Poly Refurb, DTD Night Show, and AoA...Oh my!

[flavious27]

Right.

It would NEVER be cost-justifiable to tear down the GCH. They'd have to move check-in operations to a trailer complex, and they'd lose the enormous revenue generated by Ohana - not to mention the other shops and Kona.

And since you don't have to remove asbestos until you actually disturb it, they're not obligated to do anything about it. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of occupied buildings in this country that are full of asbestos. And unless the stuff become airborne (i.e. someone tears apart the insulation on a pipe or starts tearing up floor tile that was glued down with asbestos adhesive), there's no risk to anyone.

This is simply another case of someone overreacting to something that isn't a big deal at all. Someone told someone who told someone else that they heard from a bus driver that there was ASBESTOS in the Poly and all the guests were going to die unless they tore the buildings down! END OF THE WORLD! DOOMSDAY! ASBESTOS IS THE DEVIL!

Whew. I'm OK now And caveat: yes, asbestos is a serious matter, but again, not unless it becomes airborne, which doesn't happen until you start hacking into it.

I wonder if any asbestos is even at poly. I am from NJ and it was a building material for insulation because of how harsh our winters are. The insulation needs in Orlando are going to be less than in the north part of the country.

 

[Master Yoda]

I wonder if any asbestos is even at poly. I am from NJ and it was a building material for insulation because of how harsh our winters are. The insulation needs in Orlando are going to be less than in the north part of the country.

Asbestos was used for a myriad of reasons. One of its biggest uses in commercial buildings was fire and soundproofing as well as insulation. Asbestos was used in nearly everything constructed on Disney property in the early 70's

 

[jmick71]

This is why any disney rumor I always take with a grain of state the size of wdw. Disney would not close down poly unless they are forced to, and it would take a force of god for them to demo a hotel.

As for a DVC at poly, room is tight there. They could convert Tuvalu, Fiji, and Aotearona to DVC units. They also could build stilt houses in the 7 seas lagoon to be used as dvc villas.

stilt houses would be cool, what about the land in front of Hawaii, seems big enough for a building

 

[PhilharMagician]

I wonder if any asbestos is even at poly. I am from NJ and it was a building material for insulation because of how harsh our winters are. The insulation needs in Orlando are going to be less than in the north part of the country.

Asbestos is found in many building supplies and not just insulation. With it fibrous nature it was used as a binder in concrete, wall board, ceiling tiles and many other products.

Right.

It would NEVER be cost-justifiable to tear down the GCH. They'd have to move check-in operations to a trailer complex, and they'd lose the enormous revenue generated by Ohana - not to mention the other shops and Kona.

And since you don't have to remove asbestos until you actually disturb it, they're not obligated to do anything about it. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of occupied buildings in this country that are full of asbestos. And unless the stuff become airborne (i.e. someone tears apart the insulation on a pipe or starts tearing up floor tile that was glued down with asbestos adhesive), there's no risk to anyone.

This is simply another case of someone overreacting to something that isn't a big deal at all. Someone told someone who told someone else that they heard from a bus driver that there was ASBESTOS in the Poly and all the guests were going to die unless they tore the buildings down! END OF THE WORLD! DOOMSDAY! ASBESTOS IS THE DEVIL!

Whew. I'm OK now And caveat: yes, asbestos is a serious matter, but again, not unless it becomes airborne, which doesn't happen until you start hacking into it.

You are absolutely right, but a some point it may come down to having to replace or repair areas in the GCH which might require it to close. That is the problem with that open atrium is that it cannot be easily divided and sealed if there was ever a need for asbestos removal. It would be logistically challanging to close the GCH and keep the resort operating

 

[juniorthomas]

I wonder if any asbestos is even at poly. I am from NJ and it was a building material for insulation because of how harsh our winters are. The insulation needs in Orlando are going to be less than in the north part of the country.

Yeah, I can't see the cold being much of an issue in Orange County.

 

[NoChesterHester]

Yeah, I can't see the cold being much of an issue in Orange County.

Insulation works both ways... keep in the cool air in the summer and the cool air out in the winter. Cold is still an issue too. December, January, and February can be downright chilly in central Florida. We have to design buildings with lots of insulation or not only will they be energy inefficient, we get things like condensation and water vapor drive... not good.

 

[Tom]

Asbestos is found in many building supplies and not just insulation. With it fibrous nature it was used as a binder in concrete, wall board, ceiling tiles and many other products.

