Today we put the Get Away Today hotel spotlight on the Disneyland Hotel. We’ve featured the Disneyland Hotel before, but never like this. I’ve mentioned in previous podcasts that we just got back from a business trip to the Anaheim area. While we were in southern California, we were invited to take a guided tour of the Disneyland Hotel. What you’re going to listen to during the next 12 minutes is an in-depth tour of the hotel from the one person who knows the Disneyland Hotel the best. You won’t hear this content anywhere on the web.
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Todd Carlson: (Announcer)
Travel news you can use. This is the Get Away Today.com Travel Show. Get Away Today is a top provider of affordable, fun family vacations to Disneyland, Walt Disney World, Hawaii, San Diego, Beaches, and Sandals in the Caribbean. The Travel Show is heard exclusively on Get Away Today.com. And now, here's the host of the Travel Show.
Patrick Wiscombe: (Get Away Today - Internet Marketing Manager)
Welcome to the Get Away Today Travel Show podcast. My name is Patrick Wiscombe. It’s Wednesday, January 16, 2008. Thank you as always for tuning us in and taking us along wherever you’re listening today. Coming up in the next few minutes, I’m going to put the Get Away Today Hotel spotlight on the Disneyland® Hotel. Now we’ve featured the Disneyland® Hotel before, but never quite like this. I’ve mentioned in previous podcasts that we’ve just gotten back from a business trip to the Anaheim area. While we were down there we were invited to take a guided tour of the Disneyland® Hotel. Dave Lay, Senior Program Director for all of the Disneyland® Hotels, was our tour guide. What you are going to listen to right now is a 12 minute in-depth tour of the hotel from the one person who knows the Disneyland® Hotel the best.
Guest Name: Dave Lay (Disneyland® Hotel – Senior Program Director)
Even though it is the very first Disney Hotel, it did open in 1955 the same year the Disneyland® Park opened. Disneyland® Park opened in July, the hotel opened in October. Walt basically used all of his money to open Disneyland® Park so he approached a good friend of his named Jack Rather. They met in the television industry because Jack also created family friendly television. He did The Lone Ranger, Lassie, and Sergeant Prestons of the Yukon. Since they were in the same line of business they became good friends. Walt said, “Hey, Jack, I got the land but just don’t have money to do the hotel. I will lease you the land for 100 years and I will also lease you the Disneyland® name if you build and operate the hotel.” And that is exactly what happened. Then in the early 80’s, after Jack and his wife had passed away, the company was being run by other people and there were some concerns about the up-keep of the Hotel. Disney went in and said, “We’re going to buy the entire Rather Corporation simply to gain ownership of this property.” We bought the Rather Corporation and secured this hotel as our own, and then we’ve sold off the all the remaining parts of the Rather Corporation that were of no interest to us. So from 1986 to current this Hotel has truly been ours.
So this is the main lobby and the main check in. Over here is the Steak House 55 which is one of our fine dining. It has primarily steak and a little bit of sea food. Hook’s point, also a fine dining restaurant, is heavier on the seafood and less on the steak. Then this is Goofy’s Kitchen. This is the premier character dining experience on the property. Goofy’s Kitchen is very difficult to get into especially now that we do the 60 day out priority dining where guests can call 60 days out and book all of our dining arrangements. Ever since we started doing that, walk-ups are almost non-existent. If you try to do a walk-up you will probably wait anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours to get in. Please recommend to your guests that they take advantage of the 60 day Disney dining hot-line. It’ll make a world of difference for them.
We are now kind of sandwiched between the two pool areas here at the Disneyland® Hotel. To my right we have the Neverland Pool complex which is, unofficially, the family pool area. That is where most families and the kids just choose to hang out. We have the area all themed to Neverland from the movie Peter Pan. They can go up into the top of the misty mountains - that is where they catch the waterslide. The waterslide wraps through the misty mountains and dumps down into the lagoon. Captain Hook’s pirate ship is over there. Ticktock the crocodile is over there. We have a little jet spa area that is themed to Mermaid Lagoon from the movie. It is highly themed, a lot of fun and the guests love it.
Bruce Stratford: (Get Away today – CFO)
On the pool facilities from the three hotels, do you have to stay at the hotel to use that pool?
Dave Lay: (Disneyland® Hotel – Senior Program Director)
There is no pool hoping at all. You are limited to use the pool of the hotel you are staying at. The only time that changes is, let’s say for instance, you are staying at Disney’s Paradise Pier® Hotel and they are performing maintenance on their pool for some reason. We would then make a determination about it and cut the guest’s key in such a way where they could go to a different hotel property and utilize their pool. In normal, everyday usage, however, you have to use the pool that is at the hotel where you are staying and that is it.
Then on this side we have what is known as a “Coe-Four area.” This is where we have a sandy beach, volley ball court, pool and jet spa. This is actually, kind of unofficially, the adult pool area. Kids can go over there and hang out if they want, but it really hasn’t evolved into that. Most of the adults just hang out over there. It’s a little more quiet and relaxing. Also in that green structure over there is where the Team Mickey workout facility is. The guest laundry facility is located over there as well. The QSR, or the Quick Service Restaurant, for this hotel is Crocks, Bits and Bites.
I really like this hotel. Considering that it is 53 years old, I think it is in really good condition and because of the year the hotel was built the hospitality industry standard room size was much, much larger than it is today so they have really good sized rooms. The Imaginears, when we gained ownership of this hotel, decided to really give it a true Disney identity. Because it was named after the Disneyland® Park we thought it should be a natural extension to your Disneyland® Park experience. One of the easiest ways to do that is imagery of what you would normally see inside the park. So for the art work we have copies of the original conceptual drawings that were done by the Imaginears for the various theme park attractions that you find inside Disneyland® Park. On the bed spread we have images of the attraction facades themselves; Main Street train station, the Haunted Mansion, the Mark Twain, the interior scene of Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Tea Cups are all here. The Imaginears also loved to pay special attention to the details. The details are what really sets us a part as a company because this hotel is named after Walt Disney’s very first theme park and is really the only park in which he encountered or had anything to do with. It is very special to the history of our company.
