Myth #6. A partial myth, actually. This one says the rooms of Disney's Contemporary Resort were assembled in modular fashion at a location elsewhere on the property, then trucked to the site and hoisted by a huge crane one-by-one into the hotel's giant steel A-frame structure. The rooms were also designed to be removable when it came time to redecorate.
The first part is true enough (and the Polynesian was built the same way). But that last statement is absolutely false. And recognizing it to be false is a pretty intuitive process. Both John Hench, senior vice president of WDI and John Anderson, a structural engineer with Facility Asset Management Support, make the following points:
Why would you go to the trouble of lifting out an entire room -- disconnecting the water, sewer, power, and all the rest of that stuff -- when all you need to do is send up a couple of guys with a bucket of paint
and some wallpaper?
Why would you want that huge crane brought back in now, smashing up the pool area and all the landscaping and sidewalks around the hotel, just to redecorate?
Not only that, but each room was constructed with its balcony and its own portion of the interior walkway as part of the module. Removal of one or more of the rooms would create quite a surprise for any guest on that floor who might be sleepily heading downstairs for a late night snack!
No, John Hench (who worked with the architects of the hotel) assures us that this was never even a consideration in early design. But if you need more evidence, there's this: the rooms of Disney's Contemporary Resort were redone in a multi-year rehab of that hotel in the early '90s. Did anyone see the crane?
Related to Myth #6: Okay, so they can't remove them. But they wanted to. Except the hotel settled on its foundation, twisting the steel framework of the building and wedging the rooms in so tight they can't be removed.
Also not true -- on either point. As mentioned, John Hench says they never gave this idea any consideration. But the foundation hasn't moved either.
John Anderson explains that each arch of the A-frame sits on a large bunker of concrete. And each bunker sits on a deeper foundation, known as a piling, which was pounded down into the underlying limestone. The
foundation has never budged and it's not likely to do so anytime soon.
Side note: The monorail pylons are on similar footings. If the Contemporary's foundation had settled, the monorail beam into and out of the hotel would have twisted, as well. Short answer: it hasn't.
Also related to Myth #6. The Contemporary is sitting on top of a giant sink hole and the Army Corps of Engineers has been trying to fill it for years. Nothing is working and the hotel is doomed.
Not only is this incorrect, it's a little reckless to even suggest it. According to Bob Beaver, chief civil engineer with Facility Asset Management Support, all of the Magic Kingdom resort sites were thoroughly examined in 1968 by the soil engineering firm of Dames and Moore, an internationally recognized authority geology, environmental sciences and engineering.
Bob also states that "the Army Corps of Engineers has absolutely no interest in the Contemporary Resort Hotel." And, as with the cranes that no one has ever seen removing rooms from the hotel, has anyone actually seen all this heavy equipment the Corps would have to be using? Unless....gads!....we've uncovered the Army's super-secret "stealth" sinkhole filling machine!
:lol:
