OK, I have 2 rooms booked for December:5-8 for about $$425 give or take.

1) Desert Inn 2Q and a Sofa in the parlor

2)Castle Inn 2Q+K in the Parlor

pretty much the same price. I have stayed at the Desert Inn 2x before and it was fine. (usually get a much better price....... but oh well)

I have no info on the Castle Inn,but the room is larger and it's walking distance. No Cont breakfast but I'm driving so that wont' matter.

Is the place a dive? Or pretty OK??

I obvioiusly will cancel one of them at some point. Not sure which one.
any info on the Castle Inn would be helpful

It's not a dive. We stayed there last spring. It's very basic and a tad worn but it was clean and there was plenty of hot water for showers and baths. The lobby staff was among the nicest and most helpful that I've ever encounterd.
It's a longer walk to the park than I like, but as you said, that won't be an issue for you.

I agree that the staff was very nice, but we will never stay there again. When we first got to the room the light in between the beds didn't work. No big deal. The TV channels don't come in very well. Again, no big deal because we weren't in the room that much. The drain in the shower was clogged so I Told them the next morning about the light and the drain. They said they would have it fixed by the time we came back from the parks. Well, that night the tub overflowed since the drain was still clogged, but they did get a new light bulb! I had to go to the front desk to get towels and told them about the drain again and that I had already told them and it wasn't fixed. They said they would have someone fix it the next day. Well, it was never fixed! The rooms wer pretty old looking and very dark.
We are not used to staying in nice hotels, but even my 9 and 11 year old were grossed out by the hotel.

Ew, I'm glad we didn't have that room when we stayed there. Sorry you had such a bad experience.

we stayed there a year ago.It's ,,,,,,Okay.Avoid the rooms up front ,traffic noise.:(The walk's not 'that' bad,we had 2 three year olds,they handled it just fine.:cool:

My DH, mom, DS 4, DS 1, and I stayed there in Sept 06 and it wasn't too bad. Our room was clean, although it smelled weird... we were told it was the cleaning products they used, but it smelled kind of bitter or rotten to me.

One thing that kind of scared us was that the walkway on the second floor was crooked; it seemed like it was falling away from the building. I honestly had "motion" sickness any time I walked on it... it instantly through my equilibrium off. We still refer to it as the "vortex."

As for the walk, in the morning it was fine, but at night, it was too far for our liking (DH and I carrying the kids back).

Would I stay there again...? I would stay there over places out of walking distance, but I would rather stay elsewhere.

I'd go with Desert Inn. The walk to the Castle wouldn't be worth it. Every evening walking back, I'd look at the Desert Inn and think I'd be back by now if I'd kept that one....

I'd pick the Desert Inn over Castle Inn. Merely because of distance...Desert is a lot closer. Though the walk to Castle isn't that bad. We just back from staying 11 nights at the Castle Inn. The staff there were very nice, and the room was decent. There was a little bit of smell when we first got there, but we turned the a/c and bathroom fan on when we got there and left for a while. When we got back it was gone.

We got a really good deal on the Castle Inn (nine nights were $430), so we went with them hands down.

One thing I don't like about the Desert Inn is no first floor rooms - at the Castle we had a first floor room, which was good b/c only the FAR elevator was working - and it would have been a pain with an ECV and a double stroller! Oh, and when we did stay at the Desert Inn...the elevator stopped working - that was a pain - being on the third floor.