New Hilton Hotel construction seen in Epcot

[Pongo]

I guess it's all a matter of opinion.

Guess so :lol:

I suppose I'm just easy to please and very forgiving. This is probably the wrong thread for me to be posting in :lol:

 

[EPCOT Explorer]

Guess so :lol:

I suppose I'm just easy to please and very forgiving. This is probably the wrong thread for me to be posting in :lol:

:lol: Nah, post away!

 

[WDW1974]

Sorry, gonna have to disagree here.

All of the examples you cited show the "magic" overlapping. Unfavorable, but it's not going to kill the Disney experience. You know that all of that is part of the magic and the experience.

A huge glaring neon sign against the quant vista of a Italian Villa? That's a bit different. That's the real world leaking in, and I don't think that is right AT ALL.


Like you said, hopefully they can hide it.

Yep.

On face value sure a fairytale Bavarian castle at the end of a turn of the century Main Street may seem like it is contrary ... but it's not. Disney designed things with the movies in mind ... read up on any of the great coffee table books out on Imagineering and designing the parks.

Disney may have created its own 'rules' but when it played by them everything worked out ... it seemed to fit ... that's why when you see the Matterhorn from the top of Tarzan's Treehouse it seems to look natural while if you look from Grizzly Peak and see the Hilton and Convention Center, it feels 'off.'

The magic 'overlapping' is actually a good way to 'splain it ... that's why while it makes sense to see Morocco next to a miniature Eiffel Tower, the sight of a huge convention hotel springing up from behind the World Showcase with stylized/cartoonish fish and swans clashes terribly.

 

[EPCOT Explorer]

Yep.

On face value sure a fairytale Bavarian castle at the end of a turn of the century Main Street may seem like it is contrary ... but it's not. Disney designed things with the movies in mind ... read up on any of the great coffee table books out on Imagineering and designing the parks.

Disney may have created its own 'rules' but when it played by them everything worked out ... it seemed to fit ... that's why when you see the Matterhorn from the top of Tarzan's Treehouse it seems to look natural while if you look from Grizzly Peak and see the Hilton and Convention Center, it feels 'off.'

The magic 'overlapping' is actually a good way to 'splain it ... that's why while it makes sense to see Morocco next to a miniature Eiffel Tower, the sight of a huge convention hotel springing up from behind the World Showcase with stylized/cartoonish fish and swans clashes terribly.

Wow, we agree.


I actually don't mind the hotels in WS...They can only be seen from the Promenade itself and I've often wanted to stay there so I guess they are part of the Disney magic too. It's like seeing the Contempo from TL, which once fit TL's archetecture, no longer does.

 

[Brian Noble]

I was told that the Fairfield/Wyndham timeshare resort had to get special agreement from The Mouse to add two floors to the buildings it was planning there ... that source worked directly for the developer

The folks I know who work for Wyndham tell the tale quite differently.

 

[DisneyDellsDude]

There are spirits working on it from different places ... :wave:

I can tell you that having your parent company's stock get downgraded two days before Christmas by a top analyst based largely on domestic theme park worries isn't a way to stay endeared to Bob Iger.

So ... who know what could happen if Wall Street has more P&R concerns?

So how long do you think we have with him yet?
And by the way, I agree with you 100%.

I HATE how Disney letting all these weird buildings pop up here and there on the property Walt wanted to buy so these types of things couldn't happen anymore. I HATE how they're giving up land they could use in the future or just let nature use just to get a few bucks now.

If Disney was really struggling financially, I could see it happening a bit, but they're not.

If an attraction gets built in the parks and is disliked (like Stitch's Great Escape) they can just tear it down and rebuild. It would cost a fortune to get these patches of land back, especially if crappy hotels are being built on them by outside parties.

I just wanted to throw my opinion out there.

 

[marni1971]

I HATE how Disney letting all these weird buildings pop up here and there on the property Walt wanted to buy so these types of things couldn't happen anymore. I HATE how they're giving up land they could use in the future or just let nature use just to get a few bucks now

There`s only a few really - Bonnet Creek is off property. The Swan and Dolphin, well they had no real choice (see Tishman and law suits) and the only other things I can think of are the Hess stations, and they arn`t exactly ugly.

 

[Disneyson 1]

They're building a Hilton IN EPCOT?!?!?!?

...

Oh. Never mind.

 

[EPCOT Explorer]

There`s only a few really - Bonnet Creek is off property. The Swan and Dolphin, well they had no real choice (see Tishman and law suits) and the only other things I can think of are the Hess stations, and they arn`t exactly ugly.

Agreed. I dunno why the S&D is so hated, it's just another part of the Disney Magic for me.:shrug:

 

[kcnole]

I'm not crazy about seeing the Swan and Dolphin show up behind WS, but its never really bothered me. Seeing the ugly unthemed stage for Soarin does, I don't know how I feel about this Hilton yet, but there's not much Disney can do to stop them legally.

