Holiday Inn Adjacent to Disney

[Redcon1]

Has anyone ever stayed at this Holiday Inn that's located on South Walnut Street? According to directions, this hotel is located behind the main parking lot.
I can get a great travel agent rate of $39.50 for Memorial Day weekend, but from what I've read previously somewhere, it's actually a long walk to the parks. Even though the actual distance is very close, because you have to go around the parking lot and down the street, it takes longer than it would seem like it should. Is this an accurate assessment? Or is there a short cut we could use.
I'm booked right now at the Ramada Maingate for the same rate and I know that's very close, but I wanted to check other options as I think the Holiday Inn would be a nicer hotel.
Any info on the distance or the hotel itself would be very helpful.
Thanks!

 

[got2travel]

Its a pretty far walk. I wouldn't even walk from the DL parking, but I know some have.

I'd say just walk over to the parking structure and grab a tram to the front gate. There's no checking tickets or anything, so they wouldn't know that you didn't park in the lot. I'm just not sure how you'd get there, I don't know where the sidewalks lead.

 

[daannzzz]

In this map http://www.beachcalifornia.com/dlmp.html The Holiday Inn is the long gray building located next the the last "d" at the Disneyland Parking which is the huge rectangular building in the upper right hand corner. The entrance to Disneyland would be a bit of a walk but you can walk to the parking structer tram pick up and catch a ride.

 

[Redcon1]

Is there a entrance nearby from the hotel to the parking lot? I thought I had also read that the hotel was butted up against it's back wall and the only way into the lot was a long walk around to the front. In other words, there really wasn't any back entrance from the hotel into the parking lot and it was just as easy to walk to the parks as to the parking lot for the tram.
Thanks again.

 

[daannzzz]

I have not actually stayed at the Holiday Inn and I haven't ever used the Parking Structure so I do not know for sure. I suspect you would have to walk around the structure though.

 

[jlmarr]

Yes, you'd need to walk down Walnut and then east on Magic Way. I'd say it's about a half mile or maybe less to the parking lot tram. Here's an aerial view with the push pin icon being the corner of Walnut and Magic (assuming the link worked). The parking structure is the huge gray rectangle and the Holiday Inn is the smaller structure just to the upper left of the structure. The tram turnaround is south of the lower right part of the structure.

 

[PrincessGrace]

I stayed at this Holiday Inn during the Big West basketball tournament in March of 2003. Honestly, I didn't mind the walk (maybe it had something to do with spending 15 hours on a bus the previous day?). I thought it was quite nice in the mornings. It took us maybe ten to fifteen minutes to get to the park entrance. We didn't use the tram from the parking structure... We weren't there to strictly go to Disneyland either. We had already decided before we went just to see what we could while we were down there. That ended up being Disneyland and Downtown Disney. We also walked around the Grand Californian. There rooms were nice, the pool was kind of small. If you decide to not take the tram from the parking structure (you have to walk around it to the front), you do have to walk through Downtown Disney to get to the park entrance. You do walk past the monorail station, so you could pick that up if you wanted to (need a park ticket, I think though).