I spent about a month trying to decide which hotel to get for our latest family trip to Disneyland. I settled on the Desert Palms because I like the set up of their Borrego Suite (I have small kids and it allowed my husband and I a place to hide while they fell asleep).
Unfortunately, the weirdness started when we checked in. Parking is kind of ridiculous. There is a garage underneath. You get to take an elevator to the hotel lobby, then walk a little bit to another elevator to get up to the rooms. For some reason, I always turned the wrong way to get to the second elevator (not their fault just it was weird). Our first room was on the 5th floor. We exited the elevator and this horrible, acidic smell hit me. I spent to length of our stay attempting to discern what in the world that horrific smell was. I settled on stomach acid. Our room was not the set up of the Borrego Suite that was advertised on the internet and the smell was worse in the room. So, with 2 small kids who just want to be let loose after a 6 hour car ride, we had to go back to the lobby and get another room.
The second was on the 3rd floor. Thankfully the smell wasn't as bad and I didn't feel as nauseous. The room was set up as advertised, which was nice. The carpet in the hallway kept making me shake my head because it was similar to that on the Shining.
Breakfast was just sad, There was waffles, Wonderbread toast, 2 types of cereal (Fruit Loops and Cornflakes), yogurt, cottage cheese, apples, oranges, oatmeal and then the typical diarrhea inducing buffet foods: fake scrambled eggs that are still gooey, "meat" I guess we could call it sausage and biscuits. Oh and there were mini muffins and donuts of strange textures. It ranks the lowest on my list of hotel breakfasts. My biggest complaint? More fruit. Why not a banana?
So overall, the hotel was meh. My husband and I both agreed that the room set up was excellent. It was very clean and housekeeping was excellent. But I am leery about staying again because of the other rooms they label as the Borrego Suite and I don't want to get stuck with that one. The Wifi was ridiculously slow and difficult to access. The smell which permeated all of the 5th floor (where breakfast was so every morning I got another whiff) was nice enough to provide me with a headache every day. The placement of the hotel made for an easy walk to Disneyland. The vagrants who hang out at the 7-11 at night really add some spice to the walk. I especially liked that our window looked out of the alley by the 7-11 and I got to watch a drug transaction, someone drinking, and then multiple people urinating. I was briefly sad it occurred at night so my whole family couldn't experience the soap opera alley.
We will not be returning to this hotel. The smell is one of the biggest offenses. My concern about the differing hotel room set ups also make me hesitate. The lackluster breakfast and excellent alleyway views really solidified this decision. Thanks Desert Palms, but we are going to pass next time
