The Viv Hotel, Anaheim

The Viv is a beautiful hotel located just over a mile from Disneyland. It’s not walkable, but the ART bus does stop right at the entrance! We stayed here to reset after our Budget Hotel Tour. We thought it would be a nice change of pace after what we’d seen all week. And it was. And it wasn’t.

There were definitely some quirks during our stay. Let me share our experience with you.

ARTWORK

My favorite thing about this hotel was all the cool artwork and decor you could find around the property. It almost became like a scavenger hunt, looking out for the next piece. Check out some of my faves.

Check out more pieces in the pics below.

RESTAURANTS

We were able to try all of the restaurants (except the pool service, which was closed for the season.) They all had excellent food and service.

Melody’s is a super cute cafe and gift shop you can find on the ground floor, just off the lobby. You’ll find coffee, tea, bottled drinks, and breakfast items. The counter that runs along the wall has lots of outlets too, if you need to get a little work done or get your device a quick charge before heading out.

Valencia’s is the casual restaurant just behind the lobby. In season, this is also where the bar opens out to the pool and pool service comes from.

Top of the V is the rooftop restaurant and bar. The hours are limited and reservations are recommended. They do try to accommodate hotel guests that wish to dine without a reservation. We neglected to get one, so we went up about an hour before scheduled opening and talked to the hostess (or maybe manager?) on duty. She squeezed us in at the perfect time for fireworks!

GYM

Here’s a little view of the gym. It was large and well-equipped.

ROOM

The room was absolutely gorgeous. And so clean. We specifically got the bunk bed room so that we could show it to you. It’s a stunner. There’s a beverage fridge, a seating/dining area, an unexpected amount of storage, a desk if mom or dad need to work a bit, and a very large bathroom with double sinks. The colorful yet subtle decor will please even the kiddos.

We got a king bunk bed room, but you can also get a double queen bunk bed room if you need more bed space. Our room was also a “theme park view” (read: “firework view”!) This is an up-charge. You can get a large room without the view and it would be cheaper.

QUIRKS

Here might be a good place to start talking about the “quirks” we experienced during our stay.

When we arrived in our room, it was quite warm but we thought it was just us from bringing up all our luggage, etc. But after we settled in and relaxed for a bit, it still felt quite warm. We adjusted the temperature and waited. It didn’t help. So we called down to the front desk and had them send up a tech to fix it.

Meanwhile, we went out to the pool – or rather the hot tub, since it was November. We chose to check out the family-friendly pool on the ground level first. We got all set up with our chairs & our suits (we were the only ones there 😆) and stepped into the hot tub. It was oh so pleasantly warm, and very large. We got out and pushed the button for the jets, got back in and waited. Nothing happened. Hubs got out and pushed it again. Again nothing. So there we were, all excited for having a nice hot soak after a very full week, twiddling our thumbs. So disappointing.

We brought it to the attention of staff as we went back to our room and they promised to fix it. We got the chance to check the next day, this time by just going out and pushing the button. Still broken, no bubbles. So we went up to the adults-only pool area that day and thankfully the pool and hot tub up there were both in working order.

After we arrived back in our room on the first day, when the tech was supposed to have fixed our A/C, we found it was running reasonably well. But sometime during the night, it reverted back to whatever state it was in when we entered the room.

Second of all, there is a “master switch” on the wall just inside the door that controls all of the lights in the room. I’ve seen this at a couple other hotels and my assumption is this serves as a control for parents to keep the lights off when it is indeed bedtime.

Okay, no big deal. As we had no kids with us, we just have to remember not to use that switch and keep the individual controls for each light active. But, for some reason, this did not work. Some lights we were not able to control at the source. We could only turn them off by flipping the master switch.

We also learned quickly that the lights have some sort of motion activation. So we were chilling in the room, watching TV, when all of sudden the lights went off. We tried to turn them back on, but even the master switch didn’t work!

We called down to the front desk to ask and they confirmed that the lights do have a motion activation component, but were puzzled why it didn’t engage again once we began moving around. They offered to send a technician, but the tech couldn’t come for a few hours, and it was our last night in the room and we were tired. So we declined. But we did figure out that opening the door and then hitting the master switch somehow reset it, so we restored the light in our room ourselves. But the quirks with the light continued throughout that last night and morning.

We were really looking forward to this hotel, especially having just finished a whirlwind stay at seven budget properties. We were very hopeful that we could just relax here. But the parade – or threat of parade – of techs coming through our room to make that possible kind of soured it for us. So funnily enough, out of all the hotels we visited this week, The Viv was actually our worst stay.

Despite the circumstances of our stay, we still feel we can see the vast potential here, so we still would recommend it… just maybe not as forcefully as we might have had we had a nicer stay.

(Don’t forget to watch the YouTube video when it’s up for views not shown here!)