Originally Posted By nemopoppins I'm very excited about all this news! But I can't bear to see the Disneyland Hotel demolished. A part of me will be gone along with it. I know that the old buildings have been as patched as they could be and something has to be done, but with a newer facility they can charge more. What if I'm priced out of it?
Originally Posted By ChurroMonster I love the idea of enhancing the theming of Paradise Pier. But I hate the idea of cramming cartoon characters into evry attraction. Disney Villains on Screamin'? Just how would they do that? Cardboard cutouts? Al's track record has been very good over the last few years but today's update seems a little out there.
Originally Posted By oc_dean What I don't get is how it is so necessary to demolish THREE hotel towers? They're not THAT old, for God sake. So what if they look a little ugly .. how'bout a little facade work to refreshen them. Hello! Well so far ... as this talk sounds kind of nice .. but I'm kind of sick of hearing talk-talk and more talk-talk-talk of DCA, I want to see some action! Until then ... I'll continue to chuckle with all these latest internet *stories*.
Originally Posted By ChurroMonster If the rumor about removing those two old boxy hotels is true I will rejoice. Imagine a hotel like DLP's or TDR's Disneyland Hotel anchoring the end of Downtown Disney where the current DLH now stands. Imagine a true Disney resort replacing the PPH. Who wouldn't love those changes?
Originally Posted By trekkeruss <<What I don't get is how it is so necessary to demolish THREE hotel towers? They're not THAT old, for God sake. So what if they look a little ugly .. how'bout a little facade work to refreshen them. Hello!>> It boggles my mind that you are constantly championing the idea of the Peoplemovers and how futuristic they are, but you want to keep some old and clearly out-of-date hotels.
Originally Posted By ArchtMig I'll believe it all when I see it. Right now, I see... not much. Therefore I believe... not much more than that. Al says the time frame is to have all these changes in place by some time in 2010 to be able to be ready for the 10 year anniversary on Feb. 8, 2011. That means they have 4 years to get it all done. Less if you consider how long it takes to get all the designs and engineering finalized and the plans drawn. It took them 4 or 5 years to build a bad, insufficient park. And that was with free and unfettered access to the site by all the construction crews, without any pesky hassles of how to juggle guests around in an already operating park. And now they want to spend about the same amount of dough they spent on the original, bad park to transform it into a good one? In 3, maybe 4 years? Like I said... I'll believe it when I see it. And right now, what I see sure looks like the beginnings of the old "Disney Decade" that Eisner said the 1990s would be. And what truly came to pass out of all of that was only a small part of what they started with. But regardless, I'd be happy with most of what Al described as what might happen to DCA. Anything to strip down PP and build it back up in a better way is a good thing. Anything to bring kinetic movement to the park is good. I think it's a shame if they get rid of Condor Flats, but if they can plant big trees and better hide the Grand Californian hotel from the rest of the park, then go for it. I sure as heck don't know how they're going to hide a huge 70 foot tall hanger building (Soarin') in a redwood forest. I LOVE the idea of tearing down the Paradise Pier hotel. Do that one FIRST before you tear down the Disneyland Hotel. THEN go ahead and tear down the Disneyland Hotel if you must. I will not shed a tear. I HATE the idea of building another hotel in the Timon lot. FOR GOD'S SAKE, DCA is already one of the smallest parks in the entire Disney theme park chain, and it has practically no room to expand other than Timon. Don't hog that precious space with another hotel, ya knuckleheads!!!! But anyway, it will be interesting to see how it all turns out. I look forward to a day when "The DCA Problem" is trying to decide which handful of attractions one will be able to ride on a day when the park is way too crowded to ride 'em all... like the dilemma we face at Disneyland more often than not.
Originally Posted By oc_dean But I'll beleive a complete demolishen of three huge towers when I see it. As I said ... I'm getting tired of hearing about all these grandiose plans which so far amount to be a lot of internet gab.
Originally Posted By trekkeruss <<Al says the time frame is to have all these changes in place by some time in 2010 to be able to be ready for the 10 year anniversary on Feb. 8, 2011. That means they have 4 years to get it all done. Less if you consider how long it takes to get all the designs and engineering finalized and the plans drawn.>> I don't think four years is out of the question for changes to the park itself. Most of it is cosmetic changes... no super-technical engineering involved. The Philharmagic show is another clone. The only biggies would be the alluded-to "big E-tickets," which probably are attractions they have done a lot of Imagineering work on already. The other stuff though, the hotels and the monorail; that has got to be later down the pike... and it's fairly clear that these are things they want to do, but won't necessarily do.
