These Hyper-Themed Homes Are the Most Magical Places to Stay Near Disneyland
Find space beds, secret doors, and backyard playgrounds at these wild rental homes in Orange County
We must’ve walked past the refrigerator of our Orange County Airbnb at least six times before we realized it was a secret doorway. To be fair, it was pretty innocuous: A 1950s-style fridge positioned in the corner of the kitchen, with a “Ratatouille” rat perched atop its rim the only hint at something amiss.
Inside was a child’s dream of a playroom, including a private movie theater with three rows of tiered leather seating, and two walls of stand-up arcade games. In one corner sat not one, but two stainless steel washer/dryer combos—because kids.
“This is the coolest thing ever,” I heard my daughter say. Or maybe I said that.
Because it really is. At least, if you’re the kind of person who can appreciate the quirk factor of making a doorway out of a kitchen appliance and converting a perfectly good garage into a bonus room that you’ll only find if you look for it.
Welcome to the Pixar Pier house, one of 19 over-the-top themed homes in the Anaheim area designed to appeal to Disneyland visitors who would rather sleep in a Millennium Falcon than a Marriott Bonvoy.
“We want people to feel like they’ve been transported to that world,” says the owner of OC Adventure Homes, a fleet of 19 themed homes near Disneyland available through Airbnb as well as on its standalone website. He goes by “James Johnson” on the home rental site, though that’s a pseudonym.
OC Adventure Homes’ rental properties—all of which look unremarkable from the outside—are designed to make kids feel like they’re walking into their favorite movies. We’re talking bunk beds that double as space pods, game rooms hidden behind bookcases and refrigerators, rooms with light shows set off by buttons, and enchanting theme music that flicks on with the flip of a light switch.
“A lot of it is just trying to imagine how to bring the movies to life,” Johnson says. “We don’t want to just put posters on the wall. We want to do the rooms and the themes justice.”
The pandemic pivot that stuck
Johnson never intended to become Orange County’s king of Disney-themed Airbnbs. His first themed home happened on a whim when the COVID-19 pandemic forced an unprecedented yearlong closure of Disneyland in 2020, leaving his handful of 3-bedroom vacation rentals empty.
“When COVID happened, and Disneyland closed, no one was coming,” says Johnson, a former business strategist in the video game industry. “So I had to make the homes an attraction. I was like, ‘How do I make people want to come to these homes?’”
Clearly, the answer lay in giant backyard dinosaurs and space bedrooms—because once Johnson started offering these sorts of uniquely-themed elements, his rental business took off.
“Immediately, I knew that every new home had to have a theme,” he says. “I started to realize that people wanted to go to Disneyland during the day and come back to a home where they could still have an interactive experience.”
But OC Adventure Homes doesn’t just slap a mural on the wall and call it themed. Every room is thought out to the very last teacup. At “The Disneyland Dream,” for instance, each room in the house is an ode to Walt’s world: There’s a Frontierland room with Old West music and a working train that circles the ceiling, an Indiana Jones room with hidden artifacts in every nook and cranny, and a Steamboat Willie room done in black and white so visitors feel like they’re walking into a 1920s Mickey Mouse cartoon.
And then there are the backyards—private playgrounds with putting greens, climbing structures, swing sets, playhouses, old-fashioned kiddie rides, ping pong tables, yard games, and, in some cases, pools.
The cost of a hotel room vs. a home
There’s a lot to be said for staying in Disney-owned properties. For one thing, Disneyland hotel guests can get into the park 30 minutes before the general public, a sliver of time that can give you the edge on a coveted Lightning Lane for the Rise of the Resistance ride. And for another, Disney hotels are not bashful about their theming either, with light-up headboards and beyond.
But let’s face it: A trip to see Mickey & friends is expensive. It costs about $700 a night to stay in a single room at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel, the luxury lodge at Disneyland’s California Adventure—and that's just an average, prices can go way up at peak times. By comparison, a night in one of OC Adventure Homes’ 3-bedroom rentals averages out to about $500 (though it also climbs over $1,000 a night on popular weekends).
There are also things the Disneyland hotels can’t provide: originality, playrooms, and space—literally or thematically, in the case of the Star Wars house. If you're visiting with a group, especially one that includes kids, it's hard to overstate how nice it is to have multiple bedrooms, and a real kitchen.
Theming sells (at least near Disney)
There are plenty of themed homes in Florida, where Orlando’s myriad amusement parks—Univeral Studios, Disneyworld, Epcot, Legoland, among many others—draw more than 70 million people per year.
According to short-term rental data analytics company AirDNA, there are an estimated 35,000 Airbnbs to choose from in the Orlando area. Which is why it makes sense that property owners might choose to transform a run-of-the-mill rental into, say, a wizard-themed world.
“Orlando has the highest concentration of theme parks in the world, so it’s no surprise that travelers want more than just a place to sleep: they’re looking for an experience,” says AirDNA spokesperson Chloé Garlaschi. “In a competitive market, a themed rental helps hosts stand out by offering something fun and immersive that guests will remember long after their trip.”
But while Orlando may be teeming with over-the-top vacation rentals—veritable wonderlands with bunk bed slides, ball pit rooms, and pools shaped like ice cream cones—Southern California’s short-term rental market, for whatever reason, hasn’t jumped on the thematic bandwagon.
There are fewer than 600 Airbnbs throughout Anaheim and its neighboring Garden Grove, according to AirDNA. Maybe there is less demand for standalone housing—or more demand at the Disneyland hotels themselves—and maybe some of that is due to Orange County’s relatively strict short-term rental regulations.
And of those 600, OC Adventures appears to be one of only a scant few property owners offering immersive theming. In fact, the only other fully-themed short-term rental that I could find was this delightfully spooky standalone “Haunted Mansion” house, designed by a special effects veteran Jeffrey Schiefelbein.
Of course, there are also legalities that might scare away potential competition. After all, Disney is notoriously litigious, even going so far as to crack down on licensed characters at children’s birthday parties.
Technically, homeowners are allowed to have Disney items inside their homes since those are private property. The tricky part comes in the public descriptions. Florida themers know this plight, which is why you’ll see a myriad of listings for “Wizard Homes” instead of “Harry Potter Homes” or “Galactic Themed” instead of “Star Wars themed,” for instance.
For now, Johnson’s biggest snafus have included one kid accidentally locking himself into the secret arcade room (“Not a bad place to be stuck,” he says, and the kid was out within the hour anyway) and another kid who took apart a large custom-designed LEGO model.
Now he’s trying to figure out how to put an actual (tiny) roller coaster into one of his backyards so he can become “the only Airbnb with a roller coaster.”
All of it comes with one goal in mind: Making sure his houses are destinations in their own right.
“I think the biggest compliment I get is that the kids will be at Disneyland asking to go back home so they can go to the house,” Johnson says. “It’s just so much fun for them.”