News Swan and Dolphin Tower Expansion - The Walt Disney World Swan Reserve

[Brad Bishop]

The two things I get out of it (and the other recent tower additions):
1) They don't care about sight lines (you could argue that they gave up on that with the S&D 30 years back).
2) The idea of building just a generic hotel looking building in WDW no longer bothers them (it actually looks more like a normal office tower than a hotel to me but any sort of uniqueness or theming is gone because: People will still line up at the gates screaming, "Take my money!")

 

[peter11435]

But that crossing has a traffic signal and a cross walk signal. I have done it many times. Unless they put up a traffic signal with cross walk signal, then its apples vs oranges.

How do you know there won’t be a traffic light and cross walk signal here when they are done?

 

[UNCgolf]

But they built it for companies that want a convention with a side of Disney. I wonder how that will play out.

Yeah, I wonder if they're regretting that right now. Seems like it could be a while before convention business comes back (and it may not ever fully return).

If it fills up with regular guests it won't really matter that much, though.

 

[MisterPenguin]

you don't have to cross a street to get to the Contemporary...just the driveway entrances. not the main thoroughfare.

The crosswalk between Cove and Swolphin is most definitely *not* a *main thoroughfare*. It's the driveway for the resorts.

The hiways below are in red.

The blue is the path of buses and guest cars.

Yellow is backstage traffic.

And lime green is where guests have to cross resort driveway traffic. If you're in a parking lot for your resort, you have to cross vehicular driveways to get to your resort's lobby. It happens all the time. CBR has guests crossing that main entrance driveway a lot. Don't know of any time someone was hit with a car or bus there.

 

[Bocabear]

pretty drawing, but the road that the cove is on is also the access road for the Swan, The Dolphin, The Yacht Club and the Beach Club hotels...It is a road...not a "driveway for the resorts" .Let's see that is approximately 3762 hotel rooms (excluding The Cove)... However you slice it, it is still a lot of traffic between cars and buses... not including convention and event traffic. The yellow lines for backstage traffic also uses the "driveway for the resorts" road. Every green line you drew is just the parking lot driveways, not crossing the main road (with the exception of the crosswalk for the mini golf)
No, it is not a 5 lane freeway, but it is a lot of traffic to put hundreds of people crossing to get to the park. And no, there has not been an incident in the past, but there has also never been a 343 room hotel at this location.

 

[Epcot82Guy]

I've crossed that street before when I was most definitely not abusing the free parking lot there to have dinner at Swan Dolphin (I was a rebel in my younger years). The traffic is not generally insane, but it's equivalent if not more to the cross at Contemporary. If they put a significant stop light set up in, that could work. I do think we'll have at least one incident even with that.

I'm sure they will permit at least that infrastructure (if they haven't already). While the Cove will have their pool, the main feature pool is across the street. Plus all the additional restaurants and venues at SwanDolphin and the Boardwalk - which they certainly will feature. I would bet there will be a significant increase in foot traffic across that street as a result of this.

 

[peter11435]

pretty drawing, but the road that the cove is on is also the access road for the Swan, The Dolphin, The Yacht Club and the Beach Club hotels...It is a road...not a "driveway for the resorts" .Let's see that is approximately 3762 hotel rooms (excluding The Cove)... However you slice it, it is still a lot of traffic between cars and buses... not including convention and event traffic. The yellow lines for backstage traffic also uses the "driveway for the resorts" road. Every green line you drew is just the parking lot driveways, not crossing the main road (with the exception of the crosswalk for the mini golf)
No, it is not a 5 lane freeway, but it is a lot of traffic to put hundreds of people crossing to get to the park. And no, there has not been an incident in the past, but there has also never been a 343 room hotel at this location.

Still doesn’t change the fact that there are busier roads that Disney has guests cross. Including the one between Contemporary and Magic Kingdom.

 

[Purduevian]

'Once you actually have to get on transportation to go to Epcot what's the point of staying there... It is a bit too far of a walk with a dangerous busy road crossing...to get to your office building styled hotel.

I assume the boat launch will be the main source of transportation to EPCOT and DHS from the COVE.

Utilizing Google Maps:
It's about a quarter mile walk to the Swalphin boat launch. If people choose to walk, its just under a mile to EPCOT.

I don't think that's too bad considering people walk from the Lagoon hotels to DHS all the time.

 

[Bocabear]

Still doesn’t change the fact that there are busier roads that Disney has guests cross. Including the one between Contemporary and Magic Kingdom.

I think you are wrong there... The road around the Swan and Dolphin has more traffic than the cast member road by the contemporary. There are also 2 other forms of transportation to the Magic Kingdom that do not include require any street or leaving the property.

 

[peter11435]

I think you are wrong there... The road around the Swan and Dolphin has more traffic than the cast member road by the contemporary. There are also 2 other forms of transportation to the Magic Kingdom that do not include require any street or leaving the property.

You are wrong. I’ve crossed and driven both hundreds of times. The road by the contemporary has far more traffic. And a high percentage of that traffic is cast members who are rushing to work.

There is only one alternate form of transportation to the Magic Kingdom and that is the monorail. A large amount of guests still choose to walk between the two. Given the very small size of the cove project there will likely be less pedestrian traffic than is seen at the contemporary.

