Disneyland Hotel Monorail Pool – Ultimate Photo Tour!

To celebrate Patrick’s birthday, we spent the weekend checking out all the new stuff at Disneyland and stayed at the Disneyland Hotel. What was previously one of my least favorite Disney hotels and always just a runner-up when we couldn’t afford the Grand Californian has become my new favorite place to stay at Disneyland, thanks to its (ongoing) refurbishment.

I’ll have a full review on the hotel and rooms later this week, but today I want to take you on a tour of the fun new pool complex. It isn’t even finished yet, but it’s already like a mini-water park containing some of Disney’s best water slides.

First, I have to say that I was a big fan of the old Neverland Pool, and I’m not sure why they couldn’t have spared it. Maybe the theming was too specific to fit in with the hotel’s new theme based on the lands in the park, but I think a tropical-looking Neverland pool adjacent to a futuristic Tomorrowland pool would have been fun—after all, isn’t diversity in the theming of the lands sort of the point of Disneyland?

I guess some people have been grumbling about the new pool because it could have been Adventureland-themed to fit in with the Trader Sam’s/Tangaroa Terrace complex. That would have been cool, too, but I love the nod to the spare mid-century design of the original Disneyland Hotel, plus who doesn’t want to shoot out of a monorail train on a water slide?

At first we were kind of confused because even though the two slides—Monorail Red and Monorail Blue—are on the same tower, there entrances are located across the pool area from each other. Monorail Blue’s entrance is located at the base of the tower, right behind the end of its slide.

Monorail Blue is the gentler of the two big slides (there’s a third, kiddie slide too), with one big curve at a shallow pitch. You come out in a long trough at the base of the slide, where only the lightest of kids seem to make it to the end. Most of us adults blocked up the top of the trough like a stopper!

Something I really liked is that that area around the base of the tower is flooded with a few inches of warm water, so you’re always partially in the water as you walk from the slide to the stairs. Patrick enjoyed cruising the shallows on his belly like a crocodile, much the befuddlement of the other grownups… The trouble starts when you begin climbing the stairs to the slides. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a pool or water park where the line for one slide was directly over the line for another. The stairs are slatted to allow water to drip through, which means you’re continually splattered with icy rivulets coming off the people standing in line for the slide above. Gross! Also, at least on the day we were there, we noticed the tower catches a LOT of wind, so if it isn’t 80+ degrees out, your teeth may be chattering as you wait on the stairs (unlike the Disney World resort pool slides we’ve been to, Disneyland’s won’t let the next person in line wait in the warm water at the top of the slide).

The entrance and exit for Monorail Red are in a separate, fenced area that requires you to leave the cozy ankle-deep water at the base of the tower. However, the distance allows for a more steeply pitched slide that has not one but two loop-de-loops—fun! The bad part is that it deposits you into THE warmest, comfiest pool in the place but you can’t stay there cuz you gotta get out of the way of the next slider.

There are great views at the top of the pool area and the rest of the hotel courtyard, although they’re somewhat obscured by the waterfalls. We noticed these were turned off on Saturday but back on Sunday—maybe because of the wind?

The rest of the pool area is sort of “classy hotel” themed, if bland. A trio of cabanas will soon be available to rent for $110 per 4 hours or $185 all day. They offer a refrigerator, a flat-screen TV and WiFi—you know, so you can replicate the experience of couch-surfing in your living room instead of swimming in the amazing pool. Right now they’re available free on a first-come, first-served basis, but I’ll bet that doesn’t last long.

The complex also has twin kiddie slides at the base of the tower and a tiny Minnie Mouse-themed hot tub. The only real pool open right now is a short, shallow stretch between the splashdown area for Monorail Red and the old Neverland pool. If it were as warm as the splashdown pool, I coulda stayed there all day, but the water was quite brisk. Hopefully the Neverland side will feature something deeper than 4 feet, but “shallow” seems to be Disney’s pool M.O. these days…

Here are some views of the pool area from our room—the blue privacy/UV tinting on the windows is convenient but makes for some oddly retro-looking photos!

So long, Neverland Pool…. let’s hope the demolition was worth it!

Here are a couple of night shots for you, but the best ones can be found in this post over on MiceChat.com.