There’s a lot to unpack and respond to here, haha. I even transferred my laptop for this.
How so? What were they trying to achieve in that area? In what ways did they fail?
A lot of modern, luxury hotels rely on upscale materials and minimalist design in order to convey their sense of value. This is usually met with a crazy roster of activities and top notch service to meet it. And, while these resorts usually are minimalist, they still have some sense of architectural balance and a sense of place. Now that we have our expectations, let's go down the line to see how Riviera would not meet buyer's standards.
1) Upscale Materials- Riviera looks relatively cheap inside and out, with the most "upscale" areas being the lobby tile and Voyager's Lounge
2) Minimalist Design- THis one Riviera kind of gets, but its minimalist design fails on architectural balance which we'll get too in a second.
3) Crazy Roster of Activities- I'll give Riviera credit for pretty much nailing their dining slate, but their pools leave a bit to be desired (even by guests).
4) Top Notch Service- As great as Disney's service is compared to most of the world, Riviera is no Four Seasons
5)Arch. Balance and Sense of Space- This is where Riviera fails the most. For starters, this building attempts to mimick the architecture of the French Riviera, but instead of following that theory of architecture (like how the GF follows the style format of Victorian architecture) is instead maps closer to Sullivan’s Skyscraper theory (like GF’s DVC) in which the ornamentation is almost entirely limited to the top and bottom floors, while the middle is full of constant, simple, repeated ornamentation. By following this style, Riviera has a disproportionate roof compared to its supposed inspiration, and loads of blank areas that lack texture. While most guests may not articulate it like that, there is feedback that indicates many guests find the exterior to be bland. As for sense of space, they awkwardly plopped this down on the banks of Caribbean Beach, which is a stylistically very different resort. Riviera guests have complained about seeing CBR and CBR guests have complained about seeing Riviera, largely because they are incredible close and they clash. There is a reason why Poly and GF have a bunch of transition room, and why places without transition room (Art/Pop and Yacht/Beach/Boardwalk) all make a conscious effort to blend with similar influence. The only “theme” these two resorts have in common is the water, and even the shorelines/way they connect to the water are different.
I covered what they tried...
“Failing” is determined by sales and demand for bookings...which all correlate to per guest spending.
But also...riviera is a template. They really don’t want to build stand-alones...instead slapping them on old services...so if it hits well, look out port orleans etc.
Remember there Iger decided it’s “only about location” as the new way...
It doesn’t what the substance is...it’s only about how fast you can get to the park to buy early morning and after hours “Magic”
Your right about location being a priority, which is why Port Orleans is super safe. And the non-DVC side of Disney absolutely wants DVC building stuff from the ground up so non-DVC resorts can piggy back off of it. Think about DVC paying a disproportionate amount of the Reflections or Skyliner bills when both were mixed use.
What's the data that supports that sales were weak pre-covid? The data I've seen on dvcnews is that sales were really strong pre-covid. The resort opened in December and in its first full month open in January 2020 they sold +180,000 Riviera points, only the fifth time in ten years a resort sold +180k in a single month. Riviera had it's second best month in February, then covid in March.
Admittedly, I was going off of late 2019 numbers, so if it had a spike in early 2020 then good for it (shrugs). A lot of the complaints I brought up earlier were a reason for poorer sales. Funnily enough, the Skyliner is what has been proppig up interest in the resort. Guest satisfaction for it has been crazy high.
The impression that I get is that the new build DVC's may go dormant for a while. I suspect pre-COVID plans were Reflections to be followed by the Poly tower.
I know
@pheneix popularized the notion that the Poly tower was next on the agenda before Poly's refurb was scaled back, but I have confirmed with two unrelated people that Poly tower was
not even close to next. In fact, it was an older proposal, that none of us had heard of since 2015 that didn't appear to be up for recycling any time soon.
Next on the agenda (for refurb definitely and I think DVC, but I'm less sure on that one) was Grand Flo 2: Electric Boogaloo,
but because the NBA already has the Grand Flo staffed, they plan to leave it open (Disney doesn't want to reclose resorts, as I've already brought up, or else Yacht would not have reopened and Coronado wouldn't reopen). So, if they wanted to leave a deluxe closed, their options were down to non-DVC Beach Club, Non-DVC Wilderness, and Non-DVC Poly, all of which were pushed indefinitely. So, since Wilderness just wrapped a light refurb of its non-DVC wing (or maybe it's already in progress?), and so did Beach Club, only Poly was left to receive a refurb while staying closed. Personally, I don't think we would have seen this Poly refurb until post-50th if COVID hadn't happened.
This sums up the whole problem for me (and a lot of other people).
It's not that the Riviera isn't a nice hotel. It's that it's a generic one that could exist in any number of places. One of the major reasons I stay at a Disney property is for interesting theming; otherwise I can stay at one of the partner hotels for much less. There's just no draw to the Riviera for me -- if they offered me a free room at any hotel at WDW, it wouldn't even make my top 10.
Eh... that's generous to Riviera imo. I’d compare it’s style of theming you something more out of Pigeon Forge or Branson than Vegas (at least there they lean into the skyscraper aspect).