 

[mgf]

I mean folks could keep arguing over how busy roads are based on the precise moment you attempted to cross them or you could look into Reedy Creek's actual data.....

Start at (actual not numbered) page 83 of the document.

https://www.rcid.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2020_Comprehensive_Plan.pdf

 

[halltd]

I've crossed that street before when I was most definitely not abusing the free parking lot there to have dinner at Swan Dolphin (I was a rebel in my younger years). The traffic is not generally insane, but it's equivalent if not more to the cross at Contemporary. If they put a significant stop light set up in, that could work. I do think we'll have at least one incident even with that.

I'm sure they will permit at least that infrastructure (if they haven't already). While the Cove will have their pool, the main feature pool is across the street. Plus all the additional restaurants and venues at SwanDolphin and the Boardwalk - which they certainly will feature. I would bet there will be a significant increase in foot traffic across that street as a result of this.

I don't know that a light would work there. I think it's too close to the BVD intersection/light.

 

[DCBaker]

 

[halltd]

I don’t realize it was this tall. Wow.

 

[UNCgolf]

I don’t realize it was this tall. Wow.

I didn't either. Looks like it's going to really screw up the view on the Boardwalk.

Yes, I realize the Swan and Dolphin already tower over it, and that's far from ideal. They're at least unique structures, though. The Cove just looks like a random office building, which is much worse to me.

 

[Astro Blaster]

I’m glad Eisner pushed for the non-generic designs of the S&D so 30 years later his successors can build a generic hotel tower (a la the Disney Springs hotel plaza) next to them anyway.

I’ve been wanting to find this out for a long time - were the Swan and Dolphin originally Disney designed/owned/operated resorts that they later sold to Starwood?

 

[kpilcher]

I’ve been wanting to find this out for a long time - were the Swan and Dolphin originally Disney designed/owned/operated resorts that they later sold to Starwood?

No. Pre-Eisner, Disney sold the rights to new hotel building to the Tishman Corp. Tishman was the primary contractor on Epcot (which was woefully over budget around this same time). Eisner saw the potential for the hotel biz and quickly greenlit the Grand Floridian and started working on an ambitious expansion. Tishman understandably sued. Swan and Dolphin were the consolation prize in the settlement. Tishman could own and build them on prime Disney real estate but Eisner got to pick the design so it wasn’t some boring, basic, bland tower (like, say, the Cove)

 

[Astro Blaster]

No. Pre-Eisner, Disney sold the rights to new hotel building to the Tishman Corp. Tishman was the primary contractor on Epcot (which was woefully over budget around this same time). Eisner saw the potential for the hotel biz and quickly greenlit the Grand Floridian and started working on an ambitious expansion. Tishman understandably sued. Swan and Dolphin were the consolation prize in the settlement. Tishman could own and build them on prime Disney real estate but Eisner got to pick the design so it wasn’t some boring, basic, bland tower (like, say, the Cove)

Very interesting, thanks! I have a friend who works for Starwood, now Marriott, so I stay at the Swan/Dolphin frequently and really enjoy them, but the design is so radically different from the Disney hotels that I always wondered how they came about. The Cove does seem like a generic building and sadly that is a common theme with some of the newer hotel buildings on property.

 

[kpilcher]

Very interesting, thanks! I have a friend who works for Starwood, now Marriott, so I stay at the Swan/Dolphin frequently and really enjoy them, but the design is so radically different from the Disney hotels that I always wondered how they came about. The Cove does seem like a generic building and sadly that is a common theme with some of the newer hotel buildings on property.

Tishman and MetLife still own S&D, btw. Yes. The same MetLife that sponsored Wonders of Life. They look radically different because they were the first of Eisner’s push to have influential architects design prominent buildings. In this case, legendary architect Michael Graves. That same architectural push got us Team Disney, WDW Casting, all of Downtown Celebration and Celebration’s office park and hospital, the Yacht & Beach Club, the Boardwalk, Nearly all of Disneyland Paris’s resorts, And the Team Disney Headquarters Building In Burbank along with the “beloved” Hat building for Walt Disney Animation Studios. (Animators hated it because it wasn’t built with their input or needs in mind. Some said the warehouses they were
Exiled to in Glendale were better. The Hat Building is undergoing a multi-year renovation to finally address many of those problems.)

 

[lazyboy97o]

Tishman and MetLife still own S&D, btw. Yes. The same MetLife that sponsored Wonders of Life. They look radically different because they were the first of Eisner’s push to have influential architects design prominent buildings. In this case, legendary architect Michael Graves. That same architectural push got us Team Disney, WDW Casting, all of Downtown Celebration and Celebration’s office park and hospital, the Yacht & Beach Club, the Boardwalk, Nearly all of Disneyland Paris’s resorts, And the Team Disney Headquarters Building In Burbank along with the “beloved” Hat building for Walt Disney Animation Studios. (Animators hated it because it wasn’t built with their input or needs in mind. Some said the warehouses they were
Exiled to in Glendale were better. The Hat Building is undergoing a multi-year renovation to finally address many of those problems.)

Team Disney Anaheim as well, a Frank Gehry design.