4. Hotel MiraCosta
Technically, Hotel MiraCosta and its attached theme park – Tokyo DisneySea – opened the same year as the Grand Californian and Disney California Adventure. But both projects are on another league entirely. As Disney fans will tell you, that’s because the Tokyo Disney Resort is neither owned nor operated by The Walt Disney Company, but by a Japanese company called OLC. The Hotel MiraCosta is gorgeous… maybe the most beautiful and opulent Disney hotel on Earth. From the outside, it resembles the Italian town of Tuscany. But from within the park, the MiraCosta is a visual berm with wings that resemble Venice.
Given that DisneySea is the birthplace of Disney’s Society of Explorers and Adventurers (S.E.A.), it makes sense that the hotel itself is drawn from that mythology – opulent and splendid, but mixed with mystery and nautical motifs. The dome at the hotel’s center (which appears like the Duomo of Florence from outside) is ringed with murals, each representing one of the “ports” you’ll find in the park.
Park view rooms serve two purposes. First, guests staying in them can gaze out across the park’s Mediterranean Harbor – the bay that serves as the park’s entrance – and watch the iconic Mount Prometheus as it “erupts” throughout the day and night. But from inside the park, the activity, light, and motion in the rooms that envelope the bay make Mediterranean Harbor feel like a real place where people live – a very cool way that guests in the hotel serve as part of the “cast” in DisneySea’s show.
Given the current exchange rates (which highly favor American dollars over the Japanese yen), a night in the MiraCosta can cost as “little” as $400 – still a king’s ransom for a hotel room, but given the location, a somewhat reasonable splurge for an international trip. If you’ve made the trip, tell us: was MiraCosta worth it?
5. Shanghai Disneyland Hotel
When it opened in 2016, Shanghai Disneyland sure had a lot riding on it. The first Disney park in mainland China – a country largely closed off from Western media for decades – the Shanghai Resort was expected to be the legacy-leaving project of then-exiting CEO Bob Iger. You can imagine why. Negotiations with the Chinese government persisted for years, as the cautiously permissive country began to let the first drips of Disney characters and stories in through “Disney English” language centers that introduced young people to the characters they’d never known.
When you think about it, the notion that the Shanghai Disney Resort exists at all is astounding. Its centerpiece hotel is the Shanghai Disneyland Hotel – a regal property designed in art nouveau style. The hotel is located across “Wishing Star Lake” from Shanghai Disneyland itself.
Because one of the major purposes of Shanghai Disneyland was to capture China’s “emerging middle class,” you might hope that this deluxe-level hotel is reasonably priced – at least, once you convert from Chinese yuan to American dollars. But, no such luck. A night at the Shanghai Disneyland Hotel tends to be comparable in price to the other hotels on this list – $500 or more a night.
6. Fantasy Springs Hotel
Given that Tokyo DisneySea is often regarded as the best theme park on Earth, it’s really no surprise that the park doesn’t just contain one deluxe hotel with an exclusive entrance into and premium views of the park… it has two. That’s thanks to the most talked-about Disney Parks expansion of the 2020s: the instantly-iconic Fantasy Springs that brings storybook Disney Animation IP into the park in a big way. Fantasy Springs is a stunning area with sub-sections devoted to Peter Pan, Tangled, and Frozen, each anchored by its own E-Ticket ride.
But towering over them all is the Fantasy Springs Hotel – an art nouveau resort that’s integrated into the land, providing views of its supernatural pools, rock forms, mountains, and gardens. The resort has nearly 500 rooms, split between the “Fantasy Chateau” and the “Grand Chateau” wings. Standard rooms in the Fantasy Chateau – with views of gardens and parking lots – start at $400 per night.
It’s the Grand Chateau – pictured above – that offers views directly into the park, with costs starting at nearly $2000 a night… pound for pound, about as much as the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser. (And, in a move that would likely shock American visitors, even the Grand Chateau offers only twin-sized beds.) For most of us, a night at the Fantasy Springs Hotel isn’t likely to happen. But if you were taking a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Tokyo Disney Resort, might you splurge?
That’s the question with all of these hotels, isn’t it? Because for many, many people, a visit to a Disney resort is a big deal; one you might’ve saved up for years to prepare for. So if you’re going to go, why not go big, right? Or… not? What are your thoughts? Have you ever “splurged” on one of these iconic, flagship deluxe resorts? If so, would you do it again? Would you recommend it to a friend? Or – as some say – did you discover that at the end of the day, a hotel is just a place to sleep anyway, fancy decoration or not?
