News Paradise Pier Becoming Pixar Pier

[nevol]

What amazes me is that this kind of garbage is okay with Lasseter. The IPs he poured blood, sweat and tears into are largely reduced to carny rides. Toy Story Lands - all junk. This - junk. Maybe getting Cars Land was all he really cared about and the rest is just a paycheck.

And someone needs to tell him to try and keep the sauce to a minimum before going on stage at D23. Sad.

My guess is that he isn't, hence how sauced he got before going on stage. But then again he probably really doesn't care because this stuff has been going on forever with pixar.

But you raised an interesting point that has been really fleeting for me but growing abundantly clearer with each new development. He is getting some sort of paycheck, either directly or indirectly, on the backs of parks and resorts. His brands get merchandise royalties and his films get downloaded more, etc. If this were not an IP disney owned, they'd be paying for that license, a la Tower of Terror. But if this was an industrial corporation like Honda, Honda would be paying Disney for the branding opportunity. When HP sponsored Mission: Space, they didn't mess with the story much, but when Kraft sponsored The Land, they shifted the entire focus from climates to agriculture. The line between licensed theme park rights (whether with external partners or in-house IP) and sponsored attraction partners is so incredibly blurred. Once you see this, you can't unsee it. If Disney Parks are going to continue to sacrifice their own operational and creative autonomy and pour all of their money into projects that benefit external organizations, then those organizations should take on sponsorship roles. Sure, disney thinks IP projects are less of a risk, so all partners benefit, but all of the development costs and investment is dumped on parks whereas the benefit is shared and definitely favors the IP. If they were obligated to pay for the benefits that they gain, and get some skin in the game, maybe IP attractions would be a little less common or of a more consistent quality that doesn't harm either the IP or the park.

 

[nevol]

That's exciting, but it still seems like crumbs compared the accommodations and amenities that other Disney resorts have.

I'm realizing now that in addition to no big Tomorrowland news/hints the lack of Disney Resort announcements is another surprise to me. No discussion about new hotels, the rumored Downtown Disney remodel, infrastructure upgrades, Eastern Gateway. Nothing.

People have been speculating that the lack of progress on eastern gateway is why they aren't announcing anything yet.

and I agree about PP hotel. As a hotel I'm fine with it, it is easy to improve interior design and amenities at a hotel. I'm not a fan of how PP leaks out into it and the site plan and surface parking of the whole resort area in general. My fear is that since they have an easy way now to boost returns at this hotel by simply swapping out some wall art with pixar wall art, they'll never remove and replace it.

 

[nevol]

There is CERTAINLY room for a MAJOR E-Ticket back there y'all.
Does anyone know what those buildings back there are besides the parade warehouse?
Disney is clearly willing to move these facilities off site for theme park development so I wouldn't say it's a wild idea. Certainly won't be opening along with the rest of Phase 1 but DEF could be a Phase 2 situation that would make it very worth it.
View attachment 216038

I'm all about that. An E-ticket, a giant indoor mini-land (nemo or inside out would be cool), 2 side-by-side D tickets like buzz ITTBAB and monsters relocated or new ones for new IPs, all doable. In a perfect world, the PP hotel would be relocated atop the new show buildings but with a heavily vegetated facade to resemble a hilly seaside community. That would allow for the old PP hotel plot to be tunneled to for future expansion or for more resort space.

 

[Hatbox Ghostbuster]

That's exciting, but it still seems like crumbs compared the accommodations and amenities that other Disney resorts have.

I'm realizing now that in addition to no big Tomorrowland news/hints the lack of Disney Resort announcements is another surprise to me. No discussion about new hotels, the rumored Downtown Disney remodel, infrastructure upgrades, Eastern Gateway. Nothing.

I was baffled too. Not even a hint of a tease. The least they could do is give us some notion that they realize things are in need of fixing/renovation. The crown jewel of P&R's presentation was easily WDW.

 

[Stevek]

That's exciting, but it still seems like crumbs compared the accommodations and amenities that other Disney resorts have.

I'm realizing now that in addition to no big Tomorrowland news/hints the lack of Disney Resort announcements is another surprise to me. No discussion about new hotels, the rumored Downtown Disney remodel, infrastructure upgrades, Eastern Gateway. Nothing.

