Originally Posted By barboy This might affect me far more than most Rainforest goers. I have been to the following from favorite to least favorite: Anaheim.......... many times, by far the best San Fran........... many times, quite good DTD WDW........ few times, pretty good AK WDW........... once, decent Cancun, Mx...... once, not very good DLParis............. once, very bad Tok Dis Res...... once, very very bad I'd say that the 3 foreign ones are so lousy that they don't deserve to carry the Rainforest name.
Originally Posted By barboy I have no stats to back my claim but Anaheim's just feels far bigger than any I've been in. That thing is obnoxiously large. How many tables are there??? TOO MANY! It has 4 or 5 levels/floors of seating and sometimes it takes 4 employees stationed at different sections to get you to your table. 1) report in at the entry '''Parker Safari of 4 your adventure now begins"" 2) walk to the aquarium and report in 3) walk up stairs and report in 4) follow another escort to your table.
Originally Posted By Disneydanny <San Francsico: Moderately busy to empty, also closed.> are you sure? I just checked there websiute and it's still listed
Originally Posted By WorldDisney Hey Disneydanny, no I was wrong. I said it in my post #14 that I think I got it mixed up with another restaurant. Yeah, it still seems to be open .
Originally Posted By gadzuux What would really save GW would be elevated pedestrian crossings over harbor blvd. They need these anyway - harbor is too busy of a thoroughfare to expect the tens of thousands of pedestrians to cross - many of them several times per day. Sure, a modern and effective transit system would be best, but it's 'pie in the sky'. In the meantime, improving pedestrian safety and ease can be done relatively quickly and easily. And one result would be to create elevated pedestrian access from the DLR to GW. In time, at least one new hotel could be built that would provide elevated access, allowing for this elevated walkway to join the second deck of GW with the new hotel (with room for a future second tower) and the crossover into DLR. Once the pedestrians ascend to this deck on the DLR side of harbor, they could remain elevated all the way into GW, thereby boosting foot traffic to the underpopulated shopping areas. Problem solved. That'll be .05 cents please.
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA We visited GardenWalk back in November, and thought it was a real bust. There are no stores in that mall that are any different than any other shopping mall in the area, and frankly, there was a lot of empty stores with 'Coming Soon' and 'For Lease' signs in the window. We all left empty handed.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 I still wonder how Disney feels about GW deep down. Unwelcome competitor to DTD? If so, they might try to block such a construction project (even a simple one like Vegas-style elevated crossovers) that would be partly on their property. Welcome contributor to Anaheim's appeal as a whole? If so, they might help something like that happen with the city powers that be. Potential plus when the third gate is built and/or Disney-run hotels get built there? If so, they may secretly hope business is bad there for the time being so they can swoop in and buy chunks of it (or the whole thing) at distressed prices.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros At some point in the relatively near future, they will begin construction in the Pumbaa parking lot across the street from AGW on a new parking structure. By the time that is completed, they will really need some reasonable way to get people from DLR to the parking structure. As it is now, the walk to that parking lot is almost as long as the walk to the M&F parking structure, which runs a tram. It also requires huge numbers of people to cross Harbor Blvd. With increased capacity in the lot, that issue will need to be addressed. I would think that Disney could come up with some deal that they could work out, where they pay for part of it, and AGW pays for part of it, and it could be used as transportation to both. If/when the inevitable thrid gate opens (presumably in the strawberry field directly south of AGW), that tram (or elevated walkway, or PeopleMover, or whatever) route will be vital in connecting the resort. Given that it would drop tons of people off who would walk through AGW to get to the other park, I can't imagine that it wouldn't help boost their business. Of course, this is all many many years (I would guess at least another 10 for the third park to open) down the road, and who knows if AGW will even exist at all by then.
Originally Posted By Disneyland55 I can confirm for sure that the San Fransisco location is still open, because I ate there just 5 days ago. I know a couple of you already said it is listed as open on the web site, but having eaten there very recently I figured I'd let you you know for sure. Oh, and I noticed it had 3 floors.
