Category — DVC

If you’ve been looking for the next big thing to be built by the Walt Disney Company, you’ll want to point your satellite to the middle of the Pacific Ocean. There on the island of Oahu in the resort area of Ko Olina you’ll find the next Disney resort.

I haven’t been so lucky to make the trip, but Disney Dean did and he’s put up a photobucket account (see gallery below) with some great photos as well as a blog post. Let me know if you see Imagineering’s Joe Rhode in any of those pictures, he’s supposed to be there somewhere; temporarily reassigned from overseeing Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

I caught Joe Flint’s article in the Los Angeles Times saying that Cox Communications is looking to sell the Travel Channel for about $700 million. It is their only channel and they got it part of a deal involving Discovery.

Among those interested in the network are NBC Universal, Scripps Network and News Corp., according to news reports.

It could get interesting for Disney if NBC Universal gets it.  Right now, the channel, untied to a theme park company, features programming on the various major theme parks.  But if NBC Universal gets it, will we see less of the Disney properties?

NBC probably sees the Travel Channel as a good complement to the Weather Channel and even MSNBC.

Scripps is interested in the Travel Channel because it would dovetail with its other lifestyle networks, including the Food Network (in which Los Angeles Times parent Tribune Co. has a stake), Fine Living and Home & Garden.

Disney is not mentioned in the article, but I hope The Walt Disney Company is taking a look at it.  It would be a great outlet to feature more programming on Disney parks and resorts, the Disney Cruise Line, Disney Vacation Club, and Adventures by Disney.  If nothing else, Disney has an interest in keeping competitors like NBC Universal from minimizing Disney’s presence on the channel while playing up their own properties.

Editor: Please welcome back guest author ThemeParkMom Leigh Caldwell to The Disney Blog.

Bay Lake Tower, the newest Disney Vacation Club property at Walt Disney World, has been rising next to the Contemporary Resort for months now. Nearly every time I ride the monorail from the Ticket and Transportation Center to the Magic Kingdom, the tower is a hot topic of conversation, with Disney guests exclaiming, “That wasn’t there last time!”

Now the site is almost ready to go, ahead of schedule according to the cast member who gave me and some other Florida mom bloggers a tour last week. The first guests will check in on Aug. 4. Before that, though, Disney Vacation Club is offering sales tours at the resort beginning July 10.

Imagineers say the designed Bay Lake Tower to complement the Contemporary’s modern architecture and interior design. It is connected to the Contemporary by a covered walkway, and check-in will be done in the Contemporary’s lobby.

This is a look inside Bay Lake Tower’s lobby. I was surprised to see the many bright colors used in the decor inside, and I love the way the curved trunks of the palm trees inside contrast with the straight lines of the outdoor landscaping beyond them.

This is a monorail resort, and guests are reminded of that with the view outside the elevators on every floor.

There are 295 units at Bay Lake Tower, ranging from studios to three-bedroom grand villas, all with a view of Bay Lake or the Magic Kingdom. Of course, Disney gave us a tour of one of the most expensive units in the building, a three-bedroom grand villa with a Magic Kingdom view. Those windows in the living room cause a collective gasp when you walk through the door. They rise from the living room floor to the ceiling of the unit – two stories.

Stylized “Mickey modern art,” like this piece above the bed, hangs throughout the resort. I am in love with the colors of this one. You can also see one of the many balconies with seating outside the window here. Can you imagine having your morning coffee out there, just looking out over the Magic Kingdom?

Dark woods and granite are used in the kitchen and bathrooms of the unit.

This is the new Bay Cove pool area, complete with a waterslide. There is a pool bar on the right. This view also shows what you might see if you were staying in a Bay Lake view unit.

And this is the real feather in the cap for Bay Lake Tower owners. The new Top of the World lounge, on the top floor of Bay Lake Tower. Disney officials told us that the lounge will be reserved exclusively for owners at Bay Lake Tower, those who pay rack rate or trade or rent points to stay here will not be allowed in the rooftop lounge. The Top of the World lounge will serve an appetizer menu, and you can bet there will be plenty of people “Wishing on a Star” up here every night during the Magic Kingdom’s fireworks.

When not enjoying central Florida’s attractions you can find Leigh Caldwell at her blog Theme Park Mom or on twitter @ThemeParkMom.

We’re getting our first look at the new African dining experience that is part of the Kidani Village expansion of Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge. Two new photos and the official logo for the new restaurant reflect the African heritage of the lodge while providing a family dining experience, and we get to see the official logo.

Pronounced “Sah-NAH,” the restaurant boasts interiors inspired by African art and remarkable views to a savannah of free-roaming animals. Kidani Village, a Disney Vacation Club property, is the newest resort addition to Walt Disney World Resort.

Looks a little like Boma crossed with with Peter Pan if you ask me. But I like it.

The Grand Californian Disney Vacation Club Villas went on sale today. Any bets as to how fast they sell out. I understand it’s just 50 units, so you can only sell so many weeks.

The full press release from March is below the cut:

[Read more →]

The AP reports that Disney has started to prepare the construction site for their first themed resort located off theme park property that isn’t entirely a Disney Vacation Club location. That location, of course, is Ko Olina, Hawaii.

MouseExtra found some additional concept art for the resort in the most recently DVC newsletter. It certainly looks lush and beautiful. There are definite hints of the Polynesian Resort at WDW, for obvious reasons, but I also see  some echos of Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge. What do you think?

Fast Fasts:

• 21-acre oceanfront site
• Opening scheduled for 2011
• 350 traditional hotel rooms
• 480 timeshare vacation villas
• will feature a themed pool and water play area
• an 18,000 square-foot spa
• a wedding lawn,
• an 8,000 square-foot convention center
• a child care club.

If you’re a member of the Disney Vacation Club, or planning on renting some points for your next vacation, you’ll want to see how your typical vacation pattern is affected by the recent reallocation in how points are used in the DVC. Disney is prevented by state law from changing how much it costs to stay for a week, but they’re allowed to make some slight changes to parts of a week.

If you like to stay around weekends, you’ll find your points stretching just a big further, but if you prefer those mid-week stays, then you might find it just a bit more expensive. All part of an effort by Disney to maximize the value of their DVC Resorts for weeklong visits.

Not sure how if this will change the DVC point rental market. Right now you tend to pay the same amount for a point no matter what day or how long you’re staying. Could you ask for a discount if it’s a weekend stay now?

(via the Orlando Sentinel)

The Queen Mary attraction in Long Beach, California, continues to struggle according to this story in the Long Beach Press-Telegram.

In the late 1980s, The Walt Disney Company purchased the company that owned the attraction, which at the time, included the plane built and flown by Howard Hughes that came to be known as the Spruce Goose.  More importantly, that company also owned the Disneyland Hotel and the rights to use the Disney name on hotels in the area.  Buying that company helped pave the way to expanding the original Disney theme park into the Disneyland Resort.

Disney also proposed building a theme park and related projects at the Queen Mary attraction, with a concept that later morphed into what was built as DisneySea in Japan.  Some say the Long Beach proposal was only a way to persuade Anaheim to back Disney’s expansion there, but I like to think that if things had been different, we would have seen new theme parks in both Anaheim and Long Beach.  Building large projects along the coast in California is especially difficult – there is even an agency called the California Coastal Commission that property owners must deal with in addition to other local, state, and federal agencies.

Disney ran the operation in Long Beach for a while, transfering some managers there and imposing things like Disney’s appearance guidelines, more strict back then they are now.  Disneyland visitors were handed promotional fliers touting what they was to see in Long Beach. 

It seems like the operation in Long Beach has continually stuggled since Disney sold it off.