PHOTOS: Is Disneyland’s new Pixar Place Hotel worth $500 a night?

Disneyland’s new Pixar Place Hotel is commanding $500 a night for standard rooms and hundreds more for premium rooms and suites with rates that compare and sometimes exceed the more established Disneyland Hotel and Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel.

The refreshed Pixar Place Hotel officially reopened late last month with three new eateries, a gift shop and a rooftop mini water park after a two-year makeover of the Paradise Pier Hotel.

Disney’s Paradise Pier Hotel was long considered the third tier hotel at the Disneyland resort behind the classic 1955 Disneyland Hotel and the top-tier Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel.

The Pixar Place makeover seems to have sprinkled a heavy dose of pixie dust on the 40-year-old hotel and increased demand for the first Pixar-themed hotel in the United States.

The new Pixar Place Hotel is sold out for nine nights in February — with another 11 nights inching close to being sold out.

The cheapest room available on a few nights during the first month of operation is $405 for a standard — but those are going fast and hard to find. More often a Standard View room at Pixar Place goes for $500-plus during the first month.

Premium View rooms are a little more plentiful with rates ranging from $492 to $672 per night during the first month. One-Bedroom Suites at Pixar Place will set you back $865 to $1,214 per night during the same period.

Many of the Two-Bedroom Suites and the larger Signature and Themed Suites are still being reimagined. Summertime prices for Two-Bedroom Suites at Pixar Place Hotel are listed at $1,660 to $1,737 per night on the Disneyland website. Signature Suites are expected to fetch far north of those rates.

The exclusive Creators Club lounge is finished — but the Club Level rooms aren’t available just yet. Pixar Place Club Level rooms are expected to range from $781 to $997 per night once they eventually come online.

How do Pixar Place prices compare to rates at the Disneyland Hotel and the Grand Californian?

A Standard room at the Disneyland Hotel was $450 on the Jan. 30 grand opening night of Pixar Place — less than the typical $500+ rate at the new Pixar hotel in February.

A Standard room at the Grand Californian was $546 on the same night —a relative bargain for a room that can cost hundreds more on many nights.

During construction, rooms at the Paradise Pier Hotel started at $383 per night with promotions in early 2023 bringing the nightly rate down to $344 on select weekdays.

Part of the reason for the higher prices right now at the new Pixar Place Hotel is that demand is outpacing availability.

Only about half of the 479-room hotel is available right now with more inventory beginning to come online in May, according to Pixar Place Hotel General Manager Ron Silagyi.

“We’re still under construction,” Silagyi said during the opening ceremony. “We don’t have all of our inventory completely done.”

Walt Disney World hotels in Florida are broken into three categories: Value, Moderate and Deluxe.

The Disneyland resort’s three hotels loosely fell into those same three categories before the Pixar Place upgrade — with the Paradise Pier Hotel near the Value level, the Disneyland Hotel at the Moderate level and Disney’s Grand Californian at the Deluxe level.

“I think we’re closer to that Moderate to Deluxe now,” Silagyi said during the opening ceremony.

Following the upgrades, Pixar Place Hotel’s price point is expected to remain the same in relation to the Disneyland Hotel and Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa.