MSPeconomist

I suspect that I've met the former (RIP) CEO of your former family-owned employer several times. I could easily imagine the "I've made my decision" attitude.

ADDED: And his successor, also a family member. Same comments about meeting more than once and decision making apply. Now I'm trying to remember whether other younger family members I've met briefly later became CEO before the company was sold.

writerguyfl

He was a generous man who would strike up a conversation with anyone, regardless of their social standing. I was a lowly Front Desk Supervisor and I had lots of interesting conversations with him. [We're discussing Curt Carlson, founder of Carlson Companies and Radisson Hotels.]

Back to the topic:
This new hotel at Disney World always seemed odd. I'd love to have access to the data used to justify the origination of this property. The fact that they seem to be targeting convention-goers makes me wonder why they didn't build the tower next to the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Convention Center. As it stands, it's a long walk over there.

Although, perhaps they're hoping to go after the small meeting market since the individual suites can be configured for small groups.

jimrpa

just a wild guess, but going by the mostly suites configuration, and the name, “Swan RESERVE “, the intended market of the hotel may be the large convention VIPs (think C-suite) or private hospitality suites for large conventions that are more “discreetly” located for important customers and/or unannounced products. This hotel does not fit the model of a standard Disney Resort. It’s way too small. It doesn’t have a feature pool (I’m not sure how thrilled families will be about packing the kids across to the dolphin lagoon pool). It seems to lack a lot of other “resort amenities”. Oh, and where is the parking? A lot of vacationing families who have cars will self-park. Business people will valet or Uber.

jalves

The new hotel is directly across the street from the Swolphin feature pool.

Nuhusky

The reserve will have its own dedicated pool and the walk to the lagoon pool will be no longer than the walk from the swan or dolphin. Subject to room location at the swan the walk to the lagoon pool is a good ten plus minutes. Not to mention the walk from the swan involves going through the lobby

the reserve subject to where the door is couLd actually be a shorter walk to the lagoon pool.

honestly the only downside I see to the reserve is guests not facing Epcot will have a view of world drive highway

jimrpa

I understand that the walking distance from Swan Reserve to the lagoon pool may not be far, but my observation has been that parents act “strangely” when it comes to allowing their children to go to someplace “across the street” unaccompanied (perhaps it has something to do with parental concern about careless children and vacationing drivers in unknown areas not always paying attention? Who knows?) I’m just saying that, all told, I’m not sure the target market for the Swan Reserve is “mom, dad, and the kids load up the Tahoe and head down to Disney for a week” crowd. I really think it’s Ms. Type A power player who’s an HHonors Diamond, Hyatt Globalist, Bonvoy Titanium Ambassador, LH Ambassador, SQ Solataire, UA Global Services, Delta Silver Medallion, who’s blown into town long enough to have dinner with other power players, give a keynote at some humongous conference, then rush off in her Uber to her next super-important gig. She may hit the pool early in the morning to knock out 2,000-3,000M after she’s done in the gym.

writerguyfl

I fully agree with your points. That's why I said I'd love to hear the behind-the-scenes conversations as to exactly who they consider to be their main customer.

I'm still puzzled as to why they placed this tower where it is instead of next to the Convention Center. Perhaps the land wasn't suitable, Disney had sightline concerns from Epcot, or the structure would have displaced too many existing parking spaces. Doing that would have basically connected it with the large meeting facilities and place it much closer to the entrance to Epcot.

Forgive my less-than-professional edit, but these are the locations:


Map from Google: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Wa...!4d-81.5613231

Even in my alternative location, I don't think the views are all that different. They're not going to be great in the actual location.

Anyway, it's fun to play armchair hotel developer. But, I doubt any of us will ever know exactly why or how this hotel came into existence.

jimrpa

if you look at your map, you will see you have a box that reads “not here”, which covers the old tennis courts. That is exactly where the Swan Reserve is. They’ve taken out the tennis courts and redone that parking lot by them. The Fantasia miniature golf is untouched. It’s really not a very good location for families who want to “do Disney.” I wonder why they didn’t throw in a parking garage where the tennis courts are and then put the new hotel in the parking lot of the swan. That’s what I would have done.

DJ_Iceman

That was his point, they should have built it "here", not "not here".

writerguyfl

Exactly.

Nuhusky

I’m going to have to disagree here. Of the possible site locations I think the current location is the most convenient to the resort facilities. Close to the pool and boat dock. Were the hotel in the here location the walk to either the boat or pool would be Significant and walking to Epcot would be even more challenging

jimrpa

Sorry, I see now.

I agree. Actually, if I were building a new resort hotel, I’d drop it in the current dolphin parking lot across from the dolphin entrance and put in a parking garage by the convention center, or drop it in the swan parking lot and put a garage over by the tennis courts. Both of those solutions would be better for a “resort hotel”. And they can still do either solution in the future.

anyway, with closed on-property resorts right now, I don’t see Disney green-lighting any expansion (remember, this is all Disney property so, for all the “these aren’t ‘Disney Resorts’”, statements that are made, at the end of the day, they’re sort of like Hong Kong and Macau - just as independent as Disney lets them 😀 )

Nuhusky

Massive changes. Disney no longer runs the bus service to the swan and dolphin. Bus service is now run by mears. Meaning drop off is at the charter bus locations. Implications for magic kingdom is that you get dropped off at the main transit center then you get onto monorail. This is a huge negative


this is hugely disappointing news

https://touringplans.com/blog/2020/1...-mean-for-you/

Out of my Element

Do we not expect this will change back when business gets back to normal . . . whenever?

Horace

I don't expect it to change back. It's unlikely that the new bus contract is a temporary COVID-19 measure.

Guests at the WDW Swan & Dolphin have long enjoyed benefits not available to guests of non-Disney hotels, including other non-Disney hotels on Disney property.

Apparently, with the upcoming opening of the WDW Swan Reserve, Disney and Tishman did not reach an agreement on a new transportation contract.