At Walt Disney World’s peak, its hotels were symbols of everything that made the resort a special place. Hotels like Disney’s Port Orleans and Disney’s Caribbean Beach were intricately themed environments that provided both traditional hotel luxury and Disney’s famed sense of immersion.
Now, things are changing. We’ve seen Disney announce several new lodging options for Walt Disney World, but what they’ve had in common has been far more concerning that what makes each one unique.
Let’s take a look at why Disney’s newest hotels, like Disney’s Riviera Resort and Reflections – A Disney Lakeside Lodge, are canaries in the coal mine of what’s to come.
Theming is secondary
Image: Disney
One of the great strengths of the Walt Disney World Resort is its incredibly diverse and luxurious slate of hotels. Whether you’re the kind of person who loves high-fashion elegance or laid-back island vibes, there’s a resort tailored to your specific way of vacationing.
That personalization — that is, the knowledge that there is no perfect hotel, only the perfect hotels — led Disney to become an innovator in the vacation marketplace. Many of the things Disney pioneered during that time, like miniature water parks and intricate architecture, have become mainstays of the resort hotel experience.
And yet, when one looks at the concept art for Disney’s newest resorts, Disney’s Riviera Resort and Reflections – A Disney Lakeside Lodge, it’s hard not to be surprised by just how generic they seem.
They are nice, no doubt, but they lack the specific sense of place that made Disney’s classic hotels destinations unto themselves, and which sparked loyalty among guests such that they’d refuse to travel back unless they could stay in their preferred resort. Gone are the days of playful Caribbean color schemes or loyal recreations of mid-century beachside leisure centers. In their place, we’re getting very nice — but ultimately somewhat forgettable — modern resorts.
Without the theming, Disney’s hotels are just that — hotels.
DVC is king
Image: christiantlambert, Flickr (license)
Well, except for the fact that they aren’t technically hotels at all.
The Disney Vacation Club has long been Disney’s greatest trick — it’s a timeshare program that members not only feel fulfilled by, but genuinely enjoy participating in. It’s been so successful that, for the past half decade or so, demand for the program has vastly outpaced the available supply.
The result is that Disney hasn’t built a straight-up hotel since Disney’s Art of Animation in 2012. In the time since, they’ve built three DVC properties, with two more — the aforementioned Riviera and Reflections — on the way.
The problem here is that Disney has let DVC grow into a kind of shadow value hotel class due to the proliferation of DVC point rentals. If you aren’t aware, Disney lets DVC owners rent their points to non-DVC owners, thereby letting owners recoup some of the sunk cost of their membership if they decide not to travel with Disney that year. Because those rentals can be found at a deeply discounted rate from what you might pay at another Disney resort, they’re very appealing to guests looking to stay on-property but without breaking the bank to do it. Availability in DVC resorts has shrunk, making it harder for members to find the resort stays they’re looking for due to the growth in point rental reservations. So, Disney is building more DVC properties all the time to make up for it — while offsetting the construction costs with new memberships.
It’s a great business for Disney because they can keep letting DVC owners subsidize the lower lodging costs for non-owners. Unfortunately, this has all the makings of a potential bubble, with continual DVC growth being anything from a sure thing. If the bottom were to fall out on the timeshare market, Disney would be left with unsold inventory and no non-DVC resorts to cover that lodging demand left behind from the point rental marketplace.
Disney has bet big on DVC, and they really need that bet to continue coming in for them.
Where there is theming, it’s extremely immersive
Image: Disney
There is one new hotel which we haven’t mentioned, in part because it’s shattering every paradigm we’ve ever known from Disney lodging: the Star Wars hotel.
An ultra-luxe hyper-immersive experience designed to fit into the Star Wars universe, the new Star Wars hotel is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. And, in fact, it is not going to meet any of the concerns over theming that Disney’s Riviera Resort or Reflections have come up against.
But while those resorts are certainly coming under fire for lacking any real Disney-style theming, the Star Wars hotel might actually have the opposite problem: It might just be too much.
Some people aren’t going to want to stay in a hotel that has a television screen showing “space” outside instead of a real window. Some people aren’t going to want to shell out thousands of dollars to live in the Star Wars universe 24-hours a day during their vacation. Some people just aren’t going to have an interest in this kind of always-on role-playing vibe.
Why is that a problem? Well, if the Star Wars hotel is successful, Disney’s only going to do more of it, not less. There will likely be a Marvel hotel, and a Princess hotel, and countless other bites at the same apple. The days of relaxing, casually themed resorts will be long gone by. The problem isn’t these highly-themed resorts coming — it’s that they’ll be the only resorts coming.
“Value” no longer exists
Image: justzanna, Flickr (license)
But the single biggest omen coming from the Disney resorts is the lack of pure “value” resorts at Walt Disney World.
When the classification was created alongside the All-Star Resorts in 1994, the “value” category was meant to give anyone interested in an on-property Disney resort a way in to the experience. Most Disney resorts up until that point had been only for the most deluxe vacationers, with everyone else having to stay off-property at one of the separately-owned hotels on International Drive. Realizing they were leaving money on the table by not having a place for more budget-conscious travelers to stay, Disney opened the value resorts to make space for that class of traveler.
Now, with Disney focusing on building luxurious experiences like the Star Wars hotel and plussing current value resorts like Art of Animation and Pop Century by adding gondola access to the parks, the “value” designation is quickly becoming a thing of the past. That’s a shame, because entry-level hotel concepts are what keep guests coming back to Disney year after year.
Loyal Disney fans are created not through a single once-in-a-lifetime trip, but rather, through several trips throughout adolescence. Having budget-friendly hotels with classic Disney theming creates that personal connection that keeps people coming back again and again. Sure, one time, you might splurge and try a Star Wars-style resort, but most of the time, you need something lower down the price scale to serve as a bed to sleep in while you explore the parks.
The future of Disney’s resorts, at the moment, looks as exciting as it is bleak. Yes, there is new development coming to the property all the time. But, unfortunately, it’s either catering to a very niche audience, priced at a very high price point, or themed in a generic non-Disney way. That’s a shift for Disney.
Will this new lodging strategy pay off? Who can say for sure. All we know is, Disney’s changing right now in ways we won’t fully understand for another decade at least. How it all shakes out will determine how Disney is perceived not just right now, but for a generation to come.