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA I wouldn't miss the Paradise Pier Hotel, or the Disneyland Hotel. Before the demolition of the area surrounding the Disneyland Hotel, it was a real study in that mid-50s erector-set-meets-googie architecture. And it wasn't really aging very well. So, to create Downtown Disney, they remove everthing except the Disneyland Hotel Towers, which, even though they've been rehabbed, are still pretty dated and ugly looking. It would be cool to have hotels that are not towers, but are perhaps more sprawling in the way they are designed, like the Grand Floridian, or Grand Californian, so that they're not such eyesores from inside DCA.
Originally Posted By fkurucz I have to wonder why would they demolish hotels with above market prices and occupancy rates? In order to justify this the replacement hotels will need to be even more expensive. Perhaps they believe that there is a market in Anaheim for more rooms in the GC price category or even higher! DCA might have been a flop, but the GC appears to have been a roaring success. They are asking $390 per night for a standard room mid February. Mind boggling, to say the least.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 I agree with those who say that Timon should be reserved for DCA expansion, not a boutique hotel. A boutique hotel is a good idea, but why not place that where the PPH is now? I can't imagine the PPH is that profitable for Disney in its present configuration. They could probably make just as much with fewer, but more expensive rooms in this boutique hotel, with nice grounds etc. surrounding these fewer rooms. The problem as I see it is then: what to do with the DLH? AFAIK, it's still getting those premium rates they charge and has good occupancy, even at those rates. So could they recoup the cost of building something nicer (perhaps along the lines of Paris' version) by charging even MORE of a premium - plus the cost of having the DLH closed entirely for a year or so? This would also leave them without a mid-priced alternative for those who want Disney but can't afford high-end (something like the All Stars at WDW). That may be the nature of the beast at Anaheim, and the nearby good-neighbor hotels assume that role. I don't know. I just know I want more park in Timon rather than a hotel!
Originally Posted By a1stav "you will no longer find a contemporary state park atmosphere with modern music and 21st century sporting gear as props, but rather a period specific state park perfectly coiffed and pristine just as Teddy Roosevelt had envisioned them in the early 1900's." Thank goodness!! There are two ways to invoke that "magic" and adventure. Either make the setting exotic "AK" or set it in the past "most of DL". I am looking forward to loosing the "dude" dialog and boomboxes from GRR. "The open top Duesenberg-style limousines will take passengers down a Hollywood boulevard that has been scrubbed clean of its cheeky 21st century references, and instead turned into something more akin to the Hollywood Boulevard at Walt Disney World's MGM Studios. The Hyperion Theater would finally have its outdoor lobby enclosed, and the newer street leading to the Tower of Terror would have the existing facades beefed up and themed to the period." Again bravo!! Disney MGM is great because of the "Hollywood that never was but always will be" theme. If you want to see the "real" Hollywood you can just drive up the highway.
Originally Posted By trekkeruss <<In order to justify this the replacement hotels will need to be even more expensive. Perhaps they believe that there is a market in Anaheim for more rooms in the GC price category or even higher! DCA might have been a flop, but the GC appears to have been a roaring success. They are asking $390 per night for a standard room mid February. Mind boggling, to say the least.>> They're using the WDW model, where there are more deluxe properties than anything else.
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt "How so Hans?" Generally speaking, boutique hotels are smaller properties with less amenities than bigger resort hotels. They are usually concentrated in large urban areas like Chicago, New York and Miami, where space is a premium. Considering this, traveling families with children staying in Orange County visiting So Cal theme parks hardly seem like the kind of market for a boutique hotel property.
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt ^^Often they are chic and urban hotel properties in buildings that were either run down hotels or some other non-hotel business. Rarely are they built from the ground up. For instance there is a Hard Rock Hotel in Chicago that was once an office building. W Hotels, a chain from Starwood, tries to mimick the look and feel of a boutique hotel. Here are some examples: www.standardhotel.com/ www.morganshotelgroup.com/
Originally Posted By Dabob2 I'm really not a fan of Morgans hotels (formerly Ian Schraeger). The rooms are typically TINY, the decor spartan... but they tell you that's cool somehow, and people buy it.
Originally Posted By tonyanton It would be cool if some sort of recreation lake can be fit in between the replacements for the DL Hotel and the PP Hotel. That would definitely add to the resort feel.