Since this park is located in California the Imaginears wanted to acknowledge that. So here on the bed spread, intentionally designed into the image of the bed spread, are these flowers. Now these flowers are poppy flowers and they are the state flower of California. So these are California poppies intentionally incorporated into the design of the bed spread because of the significance of California to the history of our company. Pay attention to the images that you see on the head board as well as the furniture piece you see over there. Those are very significant to the history of our company because these are images of the two conceptual drawings that were taken to the bankers by Roy Disney, Walt’s brother. These two images are what sold the concept of Disneyland® Park and what was able to allow us to get funding for this property. The one that you see here is the image of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle. It’s a very good example of how many times the conceptual drawing and the final product will look very similar, if not identical, to each other. The drawing over there is a good example of how many times the final product doesn’t look like the conceptual drawing when it’s finished. If you were to look closely at that drawing you would notice that the Castle in Fantasy Land is designed and set up very differently. Also, Adventure Land is located on the right side of the street as opposed to the left side of the street. That’s originally how we were going to build the park, but when we started doing site preparation this whole area was encompassed by orange groves and walnut groves. In the walnut and orange groves, the grove operators would plant these huge rows of eucalyptus trees and fichus trees to serve as wind breaks from the severe Santa Ana winds to protect the fruit and the crops. As we were doing site excavation we noticed that there were very mature, developed row of eucalyptus trees and fichus trees and Walt Disney said not to tear them down. Walt said, “Let’s make some changes and flip-flop Adventure Land to the other side and use all those trees right there to be incorporated to be used in the Jungle attraction. That will instantly give the Jungle Cruise attraction a since of maturity and permanence like it’s been there for a long time.” That is exactly what happened. If you go into Disneyland® Park today and you stand in Town Square and look back behind City Hall you will still see those same eucalyptus and fichus trees. They have not been removed and they’re still strong and healthy and have been growing all of these years later. There is just a little bit of Disney trivia for you.
I recommend guests staying in this hotel because as I said before, when these towers were built the hospitality industry standard room size was just much larger than it is today. Now days when someone builds a hotel you try to get as many rooms in as possible. Back then the rooms were just bigger. Typically families want to stay on this property. This is really the property that caters to the families with kids running around and you need more space. This is really the hotel that is great for accommodations for our families because the space is there. This hotel and the Disney’s Paradise Pier® Hotel do not have the third option, which is the queen bunk bed option. That is the only hotel, over there [Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel® & Spa], that has it. Both the other two hotels just have the queen-queen and the king with a pull out sofa.
Do you know about the pixie dust in the room? If you notice, you see Tinker Bell is right over here and her pixie dust trail goes around the perimeter of the room. Depending on how long you have your room lights on or depending on how much sunshine is coming into the space during the day, this pixie dust receives a charge and then at night when you shut off the lights it glows. If it received a good charge during the day it’ll glow approximately 45 minutes before it fades out so it is a perfect way for the kids to go to sleep. All the rooms were converted over to this room design mostly in 2000 and some in 2001 just before we opened Disney’s California Adventure® Park. These rooms are basically going on close to seven or eight years. It has been eight years we are now looking at what the next design going to be because we like to switch our designs out and refresh our rooms about every eight to nine years.
In front of each bank of elevators we have what is referred to as a “welcome rug.” In this “welcome rug” we have incorporated classic Disney design. When you first step out you will notice there is the cursive Disney D. In the four corners we have our Disney characters. Right here is Goofy: here is his eye and this is his nose and the black ball on his nose this is his hat and then this is his big ear. Here is Pluto right here, facing me. This is the top of his head; this is his nose and his ear coming down. Donald should be around here somewhere. Yep, here’s Donald. I was just standing on him. Here is his face, his up-top beak, his bottom beak, his hat, and the feather that comes off the top of the hat. Down here we have Minnie Mouse. Minnie is facing you. Here is her nose, her face, her ear, and her bow on the top of her head. Right here is Mickey: head, nose and his two ears.
This is our view. It is a great place to watch fireworks and is also a good place when the storm moves out and when it clears you’ll be able to see our mountains covered in snow and they’ll be beautiful. Everyone will want to go up and go skiing; it’s just a great place. If you look directly out to the Tower of Terror and just to the left of the Tower of Terror you will see kind of the red spike coming up, that is the red of the red “A” at Angle stadium. Then to the left, if you look through those power poles you kind of see a pink and green building with a big white roof. That’s the Honda Center, formally known as the Arrow Head Pond, which is home of the Mighty Ducks.
Patrick Wiscombe: That’s Dave Lay the Senior Program Director for the Disneyland® Resort hotel. You’ll be able to hear more from Dave here in the next few days. Two quick reminders before we begin to wrap up: when you book your vacation or buy your attraction tickets on our web site, which is of course getawaytoday.com, use promotion code "podcast" when you check out so we can give you an additional $10.00 off your purchase. Also, make sure you, your friends, and your family members are signed up for our free, last minute travel alerts. All you need to do is go to getawaytoday.com and look for the last minute travel alerts sign-up box at the very top of the home page. It’s really is the best way to save money and get great vacation deals for your next vacation.
Todd Carlson: (Announcer)
You can book your Get Away Today vacation package right now by going to Get Away Today.com or calling one of our friendly reservation agents at (866) FUN-TRIP. This has been the Get Away Today Travel Show Podcast heard exclusively on Get Away Today.com
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