Anaheim Camelot Inn & Suites Hotel Review
Anaheim Camelot Inn & Suites is a Disneyland Good Neighbor Hotel across the street from Disney California Adventure & Disneyland. This review has photos of this medieval castle themed hotel, thoughts about our experience of staying here, and our take on who might like this hotel most.
Camelot Inn has two main selling points. First, its location across the street from Disneyland. Camelot Inn is about a 5-minute walk to the Esplanade, making it one of the closest hotels to Disneyland. Second, the exterior looks like a medieval castle, so depending upon how young and imaginative your kids are, you might just be able to fool them into thinking that they’re staying in Sleeping Beauty Caste.
The second selling point shouldn’t really be one at all. While the exterior has a castle-like appearance from the street, that’s the start and the end of any semblance of “theme.” (A contrast to Castle Inn & Suites, which makes more of an effort.) Once you’re inside, it’s a dated motel that has seen better days.
Before we get into the actual quality of the hotel, let’s start with a bit of background. Anaheim Camelot Inn & Suites is a Disneyland Good Neighbor Hotel, and is classified as a “Moderate,” which is the tier of basically all of the non-name brand motels in the area. Calling it a Moderate is arguably too charitable, but Disneyland doesn’t have a “Value” category for some reason.
You can get an idea of how Anaheim Camelot Inn & Suites stacks up to the competition in our Disneyland Hotels Reviews & Rankings post, which ranks and rates over 40 hotels in Anaheim, California. If you want an overall comparison of the benefits of staying off-site versus on-site in our Off-Site v. On-Site Hotels at Disneyland post.
If you’re considering a stay at Camelot Inn & Suites or any hotel in Anaheim as part of a Disneyland vacation, you can book a hotel + ticket vacation package via Get Away Today to save money. In addition to the package discount, some hotels have ‘4th night free’ promos, and there’s currently a ‘5th day free’ promo on park tickets.
In addition to their normal discounts and special packages, you can save an extra $10 by using code TOURIST at checkout. Click here to check out the package discounts available. We normally recommend Get Away Today in our Tips for Buying Discounted Disneyland Tickets post—booking a vacation package makes an already great deal even better.
Now let’s take a look at the pros & cons of the Anaheim Camelot Inn & Suites…
One strength of Camelot Inn & Suites is the terrace-level pool, which is large by Anaheim standards and also features a hot tub. This spacious deck is nice for soaking up the sunny Southern California weather and offers a great view of the Matterhorn Bobsleds and Disneyland’s fireworks.
Beyond that, the biggest pro is location. We’ve already covered that above, but we’re really grasping at straws with this motel, so we’re going to reiterate it here. There are only 5 third party hotels that are closer to the parks, and Camelot Inn is literally right across the street–you can see the monorail, Matterhorn, etc. from the front of Camelot Inn.
Arguably, the location is also the cause of the biggest weaknesses. Since the debut of Cars Land over 5 years ago, hotel development in Anaheim has exploded, and numerous other older motels have received top to bottom renovations or at least nice refreshes to make them competitive with fresher counterparts.
Not so with Camelot Inn, which feels like it hasn’t been updated in well over a decade. This is not uncommon with hotels so close to Disneyland, many of which have rested in the laurels of their location.
To some degree, this is understandable. They’re selling out at inflated price points by virtue of their location regardless, so why take rooms out of commission and invest millions in modernizing the hotel when doing nothing is less costly and risky?
With that said, the rooms are not terrible, they’re mostly just dated and boring.
Less forgivable is the fact that Anaheim Camelot Inn & Suites doesn’t offer a complimentary breakfast, which is common for the budget motels in this area. Instead, they recommend guests visit the Cove on Harbor Market and Cafe at Tropicana Inn & Suites to purchase food.
In fairness, most free continental breakfasts at these motels aren’t very appetizing, but at least they offer some fruits, cereal, and other items to save some money until lunch in Disneyland and Disney California Adventure.
If you need to rent an ECV, Camelot Inn would seem to be a good option for that. The hotel has what appeared to be an ECV chop shop, and I can only assume it’s for filming of a sequel to Orange County Choppers. (Perhaps the worst spin-off idea ever, but Discovery Channel needs all of the “educational” programming it can get!) Presumably, they also rent out these bad boys.
With so much space devoted to its veritable army of ECVs, Camelot Inn & Suites also charges for parking. Joking aside, this is becoming increasingly common among Anaheim hotels. Given the prime location, it’s honestly forgivable. We used to be far harsher on parking fees in these third party Disneyland hotel reviews, but with an explosion in real estate development over the last several years, there’s less and less “free” space near Disneyland for parking.
Overall, Anaheim Camelot Inn & Suites is fine if you can score a great deal or the other hotels directly across the street are all sold out, but not somewhere we’d stay again absent that. We monitor pricing on Anaheim hotels near Disneyland, and based on what we’ve seen, both of those things are unlikely, but not completely out of the question. Beyond that, there’s not much of a reason to stay at Camelot Inn. Other nearby hotels are pretty much universally better options in terms of price, rooms, and amenities (or some combination of the three).
If you’re preparing for a Disneyland trip, check out our other planning posts, including how to save money on Disneyland tickets, our Disney packing tips, tips for booking a hotel (off-site oron-site), where to dine, and a number of other things, check out our comprehensive Disneyland Vacation Planning Guide!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Have you stayed at the Anaheim Camelot Inn & Suites? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Thoughts on the rooms or amenities? Any questions? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
I have stayed at this hotel/motel several times over the last 10 + years. It is clean, the staff is extremely helpful and I even have received discounts for being a return guest.. when going to Disneyland part of the experience is eating at the parks. If you want to save money bring cereal, every room comes with a refrigerator and coffee maker. It’s just a place to sleep and shower and a good bargain.
