low like Mik likes). To the left was a fridge behind the door. To the right was a cupboard with pull out drawers.

By the TV was a desk area on each side. Only one side had a chair, though. By the desk was the sofa bed, which I ended up sleeping on without pulling out as a bed because Mik did not feel there was enough floor space for him if we pulled it out due to the somewhat awkward layout of it being between the bed and the TV. The rolling ottomans and the side table were handy, although it caused extra clutter that contributed to Mik feeling there was not room to have the sofa bed open.

Next to the bed was the closet area. At first I thought it was rather lame with it only having a small hanging area in the corner mostly blocked from accessing by the night stand. I then realized the curtain was hiding the rest of the closet area.

The breakfast was good. There was decent variety of things available and the hot breakfast varied each day (eggs, omelettes, sausage, biscuits). Mik really enjoyed the waffles as they had different sauces, whipped cream, and fruit to put on them.

Other than our first and last morning, Mik had us bring his breakfast up to the room because the seating options for breakfast are not the best, Most of the seating is at a high top table and small short coffee tables by the couches. There are a some regular tables, but especially the first day it was too crowded to get one.

Overall Hampton Inn Tucson Airport was a decent place to stay, but Mik says he’d probably try somewhere else than stay again. The room layout was too awkward and just did not work out well for all of us. His biggest complaint, though, was the TV as there was no regular Fox channel and the TV signal frequently cut out.

Destination Info:

Hampton Inn Tucson Airport

6971 S. Tucson Boulevard

Tucson, AZ 85756

Best Western Discovery Inn

Date of Visit: June 19-20, 2024

I booked a Mobility Accessible room with 2 Queen beds and tub. Upon check in they did make it clear that the room was in the pet section and offered to move us when we said we did not have pet, but as it was the only accessible room left we preferred to stick with it. The hotel did end up pretty full that night and the only time we even noticed we were in the pet section was when leaving in the morning and two dogs briefly barked at each other when they met in the hall.

We all enjoyed the cookies we got at check in.

The room was located on the back side of the building which was near the Interstate, but was still quiet.

Mik loved that the room was tile throughout.

We moved the table and chairs into the corner and piled our stuff in the area right where we came in and Mik still had plenty space in the front of the room to hang out on the floor as he likes.

It was the smaller style mini fridge. Mik liked that the microwave was low. The power for charging stuff in the TV stand was helpful.

The closet area was in the bathroom.

Roll under sink.

Mik couldn’t get on toilet himself with the grab bars, but it seems rarer and rarer he is able to do that in new situations. This design so close to wall and tub, I imagine is probably not the best for many others either.

The tub had a bench leaning against wall. This was the first time I had stayed at a Best Western that had switched to the on wall toiletries. While we did not end up using the shower, these are the squeeze style and I have found these hard to use at other places and the high height probably makes them even harder if you cannot stand. At least the shower wand head was left low, though, as so many times we have noticed it is put up on a bracket up high.

The threshold on the way out of the room was a little high.

The breakfast here was one of the best we’ve had a Best Western. They had a lot of variety including yogurt, fresh fruit (bananas as well as fresh fruit like watermelon cut up in cups to grab from the fridge), Uncrustables, biscuits, eggs, sausage, and oatmeal.

Overall we really enjoyed the Best Western Discovery Inn. If Mik had not decided he wanted to go straight home and skip the Petrified Forest National Park, we would have stayed her a night on the way home, too.

Destination Info:

Best Western Discovery Inn
200 Estrella Ave
Tucumcari, NM 88401

Best Western Tulsa Airport

Date of Visit: June 18-19, 2024

The Best Western Tulsa Airport was our first stop to sleep on our way from Chicago to Tucson. When we were starting our day with our first (and really only) planned stop before Tucson being Pops in Oklahoma we considered getting there on our first day, but found that there was an mobility accessible room at the Best Western Tulsa Airport available to book that night and no accessible rooms at the closest Best Western past Pops. We mostly do not mind not getting an accessible room when it’s just a stop on the road to sleep, but since we noticed it was an option we booked the room in the morning rather than our usual in the evening as we are getting ready to be done for the day.

This definitely is a low end Best Western and the price does reflect that at least (nothing since I used points…or $58/night if I hadn’t). The rooms are rather worn and it had a musty smell to it. It was clean, but they did not stock the bathroom adequately with there only being bath towels and wash cloths (no hand towel) and 2 bottles of shampoo (no soap and no conditioner). Since the room was on the far back side, we did not bother asking for toiletries and just used one of the extra bars of soap I had saved from earlier in our trip.

The biggest concern we had when we first got to our room was that there were kids that were playing around outside the room next door and kept going back and forth to other rooms (it seemed there were families staying here long term/living here). It was noisy with them knocking next door every time they came back and you had to watch out for one of the little kids riding his trike down the walkway. It was around 7pm when we got there, though, and it was not excessively loud. Overnight there was no noise, so they did seem to respect what would be considered typical quiet hours.

The toilet grab bars were interesting. Mik could almost get up using them, but they were slightly too high for him. They then made it hard to help get him the rest of the way on, especially for me, because of how they stick out and are so close on both sides.

The mobility accessible room description I booked said it was a tub, so we were surprised to find it was actually a roll-in shower. That worked out well for us as Mik was due for a shower after being in Mom’s condo where there is a tub and while I have three accessible rooms book our trip only the one night I have booked as we head back east is a room with roll in shower. The water pressure was not the best, but it did get hot fast and it was well designed slanted inwards that there was no water mess outside the shower like you often have to deal with.

Fridge, Microwave, and Low "Closet" area

Mik found the area right when you came in before the first bed a good area for him to hang out and there was an outlet by the chair for him to use for charging his phone and tablet.

The breakfast was okay. The selection was somewhat limited, but there was eggs, sausage patties, individually packaged muffins, bread for toast, oatmeal packets, and waffle maker. Kind of disappointing there were no bananas and the only fruit available was one apple. They very well might have had bananas and more apples as even though we were at breakfast just a little after it supposedly opened at 6am, there were several other groups already eating.

Overall it was worth what we paid for and it was worthwhile for the roll in shower. Also, it worked out as  the right location to stop for the night as it was close to a Walmart to get a needed oil change first thing the next morning and going any further would not have allowed for our leisurely driving day that included an unplanned stop to eat at Cozy Dog Drive In. The extremely slow internet that was unusable was rather disappointing, though.

Destination Info:

Best Western Tulsa Airport

222 N Garnett Road

Tulsa, OK 74116

Disney's Vero Beach Resort: 3 Bedroom Beach Cottage Wheelchair Accessible

Date of Visit: January 6 to 13, 2024 

Since Mik and I have not been doing our one week trips in a studio for years and we did not do any other DVC trips in 2023, we had extra points to splurge on the family vacation this year. Of course, we really wanted to use the points on concierge at our home resort of Animal Kingdom Lodge, but when the waitlist had not come through at 7 months out, we booked the 3 bedroom beach cottage at Disney's Vero Beach. With Mik and I still not wanting to spend the money to go to the Florida parks (saving to go to Disneyland, which we prefer instead) and enjoying the trip last year except the small room, it probably should have been our first choice anyways.

The accessible cottage has a ramp off to the one side for getting up to the porch and entry, which was also helpful for the luggage cart and stroller.

The front porch of the cottage has a swing and two rocking chairs.

The umbrella was a useful unexpected item by the door.

The stairs to the upper level are right inside the door. The location makes sense, but the rather full wall of windows make it kind of an odd set up. To the right is a lift to be able to access the second floor for those that cannot do stairs. It was also helpful for getting the full cooler and food bins upstairs.

Under the stairs there is a closet where all the cleaning stuff (vacuum, mop, broom) was stored. There was also an open area that was good for leaving shoes as well as the stroller.

The laundry closet is large leaving room to store stuff. If it wasn't for the utility access door, it would seem it was designed for side by side machines like Hilton Head had. This was one of the most useful laundry machine we've had a DVC in that had a large capacity. However, the controls on the top was horrible in that I could barely reach them and certainly makes no sense for an accessible unit. Considering that they could not just swap out the oven because it was an accessible unit, it seems odd they do not have a laundry machine with lower controls in here.

The bedroom on the right was one of the ones with two queen beds. This one was awkward in that the path to the bathroom was very narrow by the bed.

Bathroom accessed through that room.

Access to the back porch from bedroom.

After the lack of storage last year, definitely appreciated that there was space in all the rooms to unpack. They also have power in them.

The middle bedroom is the master with the king bed and also the only accessible bathroom. Mik enjoyed that there was plenty of floor space for him.

The bathroom connected to the master was decent sized. The layout was okay, but overall it did not really work out for Mik.

We were surprised that it actually had a roll in shower as the booking description said accessible beach cottage with tub. The design was decent in that the wall helped keep the water from spraying out and while the mat did get wet, it did not end up everywhere like sometimes happens.

Mik found it impossible to get on the toilet himself with this set up. I think it is because while he has grab bars on both sides at home, I notice he mostly uses the one on the other side than this set up. He said it was because the toilet was too close to the wall and he could not turn, which kind of makes no sense because his at home are closer to toilet, but it may be that he needs more space when he has to turn from this side.