You are absolutely right, but a some point it may come down to having to replace or repair areas in the GCH which might require it to close. That is the problem with that open atrium is that it cannot be easily divided and sealed if there was ever a need for asbestos removal. It would be logistically challanging to close the GCH and keep the resort operating

Yes indeed. They'll have to build some serious tents if they're going to abate anything at the GCH. It will involve partitioning off major portions of the building at a time. It CAN be done. We've abated in occupied schools before - it's just expensive and time consuming.

Insulation works both ways... keep in the cool air in the summer and the cool air out in the winter. Cold is still an issue too. December, January, and February can be downright chilly in central Florida. We have to design buildings with lots of insulation or not only will they be energy inefficient, we get things like condensation and water vapor drive... not good.

Yup, cold is definitely an issue, especially the past two winters. But you're right about wall and ceiling insulation. It's intent is to hinder the transfer of heat from one side of it to the other - whether you want to keep heat on the inside of the building, or the outside.

 

[flavious27]

stilt houses would be cool, what about the land in front of Hawaii, seems big enough for a building

The land between the two beaches and Walkway Hill? That land is going to be on an incline, they could place a building there the size of Niue.

Stilt houses would be a bit of an unique structure for disney to try and build. It would be cool, but better is that it would be authentic theming for poly.

 

[flavious27]

Asbestos was used for a myriad of reasons. One of its biggest uses in commercial buildings was fire and soundproofing as well as insulation. Asbestos was used in nearly everything constructed on Disney property in the early 70's

I know that asbestos was used and still used with different products. I just wonder how much was really used at poly and if it is still there. Also it would be useful to know how it was used if any of it could have been harmful.

 

[flavious27]

Insulation works both ways... keep in the cool air in the summer and the cool air out in the winter. Cold is still an issue too. December, January, and February can be downright chilly in central Florida. We have to design buildings with lots of insulation or not only will they be energy inefficient, we get things like condensation and water vapor drive... not good.

True, but the insulation needs depend on the area the house is located. These are the zones for the country and what is recommended:

 

[tikiman]

They have sealed off sections of the GCH many times when they removed the old stores, created the new Captain Cook’s, built Kona Café and ‘Ohana so that can be done. I don’t believe asbestos is even the issue here from what I was told. Moisture and a mold issue seems to be what I am hearing. That and some other problems with the GCH. I know they have had lots of problems with the pumps in the central waterfall too. From the sound of it they would remove the whole or most of the building and start over. They are trying to figure out how and where to move things. The thought was to move check in to the area where the old arcade was and to reopen Tangaroa Terrace since they will be losing their restaurants. They also mentioned having food served during lunch at the pool bar and the luau. Not sure how they would handle that considering the pool bar has enough problems back in the storage area. They could even reopen the Snack Isle that was where the temporary Captain Cook’s was located a few years back.

 

[PhilharMagician]

They have sealed off sections of the GCH many times when they removed the old stores, created the new Captain Cook’s, built Kona Café and ‘Ohana so that can be done. I don’t believe asbestos is even the issue here from what I was told. Moisture and a mold issue seems to be what I am hearing. That and some other problems with the GCH. I know they have had lots of problems with the pumps in the central waterfall too. From the sound of it they would remove the whole or most of the building and start over. They are trying to figure out how and where to move things. The thought was to move check in to the area where the old arcade was and to reopen Tangaroa Terrace since they will be losing their restaurants. They also mentioned having food served during lunch at the pool bar and the luau. Not sure how they would handle that considering the pool bar has enough problems back in the storage area. They could even reopen the Snack Isle that was where the temporary Captain Cook’s was located a few years back.

Thanks for the added info. That clears up a lot of questions.

 

[Buried20KLeague]

They have sealed off sections of the GCH many times when they removed the old stores, created the new Captain Cook’s, built Kona Café and ‘Ohana so that can be done. I don’t believe asbestos is even the issue here from what I was told. Moisture and a mold issue seems to be what I am hearing. That and some other problems with the GCH. I know they have had lots of problems with the pumps in the central waterfall too. From the sound of it they would remove the whole or most of the building and start over. They are trying to figure out how and where to move things. The thought was to move check in to the area where the old arcade was and to reopen Tangaroa Terrace since they will be losing their restaurants. They also mentioned having food served during lunch at the pool bar and the luau. Not sure how they would handle that considering the pool bar has enough problems back in the storage area. They could even reopen the Snack Isle that was where the temporary Captain Cook’s was located a few years back.

So then everything you're hearing they want to do with the resort is contained within the GCH? You're not hearing they are going to be doing anything with all the longhouses?

I was waiting for you to weigh in on this, by the way. :wave:

 

[Master Yoda]

They have sealed off sections of the GCH many times when they removed the old stores, created the new Captain Cook’s, built Kona Café and ‘Ohana so that can be done. I don’t believe asbestos is even the issue here from what I was told. Moisture and a mold issue seems to be what I am hearing. That and some other problems with the GCH. I know they have had lots of problems with the pumps in the central waterfall too. From the sound of it they would remove the whole or most of the building and start over. They are trying to figure out how and where to move things. The thought was to move check in to the area where the old arcade was and to reopen Tangaroa Terrace since they will be losing their restaurants. They also mentioned having food served during lunch at the pool bar and the luau. Not sure how they would handle that considering the pool bar has enough problems back in the storage area. They could even reopen the Snack Isle that was where the temporary Captain Cook’s was located a few years back.

Given that scope of work I can actually see why many people would think that they would need to shut the entire resort down to do this. I can not imagine the utter chaos that the Poly would be in if they did have to take the GCH back down to earth. I know that the Poly generates an obscene amount of cash but IMHO it might be better to shutter the resort and shorten the construction time by working 24/7 than the alternative of dealing with guest complaints for the year or so it would take to do this.

 

[tikiman]

So then everything you're hearing they want to do with the resort is contained within the GCH? You're not hearing they are going to be doing anything with all the longhouses?

I was waiting for you to weigh in on this, by the way. :wave:

Haha...yeah well after the rumor came out I was flooded with emails so I sort of had to try and find out what was going on. The only info I have heard about when it comes to working on longhouses is the end of last year I was told that the Tonga Suites were going to be completely redone but no schedule for that to happen yet. When I told them about the rumor they said there was no other plans for any major work to be done to the longhouses other than the normal replacment of exterior parts that needed to be replaced, roof maintnance (that seems to happen every year) but nothing that would shut down a whole longhouse. I don't know when the next big redesign would be but they just finished the last of the rooms from the last redesign in 2008. Before that was 1996-1998 for a complete redesign and before that was early 90's when they had Hawaiian designers come in and get rid of the 70's look.

You would think this rumor started from some fact but so far I have not been able to find any truth to any of it. I guess time will tell.

 

[flavious27]

Given that scope of work I can actually see why many people would think that they would need to shut the entire resort down to do this. I can not imagine the utter chaos that the Poly would be in if they did have to take the GCH back down to earth. I know that the Poly generates an obscene amount of cash but IMHO it might be better to shutter the resort and shorten the construction time by working 24/7 than the alternative of dealing with guest complaints for the year or so it would take to do this.

Is Rapa Nui built with a check in desk? I know it has the loop in front of it.

 

[tikiman]

Is Rapa Nui built with a check in desk? I know it has the loop in front of it.

No, Rapa Nui does not have the room for check in.

 

[SeaCastle]

Hey tikiman, have you heard anything about the installation of hot tubs to the resort? The Poly is infamous for being the one deluxe resort without a hot tub/spa, and there were rumors of one being installed last year.

 

[MichWolv]

Given that scope of work I can actually see why many people would think that they would need to shut the entire resort down to do this. I can not imagine the utter chaos that the Poly would be in if they did have to take the GCH back down to earth. I know that the Poly generates an obscene amount of cash but IMHO it might be better to shutter the resort and shorten the construction time by working 24/7 than the alternative of dealing with guest complaints for the year or so it would take to do this.

I cannot imagine them closing Ohana, with how popular the place is, unless there is absolutely no choice. Closing Kona and serving the same menu, essentially, at Tangaroa Terrace seems possible, but I think the place would literally have to be deemed an imminent health or safety hazard to close Ohana.

 

[tikiman]

Hey tikiman, have you heard anything about the installation of hot tubs to the resort? The Poly is infamous for being the one deluxe resort without a hot tub/spa, and there were rumors of one being installed last year.

The only time I ever heard anything about adding a hot tub was someone told me the manager at the time was considering pushing for one but that was a while ago and now the Polynesian does not even have its own GM. I don’t see if happening any time soon. They could have designed it in to the design in 2001 but Disney had decided not to design in any hot tubs at that time. It was the same time the new GF pool was done. Since then I have never heard any plans to add one.