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News Disney Riviera Resort announced
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
surfsupdon
Well-Known Member
It has a beach that isn’t mentioned on the MDE app. I liked the place enough, for a lunch at Riva while using the Skyliner.
I did see a pretty big corner cut tho. The beach (the old Barbados beach) has a new promenade that passes the beach between Riviera and Martinique. However, they did not install the water grates (drainage) that are at every other CBR beach, preventing run off carving into the beach landscape. Because of this, there was some pretty big runoff from the path, down beach, to Barefoot Bay. It’s just not a nice look at a brand new place charging inflated prices. It also had pieces of junk/trash along the carved drainage route. Smh
I did see a pretty big corner cut tho. The beach (the old Barbados beach) has a new promenade that passes the beach between Riviera and Martinique. However, they did not install the water grates (drainage) that are at every other CBR beach, preventing run off carving into the beach landscape. Because of this, there was some pretty big runoff from the path, down beach, to Barefoot Bay. It’s just not a nice look at a brand new place charging inflated prices. It also had pieces of junk/trash along the carved drainage route. Smh
xdan0920
Think for yourselfer
I am hugely confused. What does the amenities of a 1br Villa have to do with theming? Yes, DVC villas have kitchens. How does that excuse lazy, poor, design and theming?
RobWDW1971
Well-Known Member
Because apparently from these posts as long as a villa has a kitchen and a room layout they recognize, they have no standards or expectations for world-class themeing. God, Disney loves these people. The DVC biz is a gift that just keeps on giving.
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
Disney Vacation Club wants their members to feel like they are at home, so they must exude the design of a McMansion.
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Little Green Men
Well-Known Member
Pretty. Quiet. Relaxing. Is that better?
Creathir
Premium Member
Please, do list some examples of the theming you expect from any of the Disney DVC properties...
What is poor about the design besides you saying it’s poor? What is lazy about it besides you saying it’s lazy?
Specific examples please to contrast with other properties.
surfsupdon
Well-Known Member
I like the property, however the example I illustrated a few posts above about the beach runoff is a specific example of a poor design and lazy completion of the project.
The beautiful beach was carved out with rain runoff, plant debris, and garbage.
Like other DVC and Resort properties, a drainage grate along the perimeter of the promenade to collect runoff would have been a good choice.
Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
"Inspired by Europe and imagined by Disney" reminds me of "authentically Disney, distinctly Chinese".
xdan0920
Think for yourselfer
I think sufficient examples have been cited amongst these many pages of the distinct lack of theme, or direction, or design elements. It’s a plain, neutral color mid rise Hyatt type hotel. It’s not distinctive, it’s not transportive. It’s just there.
DVC has been tacking on to deluxe resorts, borrowing their themes, making the DVC portions much more appealing for the most part.
They Are now out of Deluxe resorts to steal theme from, so the most cost effective solution was to go with no theme. And looky here, it worked. They are making hundreds of millions of dollars on this property. So good on them.
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
Obviously fake Mansard roofs. Large blank walls. Fire stairs with prominent massing.
Heppenheimer
Well-Known Member
While looking nothing like any hotel in Europe, with the exception of maybe some airport business class hotels.
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Heppenheimer
Well-Known Member
No. As above, it bears almost no resemblance to the typical styles of those regions.
Sir_Cliff
Well-Known Member
That does look like a pretty standard hotel pool, to be honest.
surfsupdon
Well-Known Member
I agree.
It’s pretty because it’s new. It’s orderly with new vegetation and new pavers. It isn’t anything special. But it does look nice.
Little Green Men
Well-Known Member
You’re correct. As far as resort pools go there are plenty of better ones. That doesn’t mean I didn’t like it though, one pretty unique thing is seeing the skyliner across the lake from it. The gelato cart is a nice bonus too. The quiet pool also had the water going off the edge like an infinity pool, I can’t remember if there are any other infinity pools on property though.
RandySavage
Well-Known Member
I rail on this resort because I'm imagining what it could have been as deluxe Riviera-themed hotel, surpassing the others in WDW in grandeur and beauty, IF ONLY Disney had leadership who wanted to leave behind such a legacy and hired architects who had clue how to.
I get your point: the other DVCs aren't masterworks of resort architecture, so why should this be?" I agree that a number of DVCs are not that distinguishable from your local upscale housing development, but this monumental building fails more monumentally in its architecture.
If 'How to Design a Hotel Following the Traditional, Classical Styles' were still taught at the architecture schools, this Riviera building would be a perfect example of how to get everything wrong and what not to do at every turn. Rather than go through all the poorly-implemented elements, I'll choose one: the window treatments.
Traditionally, in a Beaux-Arts hotel of the Riviera, the many windows/patios had Surrounds, not only to beautify, but because there was an underlying structural purpose associated with the physical framing of the opening in the wall:
Modern construction materials and techniques allow a designer to forego surrounds structurally. You have pre-fabbed concrete walls with holes punched out like paper. It costs money (and requires Knowledge) to add that historically-accurate ornament & framing around windows. So you end up with hundreds of unframed openings that look terrible:
That's one element. There are scores more (e.g. those railings: forget custom curving wrought-iron as you'd find on a classic building, they look like the cheapest you'd find at Home Depot).
Here's the Beach Club DVC (emulating a different traditional style, stick). Its architects knew how contrary it looks to this style to have window frames floating in the walls, thus the surrounds:
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Kiwiduck
Well-Known Member
That is just a concrete square with water in it. I'm tend to be a pixie duster and even I think that's a plain and lazy effort, the pool and the hotel behind it. There is so much they could have done with a Riveria setting and they did none of it.
Creathir
Premium Member
It’s intent was NOT a deluxe hotel, but a DVC resort.
These are two distinct products with two distinct clientele. There is certainly overlap, don’t get me wrong, but it was never intended to be a deluxe hotel.
I just don’t feel this vitriolic hate it warranted for it. It’s not any more offensive than Saratoga Springs or any other DVC property, other than just that: it’s DVC.
RandySavage
Well-Known Member
I (somewhat) disagree. At least one DVC is well done (Beach Club).
I'm not eager to defend DVCs, as I see them as a pox on the beatific Resort landscape (especially in the MK resort area) of old. Saratoga is not going to impress anyone who knows and/or loves traditional architectural beauty, but it's not going to offend the way a Riviera does. Riviera's much larger size, amplifies its architectural badness. It will never be able to be ensconced in trees like Wilderness Lodge or Saratoga can.
This pic shows some SSR's more considered attributes: Surfaces that try to look natural (faux clapboard, faux stonework on the cheesey chimney at far left)). Riviera doesn't attempt to look like it's made of traditional materials (or have any chimneys), but is content to have its walls be un-ornamented concrete slabs. SSR windows have surrounds. They have varying "old-fashioned" muntins and there are varying railing types.
You see SSR and think "okay, fine. Quite nice, actually, compared to the LBV hotel towers to my right". Riviera, you think "damn, that's an eyesore. Is this what Disney builds now?!" Sadly, the thing going up at the Swan & Dolphin will be worse than Riviera.