Taking the Kids: Off to Disneyland
His wife, Wanda, noted that they had stayed at the Disneyland Hotel when their daughter Jessica, now 33, was a preschooler -- close in age to her two kids -- and they have been back more than two dozen times since. "It doesn't come cheap, but you get what you pay for," she said. "When you leave, you don't say, 'I wouldn't do that again!'"
"It brings back a lot of memories," said Rebecca Stafford, who came here as a child and is back with her kids. "It keeps getting better."
One man first danced with his wife at their senior prom here and came back to celebrate their 40th anniversary, a Disney cast member recalled.
"They want to re-live that time with their children and grandchildren," Storbeck said.
I spent a night in the Pirates of the Caribbean Suite with pirate coins, replicas of props from the movie -- like the dead man's chest and Jack's compass ring, pirate maps, ship in the bottle, goblets ... and a big dining table. The setting is so realistic I almost expect Captain Jack Sparrow to walk through the door. There is a Mickey Mouse-themed penthouse, and a fairy tale suite, among others.
As the park added attractions, the hotel kept adding rooms and towers and a few years ago, a new pool and water play area, complete with waterslide, Tangaroa Terrace Restaurant and Trader Sam's Enchanted Tiki Bar.
Vanessa Adams, dangling her feet in the pool chatting with her twin daughters and watching her grandchildren play when I visited, recalls staying here when her now 32-year-old daughters were four. She remembers opening the windows to show the girls the Mickey Mouse-shaped pool all lit up at night -- a memory none of them have forgotten. "Truly magical," she said.
Thanks, Walt!
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