I am researching hotels for my first trip to Disneyland and it looks like Camelot is undergoing a big room renovation! Will you be staying in the new rooms and giving an updated review? The rooms look nice on the website.
We stayed in May and they were under construction. We just requested that our room be away from the construction noise. We had one of the older suite rooms and it was huge. We liked it and we didn’t have the newer rooms. I imagine the new rooms would make it even better. They were the pre-remodeled ones so they were a bit dated, but it was a lot of space. It’s a close walk to the parks (maybe 5 minutes) and you can watch the fireworks from the pool or the balcony.
I will say the beds were pretty uncomfortable. If they have new beds in the new rooms I’d say it’s a 100% good choice. If not, it’s more 50/50. We were so tired when we came back from the parks we just zonked out, but the mattresses were pretty hard.
The staff was really nice. The pool is tiny. There’s no getting around that. It’s 3-feet deep the whole way across. We have younger kids so it worked okay for us. We had the pool to ourselves whenever we went down there so it wasn’t a big deal.
Fireworks are best seen on the third floor. The pool is on the second. I would recommend requesting a room closer to the front as it can be a bit of a relief at the end of the night not to have to walk all the way to the back!
Like this place because you can pack a whole family into the larger room, and watch the fireworks from the balcony.
Stayed last September totally enjoyed it. Didn’t go in the pool but the hot tub was great after being in the park the vast amount of the day. No they don’t have a breakfast option but ihop was right across the street. They also have a blaze pizza right close so that fix was taken care of. I wouldn’t hesitate staying there again
We stayed here in September 2018 and it was great! Large rooms and really comfy beds. The biggest plus is the location – you absolutely cannot beat it! McDonald’s next door was convenient for a quick breakfast on the way to the park. Would definitely stay here again!
Just wondering when you were there I was sept 7th to the 13th
One benefit is that you can see the fireworks from the pool area. However, the pool is only about 3 feet deep and usually crowded with kids. If you have kids, that will be a benefit for you. If you don’t, it’s just annoying. Location was GREAT for returning for a rest in the afternoon.
We had stayed at Camelot in January 2018 and we found it fine as well. It served our purpose as we were rarely in the room. We did feel it would have been a bit better if there was a breakfast option so we could eat something before heading into the parks. There is a McDonald’s right next door if that is your sort of thing. The walk to the parks was great! Super easy! The price may have been a little higher than we would have liked to pay for such a room, but location, location, location…that’s just how it is going to be. I would really like to see DLR offer a value resort option. We have DVC and could not get into the Grand Californian at all. Not even a wait list came through for us.
We stayed at Camelot Inn in October 2016 and it was fine. So long as I don’t see a roach, a rat or shady people in the parking lot, it’s all good. When my kids were growing up in the 90s and into the 2000s we always stayed at the Disneyland Hotel or Paradise Pier, but they have become so overpriced in recent years it’s almost shameful; Walt himself would probably not approve. I am a fan of Best Western chain of hotels, they are always clean, usually include breakfast, I earn airline points (yes, it matters! haha) and they are in abundance around Disneyland.
It’s probably worth me reiterating that I don’t think anything is wrong with the Camelot Inn. If you’re a rope drop to park close person, or all that matters to you is a safe place to sleep–the Camelot Inn is perfectly fine! 🙂
I’m also a fan of the Best Western chain–we’ve had great success with the ones in Anaheim, and the Park Place Inn is actually our #1 pick for hotels in Anaheim.
We have stayed at several 4 star hotels in Anaheim (Hyatt Regency, Marriott Suites, Doubletree Suites) and our favorite is the Hyatt. But we’ve also stayed at the Best Western Park Place Inn, which was actually more expensive ($219) than a suite ($159) at the Marriott! So how does it compare? As much as I liked the Hyatt, I’d still rather stay at the Best Western than at any of those nicer hotels, entirely because of the walkable location.
One of the great things about Anaheim (compared to Orlando) is that you don’t need to spend $500/night to be within walking distance of the park.
In Orlando, you don’t have to spend $500 a night to be within walking distance of Epcot and DHS. The Swan, Dolphin, and occasional deals to fill Yacht Club rooms between conventions take care of that. Garden Wing rooms at the Contemporary are also often below $500 a night, within walking distance of MK.
We’ve stayed at the Camelot several times. The rooms are definitely nothing special, but they are huge! I especially liked that they have Suites, which are essentially two connected rooms. McDonald’s and Panera Bread are right next door for an easy breakfast. The only problem I’ve had, is that the hot tub had too many chemicals and made my skin itch.
It’s also literally next door to a McDonald’s. Which can be nice for getting everyone a cheap breakfast. But it is busy in the mornings .
I’m convinced that’s the busiest McDonald’s in the world.
I really liked my room there. Took my daughter for a surprise birthday trip which happened to be the 60th 24hour party (would never attend something like that again) but they put us in a king balcony room so we could stand on the balcony and watch the fireworks. Surprisingly I never even heard the cars even though we were on a street racing room. Hubby and I stayed there last year for our anniversary and I was happy again. Maybe because I’m a rope drop to park close kinda person so as long as the bed is comfortable it’s really all I need.
Well dang. We have reservations here for end of April. Our thought was it was pretty cheap and super close, plus it looks cool on the outside! We’re super chill as long as there are no bedbugs or grossness. If the biggest issues are that it looks like Grandmas spare room we should be okay… right? I figure we’ll be at the parks most of the time anyway. Are the beds okay?
Yeah, beds are fine. If you got a good deal, I wouldn’t worry about it.