I'm happy they aren't building the SW ultra-nerd (I can say that, I'm a SW nerd) hotel isn't being built. I just don't see it working here. The biggest challenge here is where to put new hotels and there are really two prime spots on site...DTD parking lot (would require and new large parking structure) and the PP site. The logical one is DTD as it would allow the greatest access to DTD AND possibly give guests direct access to DL ala the Grand Californian and DCA. If I'm Disney, I'm not building a uber high end hotel when I can build one that is nicer the the DL hotel (that's $500/night) knowing if it's better than the DL hotel, I can get $750/night.

I think everything else you mentioned, TL, DTD...those probably aren't that much of a priority right now for Disney. The Eastern Gateway probably won't get mentioned as to not highlight the challenges they are having with the city. Disneyland Resort is getting just enough that is "new" to get us to the opening of SW land...and then folks will forget about wanting anything else for 2-3 more years. WDW needed a bigger splash given their upcoming 50th birthday.

 

[TP2000]

That's exciting, but it still seems like crumbs compared the accommodations and amenities that other Disney resorts have.

I'm realizing now that in addition to no big Tomorrowland news/hints the lack of Disney Resort announcements is another surprise to me. No discussion about new hotels, the rumored Downtown Disney remodel, infrastructure upgrades, Eastern Gateway. Nothing.

TDA and the city of Anaheim are deep into a Cold War. No one is saying anything publicly, but Mayor Tait has it out for Michael Colglazier and vice versa. Mayor Tait is still seething at two key things TDA forced through the old city council before it flipped in the last election; the ban on the ticket tax for 45 years, and the tax subsidies for the luxury hotel.

Anaheim City Council is purposely holding up the approval process for the Eastern Gateway, trying to get Disney to rework it. And Disney is playing chicken with Eastern Gateway by pretending they don't really need it for Star Wars. And now Disney is holding off announcing any further plans until the Eastern Gateway gets permit approval from the city. Add in the distrust Mayor Tait has for TDA as he clings to a thin electoral majority for his re-election, and things are messy.

It just messy politics. Very messy. Something has to give soon though, because now Star Wars is only 20 months away from opening and Eastern Gateway will take 18 months to build. Tick, tick, tick...

 

[Curious Constance]

DLR has gotten the short end of the hotel stick. I'm sure there's a business explanation why, but 16 years after the DLR expansion opened and 26 years after it was first announced, the Disney hotel experience at DLR is pretty sad compared to every other Disney theme resort property.


EDIT - Just look at the Disney hotels announced this weekend:

Star Wars hotel at WDW (OMG!):

Riviera Resort at WDW:

Marvel redo of the Hotel New York at DLP:

Meanwhile, at Disneyland Resort:

LOL Poor Goofy!

 

[mickEblu]

TDA and the city of Anaheim are deep into a Cold War. No one is saying anything publicly, but Mayor Tait has it out for Michael Colglazier and vice versa. Mayor Tait is still seething at two key things TDA forced through the old city council before it flipped in the last election; the ban on the ticket tax for 45 years, and the tax subsidies for the luxury hotel.

Anaheim City Council is purposely holding up the approval process for the Eastern Gateway, trying to get Disney to rework it. And Disney is playing chicken with Eastern Gateway by pretending they don't really need it for Star Wars. And now Disney is holding off announcing any further plans until the Eastern Gateway gets permit approval from the city. Add in the distrust Mayor Tait has for TDA and he clings to a thin electoral majority for his re-election, and things are messy.

It just messy politics. Very messy. Something has to give soon though, because now Star Wars is only 20 months away from opening and Eastern Gateway will take 18 months to build. Tick, tick, tick...

I understand that Anaheim city council is trying to get Disney to re work the eastern gateway plans to accommodate the businesses on Harbor Blvd. However, Did you also mean to say that Tait wants to renegotiate the ban on the ticket tax for 45 years and the tax subsidies for the luxury hotel too? I would imagine that's a done deal right?

 

[Curious Constance]

I wonder if there is any story behind why John L is no longer director of Toy Story 4?

 

[DAR1974]

I wonder if there is any story behind why John L is no longer director of Toy Story 4?

Maybe just too much else on his plate?

 

[Curious Constance]

Maybe just too much else on his plate?

Or in his glass?

 

[GiveMeTheMusic]

Maybe just too much else on his plate?

He's too busy Imagineering carny rides based on his studio's aging IPs

 

[Curious Constance]

E-ticket/dark ride/meet and GROPE, all worth the addition of Pixar characters.

New signs/a theater that would play Pixar shorts? Not worth it.

While theaters always look cool and are great for theming. They seem to sit empty most of the time. Who goes to the DLR to see a movie/short they've probably seen 20+ times? Went in to the Main St theater last month with my kids who hadn't seen it before, and it was quite empty. We walked the circle and walked back out.

 

[TP2000]

I understand that Anaheim city council is trying to get Disney to re work the eastern gateway plans to accommodate the businesses on Harbor Blvd. However, Did you also mean to say that Tait wants to renegotiate the ban on the ticket tax for 45 years and the tax subsidies for the luxury hotel too? I would imagine that's a done deal right?

Mayor Tait doesn't want to just renegotiate them, he wants to blow them up and bury them.

But they are a done deal, and even if Tait gets an extra new councilman or two onto his side after the next election, Anaheim would be in for a massive legal fight if the new council tried to cancel those tax policies. It's just not possible, but Mayor Tait wants it to be. Again, very messy.

There is some serious bad blood right now between TDA and Anaheim City Hall. It's ugly. And I got this info from two very well connected people in local politics. Did I mention it's really ugly and messy?

 

[nevol]

Disney has demand for it, so this is what I would love to see happen. A 700 room 4 or 5 star hotel (whatever they are calling it) in the Red section, as previously mentioned. Ideally in a victoriana style since we have two mid-century-to-contemporary resorts (that are ironically pretending not to be). In the blue plot, where the very temporary looking security checks are and the tram to mickey and friends, the 400-room star wars boutique hotel. You'll notice I very lazily moved the tram loading //security check plot west to fill in most of Pinocchio.

Why this plot, why could it work? Despite its proximity to M+F, the hotel they are proposing has no windows. I'm sure some California state law prohibits hotel room construction without windows, but an augmented window system that is defaulted to outer space and optionally can be switched to "window" could work. Given that most/all people will not be looking out the windows at all in that type of LARP hotel experience, the proximity is a non-issue. Also, disneyland resort has no space, so to act pretend this isn't the case is irresponsible. In this very rare case, a hyper-luxury hotel could sit next to a parking garage without destroying the guest experience. That is a rare opportunity to maximize the site and under no other circumstance is that going to be possible.

This would also place the hotel directly behind the battle escape show building and would allow for the facade to look like set extensions of mountains with windows/hotel structures extruding like the architecture in the concept art for star wars land when necessary. The show buildings are tall enough that from the ground level they will block out M+F, so the only concern here would be sightlines from the ROA and any instances if/when the 400 room hotel is taller than M+F (doubtful, no?) This would improve the product overall; we wont have a half-@$$ star wars wing, and the non-star wars hotel won't have to give up half its rooms. I won't mind the star wars wing if it is built to deliver the same level of immersion as DHS's new hotel, but at this point, if you are going to build a product like that at all, and something ultra-immersive is in development for florida, don't shoot yourself in the foot; get it right.

 

[mickEblu]

Mayor Tait doesn't want to just renegotiate them, he wants to blow them up and bury them.

But they are a done deal, and even if Tait gets an extra new councilman or two onto his side after the next election, Anaheim would be in for a massive legal fight if the new council tried to cancel those tax policies. It's just not possible, but Mayor Tait wants it to be. Again, very messy.

There is some serious bad blood right now between TDA and Anaheim City Hall. It's ugly. And I got this info from two very well connected people in local politics. Did I mention it's really ugly and messy?

Sounds ugly. I wish Mayor Tait would stop being such a jack@$$ so we can hear about those new Marvel E tickets. Thanks a lot Taint , because of you the only news we got at D23 was Pixar Pier.

 

[Curious Constance]

But he's term limited, isn't he? Could Disney try to wait it out until a new mayor comes in 2018?

He's not amused at this suggestion.

 

[mickEblu]

He's not amused at this suggestion.

He looks like the kind of guy you want to have a beer with.

 

[SSG]

He looks like the kind of guy you want to have a beer with.

In separate bars.

 

[Travel Junkie]

It is becoming increasingly likely that Star Wars will open without any additional parking in place. And the losers in all of this are DLR visitors and Anaheim residents. Guests will have no place to park and the streets will be clogged constantly with residents upset as they can't get around.

In addition to possibly saving Marvel announcement for ComiCon, this eastern gateway project stall could also be the reason Marvel was not fleshed out more at D23.