This reminds me of something about first impressions so it is time for a Spirited Parisian Aside:
Not sure how many here know it but Disney has been on a major rebuilding/renewing/rehabbing kick in Paris once it became clear that they would be able to wrest full control and ownership of Euro Disney, after years of largely letting it languish.
They have redone the mid-level Sequoia Lodge (where I just stayed for the second time in three years) and the budget Santa Fe. And they just completed work on the Newport Bay Club, which basically included a total residing of the buildings from wood (or rotten old wood) to a composite material better able to take the harsh climate.
The resort looks amazing. From the lovely yellow exterior to the brighter reds, blues and golds used in the halls and rooms to the concierge club that has taken the space of the resort's shop (yes, imagine a Disney resort that currently has NO shop at all ... don't worry as they are replacing the current lobby bar with one in the next 18 months, but for now not even a kiosk to sell you a Coke or a collectable pin!)
So, Spirit you ask (you did ask, right?) if things looked so great why do I sense a big BUT coming? Ah, because you know me better than I know myself, my friends.
The problem IS the first impression. Coming in from Lake Disney to the ground level (where the two restaurants have bee redone and look amazing, didn't eat at them because not enough time) you enter through the original 1992 wooden doors. I really, really hope that when the folks at TWDC who monitor me online read this, they send new DLP head Tom Wolber for a walk. The doors and the entrance are ghetto ... still ... like it is 2011 and the doors haven't ever been sanded down and repainted. That is your first impression to a pricey upscale Disney resort that has just come out of a massive two-year rebuild.
Then take a walk down the halls. So bright. So fresh. Even painting the ceilings a sky blue to help brighten what had been a dark and dingy place. Between it and the new carpeting and wall treatments, it looks phenomenal. Just don't look at a door if you are entering a guest room because, apparently, doors do not count in Paris. So brand new halls, brand new rooms ... but 1992-era white doors with gouges in them, uneven surfaces, marks ...they didn't even throw a new coat of white paint on them. They just redid the rooms and halls and pretended the doors didn't exist.
It's all about first impressions, and no matter how nice the new rooms are (and I have seen them, they are quite nice), what you see first would be ghetto doors. And don't even look at doors to CM only areas in the hotel ... they literally are rotting and have chunks of wood missing since 2001.
In my world, we call that a very half-arsed job. They did a 92% perfect job ... and then failed miserably to bring the project home.
Paging Tom Wolber to the thread!
Either way it'll be interesting to follow the updates in Paris, ghetto doors notwithstanding.
