"Paddlefish" is a fail in theme.

[mouse_luv]

Originally the Empress Lilly, and then Fulton's Crab House, the beautiful boat-shaped building at Disney Springs....is not not so beautiful anymore.

Here's Fulton's as it was in 2013:

It's warm and inviting, bright and cheery, and you can easily imagine the thing steaming to life and pulling away from the "dock".


But then they did THIS:

It's been painted a wastewater gray, they removed of all the accent pieces, and it has a really bland font for the name.
If their sign was green, it would be indistinguishable from a Starbucks store front.




Secondly...look what the hell they did to the dining room.
Here's what Fulton's looked like when I visited back in 2013:

It's what you'd expect to find inside an actual paddle boat. It's got the wood furniture and accents, the antique signage. It's a home-y atmosphere that suits a paddle wheeler.

The After:

The hell is this? It looks so bland and sterile. There's no real character in it anymore.

Gotta love how the dining room tiles look like something that should be in a mall bathroom in the 1980s lol

 

[kzkpa]

Wow, How boring. I can go just about anywhere and dine in a place that looks like this.

 

[The Empress Lilly]

Cruises are fun in theory. Scary in reality. Big floating cities. How does that work?!?!? What the he'll is ballast? Nonsense.

Fwiw. I don't think $$$ is the reason our dear Empress hasn't gone cruising.

Wait a second...I have done cruises! Traversing the North Sea in all directions, Norway, Britain, Sweden, the Netherlands. Although the line between 'cruise' and 'slow relaxing mode of transport' got a bit blurred at times.

I have never been attracted to cruises. I associate them with old people. I would do a Disney cruise, just because I'm a Disney fan, and because everybody raves about them, but the pricing is putting me off. Not just in absolute amounts, but, as ever with Disney, in relative terms. I can do a two month Polynesian cruise (hence retirees cruise) for the price of three days visiting assorted Caribbean dumps and Castaway Cay.

 

[TheGuyThatMakesSwords]

Not crazy about the "new" exterior.... but for a real disappointment? Check the Menu.

Just us - but if we can not get AK Crab Legs WITH a Lobster tail (cash), and drop a good $150 a plate? We're going elsewhere. Looking for Dinner - not an evening snack.

All personal opinion - I'm not necessarily right, no one else is necessarily wrong.

 

[raven]

Everything looks sterile or similar to seating at some fast food chains. Kinda cheap decor for food costing $40 to $50 for the main dish.

 

[drcasey]

This makes me sad. I loved the look of Fultons, especially lit up at night. I am personally not a big fan of modern decor

 

[willtravel]

Kinda IKEA looking to me. JMO..

 

[snek]

I like the old outside design better, and I like the new interior design better.

 

[Goofyernmost]

Wait a second...I have done cruises! Traversing the North Sea in all directions, Norway, Britain, Sweden, the Netherlands. Although the line between 'cruise' and 'slow relaxing mode of transport' got a bit blurred at times.

I have never been attracted to cruises. I associate them with old people. I would do a Disney cruise, just because I'm a Disney fan, and because everybody raves about them, but the pricing is putting me off. Not just in absolute amounts, but, as ever with Disney, in relative terms. I can do a two month Polynesian cruise (hence retirees cruise) for the price of three days visiting assorted Caribbean dumps and Castaway Cay.

And you have a problem with old people because....?? That's your grandfathers Buick, people of all ages cruise, especially to the Bahama's or surrounding areas. There are different age groups for different cruises. The cruise I took back from Rome was a re-positioning cruise and it cost $1400.00 for two people, two weeks, six ports of call all ending in Fort Lauderdale. That one had a mix, but, I will admit it was more retired folk overall, but, they were a group of very much alive elderly that knew how to party like it was 1965.

 

[KraftServices]

Maybe it looks different in person (or in a larger photo - I'm in mobile yay) but the new interior looks to me like a fancier version of the ABC commissary in Hollywood Studios.

 

[kap91]

It's definitely designed to look sleek and modern and I think it achieves that well. Whether that's in your personal taste or not I guess is where some of the issue comes in.

As someone else said - it's designed to be a restaurant that at one time was a boat but has since been repurposed. All of Disney Springs follows this logic - it's supposed to be a very hip and modern high end place that's built on the bones of an old town. Not unlike a lot of real fancy shopping places these days.