His wheelchair could be left next to the toilet for him to have something to hold on that side. Then it was annoyingly in the way of accessing the sink for others since that is where it was mostly kept.

The bathroom also had a tub with grab bars and two shower heads. Since there is only one accessible cottage, it is nice that the accessible bathroom provides both options to fit more needs/preferences. Also, this is a good option if you do not need the roll in shower to avoid the potential of too much water on the floor from the roll in shower.

The third bedroom on the left also had two queen beds, but it had a better layout that provided a reasonable sized path between the bed and the hall to the bathroom.

The bathroom for this bedroom also had an entry from the hallway.

All of the bedrooms had doors to access the back porch. Since they have bushes to block the light for the turtles on the beach, there is not much of a view from this porch, but it does provide some good seating that is less likely to end up wet than the upstairs porches.

The living room, dining, and kitchen are upstairs. There are actually some drawers and shelves in the TV unit so I could put my stuff away as the one using the sofa bed. The amount of seating, though, seemed way too little for a place that slept 12 as it is just a regular couch and a chair and not even an ottoman type table that you could sit on that some places have. Certainly unexpected when from what I remember of when we ended up with the 3 bedroom in Aulani there seemed to be more seating in the living room area, although that time we did not need it being only 4 of us and this time we had 8 adults, a kid, and a baby.

While the table also did not have enough chairs, it was at least big enough to seat everyone once we brought in chairs from outside. The lights above the table could be appreciated here with the ceiling being high enough that there was no way Josh could bump them and cause Dole whips to be ruined by glass (see last year's post).

Most importantly, it was big enough to easily play Wingspan.

There is also some high top seating at the counter, which was also a good place to put the food for serving dinner.

The upstairs entry to the lift is next to the top of the stairs.

The kitchen was a decent layout for the most part. The fridge being next to the wall is annoying in that it does not open all the way, which I think may be even more of an issue for someone in a wheelchair. The bar area with the utensils was a good way for more cabinet space to store things low, although it was awkward that because the drawers were small the utensils were split between three drawers.

The first day we could not find a cutting board and we're glad that we had happened to pack one for making sandwiches in the car, which we actually did not even end up doing. That night Dad found the cutting board when he went to put the fish in the oven. He had not checked it for stuff before preheating. It is not surprising that there were pans in there, but it was surprising to find the cutting board had been under the pans on the first shelf. Luckily there was a pan on the lower shelf that caught most of the melted cutting board. Some of it got on the bottom, though, and it took maintenance at least an hour to clean it out. They said if it had been a regular room they would have just replaced the oven because I guess they have extra ovens, but not ADA ones.

The porch outside the kitchen had two lounge chairs and a table with chairs.

This porch was not all that accessible with a large trip hazard threshold.

The threshold out to the porch with the ocean view was accessible, though.

This porch also had lounge chairs and a table with chairs.

View of the ocean.

Sunrise ocean view.

Because they try to limit the light for the turtles, the resort in general is dark at night, but in particular it was annoying that there were no lights on the stairs. It especially did not makes sense when there are some lights on the ramp. However, not sure the logic of when they go on because sometimes the ramp was lit at night and sometimes it was not.

The only wheelchair accessible cottage is at the opposite end of the resort than we stayed at last year. We found being at this end of the resort was much better for parking than last year as even last year I noticed when walking in the mornings that this end always had open spaces whereas at the end we were at least year we had issues with parking being full and several times an electric vehicle parking partially in the wheelchair access aisle when they were charging rather than actually being in their spot. Being at this end also made it so that we did not have to deal with going past the pool to get to the main building, which after the first day was often blocked by them moving in equipment for the pool refurbishment that started on our second full day.

Something new we enjoyed this year was finding Tinker Bell. Every day she was moved and if you found her, you could get a sticker on a button. When you fill the button, they let you pick a prize from their bucket of little toys.

It was a bummer that the mini golf closed with the pool (pool closure was not as much of a missed thing with the weather not being ideal for it this year anyways). We did at least manage to get one round in playing the mini golf tournament on the one day we could.

Overall we really enjoyed Disney's Vero Beach again this year. The space of the cottage was nice and something we'd definitely do again if we end up with enough points to splurge on it. Not sure we could go back again with the lock off and the small studio space, but I really have surprisingly enjoyed our trips to Vero Beach having discovered the nature trails off the nearby Jungle Trail.

Destination Info:

Disney's Vero Beach Resort

9250 Island Grove Terrace

Vero Beach, FL 32963