So what did I look for when booking a room that I didn't intend to use? Closeness mainly. There are closer hotels to Disney than the Howard Johnson, but I've tried a couple of them in the past and found them to be a little run down and tired, and since we weren't planning on actually using the room it seemed exorbitant to pay for one of the on-property hotels. The five minute walk to the front gates of Disneyland from the Howard Johnson was close enough for me (although it took another 15 minutes of walking to find the end of the line to get in on Leap Day). The hotel is located right across the street from the Tomorrowland railway station, so I suppose if you were really tired, and had any sort of wall climbing skills, you could be back at the hotel within 30 seconds or so by scaling a fence, but the paved sidewalk worked just fine for us.
The other thing we needed the room for was an internet connection. Since we wouldn't be around much, I was looking for free wi-fi to be included with the room, and the Howard Johnson had that. Of course, when you make the wi-fi free to everybody, it kills your connection speeds. My son is a little obsessed with running speed tests on wi-fi everywhere he goes, so I can accurately report that the download speed at Howard Johnson was .80 MBPS and the upload speed was 1.26 MBPS. What does that mean? Well it means that the Howard Johnson system was fine for handling things like Facebook or e-mail, but I wouldn't want to be trying to stream a movie over that connection. I also held out a faint hope for being able to connect to the wi-fi from within Disneyland, but no matter how close to the wall I got, I couldn't pick it up. Fortunately the Grand Californian signal worked fine from within California Adventure.
There was a nice walk in closet, although apparently I look like the kind of guy who makes my kids sleep in there...
I'm pretty sure the TV was state of the art around the time I graduated from high school...
On the other hand, it got Disney Channel, HBO, and 2 ESPN channels, so we're good...
The bathroom was perfectly sized to make sure that those of you who are used to airplane bathrooms would feel right at home....
and they conveniently located the shower head at the 5'6" mark so that I could shower without worrying about getting my hair wet...
The fridge and coffee maker (which my wife tells me is a good thing) were nice touches, and the extra sink outside the bathroom would be handy under normal circumstances too.
My only real complaint about the rooms at Howard Johnson, would be the soundproofing. My son and I were sitting in the room resting and I could hear every word of the conversation being held in the next room about lacy things not providing enough support and certain anatomical parts popping out on rides (Flash Mountain?). Then later that night, after I wimped out on the 24 hour challenge, Disneyland was kind enough to ensure that I didn't feel totally left out by blaring music every two hours, which I could hear with great clarity from my room. Now in Howard Johnson's defence, dance parties don't usually take place at Disneyland at 4am, but I would still hope that with all my windows and doors shut I would be able to block out something coming from across the street. I imagine that light sleepers would have a hard time getting to bed early here, although from my recollection most people are just too exhausted after a day at the park to notice when Disney calls them to Macarena.
Finishing on a high note, the service at the hotel was great. Front desk check-in and check-out was lightning fast, and housekeeping didn't panic when we left the Do Not Disturb sign out the entire time we were there (although I suspect they knew where a lot of us were). The rates for the hotel are great (MouseSavers has an awesome discount rate) and there's plenty of places to eat nearby. Would I stay at the Howard Johnson on my next visit? Maybe. The rooms were a good value, but the soundproofing makes me nervous. I've adapted to shuttle life at Disneyland, so the Hyatt is probably still my preferred destination, but if I wanted to be in walking distance to the park, I'd consider the Howard Johnson. Just not on February 29th.