Perhaps the tragedy isn't that it it's a failure of themed design (though it could be, that would largely be in the details that aren't captured well in a few photos) but that it's a loss of a fantastic example of themed design and WDW history. But considering the Empress kind of died a slow painful death a long time ago (and perhaps wouldn't fit thematically - though I mean sometimes I think imagineers take sticking to theme a literal too far and forget artistic license is a thing), this is largely a revitalization I'm happy to see.

 

[flynnibus]

It's definitely designed to look sleek and modern and I think it achieves that well. Whether that's in your personal taste or not I guess is where some of the issue comes in.

As someone else said - it's designed to be a restaurant that at one time was a boat but has since been repurposed. All of Disney Springs follows this logic - it's supposed to be a very hip and modern high end place that's built on the bones of an old town. Not unlike a lot of real fancy shopping places these days.

And that's just it... if it's just what you can get in any-city USA - why should anyone care about it or get an attachment to it?

 

[Goofyernmost]

And that's just it... if it's just what you can get in any-city USA - why should anyone care about it or get an attachment to it?

Well, because, thank goodness, every human being is different and has different tastes and likes. Others think that nothing should ever change and that a themed resort also means a themed museum. That building, and lets not forget it is a building, lost its museum status a long time ago when it stopped being The Empress Lilly. That ship literally sailed. Disney Springs has a new theming and the old didn't fit into that theme anymore. So the options, change it to a more modern look or sink it. Given those choices, I'll go with modern.

 

[Disneyhead'71]

The charm of repurposing in an urban redevelopment project is to keep the aesthetics of what is there while changing it's purpose.

They didn't gut the Charlottesville Hardware Store when they turned it into The Hardware Store Reataurant.

 

[raven]

I don't even blink an eye anymore atthe opening of a new restaurant or store at Disney Springs knowing that whatever else is built will be extremely over-priced. Everything is starting to look the same anymore, like a Beverly Hills shopping area. What ever happened to the "family" aspect of the area? Seems they have narrowed their target audience to a smaller percentage anymore.

 

[flynnibus]

I don't even blink an eye anymore atthe opening of a new restaurant or store at Disney Springs knowing that whatever else is built will be extremely over-priced. Everything is starting to look the same anymore, like a Beverly Hills shopping area. What ever happened to the "family" aspect of the area? Seems they have narrowed their target audience to a smaller percentage anymore.

Drop innovation..
Raise prices to obscene..
Lose your identity..
Blend into the crowd...

And what do you get? A Disney that people are no longer eager to explore and embrace. The train has left the station.. and is picking up steam FAST!

 

[raven]

Drop innovation..
Raise prices to obscene..
Lose your identity..
Blend into the crowd...

And what do you get? A Disney that people are no longer eager to explore and embrace. The train has left the station.. and is picking up steam FAST!

Flying down that hill with no brakes!

 

[Goofyernmost]

Drop innovation..
Raise prices to obscene..
Lose your identity..
Blend into the crowd...

And what do you get? A Disney that people are no longer eager to explore and embrace. The train has left the station.. and is picking up steam FAST!

Flying down that hill with no brakes!

Yea, and I'll bet that they are crying all the way to the bank and really don't want any brakes. Life and Shopping locations are not the same thing at all.

Spoiler

Before you say it... NO I don't know if they are making a lot of money or not. I draw some solace from the fact that you don't know if they are going bust either.

Spoiler

One thing that I am pretty sure of is that the old Empress Lilly, make believe concrete boat, was not making or breaking Disney.

 

[Disneyhead'71]

DS as a whole is a big success. There are some places that are struggling.

That is the nature of opening 70+ new places. Some just won't make it. Paddlefish will do just fine. It is obviously designed to sell in bulk for corporate events associated with conventions.

 

[Beacon Joe]

Flying down that hill with no brakes!

Drop innovation..
Raise prices to obscene..
Lose your identity..
Blend into the crowd...

And what do you get? A Disney that people are no longer eager to explore and embrace. The train has left the station.. and is picking up steam FAST!

Fortunately, the modern Disney company knows the surefire solution: randomly insert something based on a film that was popular a few years ago! If we're lucky, the paddle steamer can quickly be retooled into some sort of space junkyard with a talking raccoon. Or it could feature a singing snowman. Or even better: randomly insert a princess for the 12 & under girl segment.