Originally Posted By fkurucz <<I still wonder how Disney feels about GW deep down. Unwelcome competitor to DTD?>> Given that DtD is losing tents, a resounding yes. <<If so, they might try to block such a construction project>> Plus it would make the Harbor motels an even better value!
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt "Given that DtD is losing tents, a resounding yes." I really don't think that Disney cares about GW. In fact, wasn't it rumored that Disney was in negotiations last year to operate a hotel in the complex?
Originally Posted By gadzuux It's only a rumor, but yes. In fact, I believe it was THREE hotels. But if they could just start with one, and have it designed with pedestrian access on an elevated level. This could be the linchpin between the DLR and GW, with elevated walkways connecting all three, and removing the foot traffic from the boulevard below. They could build this walkway now, and then take all the time they want to build the hotel at some future date. In the meantime, they've created a pedestrian flow between DLR and GW, and right to the border of their future parking garage and - eventually - the third gate.
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy ^^ Nobody is going to finance anything that resembles that sort of commercial real estate development in this business climate.
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt There won't be a reason to connect GW with DLR until GW actually has something in it worth seeing. Why would anyone leave Disney property to go over there? To bowl? LOL.
Originally Posted By disneywatcher >> We visited GardenWalk back in November, and thought it was a real bust << It took the property owner several years to gather enough financing (among other things) to actually begin construction, and I imagine they now wish the funding had never materialized to begin with. Work on the shopping center also got bogged down when Garden Walk's owner couldn't purchase and tear down the Anahein Inn on Harbor Blvd. That meant crucial street frontage facing the DisCo's properties (and visible to all its customers) got slashed from the layout of the development. I always suspected a large shopping center next to Disneyland, and in that particular part of Anaheim -- competing with full-fledged, serious-minded malls all around it -- would end up being an under-performer. Or sort of to retail what DCA has been to Disney theme parks. The property owner probably would have come out ahead if they had sold their land to the DisCo several years ago.
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt "I always suspected a large shopping center next to Disneyland, and in that particular part of Anaheim -- competing with full-fledged, serious-minded malls all around it -- would end up being an under-performer." The problem isn't that it's next to Disneyland, the problem is that there is absolutely nothing there worth seeing or shopping for. I predicted this project would be a bust two years ago when the line up of tenants was first revealed. There is just nothing there compelling to see or do.
Originally Posted By WorldDisney Yeah, when I was in L.A. for a few weeks last summer, me and my mother went to AGW to check it out. It had been opened maybe a few weeks. It was completely dead, the shops were either too expensive or uninteresting and there was simply nothing there to keep our interest. The only thing that mightve kept us there is if were interested in seeing a movie (we werent) and the theater wasnt operating yet. Yeah, it sucked!! Add to the fact you have to pay for parking after maybe an hour or so and it wasnt worth it when you have DTD 5 mins away by car. We were back at DTD about 45 mins after we got there .
Originally Posted By WorldDisney Shouldve mentioned the restaurants were fine, but we didnt go there to eat and they were nothing you would drive all that way for since you can find most of them in other areas around L.A. anyway.
Originally Posted By Darkbeer <a href="http://www.ocregister.com/articles/mall-stone-think-2312490-anaheim-sales" target="_blank">http://www.ocregister.com/arti...im-sales</a> >>Cinema Fusion, the only Orange County movie theater that serves beer and wine, does no advertising and has yet to put up a sign outside of the mall, so some people don't know it's there, said David Moranville, the assistant manager. Still, the over-21 screening rooms sometimes are so crowded that they run out of beer, "I think they probably thought, we will build it, they will come," Stone said. Across the courtyard, club-goers line up regularly to pay around $20 cover for the Heat Ultra Lounge, which sometimes draws celebrities, including Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee. On the bottom level, the upscale 300 Anaheim bowling alley routinely has weekend waits for lanes, said Tristan Stone, general manager. But he had hoped for more business and that restaurant-goers along Katella would head deeper into the mall. "We would have liked to have seen more volume, but the economy is what it is," Tristan Stone said.<<