 

[Rob562]

Agreed. I dunno why the S&D is so hated, it's just another part of the Disney Magic for me.:shrug:

Just like the Hat at the Studios, I don't dislike the Swan & Dolphin themselves. In fact, I kinda like the whimsical design of the two buildings.
What I hate is the *placement* of them...
The Swan and Dolphin would have looked MUCH better along Hotel Plza Blvd or in that general area, just like the Hat would have looked much better elsewhere in the park.

-Rob

 

[Computer Magic]

If I was Hilton, I would plan to have the sign show in Epcot. Free advertisment and a dig, Stick or HA!! to Disney. Make Disney put up a wall to hide my sign...

Don't you think S&D owners did the same thing? Let's build this BIG and show it Epcot. That will teach Disney to try and go back on their deal.

 

[DisneyDellsDude]

There`s only a few really - Bonnet Creek is off property. The Swan and Dolphin, well they had no real choice (see Tishman and law suits) and the only other things I can think of are the Hess stations, and they arn`t exactly ugly.

I know, but it is just that they are there.
This is just one topic that bugs me because it seems like this is one of the easiest things to avoid, but it is also the hardest thing to get rid of once you give in - which Disney has started to.

 

[kcnole]

Don't you think S&D owners did the same thing? Let's build this BIG and show it Epcot. That will teach Disney to try and go back on their deal.

Nope, all they required was a plot of land next to the park. Eisner actually brought in the architect on this and personally approved the designs. In fact WDI actually submitted their own plans which would have worked much better, but Eisner wasn't interested in building another themed Disney hotel, he wanted something "artistic".

 

[EPCOT Explorer]

Didn't Walt Disney's blessing of size quote kinda foretell that this WOULDN'T happen?

 

[marni1971]

I know, but it is just that they are there.

Well yes, but us tourists need cheap petrol! Plus the Gulf Car Care Center opened in 1971. Same theming and shapes as the original T&TC, for better or for worse.

Granted they could have built designs like the RDFD buildings but only last year we passed the Hess on BVD and said how pleasant it looks for a petrol station.

 

[Computer Magic]

Nope, all they required was a plot of land next to the park. Eisner actually brought in the architect on this and personally approved the designs. In fact WDI actually submitted their own plans which would have worked much better, but Eisner wasn't interested in building another themed Disney hotel, he wanted something "artistic".

good call, I did a search. From MousePlanet

However, by the time Michael Eisner became Chairman and CEO of the Disney Company in 1984, the company's connection to innovative architecture had faded. Eisner rejected a plan to build two rather ordinary hotel towers (that in my conversation with him, he referred to as "refrigerator boxes") near Epcot.
After some legal wrangling with the Tishman Corporation, Eisner hired the award-winning Princeton architect Michael Graves—who had never designed a hotel before—to design the Walt Disney Swan and Dolphin hotels. The hotels were necessary to accommodate the convention groups who were staying at off-property hotels that had greater convention space than the existing Disney resorts. When the two hotels opened in 1989 and 1990, they offered the largest hotel convention space in the Southeastern United States.

 

[WDW1974]

The folks I know who work for Wyndham tell the tale quite differently.

Really?

I'd be interested in hearing what they had to say ... the person who told me isn't a close friend or anything of that sort, but he does work for the company in a position to know of what he is speaking. Not that that necessarily means anything.

 

[WDW1974]

So how long do you think we have with him yet?
And by the way, I agree with you 100%.

I thought he'd be gone by mid-2007, so I am not one to ask. If you follow the typical tenure in that position he's about ready to be gone ... but I dunno, Bob keeps Jay because the numbers are so good ... sadly, I think we need to see the numbers really fall and/or a total collapse of the talks on Shanghai for him to lose his job ... or as they put it in Mousespeak 'go spend more time with the family.'

I HATE how Disney letting all these weird buildings pop up here and there on the property Walt wanted to buy so these types of things couldn't happen anymore. I HATE how they're giving up land they could use in the future or just let nature use just to get a few bucks now.

If Disney was really struggling financially, I could see it happening a bit, but they're not.

No. They haven't managed their most precious resource -- land -- properly.

I think the first huge mistake was building Celebration. That immediately took a HUGE piece of land out of the 'all the dreams we cab possibly imagine' realm and into the typical upscale (in this case very overpriced) community of subdivisions and parks and a golf course.

What's worse is they seem to have this idea that they need to sell or develop every square inch of property.

If an attraction gets built in the parks and is disliked (like Stitch's Great Escape) they can just tear it down and rebuild. It would cost a fortune to get these patches of land back, especially if crappy hotels are being built on them by outside parties.

I just wanted to throw my opinion out there.

Throw away.

 

[WDW1974]

Didn't Walt Disney's blessing of size quote kinda foretell that this WOULDN'T happen?

That's the saddest thing (as I just wrote about).

WDW, for all its size, feels awful crowded and congested a lot of the time ... and that's without all the current resorts (Bonnet Creek, Four Seasons, BLT) even done yet.